Will there be a warning shot before October 20, 2026?
The spirit of the question is whether there occurs some singular event that directly causes multiple major AI capabilities organizations to simultaneously sharply change direction and focus substantially more effort on AI alignment. It is not intended to include multiple smaller events that cause cumulative changes in attitudes, or multiple events that only cause single organizations to change course. It is also not intended to restrict to only warning shots that successfully cause coordination across all AGI labs; even if only a small subset of (but more than 2) labs pivot sharply, this question resolves Yes. A warning shot is an event that demonstrates compellingly that alignment considerations should be taken more seriously, typically a catastrophic failure or a compelling demonstration of the possibility of dangerous failure. In particular, it should include at least two of the following organizations: OpenAI DeepMind Meta AI Research Google Microsoft BAAI The kinds of things that would qualify as "sharply changing direction" include: An announcement or public statement describing the event in question as a "warning shot" or similar, and announcing a shift in priorities, cessation of capabilities research publishing, etc. A sudden shift in research priorities or strategic behavior that indicates taking alignment a lot more seriously than before, as observed through published output after an event that is broadly accepted as a "warning shot" If there is any ambiguity, as usual, I will exercise my judgement to resolve in the spirit of the question.
