It’s worth doing but very hard. GCR is a first stab at this, but really it’s going to take 20 times that amount of effort to make a first pass at the project you describe, and there just aren’t that many researchers seriously trying to do this kind of thing. Even if CSER takes off and MIRI and FHI both expand their research programs, I’d expect it to be at least another decade before that much work has been done.
It feels like more research on this issue would have the effect of gradually improving the clarity of the existential risk picture. Do you think the current picture is sufficiently unclear that most potential interventions might backfire? Given limited resources, perhaps the best path is to do targeted investigation of what appear to be the most promising interventions and stop as soon as one that seems highly unlikely to backfire is identified, or something like that.
What level of clarity is represented by a “first pass”?
It’s worth doing but very hard. GCR is a first stab at this, but really it’s going to take 20 times that amount of effort to make a first pass at the project you describe, and there just aren’t that many researchers seriously trying to do this kind of thing. Even if CSER takes off and MIRI and FHI both expand their research programs, I’d expect it to be at least another decade before that much work has been done.
It feels like more research on this issue would have the effect of gradually improving the clarity of the existential risk picture. Do you think the current picture is sufficiently unclear that most potential interventions might backfire? Given limited resources, perhaps the best path is to do targeted investigation of what appear to be the most promising interventions and stop as soon as one that seems highly unlikely to backfire is identified, or something like that.
What level of clarity is represented by a “first pass”?