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0e0596c0-c103-414f-96f7-ab6f532cb2f7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Effective Networking as Sending Hard to Fake Signals
In my last post, I argued that digital platforms and resume screeners are likely to filter out even mildly unconventional applicants, since recruiters are forced to optimize on criteria that are readily available to them at that stage of the process. Even if they re... |
7c331caf-d410-4518-b15a-b50062bd5357 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arbital | Arbital | Operations in Set theory
An operation in [set](https://arbital.com/p/3jz) theory is a [https://arbital.com/p/-3jy](https://arbital.com/p/-3jy) of two sets, that returns a set.
Common set operations include [Union ](https://arbital.com/p/5s8), [Intersection ](https://arbital.com/p/5sb), [Relative complement ](https://... |
1c32030d-8159-4d2d-a10d-a63d76b730b6 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Gold, Silver, Red: A color scheme for understanding people
A few months ago, I built a predictive algorithm to determine the probability of romantic relationships between individuals in my periphery.
The algorithm works like this:
-Personal Factors. How likely are you as an individual to find yourself in a new relat... |
375ce118-02ae-48c4-90a7-9d175c9aca4f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Keep: Move checked items to bottom
I've been using Keep as my main note-taking app for years, and our house recently switched after Wunderlist was discontinued. It turns out they added a list feature, where checked items are sorted below unchecked ones:
This is on by default for new users, but I've been using Keep ... |
426b2ec7-cf9c-4b34-840e-f144bcbf3b34 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The impossibility of rationally analyzing partisan news
This is a response to Thinking About Filtered Evidence Is (Very!) Hard that I thought deserved to be its own post.
The post said that it lacked a practical/interesting failure-case for Bayes' Law. Here is a case that is both practical and interesting.
Suppose t... |
c827eeb2-c183-4d30-ba4c-6bb2a5498d9e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | 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 backb... |
32a53328-9087-4d51-b491-b8f29fa166a1 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Perpetual Motion Beliefs
Today's post, Perpetual Motion Beliefs was originally published on 27 February 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> People learn under the traditional school regimen that the teacher tells you certain things, and you must believe them and recite them back; but if a mere ... |
f803d1f2-3c60-4b98-a6b1-4fe29ce95222 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Intelligence explosion
Below post may be an older version of this document. Click link for latest version.
2025-04-24
What?
* This article is written more as a thought experiment to build intuition, rather than convey anything novel.
If you have not used the latest AI models (as of 2025-04 this is GPT4.5 and o3),... |
ee15e12d-e9da-486b-8fea-d178439764fe | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Read Backwards
Sometimes if I'm reading something difficult to understand or written in an uninteresting way I'll skip ahead to the end of the chapter, or perhaps just skim ahead several paragraphs until something looks interesting. Then I'll read one paragraph at a time in reverse order. I think this helps you focus ... |
24ff21a4-b4a1-4593-83fb-2e126de6d671 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/youtube | Youtube Transcripts | DeepMind x UCL RL Lecture Series - Theoretical Fund. of Dynamic Programming Algorithms [4/13]
hi everybody and welcome back to our
fourth lecture on reinforcement learning
today we're going to go deeper into the
fundamentals of dynamic programming and
revisit some of the algorithms we've
introduced the last time we se... |
299544f3-8763-4cda-a235-9aeee32ebe73 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | [Intro to brain-like-AGI safety] 9. Takeaways from neuro 2/2: On AGI motivation
*Part of the*[*“Intro to brain-like-AGI safety” post series*](https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/HzcM2dkCq7fwXBej8)*.*
9.1 Post summary / Table of contents
====================================
Most posts in the series thus far—Posts [#2](h... |
b0df0d44-5d3f-4f09-9926-62dff86e2419 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The AI regulator’s toolbox: A list of concrete AI governance practices
This article explains concrete AI governance practices people are exploring as of August 2024.
