Ember

• EmberAug 18, 2022, 3:27 AM

  13 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: EA is In­suffi­ciently Value Neu­tral in Practice

  “As I see it, my allies in this world aren’t so much the people who value what I value. Sure, I like them. But my real allies are the people who are willing to apply the same sort of methods to achieve their ends, whatever their ends may be.”

  This to me seems absurd. Let us imagine two armies one from country A and the other from country B, both of which use air raids as their methodology. The army from country A wants to invade country B and vice versa. Do you view these armies as being allies because they use the same methodology?

• EmberAug 18, 2022, 2:44 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: ColdButtonIssues’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  The first part isn’t an argument it’s just a dismissal. You haven’t engaged with anything I’ve said on it. You have to discount expert opinion in favor of market trends in order to hold this position in a context where market trends are particularly suspect.

  The second part denies the broad scientific consensus on the threat of climate change. Here’s a quote from the UN on climate change “the UN Secretary-General insisted that unless governments everywhere reassess their energy policies, the world will be uninhabitable.” Do you take the UN to be untrustworthy?

  https://​​news.un.org/​​en/​​story/​​2022/​​04/​​1115452#:~:text=A%20new%20flagship%20UN%20report,limit%20global%20warming%20to%201.5

  The argument of which party is better to join as an individual cannot be had without the recognition that the GOP being in power is a global catastrophic risk. Otherwise, we risk losing track of what the actual risk factors are.

  Separately this assumes the democrats are good on their issues when at best they are painfully mediocre.

• EmberAug 18, 2022, 12:01 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: ColdButtonIssues’s comment on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  No there’s no reason to expect nuclear risk to meaningfully affect property values, or that other country would respond appropriately. A nuclear war has never happened so without a clear understanding of the epistemic problems involved(which both markets and countries are failing to take into account) nuclear risk isn’t really taken as a meaningful factor. I might do a deep dive on this later, as I haven’t read up that much on the subject, but a quick google brought me to this article about how markets fail to capture the increased nuclear risk from the war in Ukraine. https://​​www.project-syndicate.org/​​commentary/​​asset-markets-ignoring-nuclear-risk-by-willem-h-buiter-2022-03

  Additionally, lots of these things increase nuclear risk beyond the term of the given political figure. Donald Trump is out of office but the Iran Nuclear Deal is still dead. Do you not think that the Iran Nuclear deal decreased nuclear risk? What about Trump’s statement that he would threaten nuclear war? do you think he’s lying? You have to make a ton of ad hoc assumptions to maintain this position.

  Also, do you agree that their position on climate change makes them being in power a global catastrophic risk? It seems like the point is unarguable, but you are welcome to give pushback.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 10:50 PM

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Go Repub­li­can, Young EA!

  So from where I’m standing, it seems like the Republican party is straight up a global catastrophic risk. The Republican party opposes any effort to address the climate crisis, and 139 of the elected republicans are actively climate change deniers. On the nuclear risk front, the republican party is also clearly horrific. Donald Trump killed the Iran Nuclear deal and stated support for Saudi Arabia developing nuclear weapons. Additionally, he said that he would threaten nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine(I would go as far as saying Biden winning in 2020, such that trump wasn’t in power when Putin invaded Ukrain constitutes an anthropic coincidence(see my Nuclear Fine-Tuning post). It seems Additionally given the republican party’s anti-democratic tendencies(i.e. election denial and gerrymandering) it seems entirely possible that will cement their power in such a way that they can’t be overturned electorally if they win in 2024(they might also just be able to win by default due to their control of the supreme court; The way Bush was able to beat Gore). As such I don’t see how any EA could possibly perfer them to the democrats. This is to say nothing of their treatment of minority groups.

  In this light I don’t see a clear path to working with them when them being in power will result in the destruction of our civilization. It seems like any ground made this way will simply become irrelvant when they start a nuclear war/​fail to do anything about climate change.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 7:12 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: PCO Moore’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I agree with all of this. The argument is not that AI risk claims are wacky or emotional and therefore should be considered untrustworthy. A claim be wacky or emotional impo doesn’t effect its epistemic credibility. It is that they directly parrel other apocalyptic claims that they both share a history with co-exist within the same culture(though being Christian apocalyptic beliefs) Additionally this is not proof that AI risk isn’t real it is merely a reason to think it is less epistemically credible.

  Regardless of the reality of AI risk, this is a reason that people will justifiably distrust it.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 6:40 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Dem0sthenes’s comment on: Nu­clear Fine-Tun­ing: How Many Wor­lds Have Been De­stroyed?

  You are very welcome :)

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 6:40 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: ColdButtonIssues’s comment on: Nu­clear Fine-Tun­ing: How Many Wor­lds Have Been De­stroyed?

  I’m glad you enjoyed it :)

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 6:39 PM

  2 points

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  in reply to: Dem0sthenes’s comment on: Are we already past the precipice?

