EconTalk

It might be useful to differentiate between technological equilibria that favor either attackers or defenders.

* Two guys with pistols in a crowded bar: Attacker is favored.

* Trench warfare during WWI: Defender is favored.

* Nukes: Attacker is favored, although with the invention of nuclear submarines that could lurk under the ocean and offer credible retaliation even in the event of a devastating strike, the attacker became favored less.

In general equilibria where the defender is favored seem better. Venice became one of the wealthier cities in the medieval world because it was situated in a lagoon that gave it a strong defensive advantage. The Chinese philosopher Mozi was one of the first consequentialist philosophers; during the Warring States period his followers went around advancing the state of the art in defensive siege warfare tactics: http://www.tor.com/2015/02/09/let-me-tell-you-a-little-bit-a...

Notably, I'm told that computer security current favors attackers in most areas: http://lesswrong.com/lw/dq9/work_on_security_instead_of_frie... (BTW the author of this post is a potential Satoshi Nakamoto candidate and knows his stuff.)

In equilibria where the attacker is favored, the best solution is to have some kind of trusted central power with a monopoly on force that keeps the peace between everyone. That's what a modern state looks like. Even prisoners form their own semiformal governing structures, with designated ruling authorities, to deal with the fact that prison violence favors the attacker: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/03/david_skarbek_o.htm...

Thought experiment: Let's say someone invents a personal force field that grants immunity to fists and bullets. In this world you can imagine that the need for a police force, and therefore the central state authority that manages the use of this police force, lessens considerably. The enforcement powers available to a central government also lessen considerably.

This is somewhat similar to the situation with online communities. We don't have a central structure governing discussions on the web because online communities favor the defender. It's relatively easy to ban users based on their IP address or simply lock new users out of your forum entirely and therebye keep the troll mobs out. Hence the internet gives us something like Scott Alexander's idea of "Archipelago" where people get to be a part of the community they want (and deserve): http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-... Note the work done by the word "archipelago" which implies islands that are easy to defend and hard to attack (like Venice).

Let's assume that superintelligent AI, when weaponized, shoves us into an entirely new and unexplored conflict equilibrium.

If the new equilibrium favors defense we'd like to give everyone AIs so they can create their own atomic communities. If only a few people have AIs, they might be able to monopolize AI tech and prevent anyone else from getting one, though the info could leak eventually.

If the new equilibrium favors offense we'd like to keep AIs in the hands of a small set of trusted, well-designed institutions--the same way we treat nuclear weapons. It could be that at the highest level of technological development, physics overwhelmingly favors offense. If everyone has AIs there's the possibility of destructive anarchy. In this world, research on the design of trustworthy, robust, inclusive institutions (to manage a monopoly on AI-created power) could be seen as AI safety research.

The great filter http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html weakly suggests that the new equilibrium favors offense. If the new equilibrium favors defense, even the "worst case scenario" autocratic regimes would have had plenty of time to colonize the galaxy by now. If the new equilibrium favors offense, it's entirely possible that civs reaching the superintelligent AI stage always destroy themselves in destructive anarchy and go no further. But the great filter is a very complicated topic and this line of reasoning has caveats, e.g. see http://lesswrong.com/lw/m2x/resolving_the_fermi_paradox_new_...

Anyway this entire comment is basically spitballing... point is that if $1B+ is going to be spent on this project, I would like to see at least a fraction of this capital go towards hammering issues like these out. (It'd be cool to set up an institute devoted to studying the great filter for instance.) As Enrico Fermi said:

"History of science and technology has consistently taught us that scientific advances in basic understanding have sooner or later led to technical and industrial applications that have revolutionized our way of life... What is less certain, and what we all fervently hope, is that man will soon grow sufficiently adult to make good use of the powers that he acquires over nature."

And I'm slightly worried that by virtue of choosing the name OpenAI, the team has committed themselves to a particular path without fully thinking it through.

