I think your comment (and particularly the first point) has much more to do with the difficulty of defining causality than with x-risks.
It seems natural to talk about force causing the mass to accelerate: when I push a sofa, I cause it to start moving. but Newtonian mechanics can’t capture casualty basically because the equality sign in →F=m→a lacks direction. Similarly, it’s hard to capture causality in probability spaces.
Following Pearl, I come to think that causality arises from manipulator/manipulated distinction.
So I think it’s fair to speak about factors only with relation to some framing:
If you are focusing on bio policy, you are likely to take great-power conflict as an external factor.
Similarly, if you are focusing on preventing nuclear war between India and Pakistan, you are likely to take bioterrorism as an external factor.
Usually, there are multiple external factors in your x-risk modeling. The most salient and undesirable are important enough to care about them (and give them a name).
Calling bio-risks an x-factor makes sense formally; but doesn’t make sense pragmatically because bio-risks are very salient (in our community) on their own because they are a canonical x-risk. So for me, part of the difference is that I started to care about x-risks first; and that I started to care about x-risk factors because of their relationship to x-risk.
I think your comment (and particularly the first point) has much more to do with the difficulty of defining causality than with x-risks.
It seems natural to talk about force causing the mass to accelerate: when I push a sofa, I cause it to start moving. but Newtonian mechanics can’t capture casualty basically because the equality sign in →F=m→a lacks direction. Similarly, it’s hard to capture causality in probability spaces.
Following Pearl, I come to think that causality arises from manipulator/manipulated distinction.
So I think it’s fair to speak about factors only with relation to some framing:
If you are focusing on bio policy, you are likely to take great-power conflict as an external factor.
Similarly, if you are focusing on preventing nuclear war between India and Pakistan, you are likely to take bioterrorism as an external factor.
Usually, there are multiple external factors in your x-risk modeling. The most salient and undesirable are important enough to care about them (and give them a name).
Calling bio-risks an x-factor makes sense formally; but doesn’t make sense pragmatically because bio-risks are very salient (in our community) on their own because they are a canonical x-risk. So for me, part of the difference is that I started to care about x-risks first; and that I started to care about x-risk factors because of their relationship to x-risk.