If China or the US accidentally or intentionally takes out TSMC factories, does it count? They're not datacenters.

@StrayClimb Good question. I'm inclined to say no.

What if a conflict starts with attacks on air defense systems so that a data center can be struck effectively?

@MartinRandall Hmm, yeah, if the later intended target is the datacenter, that counts. (Once it's actually hit.)

Seems to have happened in Ukraine already, so I'll bet it is going to repeat soon (e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/03/15/internet-technicians-are-the-hidden-heroes-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/ shows a photo of "Kyivstar data center after an attack"). Unless "air strike" would be defined narrowly to exclude both aircraft-launched cruise missiles and drones. Verification might be a problem though....

@MartinModrak Hmm, maybe I should have specified that needs to not be part of an existing war.

Huh, I feel kinda dumb, I was interpreting the question through the lens of Yudkowsky's proposal, but if it's just "datacenter bombing as a part of the business/war as usual" then I wouldn't have placed the bet that I did.

@Lovre Same

I've edited the description. Let me know how much you each lost and I'll send you a manalink.

@IsaacKing A trivial amount for me, so I’m not worried about it

@MartinModrak So just an unprovocked airstrike, without the contries being at war?

@IsaacKing wouldn't it make more sense to tie the resolution to claimed rationale for the attack? You might otherwise find yourself in the difficult discussion on what is a war... Also an airstrike on data center for reasons other than AI still looks way more plausible even without larger conflict. mana link needed I lost just a bit.

@Lovre The discussion about the proposal(s) appears to me to focus on weird longtermist speculation while forgetting about the dangers of things that are already happening or could happen in near future, so there might be a metaphor here 😀

@fejfo Presumably it wouldn't be unprovoked; the precipitating country would probably have asked politely first.