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# Saving the world in 80 days: Epilogue
[80 days ago](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iHuMFnHHhtehTBYEY/saving-the-world-in-80-days-prologue) < refresh to render LaTeX > , I started a productivity sprint for being useful in the field of AI alignment. My main goal was to have a better self-model in order to push myself... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oYingX2o8jCvdPc3H/saving-the-world-in-80-days-epilogue |
# Strategies for Personal Growth
Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about personal growth (any form of deliberate gain in capability or subjective wellbeing).
We were talking past each other a lot. Eventually it became clear that most of _their_ recent growth had been healing and blocker-fixing based,... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/85J8hjEn48FicYfvp/strategies-for-personal-growth |
# Algo trading is a central example of AI risk
I suspect this observation is far from original, but I didn't see it explicitly said anywhere, so it seemed worthwhile spelling it out.
The paperclip maximizer is a popular example of unfriendly AI, however it's not the most realistic one (obviously it wasn't meant to be... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Rm3FydAgNSYHZFrEs/algo-trading-is-a-central-example-of-ai-risk |
# A Gym Gridworld Environment for the Treacherous Turn
**EDIT**: posted here for feedback and discussion. I plan to continue working on different models/environments, so feel free to suggest improvements.
(**tl;dr**: In an attempt to better understand the treacherous turn, I created a gridworld environment where an ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cKfryXvyJ522iFuNF/a-gym-gridworld-environment-for-the-treacherous-turn |
# Pretense
There's a kind of yearning, to be _that_ person who can do _those_ things - this is self-actualization, yet corrupted. I often feel pulled in this way. I find myself wanting to be a certain person _now_, to be producing and being and feeling that way _now_, and I catch myself acting, speaking, signalling as... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FPrt6esZvAKRX2vmQ/pretense |
# Applying Bayes to an incompletely specified sample space
_Epistemic Status: Novel mathematics from an amateur, presented with unjustified confidence. Submitted here and not in a mathematical journal because I think LW will be better and faster at explaining where I’ve gone wrong and/or what common approach I’ve rein... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mxj6DtRgLg88vEdti/applying-bayes-to-an-incompletely-specified-sample-space |
# The Feedback Problem
My Blog [Bearlamp](http://bearlamp.com.au/the-feedback-problem/): [First](http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-of-other-minds/), [Previous](http://bearlamp.com.au/experimental-apparatus/)
[Lesswrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PdMAZzKyb2oC8739S/the-feedback-problem): [First](https://www.less... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PdMAZzKyb2oC8739S/the-feedback-problem |
# Alignment Newsletter #17
**Highlights**
**[Differentiable Image Parameterizations](https://distill.pub/2018/differentiable-parameterizations/)** _(Alexander Mordvintsev et al)_: There are lots of techniques for generating images using neural nets. A common approach is to take a neural net trained to classify images... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xKbtjfQ2y4anW3fZQ/alignment-newsletter-17 |
# Costa Rica SSC Meetup
Meet at the Food Court in Multiplaza, Escazú.
_This event is part of the [SlateStarCodex Meetups Everywhere 2018](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/26/meetups-everywhere-2018/). This is a great opportunity to meet other rationalists and SSC readers in person. Everyone is welcome to come!_ | https://www.lesswrong.com/events/p2uyR9vLPwjdoywRC/costa-rica-ssc-meetup |
# Sonoma County SSC Meetup
_This event is part of the [SlateStarCodex Meetups Everywhere 2018](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/26/meetups-everywhere-2018/). This is a great opportunity to meet other rationalists and SSC readers in person. The organizer has not provided any contact information, but everyone is welcom... | https://www.lesswrong.com/events/wT39WmQqQcj9DJJcQ/sonoma-county-ssc-meetup |
# Counterfactuals, thick and thin
_Summary: There's a "thin" concept of counterfactual that's easy to formalize and a "thick" concept that's harder to formalize._
Suppose you're trying to guess the outcome of a coinflip. You guess heads, and the coin lands tails. Now you can ask how the coin _would_ have landed if yo... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YSH3RFSFESzsa5Nrg/counterfactuals-thick-and-thin |
# Safely and usefully spectating on AIs optimizing over toy worlds
Consider an AI that is trying to achieve a certain result in a toy world running on a computer. Compare two models of what the AI is and what it's trying to do: first, you could say the AI is a physical program on a computer, which is trying to cause t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ikN9qQEkrFuPtYd6Y/safely-and-usefully-spectating-on-ais-optimizing-over-toy |
# Sandboxing by Physical Simulation?
This is a simple idea. I do not remember if I've seen it anywhere. It is probably not original, but I am mildly surprised that I haven't come across it, even if only to see it refuted. If this is an old/dumb idea, please let me know and I'll delete it.
