Too unlikely. I’ve heard three versions of this concern. One is that s-risks are unlikely. I simply don’t think it is as explained above, in the post proper. The second version is that it’s 1/10th of extinction, hence less likely, hence not a priority. The third version of this take is that it’s just psychologically hard to be motivated for something that is not the mode of the probability distribution of how the future will turn out (given such clusters as s-risks, extinction, and business as usual). So even if s-risks are much worse and only slightly less likely than extinction, they’re still hard for people to work on.
There have been countless discussions of takeoff speeds. The slower the takeoff and the closer the arms race, the greater the risk of a multipolar takeoff. Most of you probably have some intuition of what the risk of a multipolar takeoff is. S-risk is probably just 1/10th of that – wild guess. So I’m afraid that the risk is quite macroscopic.
The second version ignores the expected value. I acknowledge that expected value calculus has its limitations, but if we use it at all, and we clearly do, a lot, then there’s no reason to ignore its implications specifically for s-risks. With all ITN factors taken together but ignoring probabilities, s-risk work beats other x-risk work by a factor of 10^12 for me (your mileage may vary), so if it’s just 10x less likely, that’s not decisive for me.
My perhaps a bit naive take (acausal stuff, other grabby aliens, etc.) is that a conflict needs at least two, and humans are too weak and uncoordinated to be much of an adversary. Hence I’m not so worried about monopolar takeoffs. Not sure, though. Maybe I should be more worried about those too.
Too unlikely. I’ve heard three versions of this concern. One is that s-risks are unlikely. I simply don’t think it is as explained above, in the post proper. The second version is that it’s 1/10th of extinction, hence less likely, hence not a priority. The third version of this take is that it’s just psychologically hard to be motivated for something that is not the mode of the probability distribution of how the future will turn out (given such clusters as s-risks, extinction, and business as usual). So even if s-risks are much worse and only slightly less likely than extinction, they’re still hard for people to work on.
There have been countless discussions of takeoff speeds. The slower the takeoff and the closer the arms race, the greater the risk of a multipolar takeoff. Most of you probably have some intuition of what the risk of a multipolar takeoff is. S-risk is probably just 1/10th of that – wild guess. So I’m afraid that the risk is quite macroscopic.
The second version ignores the expected value. I acknowledge that expected value calculus has its limitations, but if we use it at all, and we clearly do, a lot, then there’s no reason to ignore its implications specifically for s-risks. With all ITN factors taken together but ignoring probabilities, s-risk work beats other x-risk work by a factor of 10^12 for me (your mileage may vary), so if it’s just 10x less likely, that’s not decisive for me.
I don’t have a response to the third version.
I don’t understand why you think a multipolar takeoff would run S-risks.
My perhaps a bit naive take (acausal stuff, other grabby aliens, etc.) is that a conflict needs at least two, and humans are too weak and uncoordinated to be much of an adversary. Hence I’m not so worried about monopolar takeoffs. Not sure, though. Maybe I should be more worried about those too.