Final month, I reported on the widening net of connections between the efficient altruism (EA) motion and AI safety coverage circles — from prime AI startups like Anthropic to DC suppose tanks like RAND Company. These are linking EA, with its laser-focus on stopping what its adherents say are catastrophic dangers to humanity from future AGI, to a large swath of DC suppose tanks, authorities companies and congressional employees.
Critics of the EA give attention to this existential danger, or ‘x-risk,’ say it’s taking place to the detriment of a essential give attention to present, measurable AI dangers — together with bias, misinformation, high-risk purposes and conventional cybersecurity.
Since then, I’ve been interested by what different AI and coverage leaders exterior the efficient altruism motion — however who’re additionally not aligned with the polar reverse perception system, efficient accelerationism (e/acc) — actually take into consideration this. Do different LLM corporations really feel equally involved concerning the danger of LLM mannequin weights stepping into the improper arms, for instance? Do DC coverage makers and watchers absolutely perceive EA affect on AI safety efforts?
At a second when Anthropic, well-known for its wide selection of EA ties, is publishing new analysis about “sleeper agent” AI fashions that dupe security checks meant to catch dangerous habits, and even Congress has expressed issues a few potential AI analysis partnership between the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Security (NIST) and RAND, this appears to me to be an essential query.
As well as, EA made worldwide headlines most just lately in reference to the firing of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, as its non-employee nonprofit board members all had EA connections.
What I found in my newest interviews is an attention-grabbing mixture of deep concern about EA’s billionaire-funded ideological bent and its rising attain and affect over the AI safety debate in Washington DC, in addition to an acknowledgement by some that AI dangers that transcend the short-term are an essential a part of the DC coverage dialogue.
The EA motion, which started as an effort to ‘do good higher,’ is now heavily-funded by tech billionaires who think about stopping an AI-related disaster its primary precedence, notably via funding AI safety (which can also be described as AI ‘security’) efforts — particularly within the biosecurity house.
In my December piece, I detailed the issues of Anthropic CISO Jason Clinton and two researchers from RAND Company concerning the safety of LLM mannequin weights within the face of threats from opportunistic criminals, terrorist teams or highly-resourced nation-state operations.
Clinton advised me that securing the mannequin weights for Claude, Anthropic’s LLM, is his primary precedence. The specter of opportunistic criminals, terrorist teams or highly-resourced nation-state operations accessing the weights of probably the most refined and highly effective LLMs is alarming, he defined, as a result of “if an attacker received entry to the complete file, that’s the complete neural community.”
RAND researcher Sella Nevo advised me that inside two years it was believable AI fashions could have vital nationwide safety significance, reminiscent of the likelihood that malicious actors might misuse them for organic weapon improvement.
All three, I found, have shut ties to the EA neighborhood and the 2 corporations are additionally interconnected due to EA — for instance, Jason Matheny, RAND’s CEO, can also be a member of Anthropic’s Lengthy-Time period Profit Belief and has longtime ties to the EA motion.
My protection was prompted by Brendan Bordelon’s ongoing Politico reporting on this situation, together with a current article which quoted an nameless biosecurity researcher in Washington calling EA-linked funders “an epic infiltration” in coverage circles. As Washington grapples with the rise of AI, Bordelon wrote, “a small military of adherents to ‘efficient altruism’ has descended on the nation’s capital and is dominating how the White Home, Congress and suppose tanks strategy the expertise.”
Cohere pushes again on EA fears about LLM mannequin weights
First, I turned to Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, an OpenAI and Anthropic competitor which focuses on growing LLMs for the enterprise, for his tackle these points. He advised me in a current interview that he doesn’t suppose massive language fashions pose an existential menace, and that whereas Cohere protects its mannequin weights, the corporate’s concern is the enterprise danger related to others gaining access to the weights, not an existential one.
“I do wish to make the excellence…I’m speaking about massive language fashions,” he mentioned. “There’s plenty of attention-grabbing issues you may speak about which are philosophical, like I feel in the future we’d have true synthetic normal intelligence. I don’t suppose it’s taking place quickly.”
Cohere has additionally criticized the efficient altruism motion previously. For instance, CEO Aidan Gomez reportedly criticized the “self righteousness” of the efficient altruism motion and people overly involved with the specter of an AI doomsday in a letter to his employees.
Frosst mentioned that EA “doesn’t appear to exist a lot past its AI focus today” and pushed again on their perception system. “If you end up in a philosophical worldview that finally gives ethical justification, certainly, ethical righteousness, for the huge accumulation of non-public wealth, it is best to most likely query that worldview,” he mentioned.
A giant flaw in efficient altruism, he continued, is to “assume you can have a look at the great you’re doing and assign a quantity and know precisely how efficient that is. It leads to bizarre locations like, hey, we must always make as a lot cash as doable. And we must always put all of it [towards combating] the existential danger of AI.”
AI21 Labs co-founder says mannequin weights will not be ‘key enabler’ of unhealthy actors
In the meantime, Yoav Shoham, co-founder of one other Anthropic and OpenAI competitor, the Tel Aviv-based AI21 labs, additionally mentioned his firm has stored its mannequin weights secret for trade-secret causes.
“We’re very delicate to potential abuse of expertise,” he mentioned. “That mentioned, we are inclined to suppose that mannequin weights aren’t essentially the important thing enabler of unhealthy actors.”