I myself am an armchair economics. I am fairly well read on the subject over the year. I think to an extent the article has a point. However if the whole point of the post is true, then it's summary should of course also be taken into doubt. ;-)

The real trouble with economics is that even economists disagree. It really is impossible to say anything like consensus amongst economists is x. A recent EconTalk (an excellent podcast to learn more about economics) talks about just this issue. Why do economists disagree:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/roberts_and_han.htm...

Their conclusion is that it is so easy to go in and fine statistics to prove just about any point, so in the end it is the "religion" of the economist in the end that decides which statistics and studies he uses. The two major schools and yes there are many more of Economics Keynesian vs Austrian/Chicago (ok those are 2 schools, but closely related) are in such a fundamental disagreement about just about anything.

Which brings me to question the premise of your article. I think it's healthy that geeks have an interest in economics. In particular geeks involved in startups need to know and understand the dynamics going on. So their analysis might not match yours, but that doesn't matter. They have an understanding and interest that helps them understand the world around them. This is not necessarily bad, in particularly if they are open to learning.

Saying that geeks shouldn't think about economics, because it's too complex for them to understand completely is just plain silly and also extremely elitist. It is also to a certain extent hypocritical as your post intentional or not says "Your understanding of economics is not as good as mine, so just stop thinking you know anything".

My "religion" in economics is the Austrian school of economics. I definitely view the world and politics through these colored glasses. I gradually arrived there on a long journey starting off as a socialist.

My life as a programmer has definitely helped me reach the conclusion that the economy is so complex that no amount of experts could possibly understand it completely. That the only possible way of living (not controlling) in such a complex system is through a distributed network of autonomous agents. I am sure many other programmers have reached the same conclusions.

My belief in markets has been flavored recently by Nassim Taleb's Black Swan, who concludes that the reason free markets are superior is not because of some complex theory of efficient prices, but because free markets allow more people to experiment and therefore accidentally find the right answers. An expert driven planned economy allows only one person throwing the dice.

The next 3 paragraphs should be understood is my conclusion about elitists as seen through my "free market" goggles:

Then again there are many other programmers who follow another religion. Since childhood many programmers have always been the most intelligent person we know. If you grow up like this it is very easy to start seeing other people as stupid. This is essentially how elitism grows.

It is very hard to avoid being elitist, when you spend a lot of time analyzing every situation in your life and see the vast majority of the people out there not doing the same. This elitist way of thinking almost requires the intelligentsia to take control. People often credit this way of thinking to Plato, all though it is such a natural way of thinking I'm sure it goes way back.

The Keynesian approach is one of the less evil outcomes of this elitist way of thinking. "We need to stimulate the economy so the small simple people can build their economy up". The other extreme was Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat, where he concluded that it would take several generations of reeducation of the people by the elite, before society would be perfect. These two approaches while very different have the same fundamental reasoning that people are stupid and we the decision makers are not.

Both of these economic religions are very common among geeks. I also think it is natural that they are prevalent and that people discuss it. You see both of these (I know I'm overgeneralizing) battle it out on hacker news. I think this is actually healthy. I know that I can't convince a true believer of socialism that the free markets are the way to go. I can also safely say that it is highly unlikely that anyone will convince me in a single discussion that we should all become leninists.

That said, I have been corrected several times in discussions here on hacker news and have learnt from that. It is also an interesting and fun intellectual exercise for both of us. Who knows we might even convince someone sitting on the fence to jump off in our direction.

My conclusion is that Geeks and in particular geeks in startups should have an interest in economics. I also don't think we need to hold geeks to an even higher standard than actual card holding economics professors.

For all her ranting, she seemingly still has a U.S. passport which gives her a great deal more freedom than if she had a passport from central America. Let's see if she renounces her citizenship anytime soon and put her money where her mouth is.

I don't find this article particularly offensive, just extremely naive.

For all it's problems, in the U.S. we still enjoy both freedom of speech and freedom from the tyranny of socialized govt, both have reared it's ugly head in pretty spectacular ways recently..