People have built universal ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aXSrXgNS5D3Zstqtw/sandboxing-by-physical-simulation |
# Open Thread August 2018
If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one (use search for Open Thread ).
2. What accomplishments are you celebrating from the last month?
3. What are you reading?
4... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8xc43uA5nyxkAudiR/open-thread-august-2018 |
# Emotional Training Model
[Bearlamp](http://bearlamp.com.au/emotional-training-model/): [Previous](http://bearlamp.com.au/the-feedback-problem/), [First](http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-of-other-minds/)
[Greaterwrong](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/dSokCMn63Wu48WX5u/emotional-training-model): [Previous](https... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dSokCMn63Wu48WX5u/emotional-training-model |
# Fixing science via a basic income
I ran across [Ed Hagen’s article “Academic success is either a crapshoot or a scam”](https://grasshoppermouse.github.io/2017/12/05/academic-success-is-either-a-crapshoot-or-a-scam/), which pointed out that all the methodological discussion about science’s replication crisis is kinda... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jQMGoruLxksGcS55/fixing-science-via-a-basic-income |
# Anti-tribalism and positive mental health as high-value cause areas
I think that tribalism is one of the biggest problems with humanity today, and that even small reductions of it could cause a massive boost to well-being.
By tribalism, I basically mean the phenomenon where arguments and actions are [primarily eval... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BmvZ6qTKNDWgvnGrW/anti-tribalism-and-positive-mental-health-as-high-value |
# What are your plans for the evening of the apocalypse?
If everyone found out for sure that the world would end in five years, what would happen?
My guess is that it would take time before anything big happened. Finding out about the end of the world, that’s the kind of a thing that you need to digest for a while. F... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hxJBc5Qo3oea3X443/what-are-your-plans-for-the-evening-of-the-apocalypse |
# Finland Museum Tour 1/??: Tampere Art Museum
I haven’t really been to museums as an adult; not because I’d have been particularly Anti-Museum, but just because museums never happened to become a Thing That I Do. I vaguely recall having been to a few museums with my parents when I was little, an occasional Japan exhi... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aRnoeQAHz78i3zXgL/finland-museum-tour-1-tampere-art-museum |
# LW Update 2018-08-03 – Comment Sorting
**Comment Sorting**
* Comments can now be sorted by "oldest"
* Old posts from the time-before-nested comments now default to sorting comments by "oldest."
* You can set your profile preferences for default-comment sorting. Comments will attempt to sort by the following a... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tMFRXReoK2aHrCkTS/lw-update-2018-08-03-comment-sorting |
# Counterfactuals for Perfect Predictors
[Parfit's Hitchhiker](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Parfit's_hitchhiker) with a perfect predictor has the unusual property of having a Less Wrong consensus that you ought to pay, whilst also being surprisingly hard to define formally. For example, if we try to ask about wheth... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AKkFh3zKGzcYBiPo7/counterfactuals-for-perfect-predictors |
# Alignment Newsletter #18
**Highlights**
**[Learning Dexterity](https://blog.openai.com/learning-dexterity/)** _(Many people at OpenAI)_: Most current experiments with robotics work on relatively small state spaces (think 7 degrees of freedom, each a real number) and are trained in simulation. If we could throw a lo... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9a33WfdPe9Cd26vL9/alignment-newsletter-18 |
# Probabilistic Tiling (Preliminary Attempt)
We know a decent amount about how to get tiling in proof-based environments where the objective is for the AI to achieve a goal, or to write an AI to achieve a goal, or to write an AI that writes an AI that achieves a goal, and so on, as long as the chain of deferral is fin... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nsbKeodxHJFKX2yYp/probabilistic-tiling-preliminary-attempt |
# Learning strategies and the Pokemon league parable
I have recently noted a shift in my learning strategy, which I reflectively approve of. On hindsight, it feels obvious.
However, I can vividly recall many people I respect and admire recommending me to try a very similar thing in the past, and myself scoffing at th... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hWkdiMbqLpzjYvxqD/learning-strategies-and-the-pokemon-league-parable |
# EA Tourism: London, Blackpool and Prague
I have spent the last three weeks visiting three hubs of EA projects. This is a blogpost briefly describing my experiences and thoughts during these three weeks.
