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Intelligence Paradigms

Overview

This section explores different paradigms for building intelligent systems. Understanding architectural diversity helps anticipate which safety approaches may be needed and which risks are most relevant.

Current Paradigms

Dense Transformers

The dominant current architecture:

  • Massive parameter counts, uniform activation
  • Strong general capabilities
  • Well-studied safety properties
  • Examples: GPT-4, Claude, Gemini

Sparse MoE

Mixture of Experts architectures:

  • Conditional computation for efficiency
  • Routing mechanisms select experts
  • Potentially different failure modes
  • Examples: Mixtral, Switch Transformer

SSM/Mamba

State Space Models:

  • Alternative to attention mechanism
  • Linear scaling with sequence length
  • Emerging research area

Neuro-Symbolic

Hybrid neural-symbolic systems:

  • Combine learning with logical reasoning
  • Potentially more interpretable
  • Research stage

Scaffolding Approaches

Minimal Scaffolding

Foundation models with basic prompting

Light Scaffolding

Chain-of-thought, few-shot learning

Heavy Scaffolding

Extensive tool use, agentic frameworks

Alternative Pathways

World Models

Learning predictive world representations

Provably Safe

Architectures with formal safety guarantees

Biological Approaches

  • Brain-Computer Interfaces
  • Biological Organoid
  • Genetic Enhancement
  • Whole-Brain Emulation

Novel/Unknown

Architectures not yet conceived

Why Paradigms Matter for Safety

Different paradigms may have:

  • Different failure modes and risk profiles
  • Different amenability to interpretability
  • Different alignment properties
  • Different governance implications

Related Pages

Top Related Pages

Concepts

Heavy Scaffolding / Agentic SystemsLight ScaffoldingMinimal ScaffoldingSparse / MoE TransformersGenetic Enhancement / SelectionState-Space Models / Mamba