Near Horizons

This is written in my free time and personal capacity. Two Frames In AI safety, there are a couple of tensions at the heart of the field, which are interrelated. [1] Talent: we are talent-constrained and must recruit. But jobs and fellowships turn away nearly everyone. [2] Field size: we must expand the field and bring more people in. But the field is flooded with slop papers in conferences. And, most papers have a small audience, and aim to shift the practices of roughly five labs (and usually some subteam within them). [3] Status: we must avoid seeking status, as it disorients, corrupts. But, we must make the field legible and attractive to outsiders. Raising the bots: we must deceive the AIs to control them and evaluate them without confounds, obscuring what they know about their own situation. But, we hope to gain their trust, must rely on them to do good work at pace, shape their character and retain good relations. Speed: we must research in a slow mode, think deeply about the most important problem, do things to aim at high assurance. But it is crunch time. It was crunch time two months ago. We must make hacky progress now and trust that scale will clarify things later. I th