AI_timelines_and_cause_prioritization.page

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title: AI timelines and cause prioritization
format: markdown
categories: AI_safety Cause_prioritization
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In a 2013 [comment](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xgr8sDtQEEs7zfTLH/update-on-kim-suozzi-cancer-patient-in-want-of-cryonics#2pZPLguNk58xtf9hu) Eliezer Yudkowsky said:

> *Median* doom time toward the end of the century? That seems enormously
> optimistic. If I believed this I'd breathe a huge sigh of relief, upgrade my
> cryonics coverage, spend almost all current time and funding trying to launch
> CFAR, and write a whole lot more about the importance of avoiding
> biocatastrophes and moderating global warming and so on. I might still work
> on FAI due to comparative advantage, but I'd be writing mostly with an eye to
> my successors. But it just doesn't seem like ninety more years out is a
> reasonable median estimate. I'd expect bloody *uploads* before 2100.

From a 2014 [conversation](https://intelligence.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/01-21-2014-conversation-with-Jacob-Steinhardt.pdf) between Luke Muehlhauser and Jacob Steinhardt:

> **Jacob**: But I think the academic's day-to-day research doesn't depend much
> on AI timelines. Whether AI is 30 or 100 years away, there are problems in
> front of you, and you just want to push on those.
>
> **Luke**: What? Your AI timelines estimate is *totally* relevant to what should
> be worked on now.
>
> **Jacob**: I don't think my actions depend much on AI timelines, and the reason
> why is that I can point to the next fundamental issues, so let's just work on
> that, whether AI is 20 years away or 50 years away or 100 years away. If it was
> 10 years away, maybe, but I think that's very unlikely.
>
> **Luke**: If somebody has most of their probability mass on AI being more than
> 150 years out, then this drastically reduces the likely relevance of *anything*
> you try to do about AI safety now, and maybe they shouldn't be focused on AI
> safety but instead biosecurity.
>
> **Jacob**: Okay, I think some sort of estimate -- though maybe not exactly a
> probability distribution over years to AI -- should impact what *field* you go
> into. But I don't think it should have much bearing on the particular problems
> you work on in that field.