Working on climate with an interest in AI, I found this a fascinating read.

But I am a bit left wanting as to what the learnable lessons for the AI community are that will make the AI community act better than the climate community.

Could you articulate this?

(I think a lot of the parallels you cite are true, but I don't think they offer a lot of actionable implications, they feel more like negative updates on the difficulty of acting wisely for fast-moving coordination problems with deep uncertainty and lots of politicization).

What I’m reacting to is more the “hot take” version that shows up in EA-adjacent podcasts — often as an analogy when people talk about AI policy: “look at nuclear, it got over-regulated and basically died, so don’t do that to AI.” In that context it’s not argued carefully, it’s just used as a rhetorical example, and (to me) it’s a pretty lossy / misleading compression of what’s going on.

I agree it's a bit lossy and sometimes reflexive (this is what I meant with relying on libertarian priors), but I am still confused about your argument.

Because the argument you criticize is an historical one ("nuclear over regulation killed nuclear") which is different from "now we need many steps and there are different strategies to make nuclear more competitive again".

I think it is basically correct that over-regulation played a huge part in making nuclear uncompetitive and I don't think that Isabelle or others knowing the history of nuclear energy would disagree with that, even if it might be a bit overglossed / stylized (obviously, it is not the only thing).

Out of curiosity: Where have EAs argued that "nuclear is overregulated" and, more specifically, where have EAs argued that over-regulation is the only or dominant driver of the cost problem?

It's probably true that this sometimes happens -- especially when EAs outside of climate/energy point to "nuclear is overregulated" as something in line with libertarian / abundance-y priors -- but I think those in EA that have done work on nuclear would not subscribe to or spread the view that regulation is the only driver of nuclear problem.

That said, it seems clearly true -- and I do think Isabelle agrees with that -- that regulatory reform is a necessary component of making nuclear in the West buildable at scale again (alongside many other factors, such as sustained political will, technological progress, re-established supply chains, valuing clean firm power for its attributes, etc).

Is it really?

Thanks Vasco!

I agree that social dilemmata are not, by and large, solved through individuals spontaneously acting differently in isolation.

I think a fairer title of the piece could have been "economics needs more progress studies and more social science" given the vast differences in how well societies across time and space are solving coordination problems mediated (if not explained) by differences in institutions, norms, laws, etc.

The basic functioning of society -- the most important coordination problem of all -- varies widely across locales with the same technology.

Is there any justification of the "most"?

It's easy to list many social dilemmata that have been transformed by technology, but it would probably be equally easy to come up with a list of social dilemmata that are primarily solved through non-technological means, first and foremost through social norms and laws successfully solving similar problems.

Thanks for the thorough reply!

What's the upshot of this? Do you see this as informing relative prioritization between the two causes?

This is a great post!

I wish there was more discussion like this and more appreciation for how challenging the current moment is, I think this would bring EA closer -- in a good way -- to where a lot of people concerned about the world are.

Yeah, I broadly agree with that.

I am worried that the public at large, not you, does massively under appreciate nuclear risk in the short term, this at least seems to be true in philanthropy (climate 100x larger than nuclear risk reduction).