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I don't understand how Effective Altruism has anything to do with AI risk. It's a relatively straightforward to prove that $4000 worth of mosquito nets can save
by Aunche 4y ago
I don't understand how Effective Altruism has anything to do with AI risk. It's a relatively straightforward to prove that $4000 worth of mosquito nets can save one life, but how can you do the same for AI risk? It's handwavy just to quantify the risk of a rogue AGI, let alone quantify the benefit of developing countermeasures to rogue AI. It sounds very much like a garbage in, garbage out scenario.
- kalkin 4y agoIt does feel like more of a sociological than a philosophical overlap, aside maybe from consequentialism. The best argument for GiveDirectly and mosquito nets over structural change is that nobody honestly knows how to move the likelihood of the latter with a few thousand dollars, so you can reasonably choose to definitely do something that will at least really help someone over trying to fix an alleged root cause but most likely having no effect at all. But then our understanding of how to invest in AI alignment is even worse than our understanding of how to invest in reducing root causes of violence and inequality.
- polrjoy 4y agoI don't understand how $4000 worth of mosquito nets save one life. Don't those people's survival also need to eat, drink, treat other diseases, etc.? In the same spirit, I might as well claim my after-meal $2 ice cream relieved me from hunger.
- Aunche 4y agoIt's a basic experiment. Give one group of people mosquito nets. Let another group of people be a control group. Compare the mortality rates of both groups.
- jefftk 4y agoGiveWell's summary of the research: https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/in...