One thing to note is that I’m not convinced that Superintelligence isn’t a megaproject (if we think of something as a megaproject if it’s both a) very high EV and b) very high cost), if you consider Nick Bostrom et.al’s counterfactual value of time to be very high (which seems pretty plausible to me).
fwiw I’ve never heard megaprojects defined in terms of opportunity cost of inputs (such that even projects costing just a small number of actual people or actual dollars—rather than e.g. projects productively absorbing $100 million dollars—could count).
It might be useful to have a term to match that definition/concept of yours, but I don’t think the term should be megaproject because that term is already taken and this definition/concept is quite different. (If we had both meanings of megaproject in common use, then it would be harder to have this kind of conversation.)
One thing to note is that I’m not convinced that Superintelligence isn’t a megaproject (if we think of something as a megaproject if it’s both a) very high EV and b) very high cost), if you consider Nick Bostrom et.al’s counterfactual value of time to be very high (which seems pretty plausible to me).
fwiw I’ve never heard megaprojects defined in terms of opportunity cost of inputs (such that even projects costing just a small number of actual people or actual dollars—rather than e.g. projects productively absorbing $100 million dollars—could count).
It might be useful to have a term to match that definition/concept of yours, but I don’t think the term should be megaproject because that term is already taken and this definition/concept is quite different. (If we had both meanings of megaproject in common use, then it would be harder to have this kind of conversation.)
Looking back, the Superintelligence objection is great. I have since resolved the question to my own satisfaction with this comment.