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).
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).