If we actually compress a century of scientific progress into a decade, we are likely to cross boundaries very rapidly toward man made horrors beyond comprehension. Current roadblocks to scary things (like vascularization as a barrier to wide-spread brain farming), will be shattered in a matter of months or years. Regardless, this progress will be way ahead of schedule, and without ethical frameworks in place for most new technologies. If you believe this, as I do, the moral imperative becomes thinking through what things are likely to be unblocked with additional scientific progress, and which of those things is the scariest. I think commercial biocomputing is clearly the answer here. Maybe we grow a "brain the size of a Costco", or we decentralize biological neurons, but regardless, the questions about consciousness will have been totally unresolved at that point. We may break barriers in our understanding of consciousness along with this scientific explosion, but I am worried that the ethical and institutional frameworks will lag decades, and in this case centuries, behind.
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Against Alpha
I don't think hedge fund, especially any that use humans in the loop, with have any comparative advantage pretty soon. If you have the best AI model (Mythos, etc.) behind closed doors, and a ton of compute, why not just run way more analysis than anyone else, with the highest level of intelligence and throughput?
Humans will have zero competitive edge for macro trading, in the way that they currently have zero competitive edge for high-frequency trading. There's too much information, too short of time scales, and two much synchronizing large buckets of data to have a monkey-in-the-loop matter. Also, the market is just way too competitive. Maybe there's some "situational awareness" type alpha at the moment (betting on near-term AGI), but the second we get there (AGI) the alpha disappears. Unless, of course, you define alpha as having the smartest superintelligence. This points to a concrete fact - it's probably pretty unimpactful to do something like quant trading, even if you earn to give. As the skill set is soon to be supplanted entirely, and you might as well spent a few years vesting equity at an AI lab instead.
Power
I read an interesting EA forum post recently by Abraham Rowe, where he states "I think there are also major costs to gaining power and influence — by and large, people seem to make worse decisions when they have them. I don’t think our community has figured out how to navigate these trade-offs as it steps closer to significant power."
I think this sort of discussion hasn't happened enough, especially given the fact that EA in many respects is a power-maximizing philosophy. Those with more power and wealth can do a greater amount of good (with those resources), so it becomes a quasi-moral imperative to gain power and wealth so that you can put those resources toward the less fortunate/human flourishing. This is a pretty terrifying incentive, but if you are utilitarian I really don't see how you can avoid it. This certainly doesn't mean taking moral shortcuts or disregarding conventional wisdom (which obviously can backfire, ala FTX, etc.). But literally just like working really hard or joining frontier AI labs or climbing the corporate ladder, all normal activities that you may have this quasi-moral imperative to do. So that you donate more money, or be in the room when really important decisions matter.
The counterpoint here, is that pretty much everyone is driving for money, power, and status anyway. It is our evolutionary drive, and without people doing it for altruistic reasons, the only people in the "room where it happens" will just be those without a driving moral reason that got them there. This may be worse, or better, it depends. Probably worse, in my opinion. But it doesn't make the broader point here any less interesting, or any less scary.