First week: London
------------------
In London I stayed in [Newspeak House](https://www.nwspk.com/), a residenc... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8FpxQXzqnrarRzpLS/ea-tourism-london-blackpool-and-prague |
# Cargo Cult and Self-Improvement
Many people want to change themselves. They want to become happier, smarter, more successful, rich, or at least less disoriented. There are incredibly many books telling people how they can achieve this, along with seminars, youtube videos and email instructions. And the large majorit... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9AZBKEGMMyTe7vuw8/cargo-cult-and-self-improvement |
# A Short Note on UDT
In my [last post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AKkFh3zKGzcYBiPo7/logical-counterfactuals-for-perfect-predictors), I stumbled across some ideas which I thought were original, but which were already contained in [UDT](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Updateless_decision_theory). I suspect tha... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EXtzy3v4soZcoZjuH/a-short-note-on-udt |
# Logarithms and Total Utilitarianism
_Epistemic status: I might be reinventing the wheel here_
A common cause for rejection of total utilitarianism is that it implies the so-called [Repugnant Conclusion](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/), of which a lot has been written elsewhere. I will argu... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Zgwy2QRgYBSrMWDMQ/logarithms-and-total-utilitarianism |
# AI Reading Group Thoughts (1/?): The Mandate of Heaven
My housemate Kelsey "[theunitofcaring](https://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/)" has begun hosting an AI reading group in our house. Our first meeting was yesterday evening, and over a first draft attempt at chocolate macarons, we discussed [this article about AI sa... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/v5GJzMYBobJCTJwXb/ai-reading-group-thoughts-1-the-mandate-of-heaven |
# SSC Meetups Everywhere 2018
Scott over at SlateStarCodex is running another round of "[SSC Meetups Everywhere](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/09/ssc-meetups-2018-times-and-places/)" and since currently a record-high of 80+ meetups are registered for the coming month, I figured we should help people find their nea... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/R4gBxnxEsLGQqrH8v/ssc-meetups-everywhere-2018 |
# LW Update 2018-08-10 – Frontpage map, Markdown in LaTeX, restored posts and reversed spam votes
Here are the updates I pushed in the last week:
* The community map is on the frontpage for the next week, to celebrate and promote the "SSC Meetups Everywhere"
* We are now using a new Markdown processor, which allo... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mLKnjwkJCCf42i9zv/lw-update-2018-08-10-frontpage-map-markdown-in-latex |
# Human-Aligned AI Summer School: A Summary
_(**Disclaimer:** this summary is incomplete and does not accurately represent all the content presented at the summer school, but only what I remember and seem to have understood from the lectures. Don't hesitate to mention important ideas I missed or apparent confusion.)_
... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bXLi3n2jrfqRwoSTH/human-aligned-ai-summer-school-a-summary |
# How to Build a Lumenator
Once upon a time, a friend was sad. Specifically, they had seasonal affective disorder. They tried to fix it by adding lights to their room during the winter.
It didn't work.
[They tried adding a LOT of light.](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/oLGCcbnvabyibnG9d/p/zsG9yKcriht2doRhM)
It worked.
... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hC2NFsuf5anuGadFm/how-to-build-a-lumenator |
# New paper: Long-Term Trajectories of Human Civilization
[Long-Term Trajectories of Human Civilization](http://gcrinstitute.org/papers/trajectories.pdf) (free PDF). _Foresight_, forthcoming, DOI 10.1108/FS-04-2018-0037.
**Authors:** Seth D. Baum, Stuart Armstrong, Timoteus Ekenstedt, Olle Häggström, Robin Hanson, Ka... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3RLSqqfP5oQE2WDrr/new-paper-long-term-trajectories-of-human-civilization |
# Tactical vs. Strategic Cooperation
As I've matured, one of the (101-level?) social skills I've come to appreciate is _asking directly for the narrow, specific thing you want, instead of debating around it._
What do I mean by "debating around" an issue?
Things like:
"If we don't do what I want, horrible things A, ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GeAyBrrQstLy2y8D6/tactical-vs-strategic-cooperation |
# Trust Me I'm Lying: A Summary and Review
_Trust Me I'm Lying_, by Ryan Holiday, is probably the most influential book I've read in the past two years. This book is a guidebook to the twenty-first century media ecosystem, and shows how the structures and incentives of online media serve to polarize us by stoking fear... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P8yeoeJ2bwmnD93mZ/trust-me-i-m-lying-a-summary-and-review |
# Is there a practitioner's guide for rationality?
Hi everyone, I'm new to the community, and am currently working my way through the sequences — yes, all of them.
