110 - Can we pause AI Development? Evidence from the history of technological restraint

In this episode, I chat to Matthijs Maas about pausing AI development. Matthijs is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Legal Priorities Project and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. In our conversation, we focus on the possibility of slowing down or limiting the development of technology. Many people are sceptical of this possibility but Matthijs has been doing some extensive research of historical case studies of, apparently successful, technological slowdown. We discuss these case studies in some detail.

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Relevant Links

• Recording of Matthijs's Chalmers about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn4ADfyrJ0Y&t=2s 
• Slides from this talk -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J9RW49IgSAnaBHr3-lJG9ZOi8ZsOuEhi/view?usp=share_link
• Previous essay / primer, laying out the basics of the argument:  https://verfassungsblog.de/paths-untaken/
• Incomplete longlist database of candidate case studies: https://airtable.com/shrVHVYqGnmAyEGsz