This is the first of a three-part series of posts from me and Ben Snodin with input from Phil Trammell summarising, critiquing, and suggesting variations on Leopold Aschenbrenner's Existential Risk and Growth (2019).

This first post gives an overview of the model and results of the paper.
The second post discusses how seriously to take the conclusions that follow from the model, highlights some of the more robust conclusions, and discusses objections to the model.
The third post will outline directions of further research that we believe to be most promising. (Update: here is the third post https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YCKk5a6WYMBdzM37Q/existential-risk-and-growth-deep-dive-3-extensions-and )

The series should be useful to anyone interested in understanding existential risk, in particular:

Those interested in how economic growth influences existential risk;
Those thinking about whether we can find useful insights about the complex systems that determine existential risk through relatively simple, abstract models.

Hopefully we'll demonstrate that this kind of research is a fruitful way to get insights about existential risk, and others will be motivated to improve on the existing paper. The series assumes understanding of basic calculus but no formal economics knowledge.

Summary Outline

Section 1 - Setup introduces a model of an economy containing a consumption sector and a safety sector. Section 2 - Allocations explores the very long-term behaviour of this economy for two different cases: a fixed allocation of labour across different sectors, and a variable allocation determined by the preferences of the population. Section 3 - Transition Dynamics looks at how this economy behaves at intermediate times when the allocation between sectors is determined by the preferences of the population.

The results of the model are that civilisation may be going through a ‘time of perils’ in which it is rich enough to have the advanced technologies that threaten its survival, but is not yet rich enough to be willing to spend sufficiently on mitigating these risks. It might then be prudent to minimise time spent in this time of perils—by preventing economic stagnation, or accelerating economic growth. In light of this result, Section 4 - Patience vs. Growth compares the impact on existential risk of making the population more p...

Differential Progress