In the introduction to the first book of Rationality A-Z, Eliezer says:
> I didn’t realize that the big problem in learning this valuable way of thinking... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5Y9tYibGitJmSk4te/is-there-a-practitioner-s-guide-for-rationality |
# Cause Awareness as a Factor against Cause Neutrality
\[Epistemic status: Sudden insight + some reflection\]
\[Novelty status: I Googled some stuff on cause neutrality, and didn’t see this category of concerns mentioned\]
Trying to live an optimized, impactful life can be quite a burden. There is no time for fun wh... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h4FDYavQgLEDTJiE7/cause-awareness-as-a-factor-against-cause-neutrality |
# Preliminary thoughts on moral weight
_This post adapts some internal notes I wrote for the Open Philanthropy Project, but they are merely at a "brainstorming" stage, and do not express my "endorsed" views nor the views of the Open Philanthropy Project. This post is also written quickly and not polished or well-expla... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jTQTxYNwo6zb3Kyp/preliminary-thoughts-on-moral-weight |
# Alignment Newsletter #19
**Highlights**
**[OpenAI Five Benchmark: Results](https://blog.openai.com/openai-five-benchmark-results/)** _(OpenAI's Dota Team)_: The OpenAI Five benchmark happened last Sunday, where OpenAI Five won two matches against the human team, and lost the last one when their draft was adversaria... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WCpv3KH7hvRqLTKqw/alignment-newsletter-19 |
# Logical Counterfactuals & the Cooperation Game
**Update**: Originally I set the utility for AB or BA to -10, -10; but I've now realised that unnecessarily complicates the problem.
* * *
Logical counterfactuals (as in Functional Decision Theory) are more about your state of knowledge than the actual physical state ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NcA3dMJoWWEN4BQet/logical-counterfactuals-and-the-cooperation-game |
# Request for input on multiverse-wide superrationality (MSR)
> I am currently working on a research project as part of CEA’s summer research fellowship. I am building a simple model of so-called “multiverse-wide cooperation via superrationality” (MSR). The model should incorporate the most relevant uncertainties for ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mAK9qtrHfbvcTmhGE/request-for-input-on-multiverse-wide-superrationality-msr |
# Entropic Regret I: Deterministic MDPs
This is the first in a series of essays that aim to derive a regret bound for [DRL](https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1656) that depends on finer attributes of the prior than just the number of hypotheses. Specifically, we consider the entropy of the prior and a certain lear... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zTf946PQwN2AN3X3Y/entropic-regret-i-deterministic-mdps |
# Tidying One’s Room
Previously (Compass Rose): [Culture, Interpretive Labor, and Tidying One’s Room](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/culture-interpretive-labor-and-tidying-ones-room/)
Epistemic Status: A bit messy
“*She’s *tidied up and I can’t *find *anything! All my tubes and wires, careful notes!” – Thomas Dolby,... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yFsEZR5WuTj9kiJCA/tidying-one-s-room |
# One night, without sleep
In memory of all those who fell and were not saved
(I normally have little regard for trigger warnings,
but on this occasion, imagine that my words are prefaced with every trigger warning ever)
A body, on a battlefield, maimed and bleeding;
terrible pain, staring at the sky,
left to die... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LjuZqyH9pimSzxG2d/one-night-without-sleep |
# Subsidizing Prediction Markets
Epistemic Status: Sadly Not Yet Subsidized
Robin Hanson linked [to my previous post on prediction markets](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a4jRN9nbD79PAhWTB/prediction-markets-when-do-they-work) with the following note:
> .[@TheZvi](https://twitter.com/TheZvi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) rev... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AeKS2m6uLM8RYfvND/subsidizing-prediction-markets |
# A developmentally-situated approach to teaching normative behavior to AI
_This was submitted to the [EthicsNet Guardians' Challenge](https://www.herox.com/EthicsNet). I'll be honest here that I hadn't thought much about what EthicsNet is trying to do, but decided to write something and submit to it anyway because it... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uEAvtbtEBdsQJMdh8/a-developmentally-situated-approach-to-teaching-normative |
# Y Couchinator
_[Crossposted to Tumblr.](http://luminousalicorn.tumblr.com/post/177116054190/y-couchinator)_
_\*This project never really had critical mass and is no longer operative; it did later inspire another project, also now defunct.\*_
There are a lot of people - there are probably incredibly tragic mountain... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4X9JLr2SpB6v68twG/y-couchinator |
# A future for neuroscience
_Crossposted and slightly adapted from opentheory.net._
I think all neuroscientists, all philosophers, all psychologists, and all psychiatrists should basically drop whatever they’re doing and learn Selen Atasoy’s “connectome-specific harmonic wave” (CSHW) framework. It’s going to be the b... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2pnvgwGkMZkQzCvwi/a-future-for-neuroscience |
# Reducing collective rationality to individual optimization in common-payoff games using MCMC
A well-known issue in game theory is that of multiple Nash equilibria in [coordination games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game).
For example, consider the following game. Players 1 and 2 both choose either ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JKSS8GEu7DGX4YuxN/reducing-collective-rationality-to-individual-optimization-1 |
# Alignment Newsletter #20
This week's newsletter is pretty light, I didn't find much. On one of the two days I checked, [Arxiv Sanity](http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/) had _no_ recommendations for me at all, when usually it has over five.
