Only we can help those who are suffering now. Future people will be able to influence those who will live in the future. So I don’t think that the hotel analogy is quite right. We press a button knowing what it will do to the occupant in the room #327 right now. What happens to other occupants will depend on many other people pressing buttons afterwards, and these other people will be in better positions to optimize for other rooms. Which button we press influences which buttons/options they will have, but it doesn’t directly cause occupants bliss or torture in a way that we can predict. In this situation it’s unclear whether it’s better to optimize for room #327, or to make some fancy theory where we try to predict what buttons/options other people will have and which buttons they will decide to press.
Thanks for the answer Saulius, and I agree the hotel analogy is pretty different to the reality! So do you think the long-term effects don’t dominate? Or we can’t say what they are because they depend on other people’s unpredictable behaviour in a way that near-term things don’t?
And I think you’re also saying that, at any given time, we have a special opportunity to influence that time. Is that because we have more evidence about present effects or because there’s something special about direct rather than indirect effects? I’m confused because it seems like while we do have a special opportunity to influence the present because we’re here now, we also have a special opportunity to influence the future too because we’re here now. Eg. by doing anything that has positive compounding effects, or avoids lock-in of a bad state.
I just also want to say that in general, I really appreciate you engaging in this discussion and writing this post, especially in such a clear and well-structured way. I think that criticising others’ views takes courage but can be very valuable.
So do you think the long-term effects don’t dominate?
I’ve spent a lot of time discussing these questions and I still don’t have a strong opinion. I like the basic idea behind OpenPhil’s worldview diversification approach. They “allocate X% of capital to a bucket that aims to maximize impact from a “long-termist” perspective, and Y% of capital to a bucket that aims to maximize impact from a “near-termist” perspective”. X and Y are determined by how much credence they place on each worldview. If I was responsible for giving away that much money, I’d probably do the same. As an individual, I had to specialize and I found it easier to get a job on short-termist stuff so that’s what I’m working on.
I’m confused because it seems like while we do have a special opportunity to influence the present because we’re here now, we also have a special opportunity to influence the future too because we’re here now. Eg. by doing anything that has positive compounding effects, or avoids lock-in of a bad state.
Yes, I think this is just a reformulation of the old question, can we make more impact when focusing on short-term future or long-term future. And I think there is no easy answer to it.
Yes, all of these. But e.g. donation opportunities later could get worse to the point where this is outweighed. Also, with all of these, you empower future people (or future you) to do good rather than doing good directly but it’s unclear if they will use that power in a good way.
I think a caricature/extreme version of a related view would be “Progress is practically guaranteed to continue to the point where everything eventually becomes as good as it could be. Therefore, there’s no need to try to improve the long-run future, and what we should do is just make things go better until that point, or help us get to that point faster.”
I don’t know if anyone confidently holds that a view quite that extreme. But I think it’s relatively common to think that there’s a decent chance that something like that is true, and that that’s probably one of the common reasons for people not prioritising “longtermist interventions”.
Personally, I think that believing there’s a decent chance that something like that is true probably makes sense. However, I currently believe it’s sufficiently likely that we’re at something like a hinge of history, where that march of progress could be foiled, that longtermist work makes sense. And I also believe we can reach a similar conclusion from the idea that, even if we avoid x-risks and bad lock-in, we may not be guaranteed to reach an optimal point “by default” (e.g., maybe moral circles won’t expand far enough, or we’ll get stuck in some bad equilibria), so longtermist “trajectory change” work could be valuable.
(My point here is more to try to highlight some views than to argue for or against them.)
Is the idea that most of the opportunities to do good will be soon (say in the next 100-200 years)? Eg. because we expect less poverty, and factory farms etc. Or because the AI is gonna come and make us all happy, so we should just make the bit before that good?
Distinct from that seems ‘make us get to that point faster’ (I’m imagining this could mean things like increasing growth/creating friendly AI/spreading good values) - that seems very much like looking to long-term effects.
Is the idea that most of the opportunities to do good will be soon (say in the next 100-200 years)? Eg. because we expect less poverty, and factory farms etc. Or because the AI is gonna come and make us all happy, so we should just make the bit before that good?
I think there’s a decent number of people who give a decent amount of credence to either or both of those possibilities. (I guess I count myself among such people, but also feel wary about having high confidence in those claims, and I see it as very plausible progress will be disrupted in various ways.) People may also believe the first thing because the believe the second thing; e.g., we’ll develop very good AI—doesn’t necessarily have to be agenty or superintelligent—and that will allow us to either suddenly or gradually-but-quickly eliminate poverty, develop clean meat, etc.
Distinct from that seems ‘make us get to that point faster’ (I’m imagining this could mean things like increasing growth/creating friendly AI/spreading good values) - that seems very much like looking to long-term effects.
One way speeding things up is distinct is that it also helps with allowing us to ultimately access more resources (the astronomical waste type argument). But it mostly doesn’t seem very distinct to me from the other points. Basically, you might think we’ll ultimately reach a fairly optimal state, so speeding things up won’t change that, but it’ll change how much suffering/joy there is before we get to that state. This sort of idea is expressed in the graph on the left here.
So I feel like maybe I’m not understanding that part of your comment?
(I should hopefully be publishing a post soon disentangling things like existential risk reduction, speed-ups, and other “trajectory change” efforts. I’ll say it better there, and give pretty pictures of my own :D)
Ah yeah that makes sense. I think they seemed distinct to me because one seems like ‘buy some QALYS now before the singularity’ and the other seems like ‘make the singularity happen sooner’ (obviously these are big caricatures). And the second one seems like it has a lot more value than the first if you can do it (of course I’m not saying you can). But yeah they are the same in that they are adding value before a set time. I can imagine that post being really useful to send to people I talk to—looking forward to reading it.
