Scott Alexander: AI Safety Is Not A Corporate Plot
ben_j_todd · x · 2026-10-16
Scott Alexander publishes a long-form rebuttal on Astral Codex Ten to the conspiracy theories that AI companies exaggerate existential danger to pump stocks, distract from near-term harms, or engineer regulatory capture. His evidence:
- A survey by Grace et al. of 1,580 AI researchers (mostly academics unaffiliated with companies) shows equal concern; over half assign at least 10% probability to catastrophic AI outcomes.
- The executives issuing warnings said the same things before they had AI companies—or before the industry existed.
- If these corporate plots were real, they would be strategically idiotic.
benjtodd shares the piece alongside his New Yorker anecdote about Brockman.
Related event: Scott Alexander rebuts "AI safety is a corporate plot" claims(2 posts)→
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