**Highlights**
--------------
**[Large-Scale Study of Curiosity-Driven Learning]... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XXmeWeY8ZzaLgmvAK/alignment-newsletter-20 |
# Historical mathematicians exhibit a birth order effect too
*\[Epistemic status: pilot study. I'm hoping that others will help to verify or falsify my conclusion here. I've never done an analysis of this sort before, and would appreciate correction of any errors.*
*A previous version of this post has some minor erro... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tj8QP2EFdP8p54z6i/historical-mathematicians-exhibit-a-birth-order-effect-too |
# Book Review: AI Safety and Security
I just read Roman Yampolskiy's new 500-pages-multi-author anthology: [Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security](https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Security-Chapman-Robotics/dp/0815369824) to get a comprehensive view of the field. Here is my attempt at reviewing the ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a4tcqr7QBAgMHLbcz/book-review-ai-safety-and-security |
# [Feature Idea] Epistemic Status
_Epistemic Status: My best guess_ _(but, [epistemic effort](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oDy27zfRf8uAbJR6M/epistemic-effort) was "talked to like 2-3 people about it and it felt good to each of us")_
I've been thinking about a number of issues relating to "what are the standards su... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Hrm59GdN2yDPWbtrd/feature-idea-epistemic-status |
# Jobs Inside the API
Cross-posted from [Putanumonit.com](https://putanumonit.com/2018/08/09/jobs-inside-the-api/)
* * *
I promised that [my last post](https://putanumonit.com/2018/07/28/photo-travel-journal-colombia/) will go up as I am flying over the Pacific Ocean. Then [I tweeted](https://twitter.com/yashkaf/sta... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z6Jm2wLt9ok4q6qaZ/jobs-inside-the-api |
# Four kinds of problems
I think there are four natural kinds of problems, and learning to identify them helped me see clearly what’s bad with philosophy, good with start-ups, and many things in-between.
Consider these examples:
1. Make it so that bank transfers to Africa do _not_ take weeks and require visitin... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NgSJwki4dxJTZAWqH/four-kinds-of-problems |
# Large Research Report on Attitudes to Genetic Technologies
Dear All,
The Royal Society has commissioned a large 'dialogue' research report on people's attitudes to Genetic Technologies. This is significant, as CRISPR-Cas9 is a potential high-impact intervention: it's cheap, and can produce heredetary changes.
To m... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XrjxNsZifg9SWfmeG/large-research-report-on-attitudes-to-genetic-technologies |
# Chris Pikula Belongs in the Magic Hall of Fame
Epistemic Status: Fixing old mistakes, appreciating great old deeds.
(Note to those who do not play Magic: While this is nominally about Magic, I find these points to be of general interest, and wrote the post with that in mind.)
Chris Pikula belongs in the Magic Hall... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gbqi2XrNgBAtndpzZ/chris-pikula-belongs-in-the-magic-hall-of-fame |
# Isolating Content can Create Affordances
Recently, I've noticed an interesting failure mode in some communities I've observed online.
In this scenario, there would be some kind of content that appealed to certain users, but that many others wanted to avoid seeing and indeed considered undesirable (gossip/drama, ang... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uj9SfDnMNw4PF9FjC/isolating-content-can-create-affordances |
# LW Update 2018-08-23 – Performance Improvements
Today's deploy includes:
* Removed the map of meetups from frontpage since the major Slatestar Everywhere push is wrapping up.
* Posts with lots of comments should load faster now
* Fixed the bug where the last post in a sequence wouldn't properly navigate to th... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/whdvSv2TumBNLmxXz/lw-update-2018-08-23-performance-improvements |
# I am Sailor Vulcan!
Greetings! I am Sailor Vulcan, champion of justice and reason! In the name of the Moon--uh, I mean...
Hi, I'm Harry. I'm a reader, writer and gamer with a passion for rationality and existential risk prevention.
I sometimes jokingly compare my life to an intelligence explosion. I honestly belie... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QLd6jkijKsgsCdjp7/i-am-sailor-vulcan |
# Turning Up the Heat: Insights from Tao's 'Analysis II'
Foreword
========
It's been too long - a month and a half since my last review, and about three months since _[Analysis I](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cuZxipMFup5uJdeAp/into-the-kiln-insights-from-tao-s-analysis-i)_. I've been immersed in my work for CHAI, ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uSaJoL64DYg2WunJJ/turning-up-the-heat-insights-from-tao-s-analysis-ii |
