I predict that you will say that the hope come from diversity in future Everett branches
Nope. I believe (a) model uncertainty dominates quantum uncertainty regarding the outcome of AGI, but also (b) it is overwhelmingly likely that there are some future Everett branches where humanity survives. (b) certainly does not imply that these highly-likely-to-exist Everett branches comprise the majority of the probability mass I place on AGI going well.
what I really want out of this conversation: for people on this site to stop conflating the notion of a future Everett branch with the notion of a possible world or a possible future
I agree that these things shouldn’t be conflated. I just think “it is entirely possible that AGI will kill every single one of us in every single future Everett branch” is not a good example to illustrate this, since it is almost certainly false.
But there’s a larger issue, an issue that I think matters here: You didn’t realize just how very different that the claims “has high probability of occurring in most worlds” from the claim “a certain thing will happen in every world”. That first claim is much easier to show than the second claim, since you now have to consider every example, or have a clever trick, since any counterexample breaks your claim.
Nope. I believe (a) model uncertainty dominates quantum uncertainty regarding the outcome of AGI, but also (b) it is overwhelmingly likely that there are some future Everett branches where humanity survives. (b) certainly does not imply that these highly-likely-to-exist Everett branches comprise the majority of the probability mass I place on AGI going well.
I agree that these things shouldn’t be conflated. I just think “it is entirely possible that AGI will kill every single one of us in every single future Everett branch” is not a good example to illustrate this, since it is almost certainly false.
If something is almost certainly false, then it remains entirely possible that it is true—because a tiny probability is still a possibility :)
But, yeah, it was not a good example to illustrate any point I care enough about to defend on this forum.
But there’s a larger issue, an issue that I think matters here: You didn’t realize just how very different that the claims “has high probability of occurring in most worlds” from the claim “a certain thing will happen in every world”. That first claim is much easier to show than the second claim, since you now have to consider every example, or have a clever trick, since any counterexample breaks your claim.
Most!=All is an important distinction here.