DeepMind's Matt Botvinick: AI safety must move from power concentration to checks and balances
schwarzjn_ · x · 2026-09-07
Matt Botvinick, VP of Research at Google DeepMind, argues that while "concentration of power" concerns have rightly entered the AI safety agenda, it's time to go deeper: how to assure a world of separated powers in balanced equilibrium. He offers two models — Acemoglu/Robinson's balance between state and societal power, and the Madison/Montesquieu separation of powers — and frames the key challenge as situating AI labs' power within the Acemoglu/Robinson model both descriptively and normatively, starting from Philip Pettit's notion of non-domination.
More from AGI Musings
- OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki: machine intelligence is starting to exceed humanity — BLUECOW009 · 2026-09-07
- Polymarket gives OpenAI declaring AGI this year just 19% odds despite AGI-era talk — Polymarket · 2026-09-07
- Seb's Law: AI's transformative societal impact is always two years away — sebkrier · 2026-09-07
- Alignment researcher: community hostility toward OpenAI is fueling a death spiral — morqon · 2026-09-07
- Stephen Wolfram on Generative AI and the Mental Imagery of Alien Minds — mishig25 · 2026-09-07
- Why recursive self-improvement hasn't happened: strategy and memory, and two fixes — TheTuringPost · 2026-09-07