correct! i’ve tried to use this symmetry argument (“how do you know you’re not the clone?”) over the years to explain the multiverse: https://youtu.be/29AgSo6KOtI?t=869

interesting! still, aestivation seems to easily trump the black hole heat dumping, no?

dyson spheres are for newbs; real men (and ASIs, i strongly suspect) starlift.

thank you for continuing to stretch the overton window! note that, luckily, the “off-switch” is now inside the window (though just barely so, and i hear that big tech is actively - and very myopically - lobbying against on-chip governance). i just got back from a UN AIAB meeting and our interim report does include the sentence “Develop and collectively maintain an emergency response capacity, off-switches and other stabilization measures” (while rest of the report assumes that AI will not be a big deal any time soon).

thanks! basically, i think that the top priority should be to (quickly!) slow down the extinction race. if that’s successful, we’ll have time for more deliberate interventions — and the one you propose sounds confidently net positive to me! (with sign uncertainties being so common, confident net positive interventions are surprisingly rare).

AI takeover.

i might be confused about this but “witnessing a super-early universe” seems to support “a typical universe moment is not generating observer moments for your reference class”. but, yeah, anthropics is very confusing, so i’m not confident in this.

three most convincing arguments i know for OP’s thesis are:

1. atoms on earth are “close by” and thus much more valuable to fast running ASI than the atoms elsewhere.

2. (somewhat contrary to the previous argument), an ASI will be interested in quickly reaching the edge of the hubble volume, as that’s slipping behind the cosmic horizon — so it will starlift the sun for its initial energy budget.

3. robin hanson’s “grabby aliens” argument: witnessing a super-young universe (as we do) is strong evidence against it remaining compatible with biological life for long.

that said, i’m also very interested in the counter arguments (so thanks for linking to paul’s comments!) — especially if they’d suggest actions we could take in preparation.

i would love to see competing RSPs (or, better yet, RTDPs, as @Joe_Collman pointed out in a cousin comment).