I also work at Forethought!
I agree with a lot of this post, but wanted to flag that I would be very excited for ppl doing blue skies research to apply and want Forethought to be a place that's good for that. We want to work on high impact research and understand that sometimes mean doing things where it's unclear up front if it will bear fruit.
(Fyi the previous comment from "Tom" was not actually from me. I think it was Rose. But this one is from me!)
Worth noting that the "classic" AI risk also relies on human labour not being needed anymore. For AI to seize power, it must be able to do so without human help (hence human labour not needed), and for it to kill everyone human labour must not be needed to make new chips / robots
Thanks, I like this!
Haven't fully wrapped my head around it yet, but will think more.
One quick minor reaction is that I don't think you need IC stuff for coups. To give a not very plausible but clear example: a company has a giant intelligence explosion and then can make its own nanobots to take over the world. Doesn't require broad automation, incentives for governments to serve their people to change, etc
Do you think the same for a company within the US? That with a 6 month, or even just a 3 month going off recent trends, lead it would find a way to sabotage other companies?
I think it's plausible, but:
(I think a remerging crux here might be the power of AI's persuasion+strategy skills)
Thanks for this!
Yep i agree that scenario gets >5%!
Agree ASML is one of the trickiest cases for OpenBrain. Though I imagine there are many parts of the semiconductor supply chain with TSMC-level monopolies (which is less than ASML). And i don't think hacking will work. These companies already protect themselves from this, knowing that it's a threat today. Data stored on local physical machines that aren't internet connected, and in ppl's heads.
And i think you'll take many months of delay if you go to ASML's suppliers rather than ASML. ASLM built their factories using many years worth of output from suppliers. Even with massive efficiency gains over ASML (despite not knowing their trade secrets) it will take you months to replicate.
I agree that the more OpenBrain have super-strategy and super-persuasion stuff, the more likely they can capture all the gains from trade. (And military pressure can help here too, like with colonialism.)
Also, if OpenBrain can prevent anyone else developing ASI for years, e.g. by sabotage, i think they have a massive advantage. Then ASML loses their option of just waiting a few months and trading with someone else. I think this is your strongest argument tbh.
Biggest cruxes imo:
I'm curious how confident you are a company with a 6 month lead could outgrow the rest of the world by themselves?
as discussed on the other thread, i'm imagining other countries have access to powerful AI as well. Or even equally good AI if they are sold access or if another actor catches up after the SIE fizzles (as it must)
Great - I agree that if you can get to >50% physical capital (as valued by how useful it is for the new supercharged economy) within 6 months of the SIE fizzling out, then you can outgrow the world in the scenario you describe. Sounds like you're more bullish on a very fast industrial explosion than I am -- I think it's hard to know whether we'll get physical capital doubling times of <3 months within a few months of SIE. On longer timelines to an SIE, this seems more plausible as there's more time for robotics to improve in the meantime.
Another blocker -- cooperation from pre-existing companies
I want to mention another blocker to someone outgrowing the world via a very fast industrial explosion. You'll be able to go faster if you draw heavily on the knowledge, skills and machines of existing companies. So you'll need their cooperation. But they might not cooperate unless you give them a big fraction of the economic value. Which would prevent you from outgrowing the world.
Of course, you could "go it alone" and leapfrog the companies that won't do business with you. But then it's even harder to do a very fast industrial explosion. E.g. take ASML and TSMC. I predict it will be much more efficient for the leader in AI to work with those companies (e.g. selling them API access to ASI, or acquiring them) than to leapfrog. If they try to leapfrog, the laggard can team up with them and recover some of the lost lead.
Concretely, let's say OpenBrain gets to AGI first. Then its AIs are combined with ASML's existing knowledge to create EUV++ machines. Are the profits from these machines going to ASML or to OpenBrain? Seems unclear to me. ASML's bargaining position might be strong -- they have a strong monopoly and can wait 6 months and deal with the laggard instead.
So maybe other companies have a lot of economic leverage post-AGI, and they convert that to economic value. And, as discussed, maybe other governments tax the activites happening in their domains.
Will $ be helpful?
But you suggest these "mere $" might not be very useful, if ASI has colonised space and doesn't care. But $ can be used to buy AI and buy crazy new physical tech. So if other actors have lots of $, they can convert that to ability to colonise the stars themselves.
Q about your Israel scenario?
Are you basically assuming a merge between the lab and govt here? And then an nation-wide effort to utilise Israel's existing human and physical capital to kick-start the industrial explosion within it own borders?
Asking bc absent a merge i'm still not seeing a reason for all actors outside Israel to be left in the dust. The AI company would trade with some Israeli companies and (many more) non-Israeli ones. In which case Israel per se would only outgrow the world if the AI company outgrows the world by itself.
Yeah let's think.
If there's a AI-2027 style SIE, then 6 months is a gap of ~6 OOMs of effective compute, which is maybe equivalent to a having 1000X more researchers thinking 4X faster and much smarter. (Maybe 2X the gap as from top expert to median expert.)
