Suchergebnisse

Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think that the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or 'ems'. Robin Hanson draws on decades of expertise in economics, physics, and computer science to paint a detailed picture of this next great era in human (and machine) evolution.

There is a widespread feeling that health is special; the rules
that are usually used in other policy areas are not applied
in health policy. Health economists, for example, tend to be
reluctant to offer economists' usual prescription of
competition and consumer choice, even though they have largely
failed to justify this reluctance by showing that health economics
involves special features such as public goods, externalities,
adverse selection, poor consumer information, or unusually severe
consequences.

Prediction markets are low volume speculative markets whose prices offer informative forecasts on particular policy topics. Observers worry that traders may attempt to mislead decision makers by manipulating prices. We adapt a Kyle‐style market microstructure model to this case, adding a manipulator with an additional quadratic preference regarding the price. In this model, when other traders are uncertain about the manipulator's target price, the mean target price has no effect on prices, and raising the variance of the target price can increase average price accuracy, by boosting the returns to informed trading and thereby incentives for traders to become informed.

PurposeThis paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist.Design/methodology/approachThis paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos.FindingsStatus quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible.Originality/valueSome current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue.