Existing approaches to AI alignment (how do we get artificial intelligence to do what we want it to do), safety (how do we make sure we minimise economic, social, or political risk), and policy (how do we legislate around alignment, safety, and the use of training data) have been either focussed on the technical challenges of AI or been guided by the utilitarian approach of many interested in the field.
You’re not wrong there, but I’d say that that context is important because of the way in which Hobbes’ thought influences modern political thought. Not so much the 18c stuff, as he apparently wasn’t read much then, but Runciman’s recent work.
Nice list. One point I'd like to make about Hobbes is that while his theoretical mechanistic notion of men predicts the war of all against all, Leviathan probably shouldn't be read outside of the context of Behemoth. That is to say that Hobbes also had empirical evidence from his personal experiences in the English Civil War as to what happens when anarchy reigns. (In fact, this seems to be a general empirical realisation that arises from English Civil Wars, since the chroniclers writing about the civil war between Stephan and Maude over the English throne in the 12th century described it as a period of lawlessness and wanton violence of all against all, "Christ and his saints slept").
You’re not wrong there, but I’d say that that context is important because of the way in which Hobbes’ thought influences modern political thought. Not so much the 18c stuff, as he apparently wasn’t read much then, but Runciman’s recent work.
Nice list. One point I'd like to make about Hobbes is that while his theoretical mechanistic notion of men predicts the war of all against all, Leviathan probably shouldn't be read outside of the context of Behemoth. That is to say that Hobbes also had empirical evidence from his personal experiences in the English Civil War as to what happens when anarchy reigns. (In fact, this seems to be a general empirical realisation that arises from English Civil Wars, since the chroniclers writing about the civil war between Stephan and Maude over the English throne in the 12th century described it as a period of lawlessness and wanton violence of all against all, "Christ and his saints slept").