I'm often confused by how "loss of control" is somewhat similar in meaning to "misalignment" in the context of AGI risk. An average person might reasonably equate the two, or feel like there's an large overlap of meaning between the two words. Here's my attempt at deconfusing myself.

TLDR: 

• In this post, I tried to separate the "control problem" from the "alignment problem".
• My definition of "control" is: 
  • (1) Ways of ensuring an AI agent is aligned that do NOT directly affect an AI agent’s policy (i.e. everything short of "mind control"), while also 
  • (2) Ensuring recoverability from x-risk, limiting damage from the agent, and maintaining humanity’s ability to contain the agent. 
  • Some tools of "control" are: monitoring, capabilities limiting, and having a kill switch.
• My definition is "alignment" is ways of ensuring an AI agent is aligned (both outer and inner) that directly affect an AI agent’s policy.
  • Some ways of "alignment" are: specifying rewards correctly, having a diverse training environment, and having an appropriate inductive bias. 
• There are three implications from this delineation:
  • "Control" tools are probably useless when AGI systems have far surpassed humanity's capabilities.
  • It seems imperative that humanity invests in "control" tools or ways to speed up humanity's capabilities even before human-level AGIs are developed. 
  • Given that "control" tools aren't likely helpful when AGI systems become superintelligent and assuming we have bought enough time for alignment, we may have to accept a state of a world that has aligned AGIs that we have no real control over.

To illustrate more of what I mean above,

• I'll list four examples using a two by two matrix, starting with an anthropomorphised example and ending with an AGI example. 
• Then, I'll expand more on the tools of "control" I've listed above.
• Finally, I'll talk about a few implications.

Much thanks to Mo Putera and Chin Ze Shen for their feedback and inspiration. All mistakes are mine.

Examples of "control" vs "alignment"

Example 1: Child

Example 2: Super-humans

Example 3: AGI

"Control" tools

Here are some examples I could think of that are tools for "controlling" AGI even while they are misaligned:

• A tool for monitoring an agent's actions (even if it's just a sample of actions) or "cognition" (mechanistic interpreter).
  • Although it isn't directly affecting an agent's action, it's still a necessary tool. Knowing what the agent is doing or "thinking" might help humanity know whether it should escalate to other tools of control.
• A tool for limiting the agent's capabilities (e.g. processing speed, power, money, assets, damage, duplication, etc).
• A tool for shutting down the agent (i.e. kill switch), assuming we have limited the agent's capability to duplicate itself.
• A controlled environment where the agent is deployed (e.g. AI agent has a unique identifier and isn't allowed to access certain parts of the internet). 

There might be other types of "control" tools that I've not thought of.

Implications

There are three implications I can think of if we delineate "control" from "alignment".

The first is that "control" tools are probably only viable before or around when AGI systems reach human-level capabilities, but are useless when AGI systems have far surpassed humanity's capabilities (e.g. superintelligent AGI).

Secondly, it seems imperative that humanity invests in "control" tools^[1] or ways to speed up humanity's capabilities (e.g. increasing IQ, improve health, or increasing access to AI personal assistants)^[2] before the emergence of human-level AGI, and especially before the emergence of superintelligent AGI. This could potentially buy humanity more time to solve alignment.

Finally, this points at an uncomfortable truth: given that "control" tools aren't likely helpful when AGI systems become superintelligent and assuming we have bought enough time for alignment, we may have to accept a state of a world that has aligned AGIs that we have no real control over.

Appendix

Silly example: Monaco Grand Prix (Fast and Furious edition)

In an alternate reality, humanity has developed an engine that triples the acceleration and top speed of automobiles, but with a high risk of a powerful explosion if the car crashes.  

1. ^{^}

   Besides ARC Evals, I'm not familiar with other organisations that have plans to produce such "control" tools.

2. ^{^}

   It's also plausible that increasing humanity's capacity might be a bad idea (e.g. creating superhuman soldiers, or speeding AI capabilities rather than AI alignment by creating higher IQ scientists).