Couldn't we privately ask Sam Altman “I would do X if Dario and Demis also commit to the same thing”?
Seems like the obvious thing one might like to do if people are stuck in a race and cannot coordinate.
X could be implementing some mitigation measures, supporting some piece of regulation, or just coordinating to tell the president that the situation is dangerous and we really do need to do something.
What do you think?
It seems like conditional statements have already been useful in other industries - Claude
Regarding whether similar private "if-then" conditional commitments have worked in other industries:
Yes, conditional commitments have been used successfully in various contexts:
International climate agreements often use conditional pledges - countries commit to certain emission reductions contingent on other nations making similar commitments
Industry standards adoption - companies agree to adopt new standards if their competitors do the same
Nuclear disarmament treaties - nations agree to reduce weapons stockpiles if other countries make equivalent reductions
Charitable giving - some major donors make pledges conditional on matching commitments from others
Trade agreements - countries reduce tariffs conditionally on reciprocal actions
The effectiveness depends on verification mechanisms, trust between parties, and sometimes third-party enforcement. In high-stakes competitive industries like AI, coordination challenges would be significant but not necessarily insurmountable with the right structure and incentives.
(Note, this is different from “if‑then” commitments proposed by Holden, which are more about if we cross capability X then we need to do mitigation Y)
I generally agree. But I think this does not invalidate the whole strategy - the call to action in this statement was particularly vague, I think there is ample room for much more precise statements.
My point was that Altman doesn't adhere to vague statements, and he's a known liar and manipulator, so there's no reason to believe his word would be worth any more in concrete statements.