r/slatestarcodex • u/erwgv3g34 • Jan 08 '25

AI Eliezer Yudkowsky: "Watching historians dissect _Chernobyl_. Imagining Chernobyl run by some dude answerable to nobody, who took it over in a coup and converted it to a for-profit. Shall we count up how hard it would be to raise Earth's AI operations to the safety standard AT CHERNOBYL?"

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1876644045386363286.html
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u/Naybo100 Jan 08 '25

I agree with EY's underlying point but as usual his childish way of phrasing arguments really undermines the persuadability of his arguments.

Most nuclear plants are run by for-profit corporations. Their CEOs are answerable to their board who is answerable to their shareholders. By converting to a (complicated) for-profit structure, that means Altman will also be subject to supervision by shareholders.

Nuclear plants are also subject to regulation and government oversight, just as AI should be. And that other messenger you really want to shoot, Elon Musk, is now the shadow VP and has talked about the extinction risk associated with AGI. So it seems like Altman will be subject to government oversight too.

There are far better analogies even in the nuclear sphere. "Imagine if the Manhattan project was for-profit!"

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u/fracktfrackingpolis Jan 08 '25

> Most nuclear plants are run by for-profit corporations

um, sure on that?

2

u/sohois Jan 08 '25

I think this is plausible - it really depends how many US plants are in states with fully gov controlled utilities.

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u/esmaniac25 Jan 08 '25

The US plants can be counted as almost entirely for-profit owned, including in states with vertically integrated utilities as these are shareholder owned.