Most people’s work doesn’t contribute to saving the world.
I’d argue that a lot of people’s work does. Everybody that contributes to keeping the technological world running (from farmers to chip designers) enables us to potentially save ourselves from the longer term non-anthrogenic existential risks.
Obviously, you need to interpret that statement as “Any given person’s work doesn’t significantly contribute to saving the world”. In other words, if we “subtract” that one person, the future (in the aspect of the world not ending) changes insignificantly.
Are you also amending 4) to have the significant clause?
Because there are lots of smart people that have worked on AI, whose work I doubt would be significant. And that is the nearest reference class I have for likely significance of people working on FAI.
I’m not amending, I’m clarifying. (4) doesn’t have world-changing power in itself, only through the importance of FAI implied by other arguments, and that part doesn’t apply to activity of most people in the world. I consider the work on AI as somewhat significant as well, although obviously less significant than work on FAI at the margain, since much more people are working on AI. The argument, as applied to their work, makes them an existential threat (moderate to high when talking about the whole profession, rather weak when talking about individual people).
As for the character of work, I believe that at the current stage, productive work on FAI is close to pure mathematics (but specifically with problem statements not given), and very much unlike most of AI or even the more rigorous kinds from machine learning (statistics).
Agreed. More broadly, everyone affects anthropogenic existential risks too, which limits the number of orders of magnitude one can improve in impact from a positive start.
I’d argue that a lot of people’s work does. Everybody that contributes to keeping the technological world running (from farmers to chip designers) enables us to potentially save ourselves from the longer term non-anthrogenic existential risks.
Obviously, you need to interpret that statement as “Any given person’s work doesn’t significantly contribute to saving the world”. In other words, if we “subtract” that one person, the future (in the aspect of the world not ending) changes insignificantly.
Are you also amending 4) to have the significant clause?
Because there are lots of smart people that have worked on AI, whose work I doubt would be significant. And that is the nearest reference class I have for likely significance of people working on FAI.
I’m not amending, I’m clarifying. (4) doesn’t have world-changing power in itself, only through the importance of FAI implied by other arguments, and that part doesn’t apply to activity of most people in the world. I consider the work on AI as somewhat significant as well, although obviously less significant than work on FAI at the margain, since much more people are working on AI. The argument, as applied to their work, makes them an existential threat (moderate to high when talking about the whole profession, rather weak when talking about individual people).
As for the character of work, I believe that at the current stage, productive work on FAI is close to pure mathematics (but specifically with problem statements not given), and very much unlike most of AI or even the more rigorous kinds from machine learning (statistics).
That makes me wonder who will replace Norman Borlaug, or lets say any particular influential writer or thinker.
Agreed. More broadly, everyone affects anthropogenic existential risks too, which limits the number of orders of magnitude one can improve in impact from a positive start.