It is my impression that there are at least some examples in which this is done in practice: as far as I know, in rocket design you do in fact calculate those for most components, including software used on the on-board computers. This information is used to e.g. decide on the amount of duplication of electronics components in critical systems of the rocket. I am, however, not an expert on rockets.
It seems plausible that at least in some concepts, we can indeed build safeguards that have a certain efficiency that we know at reducing our overall risk. Even if this is true only sometimes, than it would be useful to have a way to calculate the maximum allowed risk levels for extinction-like events.
Incidentally, I am also of the opinion that having any kind of calculation would work better than making a non-zero extinction risk taboo, or not subject to negotiation (which seems to be the case currently).
However of course, I am not claiming that my idea is so great. I stand behind my opinion that we need some such system to make sensible tradeoffs on "emissions" of existential risk.
The upper bound is nearly always that there a black swan reason that makes you destroy the world.
Ah, I see you added this part.
I generally agree. Still, sometimes you'll want something to guide your design even if you know that there might be some such black swan. You are surely not suggesting that existence of black swans is enough to make us abandon all effort and do whatever.
It is my impression that there are at least some examples in which this is done in practice: as far as I know, in rocket design you do in fact calculate those for most components, including software used on the on-board computers. This information is used to e.g. decide on the amount of duplication of electronics components in critical systems of the rocket. I am, however, not an expert on rockets.
Of course it's possible to do risk calculations. At the same time that doesn't mean that you are safe. Long-Term Capital Management exploded despite having lo...
Time start: 18:17:30
I
This idea is probably going to sound pretty crazy. As far as seemingly crazy ideas go, it's high up there. But I think it is interesting enough to at least amuse you for a moment, and upon consideration your impression might change. (Maybe.) And as a benefit, it offers some insight into AI problems if you are into that.
(This insight into AI may or may not be new. I am not an expert on AI theory, so I wouldn't know. It's elementary, so probably not new.)
So here it goes, in short form on which I will expand in a moment:
To manage global risks to humanity, they can be captured in "risk contracts", freely tradeable on the market. Risk contracts would serve the same role as CO2 emissions contracts, which can likewise be traded, and ensure that the global norm is not exceeded as long as everyone plays along with the rules.
So e.g. if I want to run a dangerous experiment that might destroy the world, it's totally OK as long as I can purchase enough of a risk budget. Pretty crazy, isn't it?
As an added bonus, a risk contract can take into account the risk of someone else breaking the terms of contract. When you trasfer your rights to global risk, the contract obliges you to diminish the amount you transfer by the uncertainty about the other party being able to fullfill all obligations that come with such a contract. Or if you have not enough risk budget for this, you cannot transfer to that person.
II
Let's go a little bit more into detail about a risk contract. Note that this is supposed to illustrate the idea, not be a final say on the shape and terms of such a contract.
Just to give you some idea, here are some example rules (with lots of room to specify them more clearly etc., it's really just so that you have a clearer idea of what I mean by a "risk contract"):
III
Of course, the application of this could be wider than just an AI which might recursively self-improve - some more "normal" human applications could be risk management in a company or government, or even using risk contract as an internal currency to make better decisions.
I admit though, that the AI case is pretty special - it gives an opportunity to actually control the ability of another agent to keep a risk contract that we are giving to them.
It is an interesting calculation to see roughly what are the costs of keeping a risk contract in the recursive AI case, with a lot of simplifying assumptions. Assume that to reduce risk of child AI going off the rails can be reduced by a constant factor (e.g. have it cut by half) by putting in an additional unit of work. Also assume the chain of child AIs might continue indefinitely, and no later AI will assume a finite ending of it. Then if the chain has no branches, we are basically reduced to a power series: the risk budget of a child AI is always the same fraction of its parent's budget. That means we need linearly increasing amount of work on safety at each step. That in turn means that the total amount of work on safety is quadratic in the number of steps (child AIs).
Time end: 18:52:01
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