# You're an AI Expert – Not an Influencer

### *Your hot takes are killing your credibility.*

Prior to my last year at ControlAI, I was a physicist working on technical AI safety research. Like many of those warning about the dangers of AI, I don’t come from a background in public communications, but I’ve quickly learned some important rules. The #1 rule that I’ve seen far too many others in this field break is that ***You’re an AI Expert - Not an Influencer.***

![Four-panel comic. Top left: a stick figure stands on a cliff speaking to a crowd, saying "We Should Ban Superintelligence!" Top right: the entire crowd is green and smiling, showing unified support. Bottom left: the same stick figure on the cliff says "And My Thoughts On Abortion Are..." Bottom right: the crowd is now split in half, with the left side turned red and angry (one holding a pitchfork), while the right side remains green and happy, illustrating how stepping outside your area of expertise into partisan topics fractures a previously united audience.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ZVGo!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F488e1886-9e16-4a00-a0be-d4a6d88744e4_1433x1405.png)

**When communicating to an audience, your persona is one of two broad categories: Influencer or Professional**

*   **Influencers** are individuals who build an audience around themselves as a person. Their currency is popularity and their audience values them for who they are and what they believe, not just what they know.
*   **Professionals** are individuals who appear in the public eye as representatives of their expertise or organization. Their currency is credibility and their audience values them for what they know and what they represent, not who they are.

*So*… let’s say you’re trying to be a public figure making a difference about AI risk. You’ve been on a podcast or two, maybe even on The News. You might work at an AI policy organization, or perhaps you’re an independent professor, researcher, or even a spokesperson for a protest group. Notably, you're not just a person shouting from the sidelines, you're someone building an actual platform as a spokesperson for this issue.

**That makes you a Professional.**

But of course, even though you’re not an Influencer, you’re a person with Opinions about many things.

For the sake of this piece, let’s say the latest topic of heated political debate is over a new species of Alpine Worm, let’s call this the Alpine Worm Scandal. Today you saw an Alpine Worm in your garden and it’s irritated you enough that You’re Gonna Tweet About It!

### **STOP – What Would Media Training Steve do?**

Media training is often maligned as a dark art used by politicians to avoid answering questions, but it’s actually quite important to understand what you should and shouldn’t say based on your role for the sake of the audience, your credibility, and your message.

**Your role as a Professional is to warn about AI risk, answer related questions, and present solutions. That’s it.**

Media Training Steve knows that while he has strong beliefs about the Alpine Worm Scandal, so does his audience. In fact, because concern about AI is (currently) [so non-partisan](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/11/06/republicans-democrats-now-equally-concerned-about-ai-in-daily-life-but-views-on-regulation-differ/), he’s cultivated an audience roughly split between Pro-Wormers, Anti-Wormers, and people who intentionally avoid Worm politics altogether.

If Media Training Steve posts about his strong Anti-Worm views, this will likely:

1.  Alienate portions of his Pro-Worm audience from him
2.  Allow his opposition cheap Worm-based attacks against him
3.  Associate AI risk prevention as a whole with Anti-Wormerism
4.  Fail to influence his audience’s views on Alpine Worms  *(*presumably why he posted about the Worms in the first place!)

**If your audience member is on the other team, you’re done.** For the majority of the general public, modern politics is essentially team sports, especially in the US. When you take a stance on a partisan issue, you signal your allegiance to a team. At best, the other team will just disregard you and click to the next post, but at worst they will associate AI risk concerns with your team and disregard the issue as a whole.

**Rule of Thumb:** ***“Don’t make arguments others can’t repeat” –*** figure out the best case anyone can make, and make it.

Posting off-topic political takes also provides dangerous ammunition to your opposition.

For example, imagine Steve did make his Anti-Worm post, and then later is trying to make inroads about AI risk with Pro-Worm political leaders. The AI industry no longer has to fight him on AI risk, instead, they can just reference his Anti-Worm beliefs as an out-group signal and a reason to ignore him.

Even worse, if Steve is a leading figure talking about AI extinction risk, this same redirection attack can be used on *others* in AI safety…“Oh you’re just all Anti-Wormers, look at Steve!”

**Communicating about AI extinction risk is interesting in part because it’s a new topic for most people and not already correlated strongly with their pre-existing views.** Preventing the end of humanity is also just intrinsically non-partisan, and we should endeavor to keep it that way.

**A very bad timeline is one where AI risk prevention becomes partisan.**

Finally, as an AI expert, Steve isn’t actually going to change the minds of any meaningful portion of his audience about the Alpine Worm Scandal.

He’d have mistaken himself for an Influencer, someone whose audience cares about his personal and political views, not just his specific area of expertise. Audiences find it awkward when you’re clearly stepping out of your lane, and they’re already getting their Worm takes from elsewhere anyway.