Prior summaries have mapped out high-level areas of work, but rarely dive into concrete practice details. For example, they might describe roles in poli... |
5d257858-efab-4a96-9afc-908b762bece2 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | Causality: A Brief Introduction
*Post 2 of*[*Towards Causal Foundations of Safe AGI*](https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/pcdHisDEGLbxrbSHD)*, see also* [*Post 1 Introduction*](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/3oQCY4he4zRzF6vQb/introduction-to-towards-causal-foundations-of-safe-agi)*.*
*By Lewis Hammond, Tom Everitt... |
0d0ee51a-9ca4-4dde-bd46-c8e8c1744c5d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Chapter 47: Personhood Theory
There comes a point in every plot where the victim starts to suspect; and looks back, and sees a trail of events all pointing in a single direction. And when that point comes, Father had explained, the prospect of the loss may seem so unbearable, and admitting themselves tricked may seem ... |
fe1d0df7-2e9e-4f21-912c-ca4d36e7544a | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | AI Benefits Post 2: How AI Benefits Differs from AI Alignment & AI for Good
This is a post in a series on "AI Benefits." It is cross-posted from my [personal blog](https://cullenokeefe.com/blog/ai-benefits-2). For other entries in this series, navigate to the [AI Benefits Blog Series Index page](https://www.cullenokee... |
c333b082-f17b-4b9b-9d24-f72532d89d25 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A rationalist's guide to psychoactive drugs
This is a first draft. Over the next few days I'll add citations and that sort of thing, but I'm posting it as-is in order to solicit feedback. Also, I wasn't able to find any specific policy regarding mention of illicit substances, so I'm going to assume this is okay, but... |
fa226158-1c1e-4979-9107-6636474a9d5e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Anti MMAcevedo Protocol
"Good morning, Alexander."
"Hello? Who's there?"
"I'm sorry, you may be feeling a bit disoriented as you are in a simulation right now. I am here to help you."
"Well, that certainly explains the low quality graphics. I thought maybe I fell asleep with my VR chip active or something."
"Ar... |
aebcac44-e0b3-446e-967a-f24aaf1d0162 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Futarchy Fix
Robin Hanson's Futarchy is a proposal to let prediction markets make governmental decisions. We can view an operating Futarchy as an agent, and ask if it is aligned with the interests of its constituents. I am aware of two main failures of alignment: (1) since predicting rare events is rewarded in proport... |
aa9906df-ee7b-453c-a4e1-ca4130de75e0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Causal Inference Sequence Part 1: Basic Terminology and the Assumptions of Causal Inference
(Part 1 of the Sequence on Applied Causal Inference)
In this sequence, I am going to present a theory on how we can learn about causal effects using observational data. As an example, we will imagine that you have collected... |
5fb8af12-cb60-4501-ad48-beebe7bd321a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Newcomb's problem - one boxer's introspection.
So, just a small observation about Newcomb's problem:
It does matter to me who the predictor is.
If it is a substantially magical Omega, that predicts without fail, I will onebox - gamble that my decision might in fact cause a million in that box somehow (via simulation... |
9f666f56-016f-4e3e-a268-b5789fc88adb | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Empirical risk minimization is fundamentally confused
> Produced under the mentorship of Evan Hubinger as part of the SERI ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program - Winter 2022 Cohort.
>
>
> Thank you to @Zach Furman, @Denizhan_Akar, and Mark Chiu Chong for feedback and discussion.
Classical learning theory is flaw... |
15ae6b12-bf5d-40b9-8374-542e598a0b1e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Retrospective on Mathematical Boundaries Workshop
mostly written by Evan Miyazono
Minimum viable introduction
* We ran a workshop on Mathematical Boundaries from April 10-14. This was the successor of the Conceptual Boundaries Workshop (retrospective, last update) Feb 10-12
* The overlap in participants and appr... |
46d4fe2c-0133-49cf-9240-214a763af86d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Baumol effect vs Jevons paradox
Key points. The Baumol effect & Jevons paradox are 2 claims regarding the effect of increasing efficiency of a good or sector. Although not incompatible, they are at odds; one suggesting relative decline, the other suggesting absolute growth. I examine these & find that they are often d... |
783014c4-e91d-482f-9021-da8c34f41cc5 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On Better Mental Representations Part I: Adopting 'Thinking Tools'
If you don't mind an introduction using some poppy philosophical thinking, please indulge me as I channel Alan Watts. Correct me if I am wrong but if I remember Watts once spoke or written about how we misconstrue our representations of things for the... |
1063923c-65dd-4378-bc71-23e763e47821 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Invitation to lead a project at AI Safety Camp (Virtual Edition, 2025)
Do you have AI Safety research ideas that you would like to work on with others? Is there a project you want to do and you want help finding a team? AI Safety Camp could be the solution for you!
