utilitymonster comments on Should I believe what the SIAI claims? - Less Wrong

23 Post author: XiXiDu 12 August 2010 02:33PM

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Comment author: utilitymonster 12 August 2010 04:02:35PM *  6 points [-]

I'm not exactly an SIAI true believer, but I think they might be right. Here are some questions I've thought about that might help you out. I think it would help others out if you told us exactly where you'd be interested in getting off the boat.

  1. How much of your energy are you willing to spend on benefiting others, if the expected benefits to others will be very great? (It needn't be great for you to support SIAI.)
  2. Are you willing to pursue a diversified altruistic strategy if it saves fewer expected lives (it almost always will for donors giving less than $1 million or so)?
  3. Do you think mitigating x-risk is more important than giving to down-to-earth charities (GiveWell style)? (This will largely turn on how you feel about supporting causes with key probabilities that are tough to estimate, and how you feel about low-probability, high expected utility prospects.)
  4. Do you think that trying to negotiate a positive singularity is the best way to mitigate x-risk?
  5. Is any known organization likely to do better than SIAI in terms of negotiating a positive singularity (in terms of decreasing x-risk) on the margin?
  6. Are you likely to find an organization that beats SIAI in the future?

Judging from your post, you seem most skeptical about putting your efforts into causes whose probability of success is very difficult to estimate, and perhaps low.

Comment author: XiXiDu 12 August 2010 06:30:10PM *  0 points [-]
  1. Maximal utlity for everyone is a preference but secondary. Most of all in whatever I support my personal short and long-term benefit is a priority.
  2. No
  3. Yes (Edit)
  4. Uncertain/Unable to judge.
  5. Maybe, but I don't know of one. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't create one, if only for the uncertainty of Eliezer Yudkowsky' possible unstated goals.
  6. Uncertain/Unable to judge. See 5.
Comment author: utilitymonster 12 August 2010 06:48:44PM 2 points [-]

Given your answers to 1-3, you should spend all of your altruistic efforts on mitigating x-risk (unless you're just trying to feel good, entertain yourself, etc.).

For 4, I shouldn't have asked you whether you "think" something beats negotiating a positive singularity in terms of x-risk reduction. Better: Is there some other fairly natural class of interventions (or list of potential examples) such that, given your credences, has a higher expected value? What might such things be?

For 5-6, perhaps you should think about what such organizations might be. Those interested in convincing XiXiDu might try listing some alternative best x-risk mitigating groups and provide arguments that they don't do as well. As for me, my credences are highly unstable in this area, so info is appreciated on my part as well.

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