That's a big advantage. Much bigger than US had over China over the last 70 years. So yeah it's pretty plausible that the reverse engineering would be too slow for Germany to catch up using Chinese AI...
Though once the SIE fizzles out Germany will have access to ~equally good AI. And if the industrial explosion has still got many years to go that could give them time to catch up.
There's also the question of how Germany is able to use the US AI. For example, suppose two US projects are neck and neck. Or suppose there's one US project, but multiple downstream 'product' companies that can sell fine-tune and sell access to the model. In that case, competition could lead for German companies to be able to access AI for a wide range of tasks. Including 'R&D' that really involves copying/adapting US tech developed elsewhere. In this case, Germany doesn't have to use worse AI.
OTOH, maybe there's just one US project and it's single-handedly making tech progress in the US and selling its systems abroad. In this case, it could have strong incentive to prevent German companies using its AI to copy US tech. Bc it developed that tech itself! This is a case where the US is strongly coordinated bc all US economic activity is just one company.
Another scenario. There's one US AGI project. It sells API access to existing companies in the US, at a very healthy profit, and those companies all make amazing new tech and own the IP. In this case, teh US project still has incentive to sell its AI to Germany companies that will use it to copy the tech developed in US companies. (In fact, there's no reason the US companies would be ahead of the German companies in developing the tech in this scenario.) Here is seems like USG needs to step in to make sure US companies keep the profits.
Like, here's one way of putting it. There's def a chance that one project outgrows the world. Especially if there's a monopoly on AI within the US with the support of the govt. That project would be internally coordinated and avoid trades that disadvantage it relative to RoW. But suppose one project doesn't outgrow the world. There's then a question of why the larger entity that does outgrow the world is the US. Like, why are other US companies in on the action, but no non-US companies. ASML and TSMC will have a lot to offer! My answer to this question is that USG would have to make specific efforts, significantly restricting trade, to make this happen.
Then the scenario where amazing tech is built in Germany by US companies. Let's put aside manipulation and military exploitation for a second. The GDP produced by these companies is German GDP and the German government can tax it. So, if most physical manufacturing is not on US soil and most GDP is from physical stuff being produced, then >25% GDP will be produced on non-US soil and could be taxed by non-US governments. But yeah, i agree that the analogy of colonization is chilling here.
(sorry, this isnt' very well organised. But overall my tentative position is that it is plausible US outgrows the world here, but it seems less certain and more complicated than what appears to be your position)
Posting a brief exchange between myself and Sam Winter-Levy on this topic, relating to this piece of his.
Sam
Hi Tom,
Sam Winter-Levy here—I'm a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in DC. Really interesting piece on economic growth explosions. It overlaps with some work we're doing at Carnegie on "decisive strategic advantages," just wanted to share some quick reactions in case helpful!
I know you purposefully set aside military considerations, but I'm not sure I agree with the premise that outgrowing the world is a path to a "decisive strategic advantage without acting aggressively towards other countries." In particular, I think that so long as nuclear deterrence and MAD hold, they are a binding obstacle to any alleged DSA, no matter how much AI turbocharges economic growth. Today, the US economy is 15x Russia's and 1000x North Korea's, but the US has no ability to impose "complete domination" over either of them, to put it mildly, nor would it even if AI dramatically boosted the US economy still further—in large part because of Russia and North Korea's ability to credibly threaten to impose massive costs on the US through nuclear escalation on any issue of sufficient importance to either regime.
More broadly, I don't think most claims about the existence of a DSA take nuclear deterrence seriously enough. Before nuclear weapons existed, a state’s ability to defend itself from coercion depended crucially on its economic size, since relative forces mattered and force size/quality depended ultimately on having a large population and an advanced economy. But that's not true once you have a second-strike nuclear capability; nuclear weapons break the connection you emphasize between economic power and the ability to impose your political preferences on other nuclear-armed states. So I think even granting the argument that AGI could lead to some sort of economic explosion for one state, the amount of coercive leverage that would grant that state is likely to be highly limited, nowhere close to the Bostrom DSA definition you use, so long as nuclear deterrence remains intact.
In case of interest, here's a piece we published recently on these issues, coauthored with Nikita Lalwani (former director for tech/nat sec on the Biden NSC). We make a version of the above argument about the importance of MAD for the existence of any alleged DSA, and then lay out how exactly AGI might threaten nuclear deterrence. Would welcome any feedback! We're still tentatively thinking through these DSA issues ourselves.
Best,
Sam
Tom
Hi Sam,
Thanks for this great pushback!
I think you're right that this is an oversight of the piece. But here are some responses:
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The median views of our staff are often different from the median views of LW. E.g. we probably have a lower probability on AI takeover (though I’m still >10% on that). That's part of the reason i'm excited for LW readers to apply. I think a great way to make intellectual progress is via debate. So we want to hire ppl who strongly disagree with us, and have their own perspectives on what’s going on in AI.
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