LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Low P(x-risk) as the Bailey for Low P(doom)” by Vladimir_Nesov


Listen Later

Nick Bostrom defines existential risk as

Existential risk – One where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.

The problem with talking about "doom" is that many worlds that fall to existential risk but don't involve literal extinction are treated as non-doom worlds. For example, leaving humanity the Solar System rather than a significant portion of the 4 billion galaxies reachable from the Solar System is plausibly a "non-doom" outcome, but it's solidly within Bostrom's definition of x-risk.

Thus when people are discussing P(doom), the intent is often to discuss only extreme downside outcomes, and so low P(doom) such as 20% doesn't imply that the remaining 80% don't involve permanently and drastically curtailed future of humanity. In other words, a P(doom) of 20% is perfectly compatible with P(x-risk) of 90-98%.

Ben Mann of Anthropic said in [...]

---

Outline:

(02:02) Between Extinction and Permanent Disempowerment

(03:24) Avoid Doom, Clarify Stance on Permanent Disempowerment

---

First published:

July 29th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eSob8HxDbsuDhoTXt/low-p-x-risk-as-the-bailey-for-low-p-doom

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,386 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,419 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,916 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,153 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,595 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,862 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

90 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

501 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,470 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,026 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

539 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

130 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

94 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

504 Listeners