wdmacaskill

Introduction Consider a lorry driver who sees a car crash and pulls over to help, even though it’ll delay his journey. Or a delivery driver who notices that an elderly resident hasn’t collected their post in days, and knocks to check they’re okay. Or a social media company employee who...

Introduction There are lots of good, neglected, and pretty concrete projects people could set up to make the transition to superintelligence go better. This document describes some that readers might not have thought much about before. They are ordered roughly by how excited we are about them.[1] Of these, Forethought...

0. Intro Due to Claude’s Constitution and OpenAI’s model spec, the issue of AI character has started getting more attention, particularly concerning whether we want AI systems to be “obedient” or “ethical”.[1] But we think it’s still not nearly enough. AI character (e.g. how obedient, honest, cooperative, or altruistic AIs...

Short summary A moral public good is something many people want to exist for moral reasons—for example, people might value poverty reduction in distant countries or an end to factory farming. If future people care somewhat about moral public goods, but care more about idiosyncratic selfish goods, then there may...

This note was written as part of a research avenue that I don’t currently plan to pursue further. It’s more like work-in-progress than Forethought’s usual publications, but I’m sharing it as I think some audiences may find it useful. Introduction AI might well lead to a much faster rate of...

This note was written as part of a research avenue that I don’t currently plan to pursue further. It’s more like work-in-progress than Forethought’s usual publications, but I’m sharing it as I think some people may find it useful. Introduction There have been many proposals for an international AI project...

This note was written as part of a research avenue that I don’t currently plan to pursue further. It’s more like work-in-progress than Forethought’s usual publications, but I’m sharing it as I think some people may find it useful. Introduction At some point a company, country, or coalition of countries...