I think my point is that we don’t know all that much about what that would look like. I have my own theories but they may be completely off base because this research is fairly uncommon and neglected. I think economic growth may not even be the best metric for progress but maybe some derivative of the Gross National Happiness Index or something of that nature. I do think that there may be bidirectional benefit from focusing at the intersection of x-risk and global development. I love the work ALLFED is doing BTW!
Epistemic status: I’ve only spent perhaps 15 minutes thinking about these specific matters, though I’ve thought more about related things.
I’d guess that happiness levels (while of course intrinsically important) wouldn’t be especially valuable as a metric of how well a global health/development intervention is reducing existential risks. I don’t see a strong reason to believe increased happiness (at least from the current margin) leads to better handling of AI risk and biorisk. Happiness may correlate with x-risk reduction, but if so, it’d probably due to other variables affecting both of those variables.
Metrics that seem more useful to me might be things like:
quality of reasoning and evidence used for key political and corporate decision-making
Though operationalising this is of course difficult
willingness to consider not just risks but also benefits of technological and economic development
This is tricky because I think people often overestimate or overweight the risks from various developments (e.g., GMO crops), especially if our focus is on just the coming years or decades. So we’d want to somehow target this metric to the “actually” risky developments, or to “considering” risks in a reasonable way rather than just in general.
levels of emissions
levels of corruption
The last two of those metrics might be “directly” important for existential risk reduction, but also might serve as a proxy for things like the first two metrics or other things we care about.
I also think well-being is not the ideal metric for what type of development would reduce x-risk either. When I mention the Gross Nation Happiness metric this is just one measure currently being used which actually includes things like good governance and environmental impact among many other things. My point was that growth in GDP is a poor measure of success and that creating a better metric of success might be a crucial step in improving the current system. I think a measure which attempts to quantify some of the things you mention would be wonderful to include in such a metric and would get the world thinking about how to improve those things. GNH is just one step better IMO than just seeking to maximize economic return. For more on GNH: https://ophi.org.uk/policy/national-policy/gross-national-happiness-index/
Oh, ok. I knew of “gross national happiness” as (1) a thing the Bhutan government talked about, and (2) a thing some people mention as more important than GDP without talking precisely about how GNH is measured or what the consequences of more GNH vs more GDP would be. (Those people were primarily social science teachers and textbook authors, from when I taught high school social science.)
I wasn’t aware GNH had been conceptualised in a way that includes things quite distinct from happiness itself. I don’t think the people I’d previously heard about it from were aware of that either. Knowing that makes me think GNH is more likely to be a useful metric for x-risk reduction, or at least that it’s in the right direction, as you suggest.
At the same time, I feel that, in that case, GNH is quite a misleading term. (I’d say similar about the Happy Planet Index.) But that’s a bit of a tangent, and not your fault (assuming you didn’t moonlight as the king of Bhutan in 1979).
I think my point is that we don’t know all that much about what that would look like. I have my own theories but they may be completely off base because this research is fairly uncommon and neglected. I think economic growth may not even be the best metric for progress but maybe some derivative of the Gross National Happiness Index or something of that nature. I do think that there may be bidirectional benefit from focusing at the intersection of x-risk and global development. I love the work ALLFED is doing BTW!
Epistemic status: I’ve only spent perhaps 15 minutes thinking about these specific matters, though I’ve thought more about related things.
I’d guess that happiness levels (while of course intrinsically important) wouldn’t be especially valuable as a metric of how well a global health/development intervention is reducing existential risks. I don’t see a strong reason to believe increased happiness (at least from the current margin) leads to better handling of AI risk and biorisk. Happiness may correlate with x-risk reduction, but if so, it’d probably due to other variables affecting both of those variables.
Metrics that seem more useful to me might be things like:
quality of reasoning and evidence used for key political and corporate decision-making
Though operationalising this is of course difficult
willingness to consider not just risks but also benefits of technological and economic development
This is tricky because I think people often overestimate or overweight the risks from various developments (e.g., GMO crops), especially if our focus is on just the coming years or decades. So we’d want to somehow target this metric to the “actually” risky developments, or to “considering” risks in a reasonable way rather than just in general.
levels of emissions
levels of corruption
The last two of those metrics might be “directly” important for existential risk reduction, but also might serve as a proxy for things like the first two metrics or other things we care about.
I also think well-being is not the ideal metric for what type of development would reduce x-risk either. When I mention the Gross Nation Happiness metric this is just one measure currently being used which actually includes things like good governance and environmental impact among many other things. My point was that growth in GDP is a poor measure of success and that creating a better metric of success might be a crucial step in improving the current system. I think a measure which attempts to quantify some of the things you mention would be wonderful to include in such a metric and would get the world thinking about how to improve those things. GNH is just one step better IMO than just seeking to maximize economic return. For more on GNH: https://ophi.org.uk/policy/national-policy/gross-national-happiness-index/
Oh, ok. I knew of “gross national happiness” as (1) a thing the Bhutan government talked about, and (2) a thing some people mention as more important than GDP without talking precisely about how GNH is measured or what the consequences of more GNH vs more GDP would be. (Those people were primarily social science teachers and textbook authors, from when I taught high school social science.)
I wasn’t aware GNH had been conceptualised in a way that includes things quite distinct from happiness itself. I don’t think the people I’d previously heard about it from were aware of that either. Knowing that makes me think GNH is more likely to be a useful metric for x-risk reduction, or at least that it’s in the right direction, as you suggest.
At the same time, I feel that, in that case, GNH is quite a misleading term. (I’d say similar about the Happy Planet Index.) But that’s a bit of a tangent, and not your fault (assuming you didn’t moonlight as the king of Bhutan in 1979).
Thanks!