It’s simply because we each (myself more than her) have an inclination to apply a fair amount of adjustment in a conservative direction, for generic “burden of proof” reasons, rather than go with the timelines that seem most reasonable based on the report in a vacuum.
While one can sympathize with the view that the burden of proof ought to lie with advocates of shorter timelines when it comes to the pure inference problem (“When will AGI occur?”), it’s worth observing that in the decision problem (“What should we do about it?”) this situation is reversed. The burden of proof in the decision problem probably ought instead to lie with advocates of non-action: when one’s timelines are >1 generation, it is a bit too easy to kick the can down the road in various ways — leaving one unprepared if the future turns out to move faster than we expected. Conversely someone whose timelines are relatively short may take actions today that will leave us in a better position in the future, even if that future arrives more slowly than they believed originally.
(I don’t think OpenPhil is confusing these two, just that in a conversation like this it is particularly worth emphasizing the difference.)
I agree with this. I often default to acting as though we have ~10-15 years, partly because I think leverage is especially high conditional on timelines in that rough range.
While one can sympathize with the view that the burden of proof ought to lie with advocates of shorter timelines when it comes to the pure inference problem (“When will AGI occur?”), it’s worth observing that in the decision problem (“What should we do about it?”) this situation is reversed. The burden of proof in the decision problem probably ought instead to lie with advocates of non-action: when one’s timelines are >1 generation, it is a bit too easy to kick the can down the road in various ways — leaving one unprepared if the future turns out to move faster than we expected. Conversely someone whose timelines are relatively short may take actions today that will leave us in a better position in the future, even if that future arrives more slowly than they believed originally.
(I don’t think OpenPhil is confusing these two, just that in a conversation like this it is particularly worth emphasizing the difference.)
I agree with this. I often default to acting as though we have ~10-15 years, partly because I think leverage is especially high conditional on timelines in that rough range.