Abstract Note: Much of the work for this post was done together with Nuño Sempere Perhaps you think that your values will be best served if the AGI you (or your team, company or nation) are developing is deployed first. Would you decide that it's worth cutting a few corners, reducing your safety budget, and pushing ahead to try and get your AI out the door first? It seems plausible, and worrying, that you might. And if your competitors reason symmetrically, we would get a "safety race to the bottom". On the other hand, perhaps you think your values will be better served if your enemy wins than if either of you accidentally produces an unfriendly AI. Would you decide the safety costs to improving your chances aren't worth it? In a simple two player model, you should only shift funds from safety to capabilities if (the relative₁ decrease in chance of friendliness) / (the relative₁ increase in the chance of winning) < (expected relative₂ loss of value if your enemy wins rather than you). Here, the relative₁ increases and decreases are relative to the current values. The relative₂ loss of value is relative to the expected value if you win. The plan of this post is as follows: 1. Consider a very simple model that leads to a safety race. Identify unrealistic assumptions which are driving its results. 2. Remove some of the unrealistic assumptions and generate a different model. Derive the inequality expressed above. 3. Look at some specific example cases, and see how they affect safety considerations. A PARTLY DISCONTINUOUS MODEL Let's consider a model with two players with the same amount of resources. Each player's choice is what fraction of their resources to devote to safety, rather than capabilities. Whichever player contributes more to capabilities wins the race. If you win the race, you either get a good outcome or a bad outcome. Your chance of getting a good outcome increases continuously with the amount you spent on safety. If the other player wins, you get a bad outcome.