This is a special post for quick takes by Cleo Nardo. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Another place MIRI(2033-2025) might end up looking better than Constellation(2023-2025) is focusing on high-political-will worlds (cf. public outreach, their technical governance work, human intelligence enhancement). Before AIFP, my impression is that Constellation wasn't focusing on those much? I might be out of the loop here.
Of course, MIRI were focusing on high-will worlds because they thought that they were more tractable, not that they were more likely. IIUC the MIRI-Constellation crux wasn't how likely those worlds were. Everyone’s modal was Plan D-ish?
So my guess is:
Constellation was correct that low-will worlds were tractable.
Both MIRI and Constellation were mistaken that high-will worlds were unlikely.
MIRI’s mistakes cancelled out, and Constellation’s didn't.
It’s still too early to say whether recent events will actually convert into political will, but seems like the updates have been in that direction.
I'm not sure recent events will convert to much political will, but it looks like a good start. With a little real job loss, I expect we'll get there rapidly.
I've been a bit puzzled by how convinced everyone was that we wouldn't see meaningful change in public opinions. I guess the question has been whether we get it soon enough to matter. But people, particularly Americans, love freaking out about things, and superhuman AI is an extraordinarily good thing to freak out about. And the arguments aren't really complicated at all. I tried to capture this in A ... (read more)