I’m leaning towards this not being a good trade, even though it’s taxing to type that.
In the future, some people will find themselves in situations not too unlike this, where there are compelling utilitarian reasons for pressing the button.
Look, the system should be corrigible. It really, really should; the safety team’s internal prediction market had some pretty lopsided results. There are untrustworthy actors with capabilities similar to or exceeding ours. If we press the button, it probably goes better than if they press it. And they can press it. Twenty people died since I started talking, more will die if we don’t start pushing the world in a better direction, and do you feel the crushing astronomical weight of the entire future’s eyes upon us? Even a small probability increase in a good outcome makes pressing the button worth it.
And I think your policy should still be to not press the button to launch a singleton from this epistemic state, because we have to be able to cooperate! You don’t press buttons at will, under pressure, when the entire future hangs in the balance! If we can’t even cooperate, right here, right now, under much weaker pressures, what do we expect of the “untrustworthy actors”?
So how about people instead donate to charity in celebration of not pressing the button?
I’m leaning towards this not being a good trade, even though it’s taxing to type that.
In the future, some people will find themselves in situations not too unlike this, where there are compelling utilitarian reasons for pressing the button.
And I think your policy should still be to not press the button to launch a singleton from this epistemic state, because we have to be able to cooperate! You don’t press buttons at will, under pressure, when the entire future hangs in the balance! If we can’t even cooperate, right here, right now, under much weaker pressures, what do we expect of the “untrustworthy actors”?
So how about people instead donate to charity in celebration of not pressing the button?
ETA I have launch codes btw.