Prevention, Not a Pause
Why a temporary slowdown is the wrong ask, and what we actually want governments to do.
Slow down, then resume
Assumes safety will catch up on a schedule. Treats superintelligence as inevitable, just early. Hands the restart button back to the same race once the clock runs out.
Do not build it
Prohibits systems past a general-capability threshold until control is actually solved. No scheduled restart. The ban holds for as long as the science cannot make the gamble survivable.
Nobody has a validated way to control a smarter mind
Not at small scale. Not at large. Leading labs say so in public. A pause that assumes alignment will finish on time is a bet with no method behind it. Prevention is the off-ramp from that bet.
Narrow AI keeps going
Medicines, weather models, industrial optimizers, coding assistants: tools with no goals of their own stay legal and funded. The line falls around the autonomous general mind, not around AI as a whole.
Treaties already do this kind of work
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not "pause" bombs for five years. It limits who may build them, with inspections. Chemical weapons and ozone-depleting chemicals got the same treatment. Superintelligence needs that shape of law, not a kitchen timer.