I generally endorse the claims made in this post and the overall analogy. Since this post was written, there are a few more examples I can add to the categories for slow takeoff properties.
Learning from experience
The UK procrastinated on locking down in response to the Alpha variant due to political considerations (not wanting to “cancel Christmas”), though it was known that timely lockdowns are much more effective.
Various countries reacted to Omicron with travel bans after they already had community transmission (e.g. Canada and the UK), while it was known that these measures would be ineffective.
Warning signs
Since there is a non-negligible possibility that covid-19 originated in a lab, the covid pandemic can be viewed as a warning sign about the dangers of gain of function research. So far, as far as I know, this warning sign has not been acted upon (there is no significant new initiative to ban gain of function research).
I think there was some improvement at acting on warning signs for subsequent variants (e.g. I believe that measures in response to Omicron were generally taken faster than measures for original covid). This gives me some hope that our institutions can get better at reacting to warning signs with practice (at least warning signs that are similar to those they have encountered before). This suggests that dealing with narrow AI disasters could potentially lead institutions to improve their ability to respond to warning signs.
Consensus on the problem
It took a long time to reach consensus on the importance of mask wearing and aerosol transmission.
We still don’t seem to have widespread consensus that transmission through surfaces is insignificant, at least judging by the amount of effort that seems to go into disinfection and cleaning in various buildings that I visit.
I generally endorse the claims made in this post and the overall analogy. Since this post was written, there are a few more examples I can add to the categories for slow takeoff properties.
Learning from experience
The UK procrastinated on locking down in response to the Alpha variant due to political considerations (not wanting to “cancel Christmas”), though it was known that timely lockdowns are much more effective.
Various countries reacted to Omicron with travel bans after they already had community transmission (e.g. Canada and the UK), while it was known that these measures would be ineffective.
Warning signs
Since there is a non-negligible possibility that covid-19 originated in a lab, the covid pandemic can be viewed as a warning sign about the dangers of gain of function research. So far, as far as I know, this warning sign has not been acted upon (there is no significant new initiative to ban gain of function research).
I think there was some improvement at acting on warning signs for subsequent variants (e.g. I believe that measures in response to Omicron were generally taken faster than measures for original covid). This gives me some hope that our institutions can get better at reacting to warning signs with practice (at least warning signs that are similar to those they have encountered before). This suggests that dealing with narrow AI disasters could potentially lead institutions to improve their ability to respond to warning signs.
Consensus on the problem
It took a long time to reach consensus on the importance of mask wearing and aerosol transmission.
We still don’t seem to have widespread consensus that transmission through surfaces is insignificant, at least judging by the amount of effort that seems to go into disinfection and cleaning in various buildings that I visit.