I think the most likely way to achieve “AI alignment” is the peasants with crossbows. Everyone having a powerful AI at their fingertips provides a balancing factor that is only overcome if those tools are in the hands of very few. Trusting Google and various governments to “do the right thing” is absurd - even assuming good behavior and intention on their part, they just aren’t nearly as competent as people seem to assume. Everyone having access everywhere all at once provides the transparency and space to innovate, but also to counterbalance the use of AI in dark ways.

I fundamentally don’t like the crossbow and guns and second amendment argument. AI isn’t a tool to murder with, having no other function than the death of your neighbor. I feel like it’s more like the “should you be required to license your seeds from a megacorp” type thing. Food is existentially important, and it could be weaponized. But it’s not fundamentally a weapon, it’s fundamentally a thing of utility.