# Changing main content font to Valkyrie?
(Probably not interesting to 90% of people, but would love to get input from our local typography nerds)
We've been using [Warnock Pro](https://typekit.com/fonts/warnock-pro) as our default font for body-text and content-related elements for a while, and I've been quite happ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PfgHiMZ3jF2fifssH/changing-main-content-font-to-valkyrie |
# REACH Panel Nomination Form
The [Berkeley REACH](http://berkeleyreach.org/) is seeking [nominations](https://goo.gl/forms/Xi0wqLOY0ixecEi43) for members of a panel to help resolve interpersonal issues that arise in or around REACH or the communities it was created to serve. See the [REACH Panel Mandate](https://docs... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NQ9aGQPYea9vJojWT/reach-panel-nomination-form |
# Rationalist Community Hub in Moscow: 3 Years Retrospective
_Short summary: Moscow rationalist community is organized around a local venue called Kocherga. Kocherga hosts 40–50 rationality-adjacent events per month, teaches a few dozen people per year in CFAR-style applied rationality workshops, and has ambitious pla... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WmfapdnpFfHWzkdXY/rationalist-community-hub-in-moscow-3-years-retrospective |
# Unrolling social metacognition: Three levels of meta are not enough.
**Disclaimer:** This post was written time-boxed to 2 hours because I think LessWrong can still understand and improve upon it; please don't judge me harshly for it.
**Summary:** I am generally dismayed that many people seem to think or assume tha... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K4eDzqS2rbcBDsCLZ/unrolling-social-metacognition-three-levels-of-meta-are-not |
# Theories of Pain
_Epistemic status: Exploratory. I did basically no actual research for this post so please don't take anything I say at face value._
Follow-up to: [Book Review: Unlearn Your Pain](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/06/26/book-review-unlearn-your-pain/), [A Sarno-Hanson Synthesis](https://www.lesswrong.... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZB7Hez6bJiZvCAAA2/theories-of-pain |
# Zetetic explanation
There is a kind of explanation that I think ought to be a cornerstone of good pedagogy, and I don't have a good word for it. My first impulse is to call it a historical explanation, after the original, investigative sense of the term "history." But in the interests of avoiding nomenclature collis... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i2Dnu9n7T3ZCcQPxm/zetetic-explanation |
# Using expected utility for Good(hart)
[Goodhart's](https://arbital.com/p/goodharts_curse/) curse happens when you want to maximise an unknown or uncomputable U, and instead choose a simpler proxy V, and maximise that instead. Then the optimisation pressure on V [transforms it into a worse proxy](https://www.lesswron... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/urZzJPwHtjewdKKHc/using-expected-utility-for-good-hart |
# Reference Post: Formal vs. Effective Pre-Commitment
[Newcomb's Problem](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Newcomb%27s_problem) is effectively a problem about pre-commitment. Everyone agrees that if you have the opportunity to pre-commit in advance of Omega predicting you, then you ought to. The only question is what y... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Q8tyoaMFmW8R9w9db/reference-post-formal-vs-effective-pre-commitment |
# Alignment Newsletter #21
**Highlights**
**[80K podcast with Katja Grace](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/katja-grace-forecasting-technology/)** _(Katja Grace and Rob Wiblin)_: Rob Wiblin interviewed Katja Grace of AI Impacts about her work predicting the future of AI. My main takeaway was that there are man... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2NDt9DSPRbDoZPcKT/alignment-newsletter-21 |
# Unknown Knowns
Previously (Marginal Revolution): [Gambling Can Save Science](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/08/gambling-can-save-science-2.html)
A study was done to attempt to replicate 21 studies published in _Science _and _Nature. _
Beforehand, prediction markets were used to see which st... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7w2tCRocphK9yW8rG/unknown-knowns |
# Corrigibility doesn't always have a good action to take
In a previous critique of [corrigibility](https://intelligence.org/files/Corrigibility.pdf), I brought up the example of a corrigible AI-butler that was in a situation where it was [forced to determine the human's values](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5ZyNq3... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nbhTzEosM9sqEvr6P/corrigibility-doesn-t-always-have-a-good-action-to-take |
# [Paper] The Global Catastrophic Risks of the Possibility of Finding Alien AI During SETI
\[edit: it looks like immediately after publishing the paper, the journal becomes extinct, so the link is no longer working\]
My article on the topic has been finally [published](http://www.jbis.org.uk/paper.php?p=2018.71.71), ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rHFrYXBTLpi2LddzT/paper-the-global-catastrophic-risks-of-the-possibility-of |
# HLAI 2018 Field Report
I spent the past week in Prague (natively called Praha, but known widely as Prague via the usual mechanisms others decide your own names) at the [Human Level AI multi-conference](https://www.hlai-conf.org/) held between the AGI, BICA, the NeSY conferences. It also featured the Future of AI tra... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/axsizR4vEX8qtuLpR/hlai-2018-field-report |
# History of the Development of Logical Induction
I have been asked several times about how the development of logical induction happened, so I am writing it up.
