I strongly prefer the “dying with dignity” mentality for 3 basic reasons:
as other people have mentioned, “playing to your outs” is too easy to misinterpret as conditioning on comfortable improbabilities no matter how much you try to draw the distinctions
relatedly, focusing on “playing to your outs” (especially if you do so for emotional reasons) may make it harder to stay grounded in accurate models of reality (that may mostly output “we will die soon”)
Operating under the mindset that death is likely when AGI is still some ways around the corner and easy to ignore seems like it ought to make it easier to stay emotionally resilient and ready to exploit miracle opportunities if/when AGI is looming and impossible to ignore
Of these, the 3rd feels the most important to me, partly because I’ve seen it discussed least. It seems like if Eliezer’s basic model is right, a significant portion of the good outcomes require some kind of miracle occuring at crunch time, which will presumably be easier to obtain if key players are emotionally prepared and not suddenly freaking out for the first time (on an emotional/subconscious level). I know basically nothing about psychology, but isn’t it a bad sign if you retreat to “oh death with dignity is unmotivating, let’s just focus on our outs” when AGI is less salient?
I strongly prefer the “dying with dignity” mentality for 3 basic reasons:
as other people have mentioned, “playing to your outs” is too easy to misinterpret as conditioning on comfortable improbabilities no matter how much you try to draw the distinctions
relatedly, focusing on “playing to your outs” (especially if you do so for emotional reasons) may make it harder to stay grounded in accurate models of reality (that may mostly output “we will die soon”)
Operating under the mindset that death is likely when AGI is still some ways around the corner and easy to ignore seems like it ought to make it easier to stay emotionally resilient and ready to exploit miracle opportunities if/when AGI is looming and impossible to ignore
Of these, the 3rd feels the most important to me, partly because I’ve seen it discussed least. It seems like if Eliezer’s basic model is right, a significant portion of the good outcomes require some kind of miracle occuring at crunch time, which will presumably be easier to obtain if key players are emotionally prepared and not suddenly freaking out for the first time (on an emotional/subconscious level). I know basically nothing about psychology, but isn’t it a bad sign if you retreat to “oh death with dignity is unmotivating, let’s just focus on our outs” when AGI is less salient?