Tom did the original thinking; Rose helped with later thinking, structure and writing.

Some plans for AI governance involve centralising western AGI development.[1] Would this actually be a good idea? We don’t think this question has been analysed in enough detail, given how important it is. In this post, we’re going to:

1. Explore the strategic implications of having one project instead of several
2. Discuss what we think the best path forwards is, given that strategic landscape

(If at this point you’re thinking ‘this is all irrelevant, because centralisation is inevitable’, we disagree! We suggest you read the appendix, and then consider if you want to read the rest of the post.)

On 2, we’re going to present:

• Our overall take: It's very unclear whether centralising would be good or bad.
• Our current best guess: Centralisation is probably net bad, because of risks from power concentration (but this is very uncertain).

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Outline:

(01:39) What are the strategic implications of having one instead of several projects?

(02:36) Summary table

(02:53) Race dynamics

(03:23) Racing between western projects

(04:51) Racing between the US and China

(07:40) Why do race dynamics matter?

(08:50) Power concentration

(13:11) Why does power concentration matter?

(14:40) Infosecurity

(17:41) Why does infosecurity matter?

(19:13) What is the best path forwards, given that strategic landscape?

(20:05) Our overall take

(22:07) Our current best guess

(26:53) Overall conclusion

(29:22) Appendix: Why we don’t think centralisation is inevitable

The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 7 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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