LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Safety researchers should take a public stance” by Ishual, Mateusz Bagiński


Listen Later

[Co-written by Mateusz Bagiński and Samuel Buteau (Ishual)]

TL;DR

Many X-risk-concerned people who join AI capabilities labs with the intent to contribute to existential safety think that the labs are currently engaging in a race that is unacceptably likely to lead to human disempowerment and/or extinction, and would prefer an AGI ban[1] over the current path. This post makes the case that such people should speak out publicly[2] against the current AI R&D regime and in favor of an AGI ban[3]. They should explicitly communicate that a saner world would coordinate not to build existentially dangerous intelligences, at least until we know how to do it in a principled, safe way. They could choose to maintain their political capital by not calling the current AI R&D regime insane, or find a way to lean into this valid persona of “we will either cooperate (if enough others cooperate) or win [...]

---

Outline:

(00:16) TL;DR

(02:02) Quotes

(03:22) The default strategy of marginal improvement from within the belly of a beast

(06:59) Noble intention murphyjitsu

(09:35) The need for a better strategy

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

September 19th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fF8pvsn3AGQhYsbjp/safety-researchers-should-take-a-public-stance

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,383 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,423 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,233 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,147 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,561 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,829 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

89 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

489 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,479 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,097 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

532 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

133 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

97 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

509 Listeners