All of that downside, and for what?

**Don’t Feed Your Enemies**
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Among friends and family, you can happily (or unhappily) discuss your many opinions with each other in the context of being private individuals with many beliefs who care about each other on a personal level. You aren’t tied to everything you’ve ever said, and you can change your mind.

**When in the public arena, this is not the case.**

Regular people often post on public feeds about their many opinions. Most of the time, nothing happens, sometimes they go viral, or they get cancelled. Posting in public is dangerous.

You’re a Professional, and you’re conveying a message that the most valuable industry in the world wants to suppress, which means…

**You Have Enemies.**

And they won’t play nice.

They can and will go through hours of your podcast transcripts to catch you when you slip and use this against you until the end of time. You can’t take back a statement once you’ve made it, they’ll simply ignore your apology and keep broadcasting your slip-up anyway.

If you were a person-who-posts-hot-takes before getting involved in AI risk prevention, it might be a good idea to go back and delete some posts (though be aware nothing is truly gone on the internet).

You also should expect the AI industry to play dirtier as the endgame draws nearer.

**Like it or not, this is an adversarial game. You can choose to play it that way or lose.**

You might be uncomfortable with the idea of having enemies. If so, you should give [this excellent piece](https://cognition.cafe/p/how-to-think-about-enemies-the-example) by Gabe Alfour a read.

If you haven’t sat with this reality before, I recommend you do so before entering the public arena. It’s okay to decide the risks are too much for you, and there are plenty of ways to help outside of the spotlight.

**The Luxury of Not Being a Politician**
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Politicians are at the extreme end of Influencers, where people follow, support, and vote for you based on how they feel about your policy positions. Unlike most Influencers, Politicians’ beliefs directly impact the world, and so they are analyzed and criticized extensively.

**One reason being a Politician is hell is that it’s a role where people expect you to have positions on everything, everywhere, all at once.** Thus, Politicians are always lying, dodging, and giving half-answers precisely because they understand the tradeoffs of being vocal about too many beliefs.

People process the speech of Professionals differently than Influencers. This is because Professionals trade in credibility and have to earn their way to the stage via their expertise.

**This is a huge luxury! Don’t squander it!**

As a Professional, you can just say “That’s outside the realm of my expertise.” if faced with questions not pertinent to your work, and people will respect you for it! Conversely, if you step outside your domain, audiences know you’re wasting their time, and your lack of Professionalism reflects poorly on you.

The funny thing is that politicians understand this very well, and expect you to stick to your expertise, even if you’re trying to agree with their policy positions.

**For example, look at how Bernie Sanders reacts to Geoffrey Hinton getting political**:

> (25:13) Hinton: “…And if you want an example of \[how persuasion can impact the world\]: If you want to invade the Capitol which is not far from here, all you need to be able to do is talk to people and you can get them to do it. You don’t have to go there yourself.”
> 
> \[Long silence with some audience laughter, slow pan to Bernie\]
> 
> Bernie: “… … Umm .. Okay … \[changes the subject\]”

Bernie knows that Hinton’s value to the conversation is being the Nobel Laureate Godfather of AI, not a political commentator, and this comment is cutting into his credibility.

There are other digs Hinton makes throughout this interview, with which Bernie consistently doesn’t engage and guides Hinton back to AI, despite Hinton voicing opinions Bernie likely shares.

Note: This also fails our rule of thumb from above, as many people wouldn’t reiterate this example!

### **So How Do You Deal With Politics?**

You don’t - at least not publicly.

> *“But the Alpine Worms are literally eating my flowers right now, how do I NOT speak up?”*

The cost of being a Professional is that you don’t talk in public about issues outside of the ones where you’ve built up intellectual capital – trust me, the exchange rate is terrible.

Of course, you can talk in private about these issues, or have private social media for your close friends and family.

You can also participate in civil democratic activities like attending a city council meeting in a personal capacity without leveraging your Professional profile. You should still be careful because depending on the situation this could be used against you.

It should also be said that if another issue is really calling you (perhaps there are too many Alpine Worms for you to think about anything else), then go work on that issue! Just please don’t try to do both. You’ve got finite resources and you’ll get more done overall focusing on one issue at a time.

Additionally, for topics that aren’t very contentious, it can be fine to signal other beliefs. For example, warning about superintelligent AI can often result in Luddite accusations. Responding to this by pointing out that you’re generally pro-innovation and think technology brings a lot of benefits is reasonable and unlikely to cause a stir.

**Conclusion**
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Achieving an international ban on superintelligent AI will take considerable effort and discipline.

Many things need to happen for us to succeed: we need to scale rapidly, improve our messaging, and be resilient against attacks from our opposition.

Those of us operating in the public eye need to step up our game, start playing more seriously, and hold each other to a higher standard.

That means acting like Professionals.