If those don’t hold, what is the alternate scenario in which a multipolar world remains safe?
The choice of the word “remains” is an interesting one here. What is true of our current multipolar world which makes the current world “safe”, but which would stop being true of a more advanced multipolar world? I don’t think it can be “offense/defense balance” because nuclear and biological weapons are already far on the “offense is easier than defense” side of that spectrum.
I agree that it should be phrased differently. One problem here is that AGI may allow victory without mutually assured destruction. A second is that it may proliferate far more widely than nukes or bioweapons have so far. People often speak of massively multipolar scenarios as a good outcome.
Good point about the word “remains”. I’m afraid people see a “stable” situation—but logically that only extends for a few years until fully autonomously RSI-capable AGI and robotics is widespread, and any malcontent can produce offensive capabilities we can’t yet imagine.
People often speak of massively multipolar scenarios as a good outcome.
I understand that inclination. Historically, unipolar scenarios do not have a great track record of being good for those not in power, especially unipolar scenarios where the one in power doesn’t face significant risks to mistreating those under them. So if unipolar scenarios are bad, that means multipolar scenarios are good, right?
But “the good situation we have now is not stable, we can choose between making things a bit worse (for us personally) immediately and maybe not get catastrophically worse later, or having things remain good now but get catastrophically worse later” is a pretty hard pill to swallow. And is also an argument with a rich history of being ignored without the warned catastrophic thing happening.
The choice of the word “remains” is an interesting one here. What is true of our current multipolar world which makes the current world “safe”, but which would stop being true of a more advanced multipolar world? I don’t think it can be “offense/defense balance” because nuclear and biological weapons are already far on the “offense is easier than defense” side of that spectrum.
I agree that it should be phrased differently. One problem here is that AGI may allow victory without mutually assured destruction. A second is that it may proliferate far more widely than nukes or bioweapons have so far. People often speak of massively multipolar scenarios as a good outcome.
Good point about the word “remains”. I’m afraid people see a “stable” situation—but logically that only extends for a few years until fully autonomously RSI-capable AGI and robotics is widespread, and any malcontent can produce offensive capabilities we can’t yet imagine.
I understand that inclination. Historically, unipolar scenarios do not have a great track record of being good for those not in power, especially unipolar scenarios where the one in power doesn’t face significant risks to mistreating those under them. So if unipolar scenarios are bad, that means multipolar scenarios are good, right?
But “the good situation we have now is not stable, we can choose between making things a bit worse (for us personally) immediately and maybe not get catastrophically worse later, or having things remain good now but get catastrophically worse later” is a pretty hard pill to swallow. And is also an argument with a rich history of being ignored without the warned catastrophic thing happening.
Excellent point that unipolar scenarios have been bad historically. I wrote about recognizing the validity of that concern recently in Fear of centralized power vs. fear of misaligned AGI: Vitalik Buterin on 80,000 Hours.
And good point that warnings of future catastrophe are likely to go unheeded because wolf has been cried in the past.
Although sometimes those things didn’t happen precisely because the warnings were heeded.
In this case, we only need one or a few relatively informed actors to heed the call to prevent proliferation even if it’s short-term risky.