Summary
AI Safety Camp Virtual is a 3-month long on... |
b37ef426-a7d5-4fd2-ab2a-caf1273b434e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arbital | Arbital | Moral uncertainty
"Moral uncertainty" in the context of AI refers to an agent with an "uncertain utility function". That is, we can view the agent as pursuing a [utility function](https://arbital.com/p/1fw) that takes on different values in different subsets of possible worlds.
For example, an agent might have a [me... |
2efc1e26-f663-4a7c-ba35-95111fdc2ef8 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Naturalist Collection
There’s a kind of rhythm to the four phases of naturalism. To me, they feel a bit like oscillation between zooming out and zooming in, or like inhaling and exhaling. The first phase (Locating Fulcrum Experiences) has a broad exploratory feel, like zooming out; it’s sort of meandering, touching on... |
160d3297-a8a9-4986-af9d-662227a3dcee | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [LINK] AI-boxing Is News, Somehow
Tech News Daily have published an article advocating AI-boxing, which namechecks Eliezer's AI-Box Experiment. It seems to claim AI-Boxes are a revolutionary new idea; is covered in pictures of fictional, evil AIs; and worries that a superintelligent AI might develop psychic powers.
S... |
5370db36-bfb5-45e2-929e-6a1c76a4746e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Should we cry "wolf"?
Epistemic status: I am confused and trying to become less confused.
So, our shepherd community noticed the wolf. It's a small wolf, about the size of a chihuahua, and is unlikely to cause any serious damage. Should we cry "wolf"?
Possible arguments against crying "wolf"
1. When someone cries ... |
aeeb14ed-4a3c-4995-b20d-c352fa40a15f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Siren worlds and the perils of over-optimised search
tl;dr An unconstrained search through possible future worlds is a dangerous way of choosing positive outcomes. Constrained, imperfect or under-optimised searches work better.
Some suggested methods for designing AI goals, or controlling AIs, involve unconstrained s... |
d62cfca6-3bb5-4606-a8fe-9511952aa627 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The D-Squared Digest One Minute MBA – Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101
|
da4f75d9-3600-4682-a969-261b52695d54 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | #4.4: The insurance underwriting process
This is post 8 of 10 in my cryonics signup guide, and the last of five posts on life insurance. Underwriting is not a complex or interesting topic, but I'm including this brief writeup in the sequence for the sake of giving readers a complete picture of the life insurance proce... |
ca2e9011-5cbf-4930-9e6b-a57ae2ab043d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | AGI x Animal Welfare: A High-EV Outreach Opportunity?
Epistemic status: Very quickly written, on a thought I've been holding for a year and that I haven't read elsewhere.
I believe that within this decade, there could be AGIs (Artificial General Intelligences) powerful enough that the values they pursue might have a... |
5ce1c7f2-a582-465d-96ce-640e6b3851de | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate
This is a writeup of the research done by the "Reflection-Humans" team at OpenAI in Q3 and Q4 of 2019. During that period we investigated mechanisms that would allow evaluators to get correct and helpful answers from experts, without the evaluators themselves being expert in t... |
d5e83b7a-e431-4d61-be20-1d5e7941b151 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | In forecasting, how do accuracy, calibration and reliability relate to each other?
Forecasters vary on at least three dimensions:
1. accuracy- as measured in (e.g.) average brier score over time (brier score is a measure of error where if you think (say) p is 0.7 likely and p turns out to be true, then your brier s... |
3502a229-0cc3-4bcf-9490-33ef998e54db | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Megameetup on December 13-15th, NYC
This winter, we'll be hosting a megameetup on December 13th-15th. This is the weekend of the Winter Solstice, a big event we're putting together the rationality, humanist and transhumanist communities of the area. (The Solstice celebration is on Saturday evening - if you'd like to a... |
a7c9365a-9458-4a70-8cb5-082be5d75a85 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | AI #53: One More Leap
The main event continues to be the fallout from The Gemini Incident. Everyone is focusing there now, and few are liking what they see.
