Just wanted to make sure we agree the definition of s-risks doesn’t include any claim about their likelihood
That’s probably the best way to think of it, yeah.
I think the definition isn’t rigorous enough to withstand lots of scrutiny. Still, in my view, it serves as a useful “pointer.”
You could argue that the definition implicitly tracks probabilities because in order to assess whether some source of expected suffering constitutes an s-risk, we have to check how it matches up against all other sources of expected suffering in terms of “probability times magnitude and severity.” But this just moves the issue to “what’s our current expectation over future suffering.” It’s definitely reasonable for people to have widely different views on this, so it makes sense to have that discussion independent of the specific assumptions behind that s-risk definition.
Good point, thanks!
That’s probably the best way to think of it, yeah.
I think the definition isn’t rigorous enough to withstand lots of scrutiny. Still, in my view, it serves as a useful “pointer.”
You could argue that the definition implicitly tracks probabilities because in order to assess whether some source of expected suffering constitutes an s-risk, we have to check how it matches up against all other sources of expected suffering in terms of “probability times magnitude and severity.” But this just moves the issue to “what’s our current expectation over future suffering.” It’s definitely reasonable for people to have widely different views on this, so it makes sense to have that discussion independent of the specific assumptions behind that s-risk definition.