I don’t think I have a satisfying general answer to this question; in practice, the approaches I pursue first are heavily influenced by which approaches I happen to find some purchase on, since many theoretically appealing reference classes or high-level approaches to the question may be difficult to make progress on for whatever reason.
For thinking about AI timelines, how do you go about choosing the best reference classes to use (see e.g., here and here)?
I don’t think I have a satisfying general answer to this question; in practice, the approaches I pursue first are heavily influenced by which approaches I happen to find some purchase on, since many theoretically appealing reference classes or high-level approaches to the question may be difficult to make progress on for whatever reason.