*My background thinking behind my claim here has been inspired by conversations with Michael Aird, though Iām not certain heād agree with everything Iāve written in this shortform.
From a skim, I agree with everything in this shortform and think itās important, except maybe āto me this different ball game assumption seems fairā.
Iād say this ādifferent ball gameā assumption seems at least 50% likely to be at least roughly true. Butāat least given the current limits of my knowledge and thinkingāit doesnāt seem 99% likely to be almost entirely true, and I think the chance it may be somewhat or very untrue should factor into our cause prioritisation & our strategies. (But maybe thatās what you meant by āseems fairā.)
I expand on this in this somewhat longwinded comment. Iāll copy that in a reply here for convenience. (See the link for Ajeya Cotra replying and me replying to that.)
My comment on Ajeya Cotraās AMA, from Feb 2021 (so probably Iād write it differently today):
ā[Iām not sure if youāve thought about the following sort of question much. Also, I havenāt properly read your reportālet me know if this is covered in there.]
Iām interested in a question along the lines of āDo you think some work done before TAI is developed matters in a predictable wayāi.e., better than 0 value in expectationāfor its effects on the post-TAI world, in ways that donāt just flow through how the work affects the pre-TAI world or how the TAI transition itself plays out? If so, to what extent? And what sort of work?ā
An example to illustrate: āLetās say TAI is developed in 2050, and the āTAI transitionā is basically ādoneā by 2060. Could some work to improve institutional decision-making be useful in terms of how it affects what happens from 2060 onwards, and not just via reducing x-risk (or reducing suffering etc.) before 2060 and improving how the TAI transition goes?ā
But Iām not sure itās obvious what I mean by the above, so hereās my attempt to explain:
The question of when TAI will be developed[1] is clearly very important to a whole bunch of prioritisation questions. One reason is that TAIāand probably the systems leading up to itāwill very substantially change how many aspects of how society works. Specifically, Open Phil has defined TAI as āAI that precipitates a transition comparable to (or more significant than) the agricultural or industrial revolutionā (and Muehlhauser has provided some more detail on what is meant by that).
But I think some EAs implicitly assume something stronger, along the lines of:
The expected moral value of actions we take now is entirely based on those actionsā effects on what happens before TAI is developed and those actionsā effects on the development, deployment, etc. of TAI. That is, the expected value of the actions we take now is not partly based on how the actions affect aspects of the post-TAI world in ways unrelated to how TAI is developed, deployed, etc. This is either because we just canāt at all predict those effects or because those effects wouldnāt be important; the world will just be very shaken up and perhaps unrecognisable, and any effects of pre-TAI actions will be washed out unless they affect how the TAI transition occurs.
E.g., things we do now to improve institutional decision-making or reduce risks of war can matter inasmuch as they reduce risks before TAI and reduce risks from TAI (and maybe also reduce actual harms, increase benefits, etc.). But theyāll have no even-slightly-predictable or substantial effect on decision-making or risks of war in the post-TAI world.
But I donāt think that necessarily follows from how TAI is defined. E.g., various countries, religious, ideologies, political systems, technologies, etc., existed both before the Industrial Revolution and for decades/ācenturies afterwards. And it seems like some pre-Industrial-Revolution actionsāe.g. people who pushed for democracy or the abolition of slaveryāhad effects on the post-Industrial-Revolution world that were probably predictably positive in advance and that werenāt just about affecting how the Industrial Revolution itself occurred.
(Though it may have still been extremely useful for people taking those actions to know that, when, where, and how the IR would occur, e.g. because then they could push for democracy and abolition in the countries that were about to become much more influential and powerful.)
So Iām tentatively inclined to think that some EAs are assuming that short timelines pushes against certain types of work more than it really does, and that certain (often ābroadā) interventions could be in expectation useful for influencing the post-TAI world in a relatively ācontinuousā way. In other words, Iām inclined to thinks there might be less of an extremely abrupt ābreakā than some people seem to think, even if TAI occurs. (Though itād still be quite extreme by many standards, just as the Industrial Revolution was.)
[1] Here Iām assuming TAI will be developed, which is questionable, though it seems to me pretty much guaranteed unless some existential catastrophe occurs beforehand.ā
From a skim, I agree with everything in this shortform and think itās important, except maybe āto me this different ball game assumption seems fairā.
Iād say this ādifferent ball gameā assumption seems at least 50% likely to be at least roughly true. Butāat least given the current limits of my knowledge and thinkingāit doesnāt seem 99% likely to be almost entirely true, and I think the chance it may be somewhat or very untrue should factor into our cause prioritisation & our strategies. (But maybe thatās what you meant by āseems fairā.)
I expand on this in this somewhat longwinded comment. Iāll copy that in a reply here for convenience. (See the link for Ajeya Cotra replying and me replying to that.)
My comment on Ajeya Cotraās AMA, from Feb 2021 (so probably Iād write it differently today):
ā[Iām not sure if youāve thought about the following sort of question much. Also, I havenāt properly read your reportālet me know if this is covered in there.]
Iām interested in a question along the lines of āDo you think some work done before TAI is developed matters in a predictable wayāi.e., better than 0 value in expectationāfor its effects on the post-TAI world, in ways that donāt just flow through how the work affects the pre-TAI world or how the TAI transition itself plays out? If so, to what extent? And what sort of work?ā
An example to illustrate: āLetās say TAI is developed in 2050, and the āTAI transitionā is basically ādoneā by 2060. Could some work to improve institutional decision-making be useful in terms of how it affects what happens from 2060 onwards, and not just via reducing x-risk (or reducing suffering etc.) before 2060 and improving how the TAI transition goes?ā
But Iām not sure itās obvious what I mean by the above, so hereās my attempt to explain:
The question of when TAI will be developed[1] is clearly very important to a whole bunch of prioritisation questions. One reason is that TAIāand probably the systems leading up to itāwill very substantially change how many aspects of how society works. Specifically, Open Phil has defined TAI as āAI that precipitates a transition comparable to (or more significant than) the agricultural or industrial revolutionā (and Muehlhauser has provided some more detail on what is meant by that).
But I think some EAs implicitly assume something stronger, along the lines of:
But I donāt think that necessarily follows from how TAI is defined. E.g., various countries, religious, ideologies, political systems, technologies, etc., existed both before the Industrial Revolution and for decades/ācenturies afterwards. And it seems like some pre-Industrial-Revolution actionsāe.g. people who pushed for democracy or the abolition of slaveryāhad effects on the post-Industrial-Revolution world that were probably predictably positive in advance and that werenāt just about affecting how the Industrial Revolution itself occurred.
(Though it may have still been extremely useful for people taking those actions to know that, when, where, and how the IR would occur, e.g. because then they could push for democracy and abolition in the countries that were about to become much more influential and powerful.)
So Iām tentatively inclined to think that some EAs are assuming that short timelines pushes against certain types of work more than it really does, and that certain (often ābroadā) interventions could be in expectation useful for influencing the post-TAI world in a relatively ācontinuousā way. In other words, Iām inclined to thinks there might be less of an extremely abrupt ābreakā than some people seem to think, even if TAI occurs. (Though itād still be quite extreme by many standards, just as the Industrial Revolution was.)
[1] Here Iām assuming TAI will be developed, which is questionable, though it seems to me pretty much guaranteed unless some existential catastrophe occurs beforehand.ā