Extinction Bounties in 2 Minutes
Humanity’s biggest threats today don’t respect borders. Runaway AI development, engineered pandemics, rogue nanotech — all of these are global risks, all of these are dependent on the development of novel technologies, and all of these could be developed - at least in theory - by anyone, at any time, from any where. Our enforcement systems remain stuck at the national level. Treaties are slow. International law is weak. Policing cross-border actors? Near impossible. And even if we could - how on Earth do you stop progress, without destroying everything great about modern civilization in the act?
We think extinction bounties can solve both of these. An extinction bounty flips the script: instead of trying to punish offenders with state-led enforcement, we use insurance-backed monetary fines and open bounty hunting to create a global market for detection and deterrence.
Here’s how it works:
- Huge statutory fines are levied on activities which pose deep existential risk to mankind - for example, training a new frontier AI model, or trying to develop a superbug in a gain-of-function lab.
- Anyone, from anywhere in the world, can earn a bounty by giving evidence that leads to a successful conviction. The money they get is paid directly by the victim to the bounty hunter, similar to the wildly-successful SEC whistleblower program.
- Similar to how virtually everyone on the road has driver’s insurance, a private liability insurance industry will quickly spring up for each extinction bounty, to protect e.g. ordinary software engineers from being falsely accused of advancing unsafe AI. And, much like driver’s insurance policies do, if you start to act funny, your premiums will spike. If they keep you as a client at all.
This has three transformative effects:
- Aligned incentives: Insurers monitor their clients to avoid costly payouts. Bounty hunters race and innovate to catch violators. Potential violators quickly realize a cushy job researching something that won’t end humanity as we know it is still a pretty good deal, given the situation. Everyone has an immediate, financial reason to keep humanity safe.
- Built-in funding: The fines pay for their own enforcement. The system doesn’t rely on taxpayer budgets, be they in Shanghai, Seoul, or San Francisco.
- Easy international cooperation: Multinational goals are like pulling teeth in the best of times. However, the highly-targeted, self-sustaining, and easy-to-motivate nature of this proposal makes that job as easy as it can be. It’s the “lowest common denominator” of things even the citizens of (Insert Country Here) can agree are terrifying and need to be controlled.
Extinction bounties cost little, scale cleanly, can be adapted to wildly different governance structures, and avoid whole categories of problems inherent in traditional criminal justice systems. You don’t need to rewrite the penal code. The vast majority of your populace won’t even notice they’re in place.
When the downside is inconcievably large, we need enforcement that’s automatic, incorruptible, and fast. Extinction bounties may be the key to all three.