Great (and difficult!) question, Jordan. I (Bob) am responding to this one for myself and not for the team; others can chime in as they see fit. The biggest issue I see in EA cause prioritization is overconfidence. It’s easy to think that because there are some prominent arguments for expected value maximization, we don’t need to run the numbers to see what happens if we have a modest level of risk aversion. It’s easy to think that because the future could be long and positive, the EV calculation is going to favor x-risk work. Etc. I’m not anti-EV; I’m not anti-x-risk. However, I think these are clear areas where people have been too quick to assume that they don’t need to run the numbers because it’s obvious how they’ll come out.
Great (and difficult!) question, Jordan. I (Bob) am responding to this one for myself and not for the team; others can chime in as they see fit. The biggest issue I see in EA cause prioritization is overconfidence. It’s easy to think that because there are some prominent arguments for expected value maximization, we don’t need to run the numbers to see what happens if we have a modest level of risk aversion. It’s easy to think that because the future could be long and positive, the EV calculation is going to favor x-risk work. Etc. I’m not anti-EV; I’m not anti-x-risk. However, I think these are clear areas where people have been too quick to assume that they don’t need to run the numbers because it’s obvious how they’ll come out.
Is there any writing from RP or anywhere else that describes these flaws in more depth, or actually runs the numbers on EV calculations and x-risk?
Yes! I recommend starting with this and this.
Thank you!