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Haven't we seen from history that handing down policy from your ivory tower is a disservice to all involved? Or do we think out of touch politicians accurately represent the interests if their constituents?

Another example you might be familiar with is enterprise architects. When you spend all of your time in theory you lose sight of practical implications. Of course, since you only had the idea, when it doesn't go to your ideal it can always be blamed on the implementers.

> Haven't we seen from history that handing down policy from your ivory tower is a disservice to all involved?

I take it you've never worked with an in-house legal counsel, accounting department, or good ol' fashioned HR?

I have but at least for the technical domains I have overseen, policy was not dictated by legal by cocreated based on my input, except in cases where we were bound by law specifically (eg reporting timelines to gov agencies).

HR is a bit different and strange to bring up, especially considering I used enterprise architect as an example. AI safety would presumably be not cross-cutting for all domains at a company (does the janitorial staff need to know about it? no but they do need sexual harassment training), but be more like the enterprise architects designing in the sky and handing it down for implementation.

> policy was not dictated by legal by cocreated based on my input,

Yes but ultimately legal isn't putting policy into practice, which is my point.

> HR is a bit different and strange to bring up, especially considering I used enterprise architect as an example. AI safety would presumably be not cross-cutting for all domains at a company

Frankly, you're nitpicking the analogy while missing the broader point it's serving to make.

What is the broader point? Enterprise architects also are not responsible for implementing their ideas.