There is a little probability mass on things which are a reasonable fraction of the great or hellish futures — mostly corresponding to worlds in which the lightcone is divided in some way
Trade means that the probability of such outcomes isn’t so high, and I’ll set them aside for now; however, I think that this would be a natural place to extend this analysis
Let’s say the positive side of your graph has a logarithmic horizontal axis. I think there would be some probability mass that we have technological stagnation and population reductions, though the cumulative number of lives would be much larger than alive today. Then there would be some mass on maintaining something like 10 billion people for a billion years (no AI, staying on earth either due to choice or technical reasons). Then there would be another high slope region of AI doing a Dyson swarm, but either because of technical reasons or high discount rate, not going to other stars. Then there would be another high slope region where AI settles the galaxy, but again either because of technical reasons or discount rate, not going to other galaxies. Then there would be settling many galaxies. Then 30 orders of magnitude to the right, there could be another high slope region corresponding to aestivation. And there could be more intermediate states corresponding to various scales of space settlement of biological humans (and as you point out, different behaviors in different fractions of the space that can be settled). Are you are saying that if we have good reflective governance, we will have zero discount rate, so we will just do aestivation if that is optimal? Still, I think there could be technical barriers at various stages. But then would you argue that with good reflective governance we should be able to reach a high percent of the technically achievable value?
Yeah I’m arguing that with good reflective governance we should achieve a large fraction of what’s accessible.
It’s quite possible that that means “not quite all”, e.g. maybe there are some trades so that we don’t aestivate in this galaxy, but do in the rest of them; but on the aggregative view that’s almost as good as aestivating everywhere.
I love the cumulative probability graph!
Let’s say the positive side of your graph has a logarithmic horizontal axis. I think there would be some probability mass that we have technological stagnation and population reductions, though the cumulative number of lives would be much larger than alive today. Then there would be some mass on maintaining something like 10 billion people for a billion years (no AI, staying on earth either due to choice or technical reasons). Then there would be another high slope region of AI doing a Dyson swarm, but either because of technical reasons or high discount rate, not going to other stars. Then there would be another high slope region where AI settles the galaxy, but again either because of technical reasons or discount rate, not going to other galaxies. Then there would be settling many galaxies. Then 30 orders of magnitude to the right, there could be another high slope region corresponding to aestivation. And there could be more intermediate states corresponding to various scales of space settlement of biological humans (and as you point out, different behaviors in different fractions of the space that can be settled). Are you are saying that if we have good reflective governance, we will have zero discount rate, so we will just do aestivation if that is optimal? Still, I think there could be technical barriers at various stages. But then would you argue that with good reflective governance we should be able to reach a high percent of the technically achievable value?
Yeah I’m arguing that with good reflective governance we should achieve a large fraction of what’s accessible.
It’s quite possible that that means “not quite all”, e.g. maybe there are some trades so that we don’t aestivate in this galaxy, but do in the rest of them; but on the aggregative view that’s almost as good as aestivating everywhere.