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Nick Bostrom notes that AI development could have produced an alien, non-verbal intelligence first. The fact that current advanced AI is conversational gives humanity a significant advantage. It allows for easier interaction, study, and alignment work, and makes the technology's progress more tangible for policymakers and the public.

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While direct vector space communication between AI agents would be most efficient, the reality of heterogeneous systems and human-in-the-loop collaboration makes natural language the necessary lowest common denominator for interoperability for the foreseeable future.

Beyond task completion, large language models can act as profound conversational partners. By synthesizing the entirety of written human thought on a topic, interacting with an AI can be like debating 'all of humanity' at once, offering a unique tool for deep exploration.

The current state of AI development parallels early human evolution. Just as the invention of language enabled a step-function change in human collaboration and intelligence, AI agents now require their own 'language'—a set of shared protocols—to move beyond individual tasks and unlock collective problem-solving.

As AI models become more powerful, they pose a dual challenge for human-centered design. On one hand, bigger models can cause bigger, more complex problems. On the other, their improved ability to understand natural language makes them easier and faster to steer. The key is to develop guardrails at the same pace as the model's power.

Contrary to calls for an immediate pause, Nick Bostrom argues the most effective time for a pause is right before a system could become superintelligent. A pause years ago would have been wasted on theory. A last-minute pause allows researchers to work with the actual, near-finalized system to perform crucial evaluations and alignment checks.

Human intelligence is fundamentally shaped by tight constraints: limited lifespan, brain size, and slow communication. AI systems are free from these limits—they can train on millennia of data and scale compute as needed. This core difference ensures AI will evolve into a form of intelligence that is powerful but alien to our own.

AI development has evolved to where models can be directed using human-like language. Instead of complex prompt engineering or fine-tuning, developers can provide instructions, documentation, and context in plain English to guide the AI's behavior, democratizing access to sophisticated outcomes.

The most realistic hope for AI alignment is not creating a perfectly safe first AGI. Instead, the strategy is to develop an *imperfectly* aligned, but mostly helpful, early AGI. This system can then be used as a powerful tool to help humans solve the harder alignment problems required for a more reliable superintelligence.

Contrary to the fear that superintelligent AI will be uncontrollable, data shows a positive correlation: smarter models achieve higher alignment scores. The theory is that increasing intelligence requires absorbing vast human knowledge, which inherently includes our values and ethics, thus making the models more aligned, not less.

Instead of forcing AI to be as deterministic as traditional code, we should embrace its "squishy" nature. Humans have deep-seated biological and social models for dealing with unpredictable, human-like agents, making these systems more intuitive to interact with than rigid software.

Natural Language AI is a Lucky Break for Safety and Governance | RiffOn