Radical optionality is about preserving democratic governments’ ability to make good decisions about how to govern transformative AI systems as circumstances evolve.
What does it mean for AI to be democratic?
Some pushback on a specific fuzzy idea with some ominous implications
What we can’t measure about AI – yet | Aeon Essays
The costs of transformative innovations are immediately clear: it’s the longterm gains that are hardest to understand
Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is
Without clear definitions, governance is impossible.
Building Political Superintelligence
Amidst fears of dystopia, a blueprint for how we use AI to reinvent the way we govern ourselves
Researchers Detail How AI Systems Can Enable Authoritarianism
A new preprint study of authoritarianism-enabling AI presents another set of evidence of the gaps in safeguards, writes Tim Bernard.
Can AI Be Governed? Only If We Build Normatively Competent AI
Hadfield's discussion brings the idea of AI governance back to the core idea of steering the behavior of an AI system. As she notes, this not only involves technical questions about how AI systems ar...
AI FOR EPISTEMICS & COORDINATION
Civilization and technology have radically improved the human condition. Nonetheless, the world sometimes goes in directions which essentially nobody would prefer — e.g., nuclear arms races, unexpected financial crashes, predatory marketing, or ubiquitous political misinformation.
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy
Inside India’s scramble for AI independence
Structural challenges and the nation’s many languages have made it tough to develop foundational AI models. But the government is keen not to be left behind.
Democratic Governance of AI Is the Real Solution
The potential for catastrophic effects from the AI boom demands robust deliberation and real democratic governance. Localized initiatives like data center moratoria won't get us there.
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—like the rule of law, higher education, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex s
Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention?
Let’s not skip the hard work of AI governance
Taking AI Welfare Seriously
In this report, we argue that there is a realistic possibility that some AI systems will be conscious and/or robustly agentic in the near future. That means that the prospect of AI welfare and moral patienthood, i.e. of AI systems with their own interests and moral significance, is no longer an issue only for sci-fi or the distant future. It is an issue for the near future, and AI companies and other actors have a responsibility to start taking it seriously. We also recommend three early steps that AI companies and other actors can take: They can (1) acknowledge that AI welfare is an important and difficult issue (and ensure that language model outputs do the same), (2) start assessing AI systems for evidence of consciousness and robust agency, and (3) prepare policies and procedures for treating AI systems with an appropriate level of moral concern. To be clear, our argument in this report is not that AI systems definitely are, or will be, conscious, robustly agentic, or otherwise morally significant. Instead, our argument is that there is substantial uncertainty about these possibilities, and so we need to improve our understanding of AI welfare and our ability to make wise decisions about this issue. Otherwise there is a significant risk that we will mishandle decisions about AI welfare, mistakenly harming AI systems that matter morally and/or mistakenly caring for AI systems that do not.
AI agents pose untold risk to humanity. We must act to prevent that future | David Krueger
The pieces are falling into place for autonomous artificial intelligence. We must stop unregulated development