Namely, you can end up in jail if you teach your dog to salute at Heil Hitler, or if you decide you want to present the middle finger to your govt overlords on a traffic cam, or if you think you might like to send your child to a different hospital that offers hope, no matter how grim the ultimate outcome, or if you defend yourself in your home from a robber with a knife.. Just to name a few..

The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the world. Statistically most people are very unlikely to encounter such gun crimes like school shootings, but you'd never know that because we have a media and culture driven by ratings and agenda.

But there is a lot of truth that people have much less value for life. That's not just a U.S. problem.. I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can criticize the mayor of London openly without fear, but their plans(or talks) to remove any and all knives from stores and the hands of their citizens is a pretty good example.. But no knife, no problem, you can do it pretty effectively with a truck, I recall 80 or so were killed a few years ago, and at least 10 were killed a few days ago in Toronto. And anyone with any sizeable amount of intellect could probably devise a plan that is highly effective by stealing a semi.. Someone with actual intelligence could probably devise a scheme to drop small IED's via drones and could probably be pretty lethal and remain effectively safe from capture, let alone any of the other mainstream methods..

And on top of it all, even with all the gun bans, one of the worst gun massacres in recent history occurred not in the U.S., but good old Europe.. Many countries have effectively banned all weapons, But that just means that the law abiding citizens are the ones who become defenseless.. I've sarcastically argued numerous times that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were fake news, and the people were just made up, after all, such firearms are actually banned there, so such an event isn't actually possible to happen, those weapons are banned..

It gets even better when looking at countries like Mexico, S. America etc, where the police may actually be part of the mob, flip a coin as to whether you'll survive if you call for help (I suppose if your passport is blue or from the euro block they probably try to take care of you for tourism sake)..

In any case, I think a recent episode of econtalk with Jonah Goldberg http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html summed up a lot of truths about the place we are at in our society, especially in the U.S.. It's quite worth a listen.. Because ultimately, though the above is bad, we often forget that gives have historically persecuted people far worse, and though it's 2018 (as if somehow that means something), it's still happening ( IRS/FBI)etc..

Ultimately, These are problems govt cannot solve, and the answer the govt will give might not be an answer that's good, for average Joe at least.. But I do think, in the U.S., It's a road we are heading down..

> Making something illegal influences social norms. It signals that something is "bad" and for "bad people."

This is often used by totalitarian governments. It leads to "Preference Falsification," an idea developed by Timur Kuran.

Making something illegal for social reasons also degrades each person's sense of autonomy and self-governance. It invites jurisdiction within one's private sphere by removing each person's duty of "Obedience to the Unenforceable." Below is a key description from John Fletcher Moulton's article about it and links to an excellent Econtalk podcast discussing the idea.

Preference falsification is the act of misrepresenting a preference under perceived public pressures. It involves the selection of a publicly expressed preference that differs from the underlying privately held preference (or simply, a public preference at odds with one’s private preference). People frequently convey to each other preferences that differ from what they would communicate privately under credible cover of anonymity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification

Follow me in examining the three great domains of Human Action. First comes the domain of Positive Law, where our actions are prescribed by laws binding upon us, which must be obeyed. Next comes the domain of Free Choice, which includes all those actions as to which we claim and enjoy complete freedom. But between these two there is a third large and important domain in which there rules neither Positive Law nor Absolute Freedom. In that domain there is no law which inexorably determines our course of action, and yet we feel that we are not free to choose as we would. The degree of this sense of a lack of complete freedom in this domain varies in every case. . . . it is the domain of Obedience to the Unenforceable. The obedience is the obedience of a man to that which he cannot be forced to obey. He is the enforcer of the law upon himself . . .

https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-obedience-to-the-...

https://aleteia.org/2016/04/11/how-an-expert-in-blowing-thin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fletcher_Moulton,_Baron_M...

https://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ362/hallam/Newspap...

Disclamer, I have not seen the talk.

