I’m not sure that a technical explanation is called for; “conservative” just means different things in different contexts. But how about this?
The general meaning of “conservative” that covers both these cases is something like “takes the worst case duly into account when making decisions”.
When you are engaging in futurism, your most important real goal is not accurate prediction but sounding impressive, and accordingly the worst case is where you say something that sounds stupid and/or is spectacularly refuted by actual events.
Therefore, to be “conservative” when engaging in futurism, you make “cautious” predictions in the sense of ones that don’t sound stupid and that when they’re wrong are highly excusably wrong. Which generally means predicting not too much change.
When you are trying to decide policy for dealing with some possible huge risk, your most important real goal is having things actually turn out well, and accordingly the worst case is where your decision leads to millions of deaths or economic catastrophe or something.
Therefore, to be “conservative” when making large-scale-risk policy, you make “cautious” predictions in the sense of ones that take into account ways that things could go very badly. This means, on the one hand, that you don’t ignore risks just because they sound weird; and, on the other hand, that you don’t commit all your resources to addressing Weird Risk One when you might actually need them for Weird Risk Two, or for Making Normality Go Well.
If you want a version of the above with numbers, think in terms of expected utilities.
If you don’t actually anticipate what you say having much impact on anything other than what people think of you, and you think there’s a 10% chance that runaway AI destroys everything of value to the human race, then your calculation goes something like this. If you remain calm, downplay the risks of catastrophe, etc., but maybe mention the catastrophes as unlikely possibilities then you pass up a 10% chance of looking prophetic when everything of value is destroyed (but in that case, well, everything of value has been destroyed so it doesn’t much matter) and whatever shock value it might have to say “we’re all doomed!!!!!111”; in exchange you get to look wise and reasonable and measured. Maybe being successfully prophetic would be +100 units of utility for you, except that shortly afterwards everyone is dead so let’s call it +1 instead. Maybe shock value is +5 by drawing public attention to you, but looking crazy is −5 so that balances out. And looking wrong when AI hasn’t killed us yet in 5 years’ time is −5. That’s −4.4 units of expected utility from being alarmist, versus what would have been say −200 with probability 0.1 but is actually only −1 because, again, we are all dead, plus +1 when AI continues to not kill us for 5 years; expectation is +0.8 units. 0.8 is better than −4.4 so don’t be alarmist.
If you do anticipate what you say having an impact, and you think there’s a 10% chance of catastrophe if we don’t take serious action, and that if you are alarmist it’ll raise the chance of a meaningful response from 2% to 2.5%, and that if catastrophe happens / would otherwise happen that meaningful response gives us a 20% chance to survive, and you reckon the survival of the human race is enough more important than whether or not you look like an idiot or a prophet, then you completely ignore all the calculations in the previous paragraph, and essentially the only thing that matters is that being alarmist means an extra 20% chance of survival 0.5% of the time in a situation that happens 10% of the time, so an extra 0.01% chance that the entire human race survives, which is a very big deal. (If you’re being carefully conservative you should also be considering the danger of taking resources away from other huge risks, or of crying wolf and actually making a meaningful response less likely if the catastrophe isn’t very close, but probably these are second-order considerations.)
I am not sure that the numbers really add anything much to the informal discussion above.
My account of what “conservative” means for futurists takes a cynical view where futurists are primarily interested in looking impressive. There is another perspective that can be called “conservative”, which observes that futurists’ predictions are commonly overdramatic and accordingly says that they should be moderated for the sake of accuracy. But I assume that when you arrive at your (say) 10% probability of catastrophe, that’s the best estimate you can come up with after taking into account things like whatever tendency you might have to overdramatize or to extrapolate short-term trends too enthusiastically.
Thank you. Your explanation fits “futurist/decision-maker” distinction, but I just don’t feel calling decision-maker behavior “conservative” is appropriate? If you probability is already 10%, than treating it like 10% without adjustments is not worst-case thinking. It’s certainly not the (only) kind of conservatism that Eliezer’s quote talks about.
There is another perspective that can be called “conservative”, which observes that futurists’ predictions are commonly overdramatic and accordingly says that they should be moderated for the sake of accuracy.
