Suppose the Speculation Grantors will consider a grant that is extremely risky. Suppose that grant has a 10% chance to be evaluated in the next round as far more beneficial than all the rest of the Speculation Grants of that round combined; and yet, the grant is net-negative (due to its potential to cause extreme accidental harm, which is not unlikely for extremely-impactful anthropogenic x-risk interventions).
If in your implementation of “impact futures” the “fd_value” of an impact certificate cannot be negative, then to the extent that a Speculation Grantor acts in a way that is aligned with maximizing their expected speculation grant budget, they may bet on that 10% chance and fund the risky intervention. Especially if they think that all the other Speculation Grantors will not fund it, thereby allowing their own budget to receive most of the “settlement_budget” (which seemingly exacerbates the unilateralist’s curse problem).
I co-authored a post about the general risk of impact markets incentivizing risky, net-negative projects. Please consider taking a look at it if you haven’t already.
Suppose the Speculation Grantors will consider a grant that is extremely risky. Suppose that grant has a 10% chance to be evaluated in the next round as far more beneficial than all the rest of the Speculation Grants of that round combined; and yet, the grant is net-negative (due to its potential to cause extreme accidental harm, which is not unlikely for extremely-impactful anthropogenic x-risk interventions).
If in your implementation of “impact futures” the “fd_value” of an impact certificate cannot be negative, then to the extent that a Speculation Grantor acts in a way that is aligned with maximizing their expected speculation grant budget, they may bet on that 10% chance and fund the risky intervention. Especially if they think that all the other Speculation Grantors will not fund it, thereby allowing their own budget to receive most of the “settlement_budget” (which seemingly exacerbates the unilateralist’s curse problem).
I co-authored a post about the general risk of impact markets incentivizing risky, net-negative projects. Please consider taking a look at it if you haven’t already.