Import AI 456: RSI and economic growth; radical optionality for AI regulation; and a neural computer

What laws does superintelligence demand?

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Regulate? Don’t regulate. There’s a third way: Radical Optionality:…Governments should invest in the tools now that they might need in a future crisis…Researchers with the Institute for Law & AI have written about “radical optionality”, an approach whereby governments might give themselves the tools that they may need in the future if powerful AI starts to massively disrupt the world. “At its core, radical optionality is about preserving democratic governments’ ability to make good decisions about how to govern transformative AI systems as circumstances evolve. In the short term, this means avoiding overregulation while rapidly building the institutions, information channels and legal authorities needed to respond competently to a broad range of scenarios.”The key idea - invest now for an uncertain future: Given the immense stakes of AI development, “governments should be willing to spend an extraordinary amount of money, effort, and political capital on preserving optionality”, they write. In other words: It’s such a big deal you should be fine spending a bunch of money now with an uncertain return. “Governments should be wary of counterproductive interventions, but not much concerned with the actual pecuniary cost of any realistic measure that seems likely to have net-positive results”.Specifics: They also recommend several specific interventions in a few categories:

• Information-gathering authorities: Transparency requirements, where companies need to publish information about their AI systems. Reporting requirements, where companies are compelled to share certain information with a government agency. Once these are in place, establish an auditing regime so some third-party can verify the veracity of what the transparency and reporting rules target.

Information-gathering authorities: Transparency requirements, where companies need to publish information about their AI systems. Reporting requirements, where companies are compelled to share certain information with a government agency. Once these are in place, establish an auditing regime so some third-party can verify the veracity of what the transparency and reporting rules target.

• Whistleblower protections: Ensure that employees at frontier labs can report information about risks.

Whistleblower protections: Ensure that employees at frontier labs can report information about risks.

• Information-sharing within and between governments: Ensure that governments can effectively coordinate and facilitate discussions, especially those dealing with sensitive information about the progress of AI. This may be especially important for strengthening and protecting supply chains deemed critical to AI development.

Information-sharing within and between governments: Ensure that governments can effectively coordinate and facilitate discussions, especially those dealing with sensitive information about the progress of AI. This may be especially important for strengthening and protecting supply chains deemed critical to AI development.

• Flexible rules and definitions: Avoiding premature regulation by potentially making conditional “if-then” regulatory commitments, or an approach whereby a high-level target is set (e.g., mitigating risk) and companies are free to define the specifics of how they do that. This is bound up in the need to come up with flexible definitions, or definitions that can evolve over time.

Flexible rules and definitions: Avoiding premature regulation by potentially making conditional “if-then” regulatory commitments, or an approach whereby a high-level target is set (e.g., mitigating risk) and companies are free to define the specifics of how they do that. This is bound up in the need to come up with flexible definitions, or definitions that can evolve over time.

• Assessments and evaluations: Develop government and third-party capacity to assess the capabilities and safety aspects of AI systems.

Assessments and evaluations: Develop government and third-party capacity to assess the capabilities and safety aspects of AI systems.

• Improve security of model weights and algorithmic secrets: Invest more in locking down the weights of neural nets as well as the algorithmic secrets behind some of the best systems. This can be achieved through promulgating voluntary standards for physical and cybersecurity.

Improve security of model weights and algorithmic secrets: Invest more in locking down the weights of neural nets as well as the algorithmic secrets behind some of the best systems. This can be achieved through promulgating voluntary standards for physical and cybersecurity.

• Hiring and talent: A meta-investment which would help with all of the above is investing more in the kind of technical talent needed to effectively pull off any of these interventions. Core to this is increasing the funding of AISI (UK) and CAISI (US) and their counterparts in other countries.

Hiring and talent: A meta-investment which would help with all of the above is investing more in the kind of technical talent needed to effectively pull off any of these interventions. Core to this is increasing the funding of AISI (UK) and CAISI (US) and their counterparts in other countries.

Arguments and counterarguments: The authors go through some of the more obvious counter-arguments to these ideas and provide some responses:

• Encouraging dramatic regulatory action: The above ideas “aren’t weighty substantive authorities that lend themselves to abuse”, they claim. (I might push back on this, noting that a sufficiently motivated government can tend to come up with a far more forceful version of an authority than those who originally drafted the authority might have conceived).

Encouraging dramatic regulatory action: The above ideas “aren’t weighty substantive authorities that lend themselves to abuse”, they claim. (I might push back on this, noting that a sufficiently motivated government can tend to come up with a far more forceful version of an authority than those who originally drafted the authority might have conceived).

• Democratic legitimacy: Optimizing for flexibility might cause the need to de-emphasize some things that relate more to democratic legitimacy, e.g., empowering agencies to waive notice and comment periods for some kinds of rulemaking.

Democratic legitimacy: Optimizing for flexibility might cause the need to de-emphasize some things that relate more to democratic legitimacy, e.g., empowering agencies to waive notice and comment periods for some kinds of rulemaking.

• Concentration of power and government abuse: The authors are “basically convinced” that there’s significant risk of governments asserting control over the development of AI systems - for this reason, they don’t recommend things like massively expanding the scope of emergency authorities such as the Defense Production Act. One way of mitigating this might be to get governments to “use only law-following AI systems”.

Concentration of power and government abuse: The authors are “basically convinced” that there’s significant risk of governments asserting control over the development of AI systems - for this reason, they don’t recommend things like massively expanding the scope of emergency authorities such as the Defense Production Act. One way of mitigating this might be to get governments to “use only law-following AI systems”.

• What’s wrong with private governance? Why not just do that: While the authors are supportive of ideas in the “regulatory markets” vein, they also think any governance that relies primarily on a bunch of private sector actors (e.g, independent verification organizations) will still come back to relying on some basic pocket of technical competence within the government.