This is perspective I’m mostly interested in. And this is where I would like to see numbers that balance caution about being overdramatic and having safety margin.
I’m not sure that a technical explanation is called for; “conservative” just means different things in different contexts. But how about this?
The general meaning of “conservative” that covers both these cases is something like “takes the worst case duly into account when making decisions”.
When you are engaging in futurism, your most important real goal is not accurate prediction but sounding impressive, and accordingly the worst case is where you say something that sounds stupid and/or is spectacularly refuted by actual events.
Therefore, to be “conservative” when engaging in futurism, you make “cautious” predictions in the sense of ones that don’t sound stupid and that when they’re wrong are highly excusably wrong. Which generally means predicting not too much change.
When you are trying to decide policy for dealing with some possible huge risk, your most important real goal is having things actually turn out well, and accordingly the worst case is where your decision leads to millions of deaths or economic catastrophe or something.
Therefore, to be “conservative” when making large-scale-risk policy, you make “cautious” predictions in the sense of ones that take into account ways that things could go very badly. This means, on the one hand, that you don’t ignore risks just because they sound weird; and, on the other hand, that you don’t commit all your resources to addressing Weird Risk One when you might actually need them for Weird Risk Two, or for Making Normality Go Well.
If you want a version of the above with numbers, think in terms of expected utilities.
If you don’t actually anticipate what you say having much impact on anything other than what people think of you, and you think there’s a 10% chance that runaway AI destroys everything of value to the human race, then your calculation goes something like this. If you remain calm, downplay the risks of catastrophe, etc., but maybe mention the catastrophes as unlikely possibilities then you pass up a 10% chance of looking prophetic when everything of value is destroyed (but in that case, well, everything of value has been destroyed so it doesn’t much matter) and whatever shock value it might have to say “we’re all doomed!!!!!111”; in exchange you get to look wise and reasonable and measured. Maybe being successfully prophetic would be +100 units of utility for you, except that shortly afterwards everyone is dead so let’s call it +1 instead. Maybe shock value is +5 by drawing public attention to you, but looking crazy is −5 so that balances out. And looking wrong when AI hasn’t killed us yet in 5 years’ time is −5. That’s −4.4 units of expected utility from being alarmist, versus what would have been say −200 with probability 0.1 but is actually only −1 because, again, we are all dead, plus +1 when AI continues to not kill us for 5 years; expectation is +0.8 units. 0.8 is better than −4.4 so don’t be alarmist.
If you do anticipate what you say having an impact, and you think there’s a 10% chance of catastrophe if we don’t take serious action, and that if you are alarmist it’ll raise the chance of a meaningful response from 2% to 2.5%, and that if catastrophe happens / would otherwise happen that meaningful response gives us a 20% chance to survive, and you reckon the survival of the human race is enough more important than whether or not you look like an idiot or a prophet, then you completely ignore all the calculations in the previous paragraph, and essentially the only thing that matters is that being alarmist means an extra 20% chance of survival 0.5% of the time in a situation that happens 10% of the time, so an extra 0.01% chance that the entire human race survives, which is a very big deal. (If you’re being carefully conservative you should also be considering the danger of taking resources away from other huge risks, or of crying wolf and actually making a meaningful response less likely if the catastrophe isn’t very close, but probably these are second-order considerations.)
I am not sure that the numbers really add anything much to the informal discussion above.
My account of what “conservative” means for futurists takes a cynical view where futurists are primarily interested in looking impressive. There is another perspective that can be called “conservative”, which observes that futurists’ predictions are commonly overdramatic and accordingly says that they should be moderated for the sake of accuracy. But I assume that when you arrive at your (say) 10% probability of catastrophe, that’s the best estimate you can come up with after taking into account things like whatever tendency you might have to overdramatize or to extrapolate short-term trends too enthusiastically.
Thank you. Your explanation fits “futurist/decision-maker” distinction, but I just don’t feel calling decision-maker behavior “conservative” is appropriate? If you probability is already 10%, than treating it like 10% without adjustments is not worst-case thinking. It’s certainly not the (only) kind of conservatism that Eliezer’s quote talks about.
This is perspective I’m mostly interested in. And this is where I would like to see numbers that balance caution about being overdramatic and having safety margin.