That does not mean other things stop. There were two interviews with Demis Hassabis, with Dwarkesh Patel’s being predictably excellent. We got introduced to anot... |
4c0524bd-3694-4a84-be5e-b7e995f8c16b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A Delayed Epiphany on Motivation
During lunch today, I had a conversation with my mother about the lives of my younger brothers. She mentioned to me that my brother, who is taking an SAT class, found the practice test he took to be extremely boring. I replied that I was sorry for my brother and that I felt very priv... |
4e9471a2-e2e4-462d-9cc1-fc8fe53471cd | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A Proposed Litany
I was meditating on the word "disillusionment" the other day, and it stuck me as odd that it has such a negative connotation... doesn't being disillusioned mean that you see a truth that was previously hidden from you by a mirage of falsehood? The human-universal negative emotional response to findin... |
da684153-af1a-4ea8-9c63-8fdaf5d32897 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On "Epistemic Trespassing" and Intellectual Modesty
Epistemic status: I’m moderately confident in the positions I endorse here, and this series is the product of several months’ research, but it only skims the surface of the literature on these questions.
Bookkeeping: This post is part of a short series reviewing and... |
c70191ed-978a-4526-91f9-16204938c2bb | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Apply to >50 AI safety funders in one application with the Nonlinear Network [Round Closed]
[Nonlinear](http://www.nonlinear.org) spoke to dozens of earn-to-givers and a common sentiment was, "I want to fund good AI safety-related projects, but I don't know where to find them." At the same time, applicants don’t know ... |
89f96264-fc74-45de-871c-7c4c6a8d39a4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Increasing the pool of people with outstanding accomplishments
In How can Cognito Mentoring do the most good? I included a section on our potential social value. I want to flesh out what we hope to achieve.
Consider the following people:
* Scott Alexander. One of Less Wrong's major contributors, and writes Slate St... |
c81d5ac2-339d-44dd-9260-43b140a5256f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | PSA: Please list your references, don't just link them
In what became 5th most-read new post on LessWrong in 2012, Morendil told us about a study widely cited in its field... except that source cited, which isn't online and is really difficult to get, makes a different claim — and turns out to not even be the original... |
d9272007-7574-48cd-90a3-538017e19b4e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | Exponential Families
In my [last post](https://jsteinhardt.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/log-linear-models/) I discussed log-linear models. In this post I’d like to take another perspective on log-linear models, by thinking of them as members of an *exponential family*. There are many reasons to take this perspective: expo... |
bcf77d0d-3d86-4046-9546-9619cb82e763 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Reinforcement Learning and Inverse Reinforcement Learning with System 1 and System 2
Introduction
------------
Modeling human decision making and inferring a person’s latent reward function from their behavior are important problems across many fields (Resnick and
Varian, [1997](#bib.bib38); Athey and
Nekipelov, [2... |
2515f239-72d9-4301-9925-a38d571add73 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Dublin
Discussion article for the meetup : Dublin
WHEN: 09 May 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)
WHERE: Accents Coffee & Tea Lounge, Stephen Street Lower, Dublin
After a very successful HPMOR wrap party, we've decided to start a regular Dublin meetup group. This is the first meetup, so it'll be fairly unstructured. ... |
22694a0a-7a30-4a17-b72f-fb9196a9f7d4 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | How much should you optimize for the short-timelines scenario?
(x-posted on [LW](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iJYzREEsuG8g95pvC/how-much-to-optimize-for-the-short-timelines-scenario))
Some have argued that one should tend to act as if timelines are short since in that scenario it's possible to have more expected ... |
c9ff2ce2-621e-4c64-a9cc-1a8df1c60cfa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Right Way of Formulating a Problem?
David Chapman Writes,
> Finding a good formulation for a problem is often most of the work of solving it.
I agree with this intuitively, and I feel like I have seen this principle at work in my own work and in the problems I have tried to solve. However, when I try to convince... |
79760269-793d-453a-9582-1cbfe479bdda | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Weekly LW Meetups: Austin, Houston, Fort Collins, Melbourne, Canberra, Zurich
There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:
* Houston Meetup: 30 October 2011 02:00PM
* Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wednesday 7pm: 02 November 2011 07:00PM
* Melbourne practical rationality meetup: 04 November 2011 ... |
dfbdfde0-61ed-45a4-9f2f-40484be0b8dc | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | End-to-end hacking with language models
Cross-posted from https://tchauvin.com/end-to-end-hacking-with-language-models
Produced as part of the SERI ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program - Summer 2023 Cohort.
