GPT-4 System Card [pdf]
> We focus on safety challenges not because they necessarily outweigh the potential benefits, [2] but because we wish to motivate further work in safety measurement, mitigation, and assurance.This sentence really stood out and concerns me deeply.We are currently navigating territory that we almost universally believe to be world-changing in ways we cannot predict. Most pop culture focuses on the catastrophic kind of change, because the implications of such tech provides endless opportunities for such story telling.And yet, now that the real thing is here, one of the leading companies at the forefront disclaims "welll, we're looking at this safety thing...but not because we think the dangers are worse than the benefits"...this does not give me any confidence in the OpenAI team.I'm all for approaching problems of safety with an open mind, but the framing here seems really problematic, and seems to indicate a kind of wishful thinking - or at least dangerously optimistic thinking - about what is about to happen.What do I want to hear? Something like: "We recognize that AI poses a unique set of challenges and potential dangers, and we take that seriously. Here's how we're assessing that threat as we iterate, and here's how we'll know when it's time to pump the brakes...".