> Stiglitz and Krugman both assert in the talk that they prefer the spending to be on infrastructure and education. So the article is being very dishonest. Even in the infamous "Space Aliens invasion" remark Krugman recommended building "things like high-speed rail"

This does not matter. There theory clearly states that the main effect of the spending has nothing todo with what is being spend on. Sure the do not advocate spending on usless things but that does not matter. There theory is wrong and spending this money is wronge. If is your political opinion that more money should go into education or whatever, you should do it threw the proper politcal channals and not go around the normal political process with a stimuls package.

This (proper) discussion between a keynesian and a free market guy about stimulus infrastructure spending might be intressting.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/09/frank_and_rober.htm...

> Actually the US has austerity in the state and municipal level, so there isn't actually "additional dollars of federal spending". Also mentioned in the talk, and many other places by these two.

There is only very, very few presidents that ever decresed spending. If you look at the amount of GDP goverment spends, its constantly growing, with every president (I think the only expetion is Clinton).

Bush and Obama have both been record spenders, and then you have the obama stimulus. Claming the US is doing austerity is just wrong.

> * There is wide agreement about positive multipliers in the crisis since around 2011. The proposition that they may have been negative has been shot down by studies in 2010 and has very little basis in theory. Economists like Alesina who were austerity hawks before that have back-pedalled somewhat and the IMF has admitted that austerity deepens recessions.

Sorry this is just wrong. "wide agreement", really?

The only people that agree are the ones that where pro stimuls in the first place, ie. keynsians and neo-keynsians. Basiclly everybody else disagrees, including all form of montarism (classic, new, market), austrians and many others.

Can you find any economist or groupe of economist that where anti stimulus and now are pro? I have not heard of a single person that changed there mind.

Also you might want to read up on the sumner critique that has gotten a lot of attention.

Some Blogpost on it: http://marketmonetarist.com/category/sumner-critique/

> Krugman and the Romers have written quite a lot why this depression is very much like the one in the thirties.

I quite agree and many economist do too but the point is that economist still do not agree on the what should have been done in 1929 (or 1933). They do not agree if the new deal helped or harmed, they do not agree if going of the gold stanard was good or bad

> Market prices are currently set based on 1-3x multipliers of Medicare reimbursement, so by definition the government already handles health care at lower costs.

I work in insurance, and I can tell you right now that $25 for a cleaning (per this article) is significantly lower than the amount for a cleaning (procedure code D1110) set by Medicare/Medicaid. You can look it up yourself by visiting the FAIR Health code lookup tool (https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/dental/results), and setting the ZIP code to that of Carlton, GA (location of the Wal-Mart clinic), 30627. The average allowed amount is $64.

> Commodifying health care has proven to be disastrous in the US because it's, in practice, impossible to "shop around" — not even including cases where the "customer" is unconscious or in a life-threatening situation where "shopping" would be ridiculous, the profit models of health care centers are forcing many to close, leaving people with few choices in their immediate area, exacerbated by the "network" coverage model of insurance companies where you may not even be able to go to certain hospitals or doctor's offices.

Ignoring emergency health services (which is the minority of health spending), I'm not sure that we have enough information to irrefutably prove that preventable and planned care cannot be successfully commodified. A common theory around why we haven't been able to commodify healthcare in the US is due to a lack of price transparency, and the fact that employer sponsored health insurance removes the price sensitivity from buyers[1][2].

> Interestingly, though, improvements in supply chain management are making it possible to centrally-plan commodities like clothing. Multinational companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon are doing this already, in fact.

They aren't centrally planned, though — they are subject to market competition (see: DHL, UPS, FedEx, FlexPort, Maersk, etc). Their ability to be major "central planners" by controlling large parts of the supply chain is predicated on their ability to fend off market competition, and the moment they fail to do that, this manifests as a market opportunity for new competitors to take their place, wherever in the supply chain the large corporations fall short.

[1] https://www.econtalk.org/keith-smith-on-free-market-health-c...

[2] https://kfor.com/news/okc-hospital-posting-surgery-prices-on...