Nice to meet you!
I currently work as CEO of a small machine vision company. Previously I worked as a team lead at JPL/NASA.
I love to travel, meet new people, and collaborate to solve challenging problems.
I am not, as yet, actively involved in any EA community, but helping others is important to me, and I do care about efficacy.
I'm particularly interested in work addressing international poverty/health, and reducing catastrophic risk, while respecting that other kinds of work are valuable also.
Perhaps frontier lab employees at this point should consider "quiet quitting" while anonymously (or not anonymously) whistleblowing and/or contributing to to public education/lobbying.
Loud quitting, as we've seen, can be impactful also, but is a one time act and may ceed influence at the lab to less scrupulous people over time.
I think we may be at a "bodies on the gears" point, a-la Mario Savio -- i.e. do your best to stop progress, in a not-obvious way if possible, and don't leave unless fired. AFAIK it's only illegal to actually damage (or steal) company property. It's definitely not illegal to be bad at your job. Not a lawyer, that's just my understanding. Some might consider it a moral obligation when the company is acting against public interest.
A concerted move towards that action by those who care about safety and work at the labs -- and there seem to be plenty who still do -- could significantly slow progress, and may be the best possible thing to do for humanity at this moment.
I agree with much of what you're saying, but disagree that slowing down is impossible. General ASI is not a tool, it's an adversary. As many have pointed out, ASI is also a threat to whoever "gets there first" first.
Furthermore, these's some evidence that labs in China are advancing on the coattails of US based labs, so slowing work in the US, even unilaterally, would slow labs in China.
The speed of action required and adverse economic incentives make this challenging, but we have precedent as humans overcoming great challenges in the past, including nuclear weapons, and terrible diseases. We developed international governance, and non-proliferation treaties. It is achievable -- there are only a few labs capable of doing this kind of work, and the supply chain is long and relatively easy to control. It is a solvable problem, if we work together.
Perfect, thank you Joel. I've applied, and would love to help contribute to this project in whatever way makes sense.
Exciting & interesting idea! I'd love to attend, but am trying to assess how much time I'd need to take away from work, including travel, and have a quick question: Is there any more detailed schedule beyond the dates, at this point? For example, a starting time on the 5th or ending time on the 8th?
Posting the question here in case the answer is of general interest. Thanks for your help.