A name I came up with for a pattern that comes up often enough to deserve one. Here’s a particular instance:
Suppose you’re a longtermist who thinks the vast majority of the (net positive) moral weight is in the far future, that AI existential risk is above 1%, and that it’s reasonably tractable to reduce. Some people who hold all three premises still say things like: “AI safety has maybe two orders of magnitude more resources than animal welfare, so the marginal dollar is better spent on animal welfare.”
This is the fallacy of similar magnitudes: in this case, the application is that neglectedness comparisons only matter when the causes are within a couple orders of magnitude of each other in stakes. Under the stated premises, they aren’t: the a priori difference in expected value is way larger. Two orders of magnitude in resources doesn’t move the needle even a bit.
Note: this AW response could be ok if you have certain views about risk aversion or worldview diversification, but that’s besides the point.
The Fallacy of Similar Magnitudes
A name I came up with for a pattern that comes up often enough to deserve one. Here’s a particular instance:
Suppose you’re a longtermist who thinks the vast majority of the (net positive) moral weight is in the far future, that AI existential risk is above 1%, and that it’s reasonably tractable to reduce. Some people who hold all three premises still say things like: “AI safety has maybe two orders of magnitude more resources than animal welfare, so the marginal dollar is better spent on animal welfare.”
This is the fallacy of similar magnitudes: in this case, the application is that neglectedness comparisons only matter when the causes are within a couple orders of magnitude of each other in stakes. Under the stated premises, they aren’t: the a priori difference in expected value is way larger. Two orders of magnitude in resources doesn’t move the needle even a bit.
Note: this AW response could be ok if you have certain views about risk aversion or worldview diversification, but that’s besides the point.