How Much Should We Spend to Reduce A.I.'s Existential Risk? / Charles I. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Charles I.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w33602.

NBER working paper series no. w33602

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2025.

Summary:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States effectively "spent" about 4 percent of GDP -- via reduced economic activity -- to address a mortality risk of roughly 0.3 percent. Many experts believe that catastrophic risks from advanced A.I. over the next decade are at least this large, suggesting that a comparable mitigation investment could be worthwhile. Existing lives are valued by policymakers at around $10 million each in the United States. To avoid a 1% mortality risk, this value implies a willingness to pay of $100,000 per person -- more than 100% of per capita GDP. If the risk is realized over the next two decades, an annual investment of 5% of GDP toward mitigating catastrophic risk could be justified, depending on the effectiveness of such investment. This back-of-the-envelope intuition is supported by the model developed here. In the model, for most of the scenarios and parameter combinations considered, spending at least 1% of GDP annually to mitigate AI risk can be justified even without placing any value on the welfare of future generations.

Notes:

March 2025.

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