This actually brings up an important consideration. It would be bad to incentivize AGI research by paying people who work inside it huge sums, the same way paying slaveowners to free their slaves is a poor abolitionists’ strategy.
? This was literally what the UK did to free their slaves, and (iiuc) historians considered it more successful than (e.g.) the US strategy, which led to abolition a generation later and also involved a civil war.
That was after the abolition of slavery by law, and long after the interdiction of the transatlantic slave trade by the Royal Navy. I wonder if it would have been such a good strategy if the compensated could have re-invested their money.
This is a really good point! Though I thought the subtext of the original comment was about the incentives rather than the causal benefits/​harms after receiving the money.
? This was literally what the UK did to free their slaves, and (iiuc) historians considered it more successful than (e.g.) the US strategy, which led to abolition a generation later and also involved a civil war.
That was after the abolition of slavery by law, and long after the interdiction of the transatlantic slave trade by the Royal Navy. I wonder if it would have been such a good strategy if the compensated could have re-invested their money.
This is a really good point! Though I thought the subtext of the original comment was about the incentives rather than the causal benefits/​harms after receiving the money.