Preparing for Warning Shots to Catalyze International Cooperation on AGI Risks
Summary. This is a write-up on preparing for warning shots to catalyze international cooperation on AGI risks, and the corollary list of projects one could pursue. We argue we must first (1) understand types of warning shots, then (2) prepare to catch them. We must stay vigilant: both to (3) avoid getting 'frog boiled' by AI labs, and to (4) ensure that the warning shot is generalized to the overall danger of AGI. Lastly, we must (5) prepare good policy responses and ground for it to land, and (6) seize the first-mover advantage when the opportune moment comes. This yields the following list of promising projects one could pursue:Developing a theory of warning shots based on existing precedents (e.g. GPT-3.5 and Mythos releases), and past analogies: developing a typology and predicting likelihoods.Building infrastructure to catch a warning shot when it happens. (For example, Ajeya Cotra talks about recurring internal intelligence explosion evals of AI labs.) Creating strategies to avoid gradual numbing / sleepwalking through a warning shot (presumably there are lessons from e.g. communication on climate change).Building preliminary infrastructure (institutes, think-tanks, lobbying parties...) that lays out a good ground, for when a warning shot and its policy response would happen. For example seeding right world models for public and policy makers, so that when warning shot happens they can understand the long-term implications (i.e. AGI dangers). Mapping out good, medium, and bad policy responses based on warning shot types.Building consensus in AI safety community of what policies to advocate for and against jointly. Building infrastructure for lobbying the right parties at the opportune moment. For example: what are the key decision-makers for each warning shot - policy response pair? Which organizations / individuals have the most legitimacy among these politicians and policymakers?Two Important Notes: This is not a call for people to induce a warning shot.[1] AG