"Acausal normalcy" by Andrew Critch
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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3RSq3bfnzuL3sp46J/acausal-normalcy)Crossposted from the AI Alignment Forum). May contain more technical jargon than usual.

This post is also available on the *EA Forum)*.

Summary: Having thought a bunch about acausal trade — and proven some theorems relevant to its feasibility — I believe there do not exist powerful information hazards about it that stand up to clear and circumspect reasoning about the topic.  I say this to be comforting rather than dismissive; if it sounds dismissive, I apologize.  

With that said, I have four aims in writing this post:

• **Dispelling myths.  **There are some ill-conceived myths about acausal trade that I aim to dispel with this post.  Alternatively, I will argue for something I'll call acausal normalcy as a more dominant decision-relevant consideration than one-on-one acausal trades.  
• **Highlighting normalcy.  **I'll provide some arguments that acausal normalcy is more similar to human normalcy than any particular acausal trade is to human trade, such that the topic of acausal normalcy is — conveniently — also less culturally destabilizing than (erroneous) preoccupations with 1:1 acausal trades. 
• **Affirming AI safety as a straightforward priority. ** I'll argue that for most real-world-prevalent perspectives on AI alignment, safety, and existential safety, acausal considerations are not particularly dominant, except insofar as they push a bit further towards certain broadly agreeable human values applicable in the normal-everyday-human-world, such as nonviolence, cooperation, diversity, honesty, integrity, charity, and mercy.  In particular, I do not think acausal normalcy provides a solution to existential safety, nor does it undermine the importance of existential safety in some surprising way.
• Affirming normal human kindness.  I also think reflecting on acausal normalcy can lead to increased appreciation for normal notions of human kindness, which could lead us all to treat each other a bit better.  This is something I wholeheartedly endorse.