Congrats Holden! Just going to quote you from a recent post:

There’s a serious (>10%) risk that we’ll see transformative AI² within a few years.

• In that case it’s not realistic to have sufficient protective measures for the risks in time.
• Sufficient protective measures would require huge advances on a number of fronts, including information security that could take years to build up and alignment science breakthroughs that we can’t put a timeline on given the nascent state of the field, so even decades might or might not be enough time to prepare, even given a lot of effort.

If it were all up to me, the world would pause now

Please don't lose sight of this in your new role. Public opinion is on your side here, and PauseAI are gaining momentum. It's possible for this to happen. Please push for it in your new role! (And reduce your conflict of interest if possible!)

Idk, I'd put GPT-5 at a ~1% x-risk, or crossing-the-point-of-no-return risk (unacceptably high).

>in the long run

What if we don't have very long? You aren't really factoring in the time crunch we are in (the whole reason that PauseAI is happening now is short timelines).

I see in your comment on that post, you say "human extinction would not necessarily be an existential catastrophe" and "So, if advanced AI, as the most powerful entity on Earth, were to cause human extinction, I guess existential risk would be negligible on priors?". To be clear: what I'm interested in here is human extinction (not any broader conception of "existential catastrophe"), and the bet is about that.

See my comment on that post for why I don't agree. I agree nuclear extinction risk is low (but probably not that low)^[1]. ASI is really the only thing that is likely to kill every last human (and I think it is quite likely to do that given it will be way more powerful than anything else^[2]).

1. ^{^}

   But too be clear, global catastrophic / civilisational collapse risk from nuclear is relatively high (these often get conflated with "extinction").

2. ^{^}

   Not only do I think it will kill every last human, I think it's quite likely it will wipe out all known carbon-based life.

Interesting. Obviously I don't want to discourage you from the bet, but I'm surprised you are so confident based on this! I don't think the prior of mammal species duration is really relevant at all, when for 99.99% of the last 1M years there hasn't been any significant technology. Perhaps more relevant is homo sapiens wiping out all the less intelligent hominids (and many other species).

I think the chance of humans going extinct until the end of 2027 is basically negligible. I would guess around 10^-7 per year.

Would be interested to see your reasoning for this, if you have it laid out somewhere. Is it mainly because you think it's ~impossible for AGI/ASI to happen in that time? Or because it's ~impossible for AGI/ASI to cause human extinction?

I don't have a stable income so I can't get bank loans (I have tried to get a mortgage for the property before and failed - they don't care if you have millions in assets, all they care about is your income^[1], and I just have a relatively small, irregular rental income (Airbnb). But I can get crypto-backed smart contract loans, and do have one out already on Aave, which I could extend.). 

Also, the signalling value of the wager is pretty important too imo. I want people to put their money where their mouth is if they are so sure that AI x-risk isn't a near term problem. And I want to put my money where my mouth is too, to show how serious I am about this.

1. ^{^}

   I think this is probably because they don't want to go through the hassle of actually having to repossess your house, so if this seems at all likely they won't bother with the loan in the first place.

It's in Manchester, UK. I live elsewhere - renting currently, but shortly moving into another owned house that is currently being renovated (I've got a company managing the would-be-collateral house as an Airbnb, so no long term tenants either). Will send you more details via DM.

Cash is a tricky one, because I rarely hold much of it. I'm nearly always fully invested. But that includes plenty of liquid assets like crypto. Net worth wise, in 2027, assuming no AI-related craziness, I would be expect it to be in the 7-8 figure range, 5-95% maybe $500k-$100M).

Cool, thanks. I link to one post in the comment above. But see also.