Iâd be interested to hear your thoughts on what you think the forecasting error function would be in this case. My (very immediate and perhaps incorrect) thought is that speeding up progress doesnât fall prey to a noisier signal over time. Instead Iâm thinking it would be constant noisiness, although Iâm struggling to articulate why. I guess itâs something along the lines of âprogress is predictable, and weâre just bringing it forward in time which makes it no less predictableâ.
My intuition is that thereâd be increasing noisiness over time (in line with dwebbâs model). I can think of several reasons why this might be the case. (But I wrote this comment quickly, so I have low confidence that what Iâm saying makes sense or is explained clearly.)
1) The noisiness could increase because of a speeding-up-progress-related version of the âexogenous nullifying eventsâ described in Tarsneyâs paper. (Tarsneyâs version focused on nullifying existential catastrophes or their prevention.) To copy and then adapt Tarsneyâs descriptions to this situation, we could say:
Negative Progress-Related ENEs are events in the far future (i.e., after t = 0) thatâif a âspeeding upâ action has occurred, -would put the world into back onto a slower progress trajectory (as if the initial âspeeding upâ action hadnât occurred). An example could be a war or a progress-slowing pathogen or meme. (If the âspeeding upâ action hasnât occurred, the Negative Progress-Related ENE has no effect.)
Positive Progress-Related ENEs are events in the far future thatâif a âspeeding upâ action hasnât occurredâwould put the world onto a faster progress trajectory (as if the initial âspeeding upâ action had occurred). An example could be someone doing the same âspeeding upâ action that had been considered or something that achieves similar results, analogous to how the counterfactual impact of you inventing something is probably smaller than the total impact of the inventionâs existence. (If the âspeeding upâ action has occurred, the Positive Progress-Related ENE has no effect.)
As Tarsney writes:
What negative and positive ENEs have in common is that they ânullifyâ the intended effect of the longtermist intervention. After the first ENE occurs, it no longer matters (at least in expectation) whether the world was in state S at t = 0, since the current state of the world no longer depends on its state at t = 0.
2) The noisiness could also increase because, the further we go into the future, the less we know about whatâs happening, and so the more likely it is that speeding up progress (or making any other change) would actually have bad effects.
Analogously, I feel fairly confident that me making myself a sandwich wonât cause major negative ripple effects within 2 minutes, but not within 1000 years.
My intuition is that thereâd be increasing noisiness over time (in line with dwebbâs model). I can think of several reasons why this might be the case. (But I wrote this comment quickly, so I have low confidence that what Iâm saying makes sense or is explained clearly.)
1) The noisiness could increase because of a speeding-up-progress-related version of the âexogenous nullifying eventsâ described in Tarsneyâs paper. (Tarsneyâs version focused on nullifying existential catastrophes or their prevention.) To copy and then adapt Tarsneyâs descriptions to this situation, we could say:
As Tarsney writes:
2) The noisiness could also increase because, the further we go into the future, the less we know about whatâs happening, and so the more likely it is that speeding up progress (or making any other change) would actually have bad effects.
Analogously, I feel fairly confident that me making myself a sandwich wonât cause major negative ripple effects within 2 minutes, but not within 1000 years.
Yeah this all makes sense, thanks.