“Plans A, B, C, and D for misalignment risk” by ryan_greenblatt

I sometimes think about plans for how to handle misalignment risk. Different levels of political will for handling misalignment risk result in different plans being the best option. I often divide this into Plans A, B, C, and D (from most to least political will required). See also Buck's quick take about different risk level regimes.

In this post, I'll explain the Plan A/B/C/D abstraction as well as discuss the probabilities and level of risk associated with each plan.

Here is a summary of the level of political will required for each of these plans and the corresponding takeoff trajectory:

• Plan A: There is enough will for some sort of strong international agreement that mostly eliminates race dynamics and allows for slowing down (at least for some reasonably long period, e.g. 10 years) along with massive investment in security/safety work.
• Plan B: The US [...]

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Outline:

(02:34) Plan A

(04:24) Plan B

(05:24) Plan C

(05:47) Plan D

(06:27) Plan E

(07:20) Thoughts on these plans

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
October 8th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E8n93nnEaFeXTbHn5/plans-a-b-c-and-d-for-misalignment-risk

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.