Thanks to JS Denain and Léo Grinsztajn for valuable feedback on drafts of this post.
How close are we to au... |
d7f3afd7-fe40-4739-a1d8-a38542babc0a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Joint Configurations
Today's post, Joint Configurations was originally published on 11 April 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> The laws of physics are inherently over mathematical entities, configurations, that involve multiple particles. A basic, ontologically existent entity, according to o... |
54313319-ed77-49c7-b103-68e27c6beb6d | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | PUTWorkbench: Analysing Privacy in AI-intensive Systems
1. Introduction
----------------
The recent advancements in Machine Learning techniques has brought AI experts and Software Practitioners on the same page. There is however a dearth of tools specially designed for building AI intensive systems. Such tools woul... |
b6ddac81-5515-4a0d-8bf7-fd9131b10d1f | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | 2012 Winter Matching Challenge a Success!
Thanks to our dedicated supporters, we met our goal for our 2012 Winter Fundraiser. Thank you!
The fundraiser ran for 45 days, from December 6, 2012 to January 20, 2013.
We met our $115,000 goal, raising a total of $230,000 for our operations in 2013.
Every donation that... |
d71d67c1-a6a7-4f40-90b7-bf6110f2d7dd | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Is AGI communist?
I think a lot of people dislike central planning states not because they dislike efficiency, welfare, or lack of liberties, but because they distrust anyone central party to make decisions on behalf of society.
Well, if you have greater than life intelligence like AGI, you could do central planning.... |
a4cf855b-41b1-47ad-a6e4-70cf8f805eba | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/youtube | Youtube Transcripts | AI Toy Control Problem
hello here I'm just gonna present my AI
toy model of the control problem which
has proven useful in the past for some
people to understand what the AI control
problem is about a very simple model a
robot moving around in a grid world with
boxes it can push the boxes in any
direction if it's next... |
093f55ad-45f5-4be1-835b-b93d6a6ef997 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Link: PRISMs, Gom Jabbars, and Consciousness (Peter Watts)
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=791
> Morsella has gone back to basics. Forget art, symphonies, science. Forget the step-by-step learning of complex tasks. Those may be some of the things we use consciousness for now but that doesn’t mean that’s what it evolv... |
43c1a13d-a2a6-4761-a3a3-da5ade7c0ab3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Event] Ajeya's Timeline Report Reading Group #1 (Nov. 17, 6:30PM - 8:00PM PT)
Ever since Ajeya's timeline report came out, I've been wanting to discuss it with other people, and see what they think about it. This is the relevant LessWrong post: https://www.lesswrong.com/.../draft-report-on-ai-timelines
The report is... |
6bc0dbb3-597f-4300-bf61-e7c40eeaecfd | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | David Marr on two types of information-processing problems
I found an essay written by David Marr called Artificial Intelligence -- a personal view that I thought was fairly insightful. Marr first discusses how information processing problems are generally solved:
> The solution to an information processing problem d... |
a86ad040-b281-4b04-8ce6-b9e59d7fb382 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Safe Scrambling?
Status: half-formed thought on a potential piece of an alignment strategy that I've not heard discussed but probably exists somewhere, might just be missing a concept name.
Idea
Any alignment scheme that plans to allow potentially unsafe systems to be trained but then tests their safety before deplo... |
fc3d65e3-65b0-42ec-801d-dc2400c2239c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Let's stop making "Intelligence scale" graphs with humans and AI
You've probably seen this:
or this:
Or something similar to these examples.
Let's stop making and spreading these.
Recently, I asked Gemini 2.5 Pro to write a text with precisely 269 words (and even specified that spaces and punctuation don't count a... |
e32a3213-1573-4180-b76d-e5e32a06e443 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Teaching rationality
I am interested in promoting rationality in my local community. As I don't know anyone who are involved in the movement I'll probably have to do some initial teaching. Which, in your oppinion, are the most essential/fundemental parts of rationality, and of these which are most accessible to newcom... |
b394e188-8cfd-48b9-908e-dd8549e6f68c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Interpreting genetic testing
Several years ago I participated in a study where my DNA was sequenced, and while I ended up not getting the sequence data [1] I did get a file of 23andme-style SNP variant calls. I loaded it into Promethease, and excluded mutations with magnitude below 2 ("looks interesting enough to be w... |
549a2366-74c6-4eef-95b9-4ae64ae97419 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | EA grants available (to individuals)
I'm considering applying for some kind of a grant from the effective altruism community. A quick sketch of the specifics is here. Raemon replied there with a list of possibilities. In this post, I'll look into each of those possibilities, to make this process easier for whoever com... |
0c3ef9fa-0464-402b-9f92-1bd1b9c281dc | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Dark Art: Inception
If rationality is about overcoming bias, then I think of the "dark arts" as the weaponization bias. While we don't believe bias ought to be wielded as a weapon, learning how to swing a sword is vital to defending against it.
