“The Long (Self-)Correction” by Wei Dai

I propose the Long Self-Correction[1] as an alternative name/idea/concept to AI Pause and Long Reflection.

Problem with AI Pause: Pause until when, and for what purpose? Presumably to make AI (that we'll build later) safer, but the deeper problem is that humans aren't safe, and can't safely serve as builders, overseers, or alignment targets for powerful AIs.

Problem with Long Reflection: It seems to imply that the main problem with humans is that we just haven't had enough time to think, that reflection is the main thing we need to do more of, and then we can get on with building powerful AIs or other technologies. Or that if we build aligned AIs that sincerely help us think a lot more, or do the thinking for us, then things will turn out fine.

So I think we need a catchy handle for a related but distinct idea, that humans aren't ready to build AIs or other extremely powerful technologies, because we're currently too flawed, in a variety of ways, and it will take a long process (which may or may not end up succeeding) to fix those flaws.

A summary of the flaws that I have in mind:

1. [...]

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
July 24th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2iCmDWewnZWQxxwtt/the-long-self-correction-2

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.