Sam Altman has apparently said that he would be willing to flip a coin knowing that there was a 49 percent chance that humanity would be destroyed if he also knew that there was a 51 percent chance that our well-being would be doubled. After all, the odds would be in his favor.
How many of you would make the same bet? I’m guessing Altman would be in a small minority.
The premise of Altman’s statement, of course, is that he, not you, would be flipping the coin. You would have no say in the matter. You would simply have to trust him.
The decline in our birth rates is being driven by two things: increased female economic independence; and pessimism about the future. If you had reason to believe that you and your putative progeny could be wiped out at any time at the whim of some tech baron, how excited would you be about having children?