He identified that in an period of a geopolitical AI race, “solely sure facets could be handled by way of coverage.” As an alternative, he defined, “we’re doing our bit with strict phrases of use, give attention to task-specific fashions which by their very nature are much less liable to abuse, and shut collaboration with our enterprise clients, who share our dedication to useful makes use of of AI.”
Shoham emphasised that he and AI21 will not be members of the EA motion. “As outsiders, we see there’s a mixture of considerate consideration to accountable use of AI, [along] with much less grounded fear-mongering.”
RAND researcher says EA beliefs ‘not notably useful’
Whereas RAND Company has been within the crosshairs of criticism over its EA connections, there are additionally researchers at RAND pushing again.
Marek Posard, a RAND researcher and navy sociologist, spoke out final month on the RAND weblog about how AI philosophical debates like efficient altruism and e/acc are a ‘distraction’ for AI coverage.
“This can be a new expertise and so there’s plenty of unknowns,” he advised me in a current interview. “There’s plenty of hype. There’s plenty of bullshit, I’d argue there’s plenty of actual, very actual issues in flux. There’s all of those beliefs and ideologies, philosophies, theories which are floating round, I feel, basically individuals are latching on to in any respect.”
However neither EA or e/acc are “notably useful,” he added. “They’re additionally assumptions of what a small group thinks the world is. The truth is we all know there are very actual issues right this moment.”
Nonetheless, Posard didn’t say that EA voices weren’t valued at RAND. Actually, he maintained that RAND promotes variety of thought, which he mentioned is the “secret sauce” of the nonprofit international coverage suppose tank.
“It’s about variety of thought, of individuals’s backgrounds, disciplines and experiences,” he mentioned. “I invite anybody to attempt to push an ideological agenda — as a result of it isn’t arrange to do this.”
Conventional cybersecurity is targeted on present-day dangers
Whereas many (together with myself) could conflate AI safety and conventional cybersecurity — and their methods do overlap, as RAND’s current report on securing LLM mannequin weights makes clear — I wonder if the normal cybersecurity neighborhood is absolutely conscious of the EA phenomenon and its influence on AI safety coverage, particularly because the business tends to give attention to present-day dangers versus existential ones.
For instance, I spoke to Dan deBeaubien, who leads AI analysis and chairs each the AI coverage and product working teams on the SANS Institute, a Rockville, MD-based firm specializing in cybersecurity coaching and certification. Whereas he knew of the EA motion and mentioned that “it’s undoubtedly a pressure that’s on the market,” deBeaubien didn’t appear to be absolutely conscious of the extent of efficient altruism’s give attention to the existential catastrophic dangers of AI — and noticed it extra as an moral AI group.
“We don’t have plenty of efficient altruism conversations per se,” he mentioned, declaring that he was extra involved about understanding the present safety dangers associated to folks’s utilization of LLM chatbots inside organizations. “Do I lie awake worrying that anyone goes to tug a lever and AI goes to take over — I suppose I don’t actually suppose a lot about that.”
Some specialists appear to be coexisting with EA issues
Different DC-focused coverage specialists, nevertheless, appeared effectively conscious of the EA affect on AI safety, however appeared centered on coexisting with the motion somewhat than talking out strongly on the report.
For instance, I spoke to Mark Beall, former head of AI coverage on the U.S. Division of Protection, who’s now the co-founder and CEO at Gladstone AI, which affords AI schooling and AI check and analysis options to authorities and business entities. He emphasised that Gladstone has not accepted any enterprise capital or philanthropic funding.
Beall mentioned that the dangers of AI are clear — so the traditional tech strategy of ‘transfer quick and break issues’ is reckless. As an alternative, DC requires widespread sense safeguards, pushed by technical realities, that bridge the policy-tech divide, he defined.
“I helped arrange the Joint AI Heart on the Pentagon, and the actual fact is, a lot of these charged with safeguarding American pursuits have been engaged on AI lengthy earlier than self-promoted ‘efficient altruists’ stumbled into Washington policymaking circles,” he mentioned. “At DoD, we established accountable AI coverage and invested closely in AI security. Our mission has at all times been to speed up responsibly. And for these on the fringes who suppose that US officers haven’t been independently monitoring AI dangers — or that they’re one way or the other being duped — are improper.”
‘Ungoverned AI’ was named a prime geopolitical danger
I additionally reached out to Ian Bremmer, president and founding father of Eurasia Group, which final week revealed its record of the prime geopolitical dangers of 2024 — with ‘ungoverned AI’ within the quantity 4 spot.
Bremmer centered squarely on present-day dangers like election disinformation: “GPT-5 goes to come back out forward of the US elections, and “will likely be so highly effective it’ll make GPT-4 appear like a toy as compared,” he predicted. “Not even its creators actually perceive its full potential or capabilities.”
That mentioned, he maintained there’s a “official debate” concerning the worth of open vs closed supply, and the significance of securing mannequin weights. “I feel it could be improper to imagine, as many do, that the push to safe mannequin weights is motivated purely by cynical enterprise calculations,” he mentioned.
Nevertheless, if efficient altruism’s focus is de facto altruism, Bremmer added that “we have to make it possible for AI isn’t aligning with enterprise fashions that undermine civil society — which means testing fashions not only for misuse but in addition to see how regular anticipated use impacts social habits (and the event of kids—a specific concern).” Bremmer added that he has “seen little or no of that from the EA motion thus far.”
The issue with EA, he concluded, is that “once you begin speaking concerning the finish of the world as a practical chance—logically each different sort of danger pales into insignificance.”
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