  If you sign up for the 80,000 hours newsletter you can get one for free, it is also on libgen

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 6:38 PM

  6 points

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  in reply to: Sharmake’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I will add a section to this paper to clarify this. The argument isn’t that AI is apocalyptic and therefore untrustworthy but that the apocalyptic narratives in AI parrel other apocalyptic narratives that are untrustworthy(specifically old religious narratives). This paper shows that there are narratives within environmentalist circles but that alone isn’t enough for my argument to apply.

  I also don’t understand why no one has commented on my reframing of AI risk which I don’t take to be suspect. I very obviously view AI as a threat there’s an entire section on it.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 2:57 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Dem0sthenes’s comment on: Are we already past the precipice?

  I’ll check out the article.

  You can find the numbers in the Risk Landscape section. Yeah, it’s wonky. It seems very odd to me to both A) be confident that nuclear risk won’t kill everyone but will just kill 90% of people and B) that this would strongly influence which risks you worry about.

  Also, you might be interested in the submission I just made to the contest about many worlds and nuclear risk, as I am also begging EA to care about nuclear risk. https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​Gg2YsjGe3oahw2kxE/​​nuclear-fine-tuning-how-many-worlds-have-been-destroyed?

Nu­clear Fine-Tun­ing: How Many Wor­lds Have Been De­stroyed?

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 12:58 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: aog’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I don’t think that there was a point where climate change predictions were more similar to religious apocalypses due to the pre-existing movements concerned with ecology that were already dealing with pre-existing forms of ecological destruction. It to me that combating climate change became part of those movements as it became a more credible threat, and it doesn’t seem like it was ever irrationally focused on.

  That first paragraph is supposed to be a nod to the anthropic principle and is meant to situate the reader in the special epistemic situation of not being able to rely on the historical record. I love anthropic I’m about to submit another post on its implications for nuclear war.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 12:52 PM

  7 points

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  in reply to: jackva’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  My view is not that religious sects exist within AI and this is a reason to dismiss it.(this would apply equally to climate change) It is that the way apocalyptic AI is framed parallels religious apocalypses and religious narratives around the apocalypse, i.e. virtual heaven, reshaping of the world in the image of a single entity, etc. This simply isn’t to the same degree for climate change.

  I don’t agree that apocalyptic outcomes haven’t manifested from climate change yet. Larger and longer hurricane and fire season. The Glaciers melting away. It hasn’t killed us all yet but it certainly looks apocalyptic. Soon entire countries will sink beneath the waves. In fairness with AI this seems like it can’t happen until its the apocalypse so this is apples to oranges.

  Religious groups involved in environmentalism are not relevant insofar as they are not claiming to be non-religious(if they are making religious arguments) I guess the argument could be made that in the bible it says there will be more storms before the end and climate change says this but given that this is happening this doesn’t seem to hold.

  It is not doomerism that I’m worried about, it’s old religious stories reinventing themselves in secular guesses. Things like the singularity, virtual heavens, space colonization, etc. This doesn’t apply to the concern of AI systems as a group controlling the economy to human detriment, something I am very concerned about.

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 12:29 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno🔸’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  Ah thank you

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 12:28 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: PCO Moore’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I don’t think the vibe of climate apocalyptic claims is analogous to apocalyptic religious claims in the way apocalyptic AI is. This is because climate change is a process based while religious apocalypses and apocalyptic AI are events. Whether or not that is enough reason to dismiss the claims is subjective but it should decrease their credibility to some degree.

  I am confused as to how your thought experiment interacts with the argument in this paper. If no one had ever died of lung cancer before the man would be irrational no?

• EmberAug 17, 2022, 12:31 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: sphor’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  This makes sense

• EmberAug 16, 2022, 10:29 PM

  2 points

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  in reply to: LB’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I appreciate the explanation.

• EmberAug 16, 2022, 10:16 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: jackva’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I guess I just think they are valid, and it seems like the predictions have consistently come true. It is my view that the apocalyptic tendencies in the environmentalist movement do not directly parallel religious apocalyptic in the way apocalyptic AI does. However, I could be mistaken.

  To clarify my argument it is not the fact that an apocalyptic claim is being made, but rather that the claim is analogous to religious predictions that exist in the same culture that negatively affects its epistemic credibility.

  From reading the abstract of this paper it doesn’t seem to be about religious narratives in climate science. I lack access to the paper, if you have a free link I will check it out.

• EmberAug 16, 2022, 10:06 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: LB’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  This is a good point. I might write up a paragraph if I get the chance. In my head, I took it for granted that everyone would be on board with this but it’d probably be better to go over some of the data.

  I am confused as to why anyone would downvote this.

• EmberAug 16, 2022, 9:59 PM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno🔸’s comment on: The Cred­i­bil­ity of Apoca­lyp­tic Claims: A Cri­tique of Techno-Fu­tur­ism within Ex­is­ten­tial Risk

  I will check out the article.

  I was unaware of these more recent predictions, these increase the credibility of AI risk in my mind to some degree.

  Prior to generalized artificial intelligence actually existing I couldn’t ever view it as a higher priority than climate change. If it existed but was contained I would treat it as a higher priority, and if there were points where it almost escaped but didn’t even more so.