June 2013 - I write my first [Less Wrong Post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NHFFzBF4b3SZLHckt/how-should-eliezer-and-nick-s-extra-usd20-be-split). It may... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iBBK4j6RWC7znEiDv/history-of-the-development-of-logical-induction |
# 2 Events with Christine Peterson in Vancouver This Week!
\[Note: if you are not or will not be in/around Vancouver, Canada on Friday or Saturday this weekend, ignore this post.\]
\[Meta: I would usually reserve announcements like this to Facebook events for the relevant groups, or an event on the LessWrong 'Communi... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NxBodjKAxFk8ioik8/2-events-with-christine-peterson-in-vancouver-this-week |
# Computational complexity of RL with traps
_I briefly describe an open (to the best of my knowledge) problem and link to cstheory.stackexchange questions with more details. The readers are invited to try solving those questions._
In the comment section of my [research agenda](https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=181... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3YYChdX29SMG6kQf6/computational-complexity-of-rl-with-traps |
# Player of Games
Things I learned from a game theory party: why prisoner's dilemmas are not what they seem, why being smart is often worse than being the dumbest, and the virtues of trolls.
Like all of my posts, this is cross-posted with delay from [Putanumonit](https://putanumonit.com/2018/08/22/player-of-games/).
... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rvjqmoCZwk3g9XYLt/player-of-games |
# You Play to Win the Game
Previously (Putanumonit): [Player of Games](https://putanumonit.com/2018/08/22/player-of-games/)
Original Words of Wisdom:
Quite right, sir. Quite right.
By far the most important house rule I have for playing games is exactly that: **You Play to Win the Game.**
That doesn’t mean you alw... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ggzWxjrGGCMJDssBn/you-play-to-win-the-game |
# Do what we mean vs. do what we say
_Written quickly after a CHAI meeting on the topic, haven't thought through it in depth._
If we write down an explicit utility function and have an AI optimize that, we expect that a superintelligent AI would end up doing something catastrophic, not because it misunderstands what ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8Q5h6hyBXTEgC6EZf/do-what-we-mean-vs-do-what-we-say |
# VOI is Only Nonnegative When Information is Uncorrelated With Future Action
Attention conservation notice: Most of this post is a recap of the standard arguments for UDT, but the way in which the standard proof for value of information being nonnegative breaks down in some decision theory scenarios probably isn't co... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KER27SxZssfmsusxy/voi-is-only-nonnegative-when-information-is-uncorrelated |
# Bottle Caps Aren't Optimisers
_Crossposted from [my blog](http://danielfilan.com/2018/08/31/bottle_caps_arent_optimisers.html)._
One thing I worry about sometimes is people writing code with optimisers in it, without realising that that's what they were doing. An example of this: suppose you were doing deep reinfor... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/26eupx3Byc8swRS7f/bottle-caps-aren-t-optimisers |
# Psychology Replication Quiz
The great guys over at 80,000 Hours made a [quiz](https://80000hours.org/psychology-replication-quiz/) for that recent replication study (previously [discussed on LW](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7w2tCRocphK9yW8rG/unknown-knowns)), where you can find out if you can predict as well as t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KsyD6GmFN2EtirX74/psychology-replication-quiz |
# Open Thread September 2018
If it’s worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
2. What accomplishments are you celebrating from the last month?
3. What are you reading?
4. What reflections do you have for yourself or others from the last month?
5. What have you ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fteSdEFCv4r43rhj7/open-thread-september-2018 |
# On memetic weapons
\[status: speculative, probably a [fake framework](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wDP4ZWYLNj7MGXWiW/in-praise-of-fake-frameworks)\]
* * *
_July 17, 2018. Johannesburg, South Africa._
Barack Obama is giving a speech in memoriam of Nelson Mandela. 15,000 people fill a stadium, listening.
Here's... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oM7cWuQax4k3GEHHX/on-memetic-weapons |
# Cooperative Oracles
The long-awaited continuation of [this sequence.](https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1468)
Credit to Sam, Tsvi, Nisan, Scott, me, and Giles (who helped make the figures)
It may or may not become a paper, but if it doesn't, it's best for it to not be locked in a folder of drafts. This will... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SgkaXQn3xqJkGQ2D8/cooperative-oracles |
# When wishful thinking works
This idea is due to Scott Garrabrant.
