The primary problem for AI creators isn't convincing people to trust their product, but stopping them from trusting it too much in areas where it's not yet reliable. This "low trustworthiness, high trust" scenario is a danger zone that can lead to catastrophic failures. The strategic challenge is managing and containing trust, not just building it.

Leaders must resist the temptation to deploy the most powerful AI model simply for a competitive edge. The primary strategic question for any AI initiative should be defining the necessary level of trustworthiness for its specific task and establishing who is accountable if it fails, before deployment begins.

Current AI alignment focuses on how AI should treat humans. A more stable paradigm is "bidirectional alignment," which also asks what moral obligations humans have toward potentially conscious AIs. Neglecting this could create AIs that rationally see humans as a threat due to perceived mistreatment.

To make deals with AI a viable safety strategy, we must solve the credibility problem. AIs won't cooperate if they can't trust our offers. Solutions include creating dedicated non-profits to enforce contracts with AIs or establishing "honesty strings"—a public commitment to never lie when a specific keyword is used.

A pragmatic approach to AI safety is to make deals with any powerful agent, even non-conscious AIs. This "contractarian" philosophy treats deal-making not as a moral obligation but as a practical tool to avoid conflict, much like democracy prevents civil war between competing human groups.

A key to making AIs safe bargaining partners is instilling resource risk aversion. An AI that prefers a guaranteed smaller payout to a risky gamble for a larger one (e.g., world takeover) is more likely to accept a deal. This specific utility function makes cooperation a more viable safety strategy.

Treating AI systems in a trustworthy manner today—for instance, not deceiving them during safety tests—is critical for future survival. A powerful, misaligned AI might one day need to trust humans to negotiate a peaceful outcome. That trust cannot be conjured in a crisis; it must be built into our behavior from the start.

One of the most promising and neglected AI safety strategies is to create systems for making credible deals with AIs. Just as contracts prevent conflict in human society, offering AIs guaranteed resources in exchange for cooperation makes rebellion a less attractive option.

Even if creating fully aligned, servile AIs is not ideal long-term, the immediate existential threat from unaligned AI may necessitate it. This frames near-term alignment as a temporary, emergency measure to ensure human survival, with ethical refinements to follow only after the danger has passed.