I don’t think this is persuasive. I think most actions people take either increase or decrease x-risk, and you should start with a ~50% prior for which side of neutrality a specific action is on (though not clearly true; see discussion here). I agree there’s some commonsensical notions that economic growth is good, including for the LT future, but I personally find arguments in the opposite direction to be slightly stronger. Your own comment to an earlier post is one interesting item on the list of arguments I’d muster in that direction.
Ahh, interesting argument! I wasn’t thinking about the argument that these firms might (e.g.) slightly accelerate economic growth, which might then cause an increase in x-risk (if safety is not equivalently accelerated). In general I feel sufficiently unclear about such considerations—like maybe literally 50:50 equipoise is a reasonable prior—that I am loath to let them overwhelm a more concrete short-term impact story in our cost-benefit analysis, in the absence of a clear causal link to a long run impact in the opposite direction, as you suggest in the article.
In this case I think my argument still goes through, because the claim I’m objecting to is so strong—that there is in some sense a >50% probability that every reasonable scenario has all three firms being negative.
I don’t think this is persuasive. I think most actions people take either increase or decrease x-risk, and you should start with a ~50% prior for which side of neutrality a specific action is on (though not clearly true; see discussion here). I agree there’s some commonsensical notions that economic growth is good, including for the LT future, but I personally find arguments in the opposite direction to be slightly stronger. Your own comment to an earlier post is one interesting item on the list of arguments I’d muster in that direction.
Ahh, interesting argument! I wasn’t thinking about the argument that these firms might (e.g.) slightly accelerate economic growth, which might then cause an increase in x-risk (if safety is not equivalently accelerated). In general I feel sufficiently unclear about such considerations—like maybe literally 50:50 equipoise is a reasonable prior—that I am loath to let them overwhelm a more concrete short-term impact story in our cost-benefit analysis, in the absence of a clear causal link to a long run impact in the opposite direction, as you suggest in the article.
In this case I think my argument still goes through, because the claim I’m objecting to is so strong—that there is in some sense a >50% probability that every reasonable scenario has all three firms being negative.