Suppose you have propositions φ1,...,φn, and you want to form beliefs about whether they are true; specifically, you want to form a joint probability distribution P over the events φ1,...,φn. But there’s a catch: these propositions might refer to th... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KbCHcb8yyjAMFAAPJ/when-wishful-thinking-works |
# Impact Measure Desiderata
Previously: _[Worrying about the Vase: Whitelisting](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H7KB44oKoSjSCkpzL/worrying-about-the-vase-whitelisting)_, _[Overcoming Clinginess in Impact Measures](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DvmhXysefEyEvXuXS/overcoming-clinginess-in-impact-measures)_
If we can ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c2oM7qytRByv6ZFtz/impact-measure-desiderata |
# A Process for Dealing with Motivated Reasoning
_Epistemic status: Had a [valley of bad rationality](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Valley_of_bad_rationality) problem, did some thinking about how to solve it in my own case, thought the results might be useful for other people who have the same problem. (To be clear,... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HpNHwtyRxqArMcNXn/a-process-for-dealing-with-motivated-reasoning |
# Resurrection of the dead via multiverse-wide acausual cooperation
**TL;DR:** Measure decline in random mind creation may be prevented if we take into account very large number of random mids created in other universes.
**Summary**: P.Almond suggested the idea of the resurrection of the dead via a quantum random gen... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BJfb2hqtdnaRijAfz/resurrection-of-the-dead-via-multiverse-wide-acausual |
# Alignment Newsletter #22
Highlights
----------
**[AI Governance: A Research Agenda](https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/AI-Governance_-A-Research-Agenda.pdf)** _(Allan Dafoe)_: A comprehensive document about the research agenda at the Governance of AI Program. This is really long and covers a lot of ground ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GvRb4m6jAvsrtwJGH/alignment-newsletter-22 |
# Moral realism and AI alignment
“**Abstract**”: Some have claimed that moral realism – roughly, the claim that moral claims can be true or false – would, if true, have implications for AI alignment research, such that moral realists might approach AI alignment differently than moral anti-realists. In this post, I bri... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DRmoA7Nqu85Sbuo7t/moral-realism-and-ai-alignment |
# nostalgebraist - bayes: a kinda-sorta masterpost
Extended criticism of "Bayesianism" as discussed on LW. An excerpt from the first section of the post:
> Like most terms ending in -ism, \[Bayesianism\] can mean a number of different things. In its most limited sense, “Bayesianism” is a collection of technical/math... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gsQjde3qeZw36arYE/nostalgebraist-bayes-a-kinda-sorta-masterpost |
# Birth order effect found in Nobel Laureates in Physics
_\[Epistemic status: Three different data sets pointing to something similar is at least interesting, make your own mind up as to how interesting!\]_
**Follow-up to:** [Fight Me, Psychologists, Birth Order Effects are Real and Very Strong](http://slatestarcodex... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QTLTic5nZ2DaBtoCv/birth-order-effect-found-in-nobel-laureates-in-physics |
# Hypothesis about how social stuff works and arises
EDIT, 2022:
------
this post is still a reasonable starting point, but I need to post a revised version that emphasizes preventing dominance outside of play. **All forms of dominance must be prevented, if society is to heal from our errors.** These days I speak of h... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fpN3mFuGuR97xqyPx/hypothesis-about-how-social-stuff-works-and-arises |
# AI Governance: A Research Agenda
Allan Dafoe, head of the AI Governance team at FHI has written up a research agenda. It's a very large document, and I haven't gotten around to reading it all, but one of the things I would be most excited about is people in the comments quoting the most important snippets that give ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yTMWjeRyHFCPbGXsk/ai-governance-a-research-agenda |
# Quick Thoughts on Generation and Evaluation of Hypotheses in a Community
At lunch we talked about hypothesis evaluation and generation, and I thought I'd put some of the thoughts I had into a post.
Here’s some points that seem relevant to me when thinking about institution building around this topic.
* Evaluatio... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/amJcwgY9YucygWP8g/quick-thoughts-on-generation-and-evaluation-of-hypotheses-in |
# No standard metric for CFAR workshops?
**Update:** CFAR used standard metrics in [its 2015 study](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D7JaXjyR6qFNNaBgm/no-standard-metric-for-cfar-workshops#ke9qJBiwDkZkGNNAD), which I didn't know about when drafting this post. It doesn't appear that they tracked these metrics in [their ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D7JaXjyR6qFNNaBgm/no-standard-metric-for-cfar-workshops |
# I am the very model of a self-recursive modeler
I am the very model of a self-recursive modeler
My consciousness encompasses itself in many meta layers
To Russel’s paradox, I have the set of all the answers
I cut the hair of all the non-self-barbering hairdressers
I think about me thinking of my thoughts with re... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kKGuaJzu5MuEmqwBR/i-am-the-very-model-of-a-self-recursive-modeler |
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