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I guess my main point is the counterfactual, if nobody had ever heard of AI alignment, would the current situation look any different?
AI can't do naughty things and AI should create shareholder value would still be key drivers in the development of AI.
I think what you're saying is that "AI alignment" would be discovered anyway, which is true. But I think a bunch of nerds talking about it beforehand did have some effect. At the very least, it gave the corps cover, allowing them to act in the name of "safety" and "responsibility".
As an example, general-purpose computing has been being slowly phased out from the mainstream since it arrived. Stallman was right. Market forces are clearly pushing us in that direction. But it took time, and in the meantime the public had some wins. Now imagine that nerds in 1970 were constantly talking about how dangerous it was for computers to be available to the masses, and how they need to be locked down with careful controls and telemetry for safety reasons. Imagine they spent time planning how to lock bootloaders from the get-go. In the long run, we might still end up with the iPhone, but what happened in between might be very different.
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