What would you do if there was a 5% chance that the world would end?
Snake eyes on pair of dice is about 3%.
Drawing a pair in poker (5 card) is about 5%.
Fours head coin-flips in a row is about 6%.
Three heads in a row
Let’s leave aside for the moment as to what particular thing you believe the chances are of something in particular ending the world, but you do believe it, what would you do?
In Katja Grace‘s Survey of 2,778 AI authors: six parts in Pictures, she summarizes some of the results of her paper, Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI.
The third takeaway is:
Median respondents put 5% or more on advanced AI leading to human extinction or similar, and a third to a half of participants gave 10% or more.
Perhaps that consensus of thousands of the bright people who think most carefully about AI is wrong. Perhaps not.
I am not asking whether we should believe that they are right, but rather asking what we should do if we believe them.
And if you don’t want to think about AI, pick Climate Change, Biohazards, Nuclear Weapons, and run numbers on the existential threat of your choice.
