AI researchers clash over whether lab "safety" amounts to coercive control
joshalbrecht · x · 2026-10-23
joshalbrecht and Seth Lazar debate how the public can constrain AI elites. Lazar argues mass power comes from collective organizing that raises the cost of elite self-prioritization—strikes, even revolution.
joshalbrecht pushes back: that hope is misplaced, labs already operate an "ultra authoritarian" setup where any employee can read user diary entries, the mainstream safety agenda proposes more of this control, and the open-source/"malicious actors" debate follows the same logic. He also argues that advocating "violent uprising" only justifies tighter control, and asks how the feared future can actually be avoided.
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