Or idk about high but typically people aren’t thinking about the marginal probability change from their exact actions and are instead thinking about it similarly to other problems. Like people aren’t typically arguing “doom is high, but it’s actually very different from other problems you might work on: it’s extremely hard to avert relative to other problems, so it’s a pascal’s mugging and people shouldn’t work on reducing risk”.
Okay that’s good to know. I’ve mostly encountered the argument as a reply to individuals worrying that they’re getting Pascal’s-mugged into working on AI safety. In that sort of case,
AI safety can’t be a Pascal’s mugging because p(doom) is high
is invalid, and the premise needed to make it valid --
If p(doom) is high, then p(you can avert doom) is high
-- is way too doubtful to leave implicit.
But if the argument is a reply to people worried that the world/US government is getting Pascal’s-mugged into working on AI safety, then the premise needed to make it valid is
If p(doom) is high, then p(the world/USG can avert doom) is high
and I agree that premise is safe/uncontroversial enough to leave implicit.
Yes [1] , and also that the argument often isn’t about “what should I do” and is more about “what would be good policy / what should the world do”.
Or idk about high but typically people aren’t thinking about the marginal probability change from their exact actions and are instead thinking about it similarly to other problems. Like people aren’t typically arguing “doom is high, but it’s actually very different from other problems you might work on: it’s extremely hard to avert relative to other problems, so it’s a pascal’s mugging and people shouldn’t work on reducing risk”.
Okay that’s good to know. I’ve mostly encountered the argument as a reply to individuals worrying that they’re getting Pascal’s-mugged into working on AI safety. In that sort of case,
is invalid, and the premise needed to make it valid --
-- is way too doubtful to leave implicit.
But if the argument is a reply to people worried that the world/US government is getting Pascal’s-mugged into working on AI safety, then the premise needed to make it valid is
and I agree that premise is safe/uncontroversial enough to leave implicit.