Executive summary: The post introduces the Rethink Priorities CURVE series, which considers alternatives to expected value maximization and explores uncertainties around the claim that existential risk mitigation should be prioritized.
Key points:
Maximizing expected value can have counterintuitive implications like prioritizing insects over humans or pursuing astronomical payoffs with tiny probabilities.
Alternatives like contractualism and various forms of risk aversion may better align with moral intuitions.
It’s not clear that expected value maximization robustly favors existential risk over other causes given uncertainties about the future.
Different assumptions about risk structures and time horizons can dramatically change estimates of the value of existential risk mitigation.
A cross-cause cost-effectiveness model allows transparent reasoning about cause prioritization.
Practical decision-making requires wrestling with moral and empirical uncertainties.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The post introduces the Rethink Priorities CURVE series, which considers alternatives to expected value maximization and explores uncertainties around the claim that existential risk mitigation should be prioritized.
Key points:
Maximizing expected value can have counterintuitive implications like prioritizing insects over humans or pursuing astronomical payoffs with tiny probabilities.
Alternatives like contractualism and various forms of risk aversion may better align with moral intuitions.
It’s not clear that expected value maximization robustly favors existential risk over other causes given uncertainties about the future.
Different assumptions about risk structures and time horizons can dramatically change estimates of the value of existential risk mitigation.
A cross-cause cost-effectiveness model allows transparent reasoning about cause prioritization.
Practical decision-making requires wrestling with moral and empirical uncertainties.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.