Focus on the worst scenarios?
Focusing on s-risks means focusing on the worst scenarios of suffering. Someone might disagree: "Maybe most future suffering will come from adding up lots of bad scenarios that aren't extreme."
Heavy-tailed distributions
Drawing on the researcher Tobias Baumann, the author explains that many things follow a heavy-tailed distribution.
If future suffering works this way, most of it could come from a few extreme scenarios, like space colonization or the creation of digital minds that suffer. That would justify focusing on them.
But the focus isn't narrow
Focusing on the worst cases does not mean picking just one or two risks. The author gives several reasons:
- even with a heavy tail, the extreme cases can be very varied;
- we could be wrong about which scenarios will be the worst;
- actions against the worst risks might not exist yet, or might be less effective than actions that help in many scenarios at once.
In short
- S-risks are the worst scenarios of future suffering.
- If suffering is "heavy-tailed," a few scenarios could hold most of it.
- Even so, the focus should be broad, because we could be wrong about which are the worst.