I mostly agree with your points, though am a bit more optimistic than it seems like you are about untargeted, value-neutral IIDM having a positive impact.
Your skepticism about this seems to be expressed here:
And yet, it seems possible that there are some institutions that cause an overwhelming amount of harm (e.g. the farming industry or some x-risk-increasing endeavors like gain-of-function research), and that the value-neutral version of IIDM fails to take that into account.
I think this is true, but it still seems like the aims of institutions are pro-social as a general matter—x-risk and animal suffering in your examples are side effects that aren’t means to the ends of the institutions, which are ‘increase biosecuirty’ and ‘make money’, and if improving decisionmaking helps orgs get at their ends more efficiently then we should think they will have fewer bad side effects if they have better decisonmaking. Also generally orgs’ aims (e.g. “make money”) will presuppose the firm’s, and therefore humanity’s survival, so it still seems good to me as a general matter for orgs to be able to pursue their aims more effectively.
Nice post : )
I mostly agree with your points, though am a bit more optimistic than it seems like you are about untargeted, value-neutral IIDM having a positive impact.
Your skepticism about this seems to be expressed here:
I think this is true, but it still seems like the aims of institutions are pro-social as a general matter—x-risk and animal suffering in your examples are side effects that aren’t means to the ends of the institutions, which are ‘increase biosecuirty’ and ‘make money’, and if improving decisionmaking helps orgs get at their ends more efficiently then we should think they will have fewer bad side effects if they have better decisonmaking. Also generally orgs’ aims (e.g. “make money”) will presuppose the firm’s, and therefore humanity’s survival, so it still seems good to me as a general matter for orgs to be able to pursue their aims more effectively.