There’s something to this, but it’s not the whole story, because increasing probability of survival is good no matter what the current level is. Perhaps if you model decreasing existential risk as becoming exponentially more difficult (e.g. going from 32% risk to 16% risk is as difficult as going from 16% to 8%) and with the possibility of accidental increases (e.g. you’re trying to go from 32 to 16 but there’s some probability you go to 64 instead) then the current expectation for the level of risk will affect whether you take high-variance actions or not.
There’s something to this, but it’s not the whole story, because increasing probability of survival is good no matter what the current level is. Perhaps if you model decreasing existential risk as becoming exponentially more difficult (e.g. going from 32% risk to 16% risk is as difficult as going from 16% to 8%) and with the possibility of accidental increases (e.g. you’re trying to go from 32 to 16 but there’s some probability you go to 64 instead) then the current expectation for the level of risk will affect whether you take high-variance actions or not.