I read the claim as saying that “some people and institutions concerned with AI safety” could have had more than order of magnitude more resources than they actually have, by investing. Not necessarily a claim about the aggregate where you combine their wealth with that of AI-safety sympathetic AI company founders and early employees. (Though maybe Carl believes the claim about the aggregate as well.)
Over the last 10 years, NVDA has had ~100x returns after dividing out the average S&P 500 gains. So more than an OOM of gains were possible just investing in public companies.
(Also, I think it’s slightly confusing to point to the fact that the current portfolio is so heavily weighted towards AI capability companies. That’s because the AI investments grew so much faster than everything else. It’s consistent with a small fraction of capital being in AI-related stuff 4-10y ago — which is the relevant question for determining how much larger gains were possible.)
That would make more sense! I of course agree there are some people that could have 10xd their money, though it seems like that will always be the case even when it’s obviously a bad idea to increase exposure to an asset class (e.g. the same is true for crypto, and I don’t think we should have invested more in crypto). The interesting question seems to me to be the question of whether returns were missed out on in-aggregate (as well as what the indirect effects of the exposure have been).
It’s consistent with a small fraction of capital being in AI-related stuff 4-10y ago
If you aggregate human capital (i.e. labor) and financial capital, then at least 4 years ago a very substantial fraction of “our” assets were already going long AI capability companies (by working at those companies, or founding them). It seems clear to me you should aggregate human and financial capital, so I don’t think the current capital allocation is just the result of that capital growing much faster, there had always been a quite serious investment.
I agree that there was a better argument for investing in the space 10 years ago, though calling the market was also substantially harder that far back, even with an AI-focused worldview. I also think the externalities would have been less bad at the time, though I am not that confident about that
I read the claim as saying that “some people and institutions concerned with AI safety” could have had more than order of magnitude more resources than they actually have, by investing. Not necessarily a claim about the aggregate where you combine their wealth with that of AI-safety sympathetic AI company founders and early employees. (Though maybe Carl believes the claim about the aggregate as well.)
Over the last 10 years, NVDA has had ~100x returns after dividing out the average S&P 500 gains. So more than an OOM of gains were possible just investing in public companies.
(Also, I think it’s slightly confusing to point to the fact that the current portfolio is so heavily weighted towards AI capability companies. That’s because the AI investments grew so much faster than everything else. It’s consistent with a small fraction of capital being in AI-related stuff 4-10y ago — which is the relevant question for determining how much larger gains were possible.)
That would make more sense! I of course agree there are some people that could have 10xd their money, though it seems like that will always be the case even when it’s obviously a bad idea to increase exposure to an asset class (e.g. the same is true for crypto, and I don’t think we should have invested more in crypto). The interesting question seems to me to be the question of whether returns were missed out on in-aggregate (as well as what the indirect effects of the exposure have been).
If you aggregate human capital (i.e. labor) and financial capital, then at least 4 years ago a very substantial fraction of “our” assets were already going long AI capability companies (by working at those companies, or founding them). It seems clear to me you should aggregate human and financial capital, so I don’t think the current capital allocation is just the result of that capital growing much faster, there had always been a quite serious investment.
I agree that there was a better argument for investing in the space 10 years ago, though calling the market was also substantially harder that far back, even with an AI-focused worldview. I also think the externalities would have been less bad at the time, though I am not that confident about that