Thank you—this is all very interesting. I won’t try to reply to all of it, but just thought I would respond to agree on your last point. I think x-risk is worth caring about precisely because the probability seems to be in the “actually might happen” range. (I don’t believe at all that anyone knows it’s 1⁄6 vs. 1⁄10 or 1⁄2, but Toby Ord doesn’t claim to either does he?) It’s when you get to the “1 in a million but with a billion payoff” range I start to get skeptical, because then the thing in question actually just won’t happen, barring many plays of the game.
Thank you—this is all very interesting. I won’t try to reply to all of it, but just thought I would respond to agree on your last point. I think x-risk is worth caring about precisely because the probability seems to be in the “actually might happen” range. (I don’t believe at all that anyone knows it’s 1⁄6 vs. 1⁄10 or 1⁄2, but Toby Ord doesn’t claim to either does he?) It’s when you get to the “1 in a million but with a billion payoff” range I start to get skeptical, because then the thing in question actually just won’t happen, barring many plays of the game.