Against GDP as a metric for AI timelines and takeoff speeds

Or: Why AI Takeover Might Happen Before GDP Accelerates, and Other Thoughts On What Matters for Timelines and Takeoff Speeds I think world GDP (and economic growth more generally) is overrated as a metric for AI timelines and takeoff speeds. Here are some uses of GDP that I disagree with, or at least think should be accompanied by cautionary notes: Timelines: Ajeya Cotra thinks of transformative AI as “software which causes a tenfold acceleration in the rate of growth of the world economy (assuming that it is used everywhere that it would be economically profitable to use it).” I don’t mean to single her out in particular; this seems like the standard definition now. Takeoff Speeds: Paul Christiano argues for […]

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Incentivizing forecasting via social media

Summary Most people will probably never participate on existing forecasting platforms which limits their effects on mainstream institutions and public discourse. Changes to the user interface and recommendation algorithms of social media platforms might incentivize forecasting and lead to its more widespread adoption. Broadly, we envision i) automatically suggesting questions of likely interest to the user—e.g., questions related to the user’s current post or trending topics—and ii) rewarding users with higher than average forecasting accuracy with increased visibility. In a best case scenario, such forecasting-incentivizing features might have various positive consequences such as increasing society’s shared sense of reality and the quality of public discourse, while reducing polarization and the spread of misinformation. Facebook’s Forecast could be seen as one […]

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Commitment ability in multipolar AI scenarios

Abstract The ability to make credible commitments is a key factor in many bargaining situations ranging from trade to international conflict. This post builds a taxonomy of the commitment mechanisms that transformative AI (TAI) systems could use in future multipolar scenarios, describes various issues they have in practice, and draws some tentative conclusions about the landscape of commitments we might expect in the future. Introduction A better understanding of the commitments that future AI systems can make is helpful for predicting and influencing the dynamics of multipolar scenarios. The option to credibly bind oneself to certain actions or strategies fundamentally changes the game theory behind bargaining, cooperation, and conflict. Credible commitments can work to stabilize positive-sum agreements, and to increase […]

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