What just happened? Pragmatism and Pessimization

This post is about the major role alignment researchers played in advancing the frontier of AI capabilities over the last decade, and how the distinction between “alignment research” and “capabilities research" thereby lost most of its meaning.[1] In particular, I’ll chronicle the development of what I’ll call the “pragmatic alignment” paradigm, and how it helped the three leading AGI companies push hard on the path to AGI under the banner of safety.[2] This was not a subtle effect—it’s apparent...