In this post I'll discuss a dark art I call "inception". Inception is a 2... |
76515e47-ffca-4eba-8e5c-5e34be2e22a6 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | 2. Skim the Manual: Intelligent Voluntary Cooperation
Having set up the game of civilization in a formal way, let’s see how the rules proposed in our manual apply to reality. It turns out that intelligent voluntary cooperation is already a prominent engine in the history of civilization and that there are concrete thi... |
e593fe32-7b78-43bd-9f01-2ec24d89da16 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup
Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup
WHEN: 11 December 2016 08:00:00PM (-0500)
WHERE: Performing Arts and Humanities Bldg Room 456, 1000 Hilltop Cir, Baltimore, MD 21250
Meeting is on 4th floor of the Performing Arts and Humanities Buil... |
6b5b4579-c7d0-43ea-a93b-b346bde123ff | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Multiverse-Wide Preference Utilitarianism
Summary
Some preference utilitarians care about satisfaction of preferences even when the organism with the preference doesn't know that it has been satisfied. These preference utilitarians should care to some degree about the preferences that people in other branches of our m... |
c5381393-a2c4-44cc-bb0e-6d70c315df7a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Linkpost] Sam Altman's 2015 Blog Posts Machine Intelligence Parts 1 & 2
I'm often surprised more people haven't read Open AI CEO Sam Altman's 2015 blog posts Machine Intelligence Part 1 & Part 2. In my opinion, they contain some of the most strong, direct, and clear articulations of why AGI is dangerous from a person... |
edfcb45d-844a-4282-92ad-18023dde1c3f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Deontology and virtue ethics as "effective theories" of consequentialist ethics
This is a rough attempt to present deontology and virtue ethics as approximate, effective theories [1] of consequentialist morality, for agents severely bounded in their ability to determine the consequences of their actions, and delegati... |
bf3d005a-8e85-48e7-b61a-bd6143c42eaa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | ribbonfarm: A Brief History of Existential Terror
|
80fa33e9-dca5-418c-887f-7eb000467307 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Linkpost: Surely you can be serious
Adam Mastroianni writes about "actually caring about stuff, and for the right reasons", rather than just LARPing. The opening is excerpted below.
> I once saw someone give a talk about a tiny intervention that caused a gigantic effect, something like, “We gave high school seniors a... |
7260bd9f-9506-45a7-8bfb-9737c3331cfa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Mountain View sequences discussion
Discussion article for the meetup : Mountain View sequences discussion
WHEN: 22 May 2012 06:00:00PM (-0700)
WHERE: Sylvan Avenue & Sevely St, Mountain View
We will be meeting at Sylvan Park near the playground. This is a meetup to discuss specific posts in the sequences. T... |
5311d63c-1004-4df3-b534-438044b499e3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Offense-Defense Balance Rarely Changes
You’ve probably seen several conversations on X go something like this:
> Michael Doomer ⏸️: Advanced AI can help anyone make bioweapons
> If this technology spreads it will only take one crazy person to destroy the world!
>
> Edward Acc ⏩: I can just ask my AI to make a va... |
b6efb274-2e86-4112-a37f-35ebd2ae481b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Motte-and-Bailey: a Short Explanation
[ Context: I found out about the motte-and-bailey fallacy a few years ago via Scott's essay All In All, Another Brick In The Motte. I've found it a useful concept handle since then, but it's kind of tricky, many people are not proficient with it, it's tough to explain in conversat... |
ee7c146a-a640-48bf-8684-4445da9d9a15 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How to Throw Away Information
Probability as Minimal Map argued that the probability P[q|X] is a minimal representation of the information in data X which is relevant to the query q. In other words, P[q|X] is a perfectly efficient map of some territory based on data X, suitable for the query q. More generally, a full ... |
f7b52c01-d35e-4192-bfb7-6e292b6162f4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Gods! Robots! Aliens! Zombies!
