Henry Josephson
0 followers · 227 views
on the atlas — 1
highlights — 35
Acemoglu et al. (2012) suggests a good policy here is to do what we can to reduce the market for current unaligned versions of AI,4 while giving large research subsidies to research on alignment, with the hope of eventually pushing the aligned version of AI ahead of its unaligned counterparts. The paper also suggests the faster we do this, the less costly it will be.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunIf you can disrupt the loop sufficiently, you can get the dynamics to work for you, instead of against you. For example, Acemoglu and coauthors show a combination of carbon taxes on fossil fuels and research subsidies for renewable energy R&D will push R&D disproportionately towards renewable energy. Eventually it catches and surpasses fossil fuels, such that there may no longer be any need for government intervention at all.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunCritically acclaimed english fiction also seems less interested in the present - it is more likely to use backward looking language, less likely to mention contemporary technologies, and less likely to be set in the present.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunRegulatory costs associated with health and safety are another proxy for a society’s shift from growth in income to safety and health. In the USA, the costs of major health, safety, and environmental regulations on how businesses carry out their activities must be estimated by law. Singla (2023) uses natural language processing to read these regulatory documents at scale to estimate how the cost of complying with regulation has varied across industries and across time. He finds total compliance costs for major social regulations in the USA has risen from negligible amounts to $1 trillion dolla…
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunHere, I present a few charts to support the argument that wealthier societies start to favor safety at the expense of income growth, with more recent data than was available to Jones.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunstandard model of economic growth, where technological progress does not tend to increase your risk of dying (whew!). But we still do die in this model and Jones assumes people can reduce their probability of dying by purchasing safety technologies
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunas we get sufficiently rich, we are increasingly willing to sacrifice economic growth in exchange for reduced risks to our lives
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunincrease our income by about 50%, and the AI would kill us all with “just” 4% probability
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunincreasing our pile of stuff by a constant proportion increases utility by less and less
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunmaximum feasible utility for humans; with more-and-more stuff, we get closer-and-closer to this theoretical maximum, but can never quite reach it
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunJones’ model implies we would let AI run for 40 years, which would increase your income more than 50-fold, but the AI would kill us all with 1/3 probability!
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunAt some point we get rich enough that we choose to shut down growth, rather than risk losing everything we have on a little bit more
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunMost models of human decision-making assume that our utility increases by less-and-less as we get more-and-more stuff
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunsimple model where people enjoy two different things; having stuff and being alive
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sundesirability of technological progress in a world where progress can sometimes get you killed
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunWhat does science and technology policy look like in a world where we can no longer assume that more innovation generally leads to more human flourishing
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunaccessible to small groups, or even individuals without highly specialized skills
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunimagine a smart, moderately wealthy, but highly disturbed individual teaming up with a large language model trained on the entire scientific corpus, working together to develop potent bioweapons.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunI don’t think we even need to posit the existence of AI’s with unaligned goals of their own to be a bit concerned. For one, rapid automation
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunMost stories about the risks of AI revolve around AI’s developing goals that are not aligned with human flourishing
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunlarge organizations successfully collaborate in secret to develop harmful technology: think military research
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sununappreciated negative effects
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunnever been strong enough to guarantee technology is always good
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunit’s easier to develop technologies for beneficial use when you can be open about your work
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunthe technological capabilities of the people trying to stop bad technology from being developed grow with the march of technological progress
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Suntechnological progress increasingly requires the cooperation of many highly skilled individuals
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunthose working on technologies to harm or oppress must do so clandestinely or be stopped
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunpeople who are trying to invent technologies to benefit mankind can openly seek collaborators
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Suntechnological progress increasingly requires the cooperation of many highly skilled individuals
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sunpushing the scientific or technological envelope seems to be getting harder
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunFrontier technological and scientific research is conducted by ever larger teams of specialists
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunTo benefit from trade, you need to find technologies that others want, and so generally people invent technologies they think will benefit people (themselves or others), rather than harm them.
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Suninvention takes work, and people don’t do work unless they expect to benefit
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Suntechnology is just a tool,
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the SunMaterial living standards aren’t everything, but I think you can make a pretty good case that they tend to enable human flourishing better than feasible alternatives (this post from Jason Crawford reflects my views pretty well).
When Technology Goes Bad · New Things Under the Sun