Elias Schmied @reconfigurthing . 1h
To be clear, do you mean to say that you changed your position or that the initial statement was accidentally imprecise/misleading?
[1 reply, 140 views]
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
In that interview I also said
> I still think that a lot of the risk, maybe probably the majority of the takeover risk, comes from AIs smarter than the ones I've been talking about here.
I have now shifted to thinking that maybe twice as much risk comes from these later AIs as from earlier AIs. This is like a 1-2x shift from my previous position about the relative importance of these types of risk, which isn't that big.
So mostly I think my initial statement was not representative of what I actually thought.
For reference, the fuller version of the quote is
> Like, five years ago I thought of misalignment risk from AIs that were capable of obsoleting AGI researchers as a really hard problem that you'd need some really galaxy-brained fundamental insights in order to resolve. Whereas now, to me the situation feels a lot more like, man, we just really know a list of 40 things where, if you did the 40 things — none of which seem that hard — you'd probably be able to not have very much of your problem.
And the full interview is here
[embedded video thumbnail: a person speaking in front of a brick wall and plant, podcast-style]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Continuation of the Buck Shlegeris AI-control thread: Elias Schmied asks for clarification, and Shlegeris gives a detailed explanation distinguishing the risk from earlier vs. smarter/later AIs (a modest 1-2x shift), reproduces the fuller original quote about the '40 things' framing for misalignment risk, and links to the full interview video.
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
I still think it seems great for AI developers to competently implement safety measures and processes that we do know about; they definitely do not seem to have achieved this to an adequate standard so far...
[1 repost, 10 likes, 169 views]
Jacques @JacquesThibs . 59m
Agree that it probably fails at ASI. The worst-case may be that those techniques just allow us to hide the problem well and long enough such that it's too late when the world chooses to take decisive action to pause and come together for fundamental alignment breakthroughs.
[2 likes, 49 views]
Herbie Bradley @herbiebradley . 1h
IMO the current situation seems to support a position that it's just 40 not too hard things, so curious what would have caused you to update here
[1 reply, 184 views]
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
[Quoted:] Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
Replying to @reconfigurthing
In that interview I also said
> I still think that a lot of the risk, maybe probably the majority of the takeover risk, ... [cut off]
[1 like, 210 views]
Elias Schmied @reconfigurthing . 1h
To be clear, do you mean to say that you changed your position or that the initial statement was accidentally imprecise/misleading? [cut off]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Further continuation of the Buck Shlegeris AI-control thread, with replies from Jacques Thibodeau (worst-case: safety techniques hide the problem until it's too late), Herbie Bradley (pushing back that current events support the '40 things' framing), and Elias Schmied asking Shlegeris to clarify whether he changed his position or was just imprecise.
[repost icon] Nathan Calvin reposted
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
I regret saying this. If AI developers competently implement safety measures we know about, risk from sub-ASI misalignment will be way lower. But these techniques probably fail for superintelligence. And it's very unclear whether better techniques will be developed in time.
[Quoted tweet:]
Garrison Lovely @GarrisonLovely . 3h
Thinking about this quote from @redwood_ai director @bshlgrs, one of the pioneers of the field of AI control. x.com/tenobrus/statu...
[Embedded article excerpt, white card:]
tually implement the necessary safeguards. Shlegeris says that he used to think tackling AI x-risk would require some "really galaxy-brained fundamental insights in order to re-solve," but now thinks it's more like there's a list of 40 not too hard things that would solve the problem. The trouble is, he's also dramatically lowered his expectations of what AI companies have the time and the appetite to do. [777 link]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Buck Shlegeris (Redwood Research director) tweet expressing regret about an earlier optimistic claim: safety measures could substantially reduce sub-ASI misalignment risk if competently implemented, but likely fail for superintelligence with unclear prospects for better techniques in time. Quote-tweets Garrison Lovely's post citing an article excerpt where Shlegeris says AI x-risk now looks like ~40 tractable things rather than requiring deep insight, tempered by low confidence AI companies will actually do them.
And it's very unclear whether better techniques will be developed in time.
[Quoted tweet:]
Garrison Lovely @GarrisonLovely . 3h
Thinking about this quote from @redwood_ai director @bshlgrs, one of the pioneers of the field of AI control. x.com/tenobrus/statu...
tually implement the necessary safeguards. Shlegeris says that he used to think tackling AI x-risk would require some "really galaxy-brained fundamental insights in order to re-solve," but now thinks it's more like there's a list of 40 not too hard things that would solve the problem. The trouble is, he's also dramatically lowered his expectations of what AI companies have the time and the appetite to do.777
11:45 AM . Aug 7, 2026 . 6,047 Views
[10 replies, 11 reposts, 92 likes, 8 bookmarks]
Relevant View quotes
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
(@GarrisonLovely obviously it's my fault for saying something I don't stand by, not your fault for quoting me on it!)
[1 reply, 9 likes, 195 views]
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs . 1h
I still think it seems great for AI developers to competently implement safety measures and processes that we do know about; they definitely do not seem to have achieved this to an adequate standard so far...
[1 repost, 10 likes, 169 views]
Jacques @JacquesThibs . 59m
Agree that it probably fails at ASI. The worst-case may be that those techniques just allow us to hide the problem well and long enough such that it's too [cut off]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Continuation of the Buck Shlegeris/Garrison Lovely thread on AI control and safety measures: Shlegeris clarifies he doesn't stand by his earlier 40-things quote but still thinks safety measures should be competently implemented (which AI developers haven't achieved adequately), and Jacques Thibodeau replies agreeing techniques probably fail at ASI and may just hide the problem.
— reply from Nathan Helm-... (@nathan846...) [Nathan's own account]
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs
I think the Iraq war has some interesting lessons for AI safety advocates.
It's an example of a crazy event (9/11) leading to an extreme action (invading an unrelated country) because the crazy event empowered a pre-existing interest group (neocons).
11:55 AM · Jul 10, 2025 · 1,915 Views
💬2 🔁1 ♡44 🔖10
Buck Shlegeris @bshlgrs · 9h
Post here. lesswrong.com/posts/PLZh4dcZ...
[embedded link card: lesswrong.com — "Lessons from the Iraq War about AI policy — ..."]
♡6 📊392
Nathan Helm-... @nathan846... · 7h
In a serious way, I appreciate the thoughtful post. On a silly note, I had a great moment of delighted confusion when I misread 'neocons' as 'raccoons.' 🦝
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Buck Shlegeris (Redwood Research, AI safety) draws an analogy between the Iraq War (a shock event empowering a pre-existing interest group into extreme action) and AI safety policy, linking to a LessWrong post. Nathan himself replied under his own account (@nathan846...) — a rare direct trace of Nathan's own public engagement with the AI safety community, worth noting for the archive as his own voice/participation rather than just something he read.