Persistent Path-Dependence: Why Our Actions Matter Long-Term

Forethought argues against the "wash out" objection: AGI-enforced institutions enable persistent impact.

3rd August 2025 [AI Narration] Persistent Path-Dependence Playback speed Volume 0:00 of 41:18 1. Introduction One of the most common objections to working on better futures is that, over sufficiently long time horizons, the effects of our actions will ‘wash out’.1 This is often combined with the view that extinction is a special case, where the impacts of our actions really could persist for an extremely long time. Taken together, these positions imply that it’s much more important, from a longtermist perspective, to work on reducing extinction risk than to work towards better futures.…

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• Arjun Khandelwal
• Alexa Tran
• Coby Kassner
• Carolyn Qian

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