Not all that long ago, the idea of advanced AI in Washington, DC seemed like a nonstarter. Policymakers treated it as weird sci‐fi-esque overreach/just another Big Tech Thing. Yet, in our experience over the last month, recent high-profile developments—most notably, DeepSeek's release of R1 and the $500B Stargate announcement—have shifted the Overton window significantly.
For the first time, DC policy circles are genuinely grappling with advanced AI as a concrete reality rather than a distant possibility. However, this newfound attention has also brought uncertainty: policymakers are actively searching for politically viable approaches to AI governance, but many are increasingly wary of what they see as excessive focus on safety at the expense of innovation and competitiveness. Most notably at the recent Paris summit, JD Vance explicitly moved to pivot the narrative from "AI safety" to "AI opportunity"—a shift that the current administration's AI czar David Sacks praised as [...]
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Outline:
(03:43) Alignment as a competitive advantage
(11:30) Scaling neglected alignment research
(14:02) Three concrete ways to begin implementing this vision now
(16:20) A critical window of opportunity
The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
February 22nd, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/irxuoCTKdufEdskSk/alignment-can-be-the-clean-energy-of-ai
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.