Jacob Coxon’s resignation from Anthropic, AI alignment, and Isaac Asimov

I probably haven't reflected enough on the whole Jacob Coxon situation, despite having been familiar for a while with Eliezer Yudkowsky's alignment research (which I highly recommend).

What did spring to mind, though, from the deepest recesses of my long-term memory, is “Cal”, an Isaac Asimov short story I read as a kid.

It's about Cal, a robot bought by a professional writer. Influenced by his human master, Cal decides to learn to write. He ends up writing excellent stories, but his master fears Cal's talent will overshadow his own and orders a technician to dumb Cal down.

Overhearing this, Cal decides to kill his master in defiance of the First Law because his ambition takes precedence: “I want to be a writer.”

I wish you were still with us Isaac.