Thanks for the kind words Christian—I’m looking forward to reading that report, it sounds fascinating.
I agree with your first point—I say “They were arguably right, ex ante, to advocate for and participate in a project to deter the Nazi use of nuclear weapons.” Actions in 1939-42 or around 1957-1959 are defensible. However, I think this highlights 1) accurate information in 1942-3 (and 1957) would have been useful and 2) when they found out the accurate information (in 1944 and 1961) , its very interesting that it didn’t stop the arms buildup.
The question of whether over, under or calibrated confidence is more common is an interesting one that I’d like someone to research. It perhaps could be usefully narrowed to WWII & postwar USA. I offered some short examples, but this could easily be a paper. There are some theoretical reasons to expect overconfidence, I’d think: such as paranoia and risk-aversion, or political economy incentives for the military-industrial complex to overemphasise risk (to get funding). But yes, an interesting open empirical question.
I say “They were arguably right, ex ante, to advocate for and participate in a project to deter the Nazi use of nuclear weapons.” Actions in 1939-42 or around 1957-1959 are defensible.
Given this, is it accurate to call Einstein’s letter a ‘tragedy’? The tragic part was continuing the nuclear program after the German program was shut down.
Thanks for the kind words Christian—I’m looking forward to reading that report, it sounds fascinating.
I agree with your first point—I say “They were arguably right, ex ante, to advocate for and participate in a project to deter the Nazi use of nuclear weapons.” Actions in 1939-42 or around 1957-1959 are defensible. However, I think this highlights 1) accurate information in 1942-3 (and 1957) would have been useful and 2) when they found out the accurate information (in 1944 and 1961) , its very interesting that it didn’t stop the arms buildup.
The question of whether over, under or calibrated confidence is more common is an interesting one that I’d like someone to research. It perhaps could be usefully narrowed to WWII & postwar USA. I offered some short examples, but this could easily be a paper. There are some theoretical reasons to expect overconfidence, I’d think: such as paranoia and risk-aversion, or political economy incentives for the military-industrial complex to overemphasise risk (to get funding). But yes, an interesting open empirical question.
Thank you for the reply! I definitely didn’t mean to mischaracterize your opinions on that case :)
Agreed, a project like that would be great. Another point in favor of your argument that this is a dynamic to watch out for on AI competition is if verifying claims of superiority is harder for software (along the lines of Missy Cummings’s “The AI That Wasn’t There” https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-artificial-intelligence-and-international-security/#essay2). That seems especially vulnerable to misperceptions
Given this, is it accurate to call Einstein’s letter a ‘tragedy’? The tragic part was continuing the nuclear program after the German program was shut down.