EA - Beware safety-washing by Lizka

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Beware safety-washing, published by Lizka on January 13, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Tl;dr: don’t be fooled into thinking that some groups working on AI are taking “safety” concerns seriously (enough).OutlineTwo non-AI examplesGreenwashingHumanewashingDefinition of safety-washingWhat are the harms?What can (and should) we do about this?Note: I’m posting this in my personal capacity. All views expressed here are my own. I am also not (at all) an expert on the topic.Two non-AI examplesGreenwashingCompanies “greenwash” when they mislead people into incorrectly thinking that their products or practices are climate and environment-friendly (or that the company focuses on climate-friendly work).Investopedia explains:Greenwashing is an attempt to capitalize on the growing demand for environmentally sound products.The term originated in the 1960s, when the hotel industry devised one of the most blatant examples of greenwashing. They placed notices in hotel rooms asking guests to reuse their towels to save the environment. The hotels enjoyed the benefit of lower laundry costs.Wikipedia: “[Jay Westerveld, the originator of the term] concluded that often the real objective was increased profit, and labeled this and other profitable-but-ineffective ‘environmentally-conscientious’ acts as greenwashing.” (Wikipedia also provides a long list of examples of the practice.)I enjoy some of the parody/art (responding to things like this) that comes out of noticing the hypocrisy of the practice.HumanewashingA similar phenomenon is the “humanewashing” of animal products. There’s a Vox article that explains this phenomenon (as it happens in the US):A carton of “all natural” eggs might bear an illustration of a rustic farm; packages of chicken meat are touted as “humanely raised."In a few cases, these sunny depictions are accurate. But far too often they mask the industrial conditions under which these animals were raised and slaughtered.Animal welfare and consumer protection advocates have a name for such misleading labeling: “humanewashing.” And research suggests it’s having precisely the effect that meat producers intend it to. A recent national survey by C.O.nxt, a food marketing firm, found that animal welfare and “natural” claims on meat, dairy, and egg packaging increased the intent to purchase for over half of consumers....rather than engaging in the costly endeavor of actually changing their farming practices, far too many major meat producers are attempting to assuage consumer concerns by merely changing their packaging and advertising with claims of sustainable farms and humane treatment. These efforts mislead consumers, and undermine the small sliver of farmers who have put in the hard work to actually improve animal treatment.If you want a resource on what food labels actually mean, here are some: one, two, three (these are most useful in the US). (If you know of a better one, please let me know. I’d especially love a resource that lists the estimated relative value of things like “free-range” vs. “cage-free,” etc., according to cited and reasonable sources.)Definition of safety-washingIn brief, “safety-washing” is misleading people into thinking that some products or practices are “safe” or that safety is a big priority for a given company, when this is not the case.An increasing number of people believe that developing powerful AI systems is very dangerous, so companies might want to show that they are being “safe” in their work on AI.Being safe with AI is hard and potentially costly, so if you’re a company working on AI capabilities, you might want to overstate the extent to which you focus on “safety.”So you might:Pick a safety paradigm that is convenient for you, and focus on thatTalk about “safety” when you really mean other kinds o...