Thanks for writing this Jonas. As someone much below the lesswrong average at math, I would be grateful for a clarification of this sentence:
Provided pj,dk, pj,pk and dj,dk are independent when j≠k
What does j and k refer to here? Moreover is it a reasonable assumption, that the uncertainties of existential risks are independent? It seems to me that many uncertainties run across risk types, such as chance of recovery after civilisations collapse.
j and k are indices for the causes. I wrote j≠k because you don’t have to assume that dk and pk are independent for the math to work. But everything else will have to be independent.
Maybe the uncertainties shouldn’t be independent, but often they will. Our uncertainty about the probability of AI doom is probably not related to our uncertainty about the probability of pandemics doom, for instance.
Thanks for writing this Jonas. As someone much below the lesswrong average at math, I would be grateful for a clarification of this sentence:
What does j and k refer to here? Moreover is it a reasonable assumption, that the uncertainties of existential risks are independent? It seems to me that many uncertainties run across risk types, such as chance of recovery after civilisations collapse.
j and k are indices for the causes. I wrote j≠k because you don’t have to assume that dk and pk are independent for the math to work. But everything else will have to be independent.
Maybe the uncertainties shouldn’t be independent, but often they will. Our uncertainty about the probability of AI doom is probably not related to our uncertainty about the probability of pandemics doom, for instance.