I'm not a historian, but I think that if in 1900, when there were no successful airplanes, if you tried to have serious dialogues on how to design safe air traffic control systems, you would have been laughed at. Maybe you'd be able to anticipate some real problems, but some of your focus would be wildly off. And to the extent that you could see real issues coming, it would be heavily informed by what you could deduce about planes and how they would be used. And those skills would probably have been better directed at making trains or cars safer.
So I'm always a little surprised how seriously people take AI safety and alignment concerns about systems we don't yet know how to build, and how uninterested many of those same people are about 'alignment' issues with organizations and institutions we have today. And given our poor success in addressing our current issues, even where good policy proposals exist, why should we believe that technical solutions for AI alignment would be used even if they're researched and well-described?
So I'm always a little surprised how seriously people take AI safety and alignment concerns about systems we don't yet know how to build, and how uninterested many of those same people are about 'alignment' issues with organizations and institutions we have today. And given our poor success in addressing our current issues, even where good policy proposals exist, why should we believe that technical solutions for AI alignment would be used even if they're researched and well-described?