Thanks for this thoughtful analysis! I appreciate the systematic approach to examining how AI might affect other cause areas.
I noticed that the article primarily engages with a particularly strong version of the âAI undermines other causesâ argumentâthat AI renders work in other areas âuseless, or nearly so.â While you acknowledge youâre âdisputing a general heuristic that privileges the AI cause area and writes off all the others,â much of the analysis focuses on rebutting this extreme position.
Thereâs a more moderate version that deserves engagement: that transformative AI significantly reduces (but doesnât eliminate) the expected value of other cause areasâperhaps by 50-90%. This weaker claim avoids many of the vulnerabilities you identify while still having profound implications for resource allocation. Even if factory farming work retains 30% of its expected value in an AI-transformed world, that might still justify shifting substantial resources toward AI work.
Would your analysis change if engaging with this more moderate position? Some of your arguments (like the value of near-term wins) would still apply, while others might need reframing around questions of degree rather than kind. The practical implications for funding and career decisions could still be quite significant even under this weaker assumption.
You make a helpful point. Weâve focused on a pretty extreme claim, but there are more nuanced discussions in the area that we think are important. We do think that âAI might solve thisâ can take chunks out of the expected value of lots of projects (and weâve started kicking around some ideas for analyzing this). Weâve also done some work about how the background probabilities of x-risk affect the expected value of x-risk projects.
I donât think that we can swap one general heuristic (e.g. AI futures make other work useless) for a more moderate one (e.g. AI futures reduce EV by 50%). The possibilities that âAI might make this problem worseâ or âAI might raise the stakes of decisions we make nowâ can also amplify the EV of our current projects. Figuring out how AI futures affect cost-effectiveness estimates today is complicated, tricky, and necessary!
Thanks for this thoughtful analysis! I appreciate the systematic approach to examining how AI might affect other cause areas.
I noticed that the article primarily engages with a particularly strong version of the âAI undermines other causesâ argumentâthat AI renders work in other areas âuseless, or nearly so.â While you acknowledge youâre âdisputing a general heuristic that privileges the AI cause area and writes off all the others,â much of the analysis focuses on rebutting this extreme position.
Thereâs a more moderate version that deserves engagement: that transformative AI significantly reduces (but doesnât eliminate) the expected value of other cause areasâperhaps by 50-90%. This weaker claim avoids many of the vulnerabilities you identify while still having profound implications for resource allocation. Even if factory farming work retains 30% of its expected value in an AI-transformed world, that might still justify shifting substantial resources toward AI work.
Would your analysis change if engaging with this more moderate position? Some of your arguments (like the value of near-term wins) would still apply, while others might need reframing around questions of degree rather than kind. The practical implications for funding and career decisions could still be quite significant even under this weaker assumption.
You make a helpful point. Weâve focused on a pretty extreme claim, but there are more nuanced discussions in the area that we think are important. We do think that âAI might solve thisâ can take chunks out of the expected value of lots of projects (and weâve started kicking around some ideas for analyzing this). Weâve also done some work about how the background probabilities of x-risk affect the expected value of x-risk projects.
I donât think that we can swap one general heuristic (e.g. AI futures make other work useless) for a more moderate one (e.g. AI futures reduce EV by 50%). The possibilities that âAI might make this problem worseâ or âAI might raise the stakes of decisions we make nowâ can also amplify the EV of our current projects. Figuring out how AI futures affect cost-effectiveness estimates today is complicated, tricky, and necessary!