Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re assuming that providing one billionth of this year’s investment in AI means decreasing the expected utility from human extinction by one billionth. But that’s not right. If you invest in AI, that means the AI companies will choose to raise less money from other investors. The net effect is that AI companies will raise a little more money than if you hadn’t invested (but less than the amount you invest), get a better interest rate, and spend less effort on fundraising this year. And this will have some effect on the probability of an extinction-level AI catastrophe this generation, but the effect isn’t linear in the amount you invest.
In a parallel thread, your theory of impact was that divestment has an effect on regulation. That’s also nonlinear.
Investing in AI is something I’m likely to do. (Arguably >10% of the S&P 500 by market cap use marginal investment to try to build frontier models.) Here’s how I justify it: The amount of stock I can buy won’t move the stock price perceptibly. If I estimated the price movement it would be tiny. That would translate into AI companies expending a tiny bit less effort on selling stock this year to fund datacenters, which accelerates timelines a little bit, which increases existential risk a very tiny amount. On the other hand, if I invest my savings in a broad-market index fund that includes AI, that’ll increase my savings and I’ll have more time to spend doing AI safety research, calling my Congressperson, etc., which are more directly impactful. Plus, I have lots of personal uses for more money.
I’m basically satisfied with where this thread ended up. (I just wanted to convey that it’s in general reasonable to do things that seem individually worth it, even if they seem to be promoting AI in some way.) I want to flag that I won’t have the energy to find a crux in our disagreement over the Unslop contest or whether I should buy index funds. Though if you have a good argument about why not to buy index funds I haven’t thought of, I’ll be interested to hear that.
You seem to be confusing some things, probably because I was not as precise with definitions of terms as I should have been.
In a parallel thread, your theory of impact was that divestment has an effect on regulation. That’s also nonlinear.
Divestment was an example of a common behavior activists engage in (which I would broadly speaking endorse). The impact from divestment on a industry is different from the negative impact of funding, advertising them, and paying an industry. They not direct inversions of each other, divesting is a very different activity.
Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re assuming that providing one billionth of this year’s investment in AI means decreasing the expected utility from human extinction by one billionth.
I said “contributing to AI development” here, not investing. What is meant by “investing” is more nuanced (e.g. buying stocks second-hand on the open market is not actually ‘investing’ in the economic sense).
Here, I am including something as simple as buying AI products (a substantial portion of money sent will contribute to AI development).
But that’s not right. If you invest in AI, that means the AI companies will choose to raise less money from other investors.
This is (generally) the exact opposite of how investment works. Me investing a dollar, encourages Steve to invest a dollar which provides collateral to borrow another 2 dollars. Me not investing a dollar encourages Steve not to invest a dollar. Me spending a dollar a product boosts that company’s profits, encouraging others to invest more dollars and moving outward the company’s expected demand, encouraging them to invest internally in expanding that product.
Investments follow trends, both of other investments and of consumer behavior, moving investment towards one thing moves more investment towards it.
which increases existential risk a very tiny amount.
A very tiny increase in an extreme risk is very negative. And remember, these are aggregate risks that cover some probability distribution of outcomes, not just flat +/- x risk. It is accurate, as such, to estimate the EU as a portion of the whole, not just the absolute movement in risk.
Investing in AI is something I’m likely to do. (Arguably >10% of the S&P 500 by market cap use marginal investment to try to build frontier models.)
Assuming you aren’t a private equity firm or buying directly in IPOs, your personal finances have minimal direct impact on the economic investment which is the investment one cares about. Divesting from exposed firms is a signaling behavior and really most useful when the divestment is coming from funds that are actually providing investment, not just trading on the open market (divestment movements generally focus on capital funds and large endowments).
Now we’re getting somewhere. You’re assuming that providing one billionth of this year’s investment in AI means decreasing the expected utility from human extinction by one billionth. But that’s not right. If you invest in AI, that means the AI companies will choose to raise less money from other investors. The net effect is that AI companies will raise a little more money than if you hadn’t invested (but less than the amount you invest), get a better interest rate, and spend less effort on fundraising this year. And this will have some effect on the probability of an extinction-level AI catastrophe this generation, but the effect isn’t linear in the amount you invest.
In a parallel thread, your theory of impact was that divestment has an effect on regulation. That’s also nonlinear.
Investing in AI is something I’m likely to do. (Arguably >10% of the S&P 500 by market cap use marginal investment to try to build frontier models.) Here’s how I justify it: The amount of stock I can buy won’t move the stock price perceptibly. If I estimated the price movement it would be tiny. That would translate into AI companies expending a tiny bit less effort on selling stock this year to fund datacenters, which accelerates timelines a little bit, which increases existential risk a very tiny amount. On the other hand, if I invest my savings in a broad-market index fund that includes AI, that’ll increase my savings and I’ll have more time to spend doing AI safety research, calling my Congressperson, etc., which are more directly impactful. Plus, I have lots of personal uses for more money.
I’m basically satisfied with where this thread ended up. (I just wanted to convey that it’s in general reasonable to do things that seem individually worth it, even if they seem to be promoting AI in some way.) I want to flag that I won’t have the energy to find a crux in our disagreement over the Unslop contest or whether I should buy index funds. Though if you have a good argument about why not to buy index funds I haven’t thought of, I’ll be interested to hear that.
You seem to be confusing some things, probably because I was not as precise with definitions of terms as I should have been.
Divestment was an example of a common behavior activists engage in (which I would broadly speaking endorse). The impact from divestment on a industry is different from the negative impact of funding, advertising them, and paying an industry. They not direct inversions of each other, divesting is a very different activity.
I said “contributing to AI development” here, not investing. What is meant by “investing” is more nuanced (e.g. buying stocks second-hand on the open market is not actually ‘investing’ in the economic sense).
Here, I am including something as simple as buying AI products (a substantial portion of money sent will contribute to AI development).
This is (generally) the exact opposite of how investment works. Me investing a dollar, encourages Steve to invest a dollar which provides collateral to borrow another 2 dollars. Me not investing a dollar encourages Steve not to invest a dollar. Me spending a dollar a product boosts that company’s profits, encouraging others to invest more dollars and moving outward the company’s expected demand, encouraging them to invest internally in expanding that product.
Investments follow trends, both of other investments and of consumer behavior, moving investment towards one thing moves more investment towards it.
A very tiny increase in an extreme risk is very negative. And remember, these are aggregate risks that cover some probability distribution of outcomes, not just flat +/- x risk. It is accurate, as such, to estimate the EU as a portion of the whole, not just the absolute movement in risk.
Assuming you aren’t a private equity firm or buying directly in IPOs, your personal finances have minimal direct impact on the economic investment which is the investment one cares about. Divesting from exposed firms is a signaling behavior and really most useful when the divestment is coming from funds that are actually providing investment, not just trading on the open market (divestment movements generally focus on capital funds and large endowments).