My impression is that existential risk charity is very much unlike third-world aid charity, in that how to deliver third world aid is not a philosophically challenging problem. Everyone has a good intuitive understanding of people, of food and the lack thereof, and at least some understanding of things like incentive problems.
I suspect helping dead states efficiently and sustainably is very difficult, possibly more so than developing FAI as a shortcut. Of course, it’s a completely different kind of challenge.
I disagree strongly. You can repeatedly get it it wrong with failed states, and learn from your mistakes. The utility cost for each failure is additive, whereas the first FAI failure is fatal. Also, third world development is a process that might spontaneously solve itself via economic development and cultural change. Much to the chagrin of many charities, that might even be the optimal way to solve the problem given our resource constraints. In fact the development of the west is a particular example of this; we started out as medieval third world nations.
I disagree strongly. You can repeatedly get it it wrong with failed states, and learn from your mistakes. The utility cost for each failure is additive, whereas the first FAI failure is fatal.
Distinguish the difficulty of developing an adequate theory, from the difficulty of verifying that a theory is adequate. It’s the failure with the latter that might lead to disaster, while not failing requires a lot of informed rational caution. On the other hand, not inventing an adequate theory doesn’t directly lead to a disaster, and failure to invent an adequate theory of FAI is something you can learn from (the story of my life for the last three years).
I suspect helping dead states efficiently and sustainably is very difficult, possibly more so than developing FAI as a shortcut. Of course, it’s a completely different kind of challenge.
I disagree strongly. You can repeatedly get it it wrong with failed states, and learn from your mistakes. The utility cost for each failure is additive, whereas the first FAI failure is fatal. Also, third world development is a process that might spontaneously solve itself via economic development and cultural change. Much to the chagrin of many charities, that might even be the optimal way to solve the problem given our resource constraints. In fact the development of the west is a particular example of this; we started out as medieval third world nations.
Distinguish the difficulty of developing an adequate theory, from the difficulty of verifying that a theory is adequate. It’s the failure with the latter that might lead to disaster, while not failing requires a lot of informed rational caution. On the other hand, not inventing an adequate theory doesn’t directly lead to a disaster, and failure to invent an adequate theory of FAI is something you can learn from (the story of my life for the last three years).