AI safety advocates are not focused on slowing down AI development and in many cases tend to think it might be helpful, in which case mission hedging is counterproductive.
But this not really about speed: mission hedging might work in this case because the stock price of an AI company merely reflects the probability of whether a company will come up with better artificial intelligence than the competition earlier, not when.
I could also imagine a scenario in which AI problems also weigh down a company’s stock. Maybe a big scandal occurs around AI that foreshadows future problems with AGI and also embarrasses AI developers.
Note that it is important to diversify within mission hedging. So weighing down one company’s stock doesn’t matter. I feel that any scandals that are not really related to the actual ability of the AI industry to produce better AI faster will likely have very limited effect on the stock price dropping. I’m reminded here of fatalities with self-driving cars, which has not rocked investors confidence in investing in them. But even if it does, than that just means that self-driving cars are not as great as we thought they would be (presumably some fatalities are already ‘priced in’).
But yes, your point is valid in the that ‘you can’t short the apocalypse’, as I mention above.
Overall, I actually think, all things considered, mission hedging might work best for AI risk scenarios.
Excellent comments- thanks!
I know people working on AI safety who would want to slow down progress in AI if it would be tractable. I actually think that it might be possible to slow down AI by reducing taxes on labor and increasing migration—see https://www.cgdev.org/blog/why-are-geniuses-destroying-jobs-uganda—which I think is a better idea than robot taxes: https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/ . Somebody should write about this.
But this not really about speed: mission hedging might work in this case because the stock price of an AI company merely reflects the probability of whether a company will come up with better artificial intelligence than the competition earlier, not when.
Note that it is important to diversify within mission hedging. So weighing down one company’s stock doesn’t matter. I feel that any scandals that are not really related to the actual ability of the AI industry to produce better AI faster will likely have very limited effect on the stock price dropping. I’m reminded here of fatalities with self-driving cars, which has not rocked investors confidence in investing in them. But even if it does, than that just means that self-driving cars are not as great as we thought they would be (presumably some fatalities are already ‘priced in’).
But yes, your point is valid in the that ‘you can’t short the apocalypse’, as I mention above. Overall, I actually think, all things considered, mission hedging might work best for AI risk scenarios.