Theory of Change
How does PauseAI plan to achieve its mission?
What do we want?
Our proposal describes what we want: Globally halt frontier AI development until we know how to do it safely and under democratic control.
How do we pause?
Pausing is costly because there are many incentives to develop increasingly powerful AI. Companies can make a lot of money by being the first to develop a new AI, and countries can gain a lot of power by being the first to develop a new AI. This is why we do not expect any single company to pause, and why we do not expect any single country to pause.
This means - we need an international pause. We can get there in two ways:
- An international treaty. We banned blinding laser weapons and CFCs through a treaty, so we can also ban superhuman AI through a treaty. These treaties are often initiated by a small group of countries, and then other countries join in. A summit is often the event where such a treaty is initiated and signed.
- A unilateral supply-chain pause. The AI supply chain is highly centralized. Virtually all AI chips used in training runs are designed by NVidia, produced by TSMC, which uses lithography machines by ASML. If any of these monopolies were to pause, the entire AI industry would pause. We can achieve this by lobbying these companies, and by lobbying the governments that have leverage over these companies.
Why don’t we have a pause yet?
The problem is not a lack of concerned experts (86% of AI researchers believe the control problem is real and important). The problem is not a lack of public support for our proposal (by far most people already want AI to be slowed down). However, there is a lack of urgency in both the public and political spheres. Our psychology makes it very difficult for us to internalize how bad things could get. Basically, “Don’t look up” . We underestimate the risks we’re facing, and we overestimate how well we can handle them. Additionally, we are also underestimating the pace of progress .
What do we do to get there?
- Grow the movement. The larger our group is, the more we can do. We grow our movement through radical transparency, online community building, and fostering local groups. We empower our volunteers to take action, and we make it easy for them to do so.
- Protests. Protests increase public awareness and support. They are also a great way to recruit new members and improve community feeling. Because our subject is relatively new, even small protests can get very good media coverage . We encourage our members to organize protests in their own cities.
- Lobbying. Every volunteer can become an amateur lobbyist. We send emails to politicians , we meet with them, and we stay in touch. We ask them to put AI risks on the agenda, draft a treaty. The core issue that we’re trying to solve is a lack of information and a lack of emotional internalization and insight in the political sphere.
- Inform the public. We make people aware of the risks we’re facing and what we can do to prevent them. We write articles, make videos, design images, join debates, give talks, and organize events.
How do we communicate?
- Defer to experts. Plenty of them are sufficiently worried. Deferring to them is a good way to make our case.
- Use simple language. We want to reach as many people as possible. This means we need to use simple language and avoid jargon.
- Show our emotions. Seeing emotions gives others the permission to feel emotions. And we need these emotions to We are worried, we are angry, we are eager to act.
Let’s get to it
Join PauseAI and take action !