Continuing my exploration of truth through the history of rationality, past, present, and future. |
52691167-4a65-4082-93cc-367eb42f8ede | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A Letter to the Editor of MIT Technology Review
Letter to Editor - MIT Tech Review - Wed, 30-Aug-2023
I submitted the below in response to Large language models aren’t people. Let’s stop testing them as if they were.
_____
In "Large language models aren’t people," MIT Technology continues to serve as a counterwei... |
e991af99-d78f-4889-a4a6-14626ebe4671 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Looking for Goal Representations in an RL Agent - Update Post
Summary
I’ve been working on a project aimed at finding goal representations in a small RL agent. I designed a setup where I train an agent, rapidly alternating between two very similar objectives.
I was able to consistently (across alternations and acros... |
d4c1d98c-7162-428a-847b-4a20bbd5d654 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Litany Against Gurus
I am your hero!
I am your master!
Learn my arts,
Seek my way.
Learn as I learned,
Seek as I sought.
Envy me!
Aim at me!
Rival me!
Transcend me!
Look back,
Smile,
And then—
Eyes front!
I was never your city,
Just a stretch of your road.
Part of the Politics Is the Mind-Killer subsequenc... |
cf86e29c-3580-4633-a825-84977a88fa15 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Google Search loses to ChatGPT fair and square
I mentioned before that Google search is less than satisfactory even on uncomplicated queries: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/naAs59xiGfr7fPjej/google-search-as-a-washed-up-service-dog-i-halp
The linked article compares accuracy and usefulness of Google search with Chat... |
f8ecff97-e4b0-4c29-9a80-90387891307d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Fake Reductionism
Today's post, Fake Reductionism was originally published on 17 March 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> There is a very great distinction between being able to see where the rainbow comes from, and playing around with prisms to confirm it, and maybe making a rainbow yourself ... |
1f121c0a-90cf-485c-a81d-a9ac55808a6f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Paternal Formats
In How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think, Lion Kimbro introduces the idea of coercive vs uncoercive formats for information. [Re-named to "Paternal vs Navigable" here, at the suggestion of MakoYass.]
Paternal:
* Stories.
* Lesson plans; course prerequisites.
* Videos.
* Linear te... |
6fd3c6a4-5a50-427d-97a6-098643eaddf2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Group of Latter Day Roleplayers
The Society for Creative Anachronism started as a backyard graduation party for a medieval studies student and grew to 32,000 members as of 2008. Does anyone have any insight into how that happened? Of particular interest would be any intersection between the SCA's mode of growth and th... |
1b7bd4ac-7ab4-43f6-8388-63447e669c24 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | Target 3: Taking It To The Next Level
One week ago, we hit our [first fundraising target](https://intelligence.org/2015/07/18/targets-1-and-2-growing-miri/#continuedgrowth). I’m thrilled to announce that we’re now closing in on our [second target](https://intelligence.org/2015/07/18/targets-1-and-2-growing-miri/#accel... |
89c4a7cb-bfc6-4cdf-aa7a-afc91946bec4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Private Firm vs. Public Firm Earnings
Robin Hanson asks:
> Interesting that private firms have 67% of employees yet only 20% of profits. Is this mostly because owners take “profits” off the books to avoid taxes, or because owners attend more to growing firm value than to paying current earnings?
That is a very large... |
aadceecd-96a1-4d80-9ac3-6414197941d3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Real-Life Anthropic Weirdness
Today's post, Real-Life Anthropic Weirdness was originally published on 05 April 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> Extremely rare events can create bizarre circumstances in which people may not be able to effectively communicate about improbability.
Discuss the... |
ba908a0e-b298-4a0c-ae02-c50309bddb9e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | OpenAI's grant program for democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow
Did anyone thought about applying to OpenAI's grant program for "experiments in setting up a democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow"? Sounds to me like an important opportunity to help animals, w... |
d94bf61a-811e-48f1-af46-4ec445e9dc9e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Most Famous Lunchtime Question in the History of the World
I have an Enthusiastic Layperson's Moderate Obsession (yes, it's an ELMO) with what may be the most consequential lunchtime question in scientific history.
