All of Moritz Wallawitsch's Comments + Replies

Why would it not be relevant to the question? What's the value of only looking at eliminating the potential risk?

Regulating a technology is not just about eliminating the risks of it but about reducing the risks to some extent while still enabling the upside. the upsides need to be clearly analyses and acknowledged.

1jasoncrawford1yCertainly. You need to look at both benefits and costs if you are talking about, for instance, what to do about a technology—whether to ban it, or limit it, or heavily regulate it, or fund it / accelerate it, etc. But that was not the context of this piece. There was only one topic for this piece, which was that the proponents of AI (of which I am one!) should not dismiss or ignore potential risks. That was all.

A plea for solutionism on AI safety

Moritz Wallawitsch1y1

Also, as Marc Andreessen points out in his piece, AI can also increase safety (this point seems unaddressed in your essay): https://pmarca.substack.com/p/why-ai-will-save-the-world

1jasoncrawford1yYes, certainly! But that point isn't relevant to the point I'm making here. And emphasizing that point as a way of arguing against AI risk itself is one of the things I'm discouraging. It would be like responding to concerns about drug safety by saying “but drugs save lives!” Yes, of course they do, but that isn't relevant to the question of whether drugs also pose risks, and what we should do about those risks.

A plea for solutionism on AI safety

Moritz Wallawitsch1y1

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it "safety is good"? That seems pretty obvious?

I think the problem is that some people think the state should regulate/interfere with how safe something can or should be. Related: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/anti-growth-safetyism

1jasoncrawford1yNot just “safety is good”, but: (1) safety is a part of progress, rather than something opposed to it and (2) optimists should confront risks and seek solutions, rather than downplaying or dismissing them.

How can we classify negative effects of new technologies?

Answer by Moritz WallawitschOct 02, 20222

The existence of most of the ones you listed sounds questionable.

How about economic risk exposure (for a given person/city/state)? I think there is already a ton of research on this.

E.g. funding some new nuclear power research could provide a 10000x ROI but .0000X% danger of destroying the city/area of the research facility.

We Should Break Up Elite Colleges

Moritz Wallawitsch2y2

Sounds reasonable. However, a better long-term strategy seems to be complete privatization. I.e. to remove the subsidies and tax breaks. I think Brian Caplan would support this strategy (see his book on the education system).