Wei Dai Warns: Boosting AI Strategic Competence Could Escalate Takeover Risks
jungofthewon · x · 2026-08-03
Computer scientist Wei Dai—first citation in the Bitcoin whitepaper and the namesake of Ethereum's 'wei'—recently shared his latest thoughts on AGI safety. He pointed out that humans themselves barely possess true long-horizon strategic competence.
This creates a tricky dilemma: if we use techniques like long-horizon reinforcement learning (RL) to make AI more strategic, we might simultaneously increase the risk of an AI takeover. Acknowledging this catch-22, Dai admitted he has no good solutions yet, offering his thoughts merely as an update on his own 'situational awareness.'
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