I think I have answered to some of your objections in answer to another comment.
I think we would not resolve our disagreement easily in a comment thread: I feel like I am missing pieces of the worldview which make me make wrong predictions about our current world when I try to make back-predictions (e.g. why do we have so much prosperity now if coordination is so hard), and I am also disagreeing on some observations about the current world (e.g. my current understanding of the IPCC report is that it is much less doomy about our current trajectory than you seem to suggest). I’d be happy to chat in person at some point to sort this out!
On a lighter note, I feel like many people here are much more sympathetic to “power concentration bad” when thinking about the gradual decline of democracy than when facing concerns about China winning the AI race. I think this is mostly vibes, I don’t think many people are actually making the mistake of choosing their terminal values based on whether it results in the conclusion “we should stop” vs “we should go faster” (+ there are some differences between the two scenarios), but I really wanted to make this meme:
I’m confused or don’t find this funny or don’t think it goes through at all or would like you to explain the joke.
The counterfactual to China winning is the US winning, which still concentrates power; the more accurate version of the second panel would be “power concentration bad unless the US does it.”
And for anyone who thinks power concentration is bad unless the US does it, they have to engage with the ‘AGI-enabled decline of democracy’ arguments in order to begin to advocate for their position seriously.
I don’t think there are just ‘some differences’ here; I think this is a complete disanalogy.
One reason to think that the US winning concentrates power less is that the US is a democracy with a strong tradition of maintaining individual rights and a reasonably strong history (over the last 80 years) of pursuing a world order where it benefits from lots of countries being pretty stable and not e.g. invading each other.
Yes, this is the argument I was anticipating with:
for anyone who thinks power concentration is bad unless the US does it, they have to engage with the ‘AGI-enabled decline of democracy’ arguments in order to begin to advocate for their position seriously
I don’t think you just get it for free; I think you need to explain why you expect this to hold as shit gets crazy. It’s prima facie reasonable to think that the US is likely to act more responsibly than China here; I don’t think it’s prima facie reasonable to think that any actor is likely to act especially responsibly (e.g. in a way that sidesteps the concerns of the character from panel 1).
Power concentration bad so power concentration bad, even if by a marginally more benevolent actor.
(likely we disagree on the delta between future US and future China here, but I’d like to avoid arguing that point; I just mean to point out that the absolute reasonableness matters, and that flatly synonymizing the US with freedom, casting it as an actor incapable of the bad kind of concentration of power*, and China with authoritarianism, casting it as an actor obligated to commit the bad kind of concentration of power, is a mistake)
The US loses and democracy loses are just not the same situation; the US is an example of a democracy; it’s not The Spirit Of Democracy Itself.
*without addressing the gradual disempowerment arguments ahead of time
You don’t get it for free, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that P(concentrated power | US wins) is smaller than P(concentrated power | China wins) given that the later is close to 1 (except if you are very doomy about power concentration, which I am not), right? Not claiming the US is more reasonable, just that it’s more likely that a western democracy winning makes power concentration less likely to happen than if it’s a one-party state. It’s also possible I am overestimating P(concentrated power | China wins), I am not an expert in Chinese politics.
I disagree on your assessment of both nations, and am pretty doomy about concentration of power.
I think how a nation with a decisive strategic advantage treats the rest of the world has more to do with its decisive strategic advantage and its needs, and less to do with its flag, or even history.
Anyway, my main point was structural: if panel 2 depends on holding very particular views regarding panel 1, the parallelism is lost and it hurts the joke.
I think I have answered to some of your objections in answer to another comment.
I think we would not resolve our disagreement easily in a comment thread: I feel like I am missing pieces of the worldview which make me make wrong predictions about our current world when I try to make back-predictions (e.g. why do we have so much prosperity now if coordination is so hard), and I am also disagreeing on some observations about the current world (e.g. my current understanding of the IPCC report is that it is much less doomy about our current trajectory than you seem to suggest). I’d be happy to chat in person at some point to sort this out!
On a lighter note, I feel like many people here are much more sympathetic to “power concentration bad” when thinking about the gradual decline of democracy than when facing concerns about China winning the AI race. I think this is mostly vibes, I don’t think many people are actually making the mistake of choosing their terminal values based on whether it results in the conclusion “we should stop” vs “we should go faster” (+ there are some differences between the two scenarios), but I really wanted to make this meme:
I’m confused or don’t find this funny or don’t think it goes through at all or would like you to explain the joke.
The counterfactual to China winning is the US winning, which still concentrates power; the more accurate version of the second panel would be “power concentration bad unless the US does it.”
And for anyone who thinks power concentration is bad unless the US does it, they have to engage with the ‘AGI-enabled decline of democracy’ arguments in order to begin to advocate for their position seriously.
I don’t think there are just ‘some differences’ here; I think this is a complete disanalogy.
One reason to think that the US winning concentrates power less is that the US is a democracy with a strong tradition of maintaining individual rights and a reasonably strong history (over the last 80 years) of pursuing a world order where it benefits from lots of countries being pretty stable and not e.g. invading each other.
Yes, this is the argument I was anticipating with:
I don’t think you just get it for free; I think you need to explain why you expect this to hold as shit gets crazy. It’s prima facie reasonable to think that the US is likely to act more responsibly than China here; I don’t think it’s prima facie reasonable to think that any actor is likely to act especially responsibly (e.g. in a way that sidesteps the concerns of the character from panel 1).
Power concentration bad so power concentration bad, even if by a marginally more benevolent actor.
(likely we disagree on the delta between future US and future China here, but I’d like to avoid arguing that point; I just mean to point out that the absolute reasonableness matters, and that flatly synonymizing the US with freedom, casting it as an actor incapable of the bad kind of concentration of power*, and China with authoritarianism, casting it as an actor obligated to commit the bad kind of concentration of power, is a mistake)
The US loses and democracy loses are just not the same situation; the US is an example of a democracy; it’s not The Spirit Of Democracy Itself.
*without addressing the gradual disempowerment arguments ahead of time
You don’t get it for free, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that P(concentrated power | US wins) is smaller than P(concentrated power | China wins) given that the later is close to 1 (except if you are very doomy about power concentration, which I am not), right? Not claiming the US is more reasonable, just that it’s more likely that a western democracy winning makes power concentration less likely to happen than if it’s a one-party state. It’s also possible I am overestimating P(concentrated power | China wins), I am not an expert in Chinese politics.
I disagree on your assessment of both nations, and am pretty doomy about concentration of power.
I think how a nation with a decisive strategic advantage treats the rest of the world has more to do with its decisive strategic advantage and its needs, and less to do with its flag, or even history.
Anyway, my main point was structural: if panel 2 depends on holding very particular views regarding panel 1, the parallelism is lost and it hurts the joke.
Thanks for the response!