> We will need MILLIONS of people in the field.

it's a real issue but I'm not sure it's the mass mobilization problem the article makes it out to be. pretty sure it's growing extremely fast, and it's a new field in general. the models will keep growing in capability because of human game theory (I need to make my model better because my competitors are). it's not practical to expect millions in headcount to move from frontier capability research to safety

The reason I don’t pivot into AI safety (in a topic I might have comparative advantage in as a mathematician) is the following.

(1) I believe increasing AI capability is a net negative.

(2) AI capability is limited by AI safety in the way the power of a rifle is limited by how safe it is to use.

I.e., AI safety and AI capability look like two sides of a coin to me.

If I were disillusioned of this view I might consider it. But right now it just seems unethical and against my fundamental beliefs.

The saying is, "you can't prove a negative" - mostly true, but really the issue is that with such a wide open future of possibilities for AI and safe (or unsafe) outcomes, there's an empirical issue of it being very hard or impossible to disprove things that are still hidden (haven't happened yet). Humans are maximizers in that we try to spend the least amount of effort when we're not sure what will happen, but after something bad happens, we'll act quickly to address that specific issue. It'll probably take a lot of small and large issues to happen for people to build up their societal "safety protocol" around the technology over time.