A broader coalition of actors will be motivated to pursue extinction prevention than longtermist trajectory changes… For instance, see Scott Alexander on the benefits of extinction risk as a popular meme compared to longtermism.
This might vary between:
The level of the abstract memes:
I agree “reducing risk of extinction (potentially in the near term)” may be more appealing than “longtermist trajectory change”
The level of concrete interventions:
“Promoting democracy” (or whatever one decides promotes long term value) might be more appealing than “reducing risk from AI”[1] (though there is likely significant variation within concrete interventions).
This might vary between:
The level of the abstract memes:
I agree “reducing risk of extinction (potentially in the near term)” may be more appealing than “longtermist trajectory change”
The level of concrete interventions:
“Promoting democracy” (or whatever one decides promotes long term value) might be more appealing than “reducing risk from AI”[1] (though there is likely significant variation within concrete interventions).
Though our initial work does not suggest this.