“More people should write basic AI safety explainers” by Linch

LessWrong (30+ Karma) · Oct 12, 2026 · 6m

I think people continue to underrate the value of writing the clearest, most basic, simplest possible case for important parts of AI safety. For example, before I wrote my own explainer for the simplest possible case for AI doom, I noticed that all existing explainers, of which there aren't many, had multiple of the six problems below:

They have too many extraneous details

They appeal to overly complex analogies

They seem to spend much of their time responding to insider debates and come across as shadow-boxing objections.

They have "meta" stuff prominently in the text.

Often they "sound like…