The outermost layer should concern issues people you are trying to influence care about. Alas, aside from global warming, this means ignoring things that won’t happen in the next 50 years. The outermost layer should also take into account confirmation bias so don’t claim in this layer that the possibility of developing a super-intelligence reduces the optimal amount of money we should spend today on slowing global warming because this will cause much of the elite media to reduce their opinion of you. The outermost layer should also completely exclude anything that will trigger disgust reactions in the elite media even if this disgust is totally irrational. Finally, your goal in this layer should be to embed an elevator pitch that overcomes the absurdity heuristic you must encounter when you claim your goal is to develop a super-intelligence.
Although this speaks very poorly for our species, the danger of discussing existential risk in the outermost layer is that it will cause most people to find you uninteresting.
This doesn’t mean the outer layer is about the dangers of robotic cars or military drones. Other people are already talking about this, they are more expert than you and have more interesting things to say that include Powerpoint slides, and you will rapidly be lost in the crowd.
If the outer layer is for communicating with the “general public” won’t you be doing this mostly through reporters who are writing <1000 word articles or doing short audio or video segments? Don’t they just want someone to say interesting things for 10 minutes, and in return for helping them you could get your name out there and perhaps attract new donors? Or have you found little benefit from appearing in such articles?
The outermost layer should concern issues people you are trying to influence care about. Alas, aside from global warming, this means ignoring things that won’t happen in the next 50 years. The outermost layer should also take into account confirmation bias so don’t claim in this layer that the possibility of developing a super-intelligence reduces the optimal amount of money we should spend today on slowing global warming because this will cause much of the elite media to reduce their opinion of you. The outermost layer should also completely exclude anything that will trigger disgust reactions in the elite media even if this disgust is totally irrational. Finally, your goal in this layer should be to embed an elevator pitch that overcomes the absurdity heuristic you must encounter when you claim your goal is to develop a super-intelligence.
Although this speaks very poorly for our species, the danger of discussing existential risk in the outermost layer is that it will cause most people to find you uninteresting.
This doesn’t mean the outer layer is about the dangers of robotic cars or military drones. Other people are already talking about this, they are more expert than you and have more interesting things to say that include Powerpoint slides, and you will rapidly be lost in the crowd.
If the outer layer is for communicating with the “general public” won’t you be doing this mostly through reporters who are writing <1000 word articles or doing short audio or video segments? Don’t they just want someone to say interesting things for 10 minutes, and in return for helping them you could get your name out there and perhaps attract new donors? Or have you found little benefit from appearing in such articles?