Figure 1 (see full caption below)This post is a part of Rethink Priorities' Worldview Investigations Team's CURVE Sequence: "Causes and Uncertainty: Rethinking Value in Expectation." The aim of this sequence is twofold: first, to consider alternatives to expected value maximisation for cause prioritisation; second, to evaluate the claim that a commitment to expected value maximisation robustly supports the conclusion that we ought to prioritise existential risk mitigation over all else.

Executive Summary

Background

• This report builds on the model originally introduced by Toby Ord on how to estimate the value of existential risk mitigation.
• The previous framework has several limitations, including:
  • The inability to model anything requiring shorter time units than centuries, like AI timelines.
  • A very limited range of scenarios considered. In the previous model, risk and value growth can take different forms, and each combination represents one scenario
  • No explicit treatment of persistence –– how long the mitigation efforts’ effects last for ––as a variable of interest.
  • No easy way [...]

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Outline:

(00:38) Executive Summary

(05:26) Abridged Report

(11:20) Generalised Model: Arbitrary Risk Profile

(13:37) Value

(19:00) Great Filters and the Time of Perils Hypothesis

(21:06) Decaying Risk

(21:55) Results

(21:58) Convergence

(25:35) The Expected Value of Mitigating Risk Visualised

(31:59) Concluding Remarks

(35:00) Acknowledgements

The original text contained 24 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
October 23rd, 2023

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/S9H86osFKhfFBCday/how-bad-would-human-extinction-be

--- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.