Yes I know these projects are bureaucratically overloaded and extremely slow in progress. However they are some of the only examples we have of actual international collaboration at a large scale. For example ITER has US, European, and Chinese scientists working together on a common goal! Imagine that!

This is precisely the kind of AI research we need, slow progress that is transparent to everyone involved, so that we have time to think and adjust.

I know a lot of people on this sub can't wait for AGI to arrive tomorrow and crown GPT as the new ruler of the world. They reflexively oppose anything that might slow down AI development. I think this discourse comes from a dangerously blind belief in the omnipotence and benevolence of ASI, most likely due to lack of trust in humans stemming from the recent pandemic and fatalist/doomer trends. You can't just wave your hands and bet everything on some machine messiah to save humanity just because society is imperfect!

I would much rather prefer we make the greatest possible effort to slow down and adjust before we step into the event horizon.

Right, taking into account real-world limitations perhaps your suggestion is the best approach. A world-wide moratorium is impossible.

Ideally reaching AGI is harder than we think, so the multiple actors working collaboratively have time to share which alignment methods work and which do not like how you described. I agree that having many actors working on alignment will increase probability of finding a method that works.

However with the potential for enormous profits and the fact that the best AI model will reap the most benefits, how can you possibly ensure these diverse organizations will share their work, apply effective alignment strategies, and not race to the "finish"? Getting everyone to join a nominal "safety and collaboration" organization seems like a good idea, but we all know how easily lofty ideals collapse in the face of raw profits.

Don't feed the troll guys

First off I do agree that in the ideal world, AI research continues under a European-style, open source and collaborative framework. Silicon valley companies in the US are really good at "moving fast and breaking things" which is why most of the AI innovation is happening in the US currently. However since AI is a major existential risk I believe moving to a strict and controlled progress like what we see with nuclear fusion in ITER and theoretical physics in CERN is the best model for AI research.

Unfortunately there are a couple points that may make this unfeasible in reality.

• Unlike with nuclear fusion or theoretical physics where profitability and application potential is extremely low during the R&D phase, every improvement in AI that brings us closer to AGI has extreme potential profits in the form of automating more and more jobs. Corporations have no motive to give up their AI research to a non-profit international organization besides the goodness of their hearts.
• AGI and Proto-AGI models are huge national security risks that no nation-state would be willing to give up.
• Open-sourcing research will greatly increase risk of mis-aligned models landing in the wrong hands or having nations continue research secretly. If AI research has to be concentrated within an international body, there should be a moratorium on large scale AI research outside of that organization. This may be a deal-breaker.

If we can somehow convince all the top AI researchers to quit their jobs and join this LAION initiative that would be awesome.

AI seems to be developing too fast and provide too much potential profit to corporations. I am doubtful that CERN or ITER-like regulatory frameworks can effectively become the leading edge of AI research without some kind of drastic merging of OpenAI, DeepMind, etc into the organization, which would be practically impossible.

However, I do agree that if it were possible for every leading AI lab to be suddenly merged into one entity, an open international effort would probably be the best model.