I’ve read and appreciate the entire series, but this was the chapter that really stood out to me. I think that improved systems of voluntary contracts with decentralized enforcement might be our best hope out of the multiple Pareto-suboptimal races-to-doom that humanity seems stuck in.
I think this is potentially a place where we could use our biggest risk factor (AI) to save us before it dooms us. Could we manage to use AI to speed-run the invention and deployment of such subsidiarity governance systems?
I think the biggest challenge to this is how fast it would need to move in order to take effect in time. For a system that needs extremely broad buy-in from a large number of heterogenous actors, speed of implementation and adoption is a key weak point.
Imagine though that a really good system was designed which you felt confident that a supermajority of humanity would sign onto if they had it personally explained to them (along with a convincing explanations of the counterfactuals). How might we get this personalized explanation accomplished at scale? Welll, LLMs are still bad at certain things, but giving personalized interactive explanations of complex legal docs seems well within their near-term capabilities.
It would still be a huge challenge to actually present nearly everyone on Earth with the opportunity to have this interaction, and all within a short deadline… But not beyond belief.
This is the first non-destructive non-coercive pivotal act that I’ve considered plausibly sufficient to save us from the current crisis. I’ve thought up and heard of a lot of different bad plans over the past ten years, so it’s really nice to finally find a good one!
I’ve read and appreciate the entire series, but this was the chapter that really stood out to me. I think that improved systems of voluntary contracts with decentralized enforcement might be our best hope out of the multiple Pareto-suboptimal races-to-doom that humanity seems stuck in.
I think this is potentially a place where we could use our biggest risk factor (AI) to save us before it dooms us. Could we manage to use AI to speed-run the invention and deployment of such subsidiarity governance systems? I think the biggest challenge to this is how fast it would need to move in order to take effect in time. For a system that needs extremely broad buy-in from a large number of heterogenous actors, speed of implementation and adoption is a key weak point.
Imagine though that a really good system was designed which you felt confident that a supermajority of humanity would sign onto if they had it personally explained to them (along with a convincing explanations of the counterfactuals). How might we get this personalized explanation accomplished at scale? Welll, LLMs are still bad at certain things, but giving personalized interactive explanations of complex legal docs seems well within their near-term capabilities. It would still be a huge challenge to actually present nearly everyone on Earth with the opportunity to have this interaction, and all within a short deadline… But not beyond belief.
This is the first non-destructive non-coercive pivotal act that I’ve considered plausibly sufficient to save us from the current crisis. I’ve thought up and heard of a lot of different bad plans over the past ten years, so it’s really nice to finally find a good one!
Existential Hope indeed!