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c6b63e80-c643-47fb-99d7-1a13093e98e4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Monty Hall Sleeping Beauty
A friend referred me to another paper on the Sleeping Beauty problem. It comes down on the side of the halfers.
I didn't have the patience to finish it, because I think SB is a pointless argument about what "belief" means. If, instead of asking Sleeping Beauty about her "subjective probabil... |
90886fbf-c127-42b7-a2ac-03a9939f7945 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Rationality Reading Group: Part W: Quantified Humanism
This is part of a semi-monthly reading group on Eliezer Yudkowsky's ebook, Rationality: From AI to Zombies. For more information about the group, see the announcement post.
----------------------------------------
Welcome to the Rationality reading group. This f... |
e12f32ec-a31c-45c6-a472-0f800e880c20 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Covid 11/25: Another Thanksgiving
For my first Thanksgiving post, which somehow was both a year ago and almost a year into the pandemic, I gave thanks at the end of the post. With all that’s happened, it seems more appropriate to do this at the beginning of the post instead this year. So I’m going to do that, and deal... |
e9e7046e-4baa-4633-bab4-eb3568229e4f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Belief and the Truth
I’ve been wanting to write down my thoughts on the subject of belief and truth for some while now. The distinction between the two is one of the cornerstones of how I see the world. A good theory of what the truth is, and what it means to have a belief has a profound impact on how we think about t... |
73f5bb35-8c4e-4b34-a320-bde58fc5517c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On The Risks of Emergent Behavior in Foundation Models
This post first appeared as a commentary for the paper "On The Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models".
Bommasani et al. (2021) discuss a trend in machine learning, whereby increasingly large-scale models are trained once and then adapted to many different ... |
459ee9f2-9caf-4b91-a68e-f830b1858dcf | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | EA & LW Forums Weekly Summary (28th Nov - 4th Dec 22')
Supported by Rethink Priorities
This is part of a weekly series summarizing the top posts on the EA and LW forums - you can see the full collection here. The first post includes some details on purpose and methodology. Feedback, thoughts, and corrections are welc... |
6f60dd7d-e620-420f-a4b4-347036774059 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Data and "tokens" a 30 year old human "trains" on
I did some calculations with a bunch of assumptions and simplifications but here's a high estimate, back of the envelope calculation for the data and "tokens" a 30 year old human would have "trained" on:
* Visual data: 130 million photoreceptor cells, firing at 10 Hz ... |
8b59fce4-1515-4540-9859-7bdcbca4cd39 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | AXRP Episode 20 - ‘Reform’ AI Alignment with Scott Aaronson
YouTube link
How should we scientifically think about the impact of AI on human civilization, and whether or not it will doom us all? In this episode, I speak with Scott Aaronson about his views on how to make progress in AI alignment, as well as his work on... |
98c9e879-8812-4d18-a3cd-e1d87fea9882 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Johnathon Blow - Introspection techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression
|
8eede2a1-e2c9-4f93-8ba4-dd7c1c2d6fe3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Some reservations about Singer's child-in-the-pond argument
Peter Singer is one of the most influential philosophers, and is a strong candidate for being the person who has helped the effective altruist community the most.
In the past, Peter Singer often argued that [the moral obligation to rush into a shallow pond t... |
6aed5a4f-e2cf-4e64-a593-f550b0fcdeb8 | LDJnr/LessWrong-Amplify-Instruct | LessWrong | "Casey Serin, a 24-year-old web programmer with no prior experience in real estate, owes banks 2.2 million dollars after lying on mortgage applications in order to simultaneously buy eight different houses in different states. He took cash out of the mortgage (applied for larger amounts than the price of the house) and... |
ae065f78-304d-44f1-a553-e25e114ba945 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Teaching rationality made me better (at research and other things)
Hi all,
I just wanted to loudly recommend the position to design and write rationality curriculum --- to anyone who is interested --- as a potential way to make yourself more awesome. After helping teach mini-camp last year, I definitely experienced ... |
4e999cba-1dd0-4450-b1a4-a765ac340c81 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Farewell to the Entertainer
For decades EV TAPCO 100M "Entertainer" systems supported contra dances everywhere:
It's a 10-channel mixer, with 8 XLR inputs and two high-impedance 1/4" inputs. It has two powered output channels, one for mains and one for monitors. Three-band parametric