Episode Details
Back to Episodes“AI safety can be a Pascal’s mugging even if p(doom) is high” by Elliott Thornley (EJT)
Description
People sometimes say that AI safety is a Pascal's mugging. Other people sometimes reply that AI safety can’t be a Pascal's mugging, because p(doom) is high. Both these people are wrong.
The second group of people are wrong because Pascal's muggings are about the probability that you make a difference, not about baseline risk. The first group of people are wrong because the probability that you personally avert AI catastrophe isn’t that small.
Here's a story to show that Pascal's muggings are about the probability that you make a difference. Imagine that God will flip a coin at the end of time. If the coin lands heads, He’ll send everyone to heaven. If the coin lands tails, He’ll send everyone to hell. Everyone knows this is what will happen.
In a dark alley, a stranger approaches you and tells you that he can make God's coin land heads, thereby ensuring that everyone goes to heaven. He says he’ll do it if you give him your wallet. You assign a very low probability to this stranger telling the truth — 1 in a bajillion — but the stranger reminds you that 10 bajillion people will have their fates determined by [...]
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First published:
April 25th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.