3 HN users recommended this explainer4 months2019–2026score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN points to it as a reasoned rebuttal to the claim that AI risk is just Pascal's wager.
Robert Miles examines whether the case for AI safety is a Pascal's mugging, a tiny probability of an enormous payoff. He argues it is not, because AI risk does not depend on vanishingly small probabilities.
“the main point of the video is that kind of situation happens when the probability involved is vanishingly small” (HN, 2026)
Pascal's wager is actually logically flawed. If there are two separate AGI invented, and you could only have chosen to invest in one, then where's the infinite capture of value? See this video on a reasonable argument about this: [this video]
All of this discussion really makes me think of Robert Miles "Is ai safety a Pascal's mugging?" from 4 years(!) ago[0]. All of this discussion has been had by Ai safety researchers for years in my layman understanding... Maybe we can look to them for insight in to these questions? [0] [this video]
Safety researchers have long debated whether AI risk is a Pascal's mugging.
The difference to Pascal’s wager is that with that the probability is vanishingly small, but given current progress the probability of AI causing an existential threat is actually quite high. You can’t just call anything that has very bad negative consequences Pascal’s wager Video about this: “Is AI Safety a Pascal’s Mugging?” [this video]
Here’s a video called “Is AI safety a Pascal’s Mugging?”: [this video] From what I remember the main point of the video is that kind of situation happens when the probability involved is vanishingly small, and all the events you listed don’t have a vanishingly small probability, so they are not Pascal’s wager situations, just a normal rational safety concerns with particularly high consequences
Pascal's mugging needs vanishingly small probabilities, unlike real safety concerns.
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