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AI X-Risk Goes Mainstream?
Jacob Coxon:
116,400,000 views, 634,000 likes.
Evan Hubinger (head of alignment at Anthropic):
34,000,000 views, 51,000 likes.
None of this is substantially different from what certain AI industry insiders have been saying for 5-ish years now, but it's clear from the replies, quote-tweets, and engagement statistics that most people are hearing about this for the first time. Yes, there was clearly some coordination with friendly media prior to the announcement given the almost simultaneous WSJ article (whereas news outlets were initially reluctant to publish anything on the unexpected news of OpenAI solving a Millennium Prize Problem). One can take the maximally conspiratorial position that this is a 4D bankshot by Democrats to end tech innovation forever, but it was going to break through eventually.
In other words, Coffeezilla is now on the case.
Greater than 10% of apocalypse over the next decade? That is such spectacular risk tolerance that I have a hard time believing this 10% number is genuinely held, which could just be that the people who believe in the "10%" chance do not really know what it means to take a 10% risk.
Most people would take a 90% risks of immense wealth or a 10% chance of death in 10 years. People have gambled for far less at a far greater risks of their life.
I think the average person would take the risks but you can certainly find many humans will to risks that.
1 out of 10 is incredibly high, though. Are there ANY activities you can think of with a 10% death rate? The death rate for heroin is 1-2% of users per year. The death rate for hang gliders is 1/1000 per year. BASE jumping is 1/2300 jumps; for this to be a lifetime rate would require an average jumper to do 230, which sounds pretty high. These are the absolute riskiest activities I can think of. Death is much higher stakes than a 10% chance of portfolio wipeout - no one takes 10% death chances, and apocalypse is even worse.
I will limit this to things people do for money and not honor or religion.
Wars of conquest. Like conquistadors in Mexico certainly faced high death rates but also a great chance at being fabulously wealthy with lots of heirs.
Drug dealing. Both the low end dealers seem to take a lot of risks for little gain and the higher ups. Mexican Cartel leaders death rates are definitely far above 10%. S American cartels have gotten safer and less violent but they were very risky for a while. Bootleggers and Italian Mafiosos no doubt faced higher risks.
Donald Trump. Maybe 10% is too high but assasination risks or perhaps for him live in prison risks were quite high.
Long distance trade was quite dangerous for much of history
I think maybe we could exclude the older examples when life was much harsher and not comfortable like today but Colombian drug cartel bosses were often already quite rich. Guys who already had cattle farms and estates. There are a lot of examples of cartel guys who didn’t need to take the risks but just wanted more money and power. It’s obvious a fairly large % of people take the risks.
My gut says it would be smart for me to take a 10% risks of instant death for a 90% chance of $500 million. I might turn it down for religious reasons as suicide is a mortal sin and that kind of feels like sort of suicide.
A shooter repeatedly shot at Trump including grazing Trump's ear. Trump is far past 10%.
American presidents have an 18% fatality rate. So Trump is in good company.
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