I think that it’s good to think concretely about what multiverse trading actually looks like, but I think problem 1 is a red herring—Darwinian selective pressure is irrelevant where there’s only one entity, and ASIs should ensure that at least over a wide swathe of the universe there is only one entity. At the boundaries between two ASIs if defence is simpler than offense there’ll be plenty of slack for non-selective preferences.
My bigger problem is that multiverse acausal trade requires that agent A in universe 1, can simulate that universe 2 exists, with agent B, which will simulate agent A in universe 1. Which is not theoretically impossible (if for example the amount of available compute increases without bound in both universes, or if it’s possible to prove facts about the other universe without needing to simulate the whole thing), but does seem incredibly unlikely—and almost certainly not worth the cost required to attempt to search for such an agent.
I think that it’s good to think concretely about what multiverse trading actually looks like, but I think problem 1 is a red herring—Darwinian selective pressure is irrelevant where there’s only one entity, and ASIs should ensure that at least over a wide swathe of the universe there is only one entity. At the boundaries between two ASIs if defence is simpler than offense there’ll be plenty of slack for non-selective preferences.
My bigger problem is that multiverse acausal trade requires that agent A in universe 1, can simulate that universe 2 exists, with agent B, which will simulate agent A in universe 1. Which is not theoretically impossible (if for example the amount of available compute increases without bound in both universes, or if it’s possible to prove facts about the other universe without needing to simulate the whole thing), but does seem incredibly unlikely—and almost certainly not worth the cost required to attempt to search for such an agent.