Only we can help those who are suffering now. Future people will be able to influence those who will live in the future. So I don’t think that the hotel analogy is quite right. We press a button knowing what it will do to the occupant in the room #327 right now. What happens to other occupants will depend on many other people pressing buttons afterwards, and these other people will be in better positions to optimize for other rooms. Which button we press influences which buttons/options they will have, but it doesn’t directly cause occupants bliss or torture in a way that we can predict. In this situation it’s unclear whether it’s better to optimize for room #327, or to make some fancy theory where we try to predict what buttons/options other people will have and which buttons they will decide to press.
Thanks for the answer Saulius, and I agree the hotel analogy is pretty different to the reality! So do you think the long-term effects don’t dominate? Or we can’t say what they are because they depend on other people’s unpredictable behaviour in a way that near-term things don’t?
And I think you’re also saying that, at any given time, we have a special opportunity to influence that time. Is that because we have more evidence about present effects or because there’s something special about direct rather than indirect effects? I’m confused because it seems like while we do have a special opportunity to influence the present because we’re here now, we also have a special opportunity to influence the future too because we’re here now. Eg. by doing anything that has positive compounding effects, or avoids lock-in of a bad state.
I just also want to say that in general, I really appreciate you engaging in this discussion and writing this post, especially in such a clear and well-structured way. I think that criticising others’ views takes courage but can be very valuable.
I’ve spent a lot of time discussing these questions and I still don’t have a strong opinion. I like the basic idea behind OpenPhil’s worldview diversification approach. They “allocate X% of capital to a bucket that aims to maximize impact from a “long-termist” perspective, and Y% of capital to a bucket that aims to maximize impact from a “near-termist” perspective”. X and Y are determined by how much credence they place on each worldview. If I was responsible for giving away that much money, I’d probably do the same. As an individual, I had to specialize and I found it easier to get a job on short-termist stuff so that’s what I’m working on.
I also like that basic idea, though there’s also another part of me that feels deeply unsatisfied with it.
In any case, some other ideas that seem relevant are moral parliaments and moral uncertainty more generally.
Yes, I think this is just a reformulation of the old question, can we make more impact when focusing on short-term future or long-term future. And I think there is no easy answer to it.
Do you think any of these things have positive compounding effects or avoid lock-in:
-Investing to donate later,
-Narrow x-risk reduction,
-Building the EA community?
Yes, all of these. But e.g. donation opportunities later could get worse to the point where this is outweighed. Also, with all of these, you empower future people (or future you) to do good rather than doing good directly but it’s unclear if they will use that power in a good way.
Two sources which I think discuss at least sort-of relevant things quite well are:
The timing of labour aimed at reducing existential risk—Toby Ord
80k interview with Phil Trammell
(You may already be aware of these.)
I think a caricature/extreme version of a related view would be “Progress is practically guaranteed to continue to the point where everything eventually becomes as good as it could be. Therefore, there’s no need to try to improve the long-run future, and what we should do is just make things go better until that point, or help us get to that point faster.”
I don’t know if anyone confidently holds that a view quite that extreme. But I think it’s relatively common to think that there’s a decent chance that something like that is true, and that that’s probably one of the common reasons for people not prioritising “longtermist interventions”.
Personally, I think that believing there’s a decent chance that something like that is true probably makes sense. However, I currently believe it’s sufficiently likely that we’re at something like a hinge of history, where that march of progress could be foiled, that longtermist work makes sense. And I also believe we can reach a similar conclusion from the idea that, even if we avoid x-risks and bad lock-in, we may not be guaranteed to reach an optimal point “by default” (e.g., maybe moral circles won’t expand far enough, or we’ll get stuck in some bad equilibria), so longtermist “trajectory change” work could be valuable.
(My point here is more to try to highlight some views than to argue for or against them.)
Is the idea that most of the opportunities to do good will be soon (say in the next 100-200 years)? Eg. because we expect less poverty, and factory farms etc. Or because the AI is gonna come and make us all happy, so we should just make the bit before that good?
Distinct from that seems ‘make us get to that point faster’ (I’m imagining this could mean things like increasing growth/creating friendly AI/spreading good values) - that seems very much like looking to long-term effects.
I think there’s a decent number of people who give a decent amount of credence to either or both of those possibilities. (I guess I count myself among such people, but also feel wary about having high confidence in those claims, and I see it as very plausible progress will be disrupted in various ways.) People may also believe the first thing because the believe the second thing; e.g., we’ll develop very good AI—doesn’t necessarily have to be agenty or superintelligent—and that will allow us to either suddenly or gradually-but-quickly eliminate poverty, develop clean meat, etc.
One way speeding things up is distinct is that it also helps with allowing us to ultimately access more resources (the astronomical waste type argument). But it mostly doesn’t seem very distinct to me from the other points. Basically, you might think we’ll ultimately reach a fairly optimal state, so speeding things up won’t change that, but it’ll change how much suffering/joy there is before we get to that state. This sort of idea is expressed in the graph on the left here.
So I feel like maybe I’m not understanding that part of your comment?
(I should hopefully be publishing a post soon disentangling things like existential risk reduction, speed-ups, and other “trajectory change” efforts. I’ll say it better there, and give pretty pictures of my own :D)
Ah yeah that makes sense. I think they seemed distinct to me because one seems like ‘buy some QALYS now before the singularity’ and the other seems like ‘make the singularity happen sooner’ (obviously these are big caricatures). And the second one seems like it has a lot more value than the first if you can do it (of course I’m not saying you can). But yeah they are the same in that they are adding value before a set time. I can imagine that post being really useful to send to people I talk to—looking forward to reading it.