AI Governance across Slow/Fast Takeoff and Easy/Hard Alignment spectra - LessWrong

It has been suggested that in a rapid enough takeoff scenario, governance would not be useful, because the transition to superintelligence would be too rapid for human actors - whether governments, corporations, or individuals - to respond to. This seems to imply that we only care about takeoff speed. And if that is the only relevant factor, the case for governance only applies if you believe slow takeoff is likely. Of course, it also matters how long we have until takeoff - but even so, I think this leaves a fair amount on the table in terms of what governance could do, and I want to try to make the case that even in that world, governance (still defined broadly1) is important - though in different ways. To make the argument, I will lay out three possibilities about AI alignment which are orthogonal to takeoff speed and timing; alignment-by-default, prosaic alignment, and provable alignment.