I largely agree with your argument. The most useful way I’ve heard this explained is that affecting the direction of progress is greatly more important than affecting the speed of progress. However, I think there are some situations where affecting speed is the most effective way to affect direction, like:
When the rate of progress in one area affects the directional outcome of another area (e.g. increasing AI safety technology more quickly improves the expected directional outcome of AI)
When our current situation is very risky (e.g. if you think while humans remain solely on earth, we’re really likely to destroy ourselves, but you don’t want that to happen, so you try to get us to colonize other planets as soon as possible, decreasing our likelihood of extinction)
Do you mean ‘affecting the speed of a subfield of tech is the most effective way to affect the direction of movement of the centre of gravity of our tech capabilities’? If so, I agree.
Speeding up a particular tech counts as differential tech development.
That sounds like what I mean, although I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘centre of gravity’ in this context. But yes, this is “differential tech development” through “speeding up a particular tech.” So direction is still the the goal (just reached less directly).
I largely agree with your argument. The most useful way I’ve heard this explained is that affecting the direction of progress is greatly more important than affecting the speed of progress. However, I think there are some situations where affecting speed is the most effective way to affect direction, like:
When the rate of progress in one area affects the directional outcome of another area (e.g. increasing AI safety technology more quickly improves the expected directional outcome of AI)
When our current situation is very risky (e.g. if you think while humans remain solely on earth, we’re really likely to destroy ourselves, but you don’t want that to happen, so you try to get us to colonize other planets as soon as possible, decreasing our likelihood of extinction)
Do you mean ‘affecting the speed of a subfield of tech is the most effective way to affect the direction of movement of the centre of gravity of our tech capabilities’? If so, I agree.
Speeding up a particular tech counts as differential tech development.
That sounds like what I mean, although I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘centre of gravity’ in this context. But yes, this is “differential tech development” through “speeding up a particular tech.” So direction is still the the goal (just reached less directly).