Decreasing the risk of human extinction over the next few decades is not enough for astronomical benefits even if the risk is concentrated there, and the future is astronomically valuable. Imagine human population is 10^10 without human extinction, and that the probability of human extinction over the next 10 years is 10 % (in reality, I guess the probability of human extinction over the next 10 years is more like 10^-7), and then practically 0 forever, which implies infite human-years in the future. As an extreme example, an intervention decreasing to 0 the risk of human extinction over the next 10 years could still have negligible value. If it only postpones extinction by 1 s, it would only increase future human-years by 317 (= 10^10*1/(365.25*24*60^2)). I have not seen any empirical quantitative estimates of increases in the probability of astronomically valuable futures.
A classic paper by the climate economist Martin Weitzman shows that the average discount rate over long periods is set by the lowest plausible rate
The link is broken. Here is the paper “Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate”.
Hi Carl.
Decreasing the risk of human extinction over the next few decades is not enough for astronomical benefits even if the risk is concentrated there, and the future is astronomically valuable. Imagine human population is 10^10 without human extinction, and that the probability of human extinction over the next 10 years is 10 % (in reality, I guess the probability of human extinction over the next 10 years is more like 10^-7), and then practically 0 forever, which implies infite human-years in the future. As an extreme example, an intervention decreasing to 0 the risk of human extinction over the next 10 years could still have negligible value. If it only postpones extinction by 1 s, it would only increase future human-years by 317 (= 10^10*1/(365.25*24*60^2)). I have not seen any empirical quantitative estimates of increases in the probability of astronomically valuable futures.
The link is broken. Here is the paper “Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate”.