Clashing Intuitions for the Plausibility of Alignment (Illustrated via Differing Causal Models)

Epistemic Status: Brief explanation of an unsettled debate, not novel theory; writing is entirely my own, with diagrams from ChatGPT 5.5. (Originally posted on twitter ) Recent debates have highlighted a divergence between Yudkowskian AI-doomers and AI-whisperers about how capabilities will evolve that is really important. Specifically, j⧉nus thinks that alignment has been going really well, and that we should update significantly from current jagged capabilities. In my view, whether or not that criticism is warranted relies on specific details about future capability trajectories, which then

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