The Invisible Side of AI Governance

Tldr: Most strategic writing on AI governance on Less Wrong describes the outsider game, which is most often visible: press, statements, open letters. Here I want to describe the other, invisible half: the insider work within ministerial cabinets and international fora, and the work of people within national and international institutions. Here are a few claims that I defend in the post:A huge part of the work that mattered in AI governance has been invisible There are many types of games in AI governance, which differ in how visible they are. Some of the most impactful work is highly invisibleSome of the most impactful work is in the executive branch and complements the legislative branch. This also explains some of my hesitations about replicating ControlAI in France. The community is probably overinvesting in intellectual production. There is a bias against invisible types of work. In particular, public work is not necessarily visible to whom it matters.A few criticisms of both strategiesI think the AI Safety Community is under-indexing on the invisible part as a result, which might mean we miss large avenues for impact. Some of the strongest questions/objections of this type of invisible policy work are at the end.Who I am: I've played both the visible and invisible games, and as someone with a technical background, I was initially very unfamiliar with the invisible game. I initially found the invisible game alien and slightly distasteful, so if anything, my priors ran against the thesis of this post. I switched from technical safety (EffiSciences, ML4Good) to governance two years ago and co-founded CeSIA, the French Center for AI Safety. I initiated the Global Call for AI Red Lines and now spend a large fraction of my time on continental European policy, with the OECD Hiroshima AI Process Reporting Framework (HAIP), UN forums, the EU AI Office Code of Practice, and ministerial cabinets in Paris. I also founded ML4Good, which placed alumni in insider organizations