In 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi was having lunch with colleagues at Los Alamos when the conversatio... |
62fde3f3-5490-42a0-a012-b15b180aae47 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | LINK-Robot apocalypse taken (somewhat) seriously
"Even a non-anthropomorphic human intelligence still could pose threats to mankind, but they are probably manageable threats. The greatest problem is that such artificial intelligence may be indifferent to human welfare. Thus, for instance, unless otherwise programmed, ... |
acc673e9-b97d-44f9-95f7-5566f51f3340 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Monthly Outreach Thread
Please share about any outreach that you have done to convey rationality-style ideas broadly, whether recent or not, which you have not yet shared on previous Outreach threads. The goal of having this thread is to organize information about outreach and provide community support and recognition... |
e311884a-d157-4510-b51f-57ac040bcfbb | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How Do Forecasters Fare by Their Own Call?
Note: This is a linkpost for the Metaculus Journal. I work for Metaculus and this is part of a broader exploration of how we can compare and evaluate performance of different forecasters.
Short summary
* It is difficult to interpret the performa... |
df40b4c0-c0a8-4521-af67-81a052bedfaa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | In defense of technological unemployment as the main AI concern
It seems to me that when normal people are concerned about AI destroying their life, they are mostly worried about technological unemployment, whereas rationalists think that it is a bigger risk that the AI might murder us all, and that automation gives h... |
1c5e95c7-befa-4ed2-bbe0-24b67859c4bc | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Self-confirming price-prediction strategies for simultaneous one-shot auctions.
Self-Confirming Price Prediction Strategies for
Simultaneous One-Shot Auctions
Michael P. Wellman
Computer Science & Engineering
University of MichiganEric Sodomka
Computer Science
Brown UniversityAmy Greenwald
Computer Science
Brown Univer... |
d01943f3-fcdc-422c-822c-7151857b7b50 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Analyzing Differentiable Fuzzy Logic Operators
1 Introduction
---------------
In recent years much work has been published on the integration of symbolic and statistical approaches to Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Garcez et al., [2012](#bib.bib156 "Neural-symbolic learning systems: foundations and applications"); B... |
dc84de62-ded6-499f-a7d1-a8c2c00b1e0f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Do biases matter?
It occurred to me that our biases might not matter very much lots of the time. They matter if you want to maximize your chances of finding the truth, but not if you are interested in maximizing the chances the chances of someone finding the truth.
Take science as an example, scientists aren't always... |
19f4bfd6-fb3a-4f5d-a054-680e537dd34a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Stub] Ontological crisis = out of environment behaviour?
One problem with AI is the possibility of ontological crises - of AIs discovering their fundamental model of reality is flawed, and being unable to cope safely with that change. Another problem is the out-of-environment behaviour - that an AI that has been trai... |
c5eac17e-be63-47a4-b8d4-89ad6a7dbcd0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Russian x-risks newsletter summer 2021
There were not many x-risk-related events in this period in Russia.
Covid mortality reached all times high in Russia, despite obvious lies about the number of deaths: they are almost always 799 a day. This is mostly due to the delta variant and failure to vaccinate most people. ... |
d7bfb1ec-4371-4ecc-b64a-00ebfea6bb7a | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Steering systems
Preface: who this post is for
-----------------------------
This post is mainly targeted at people who are already familiar with the concepts and terminology in alignment, AI x-risk, and particularly the case for high probabilities of doom, but disagree with the arguments or have bounced off of them... |
0a6c7f5f-7446-47ad-a9bd-5b10290bcb71 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Murphy’s Quest Ch 11: Resolve
As far as the eye can see, the ground is lit up by white-gold runes, tongues of blue flame and roving God Rays. The mountains ahead look like someone applied a “Heaven” filter to a demonic hellscape.
“Consecrated Ground. I’ve never seen a patch this large.”
“I’m guessing it’s not Undead... |
e1a8db68-ad21-4e0e-8fa0-8a6153bd0e7c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | In Text
I find texts wonderful. If there was a rank of 7 Wonders of Evolution - texts would definitely take one of the prizes. Ok, that's not true - but at least they would receive my sincere democratic vote, and after that lose to such important crowd pleasers like Football and YouTube… Nevertheless, I have been thin... |
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