Post on selling impact to particular futures

[Telofy]

1. The windfall clause can stipulate retro funding of impact that is currently retro-funded by trusted funders
2. Such pledges can be collected in other contexts as well
3. They can aim to fund work that makes the windfall itself more likely

You could implement a windfall clause of sorts that stipulates that you’ll buy back all impact certificates in case of: windfall + continued existence of humanity or something close enough to it to maintain financial markets. You’ll become the (for the time being) last retro funder in the chain of retro funders that I envision stretching into the future, each with more resources available than the previous one. That promise will incentivize all the previous retro funders to exist, and those will buy up the impact from your researchers today either directly or transitively.

The idea behind impact markets is to make it profitable to produce public goods, but typically there needs to be that chain of retro funders – such as Open Phil, FTX Future Fund, Gates Foundation, et al. – to provide the monetary reward. My hope is that at some point some smart government agency (or smart contract) can be founded that, in turn, buys impact from the likes of Open Phil. But with AGI you’re in the perfect position that a future conditional version of you can already commit to becoming that retro funder instead of the government.

That will only work if humanity or equivalent survives to benefit from any windfall. So investors will be triply motivated to support the company’s investment into safety because it generates some short term profits, promises enormous profits 15–30 years out, and increases the probability that they’ll live to reap the latter profits.

I think these investors typically believe that the control problem can be solved and that we’ll have a pliant oracle of sorts that will be tremendously economically valuable but that won’t do away with economy and humanity altogether. If I put myself into that mindset, then a windfall clause, codified in some sort of company by-laws or what they’re called, is probably a pretty good assurance that the retro funding will happen if the conditions are met. Plus, the company just switched from capabilities to safety based on a commitment. That’s evidence for the investors that they’ll also keep the second commitment. Conversely, if they switch back to capabilities, that’ll be evidence that they might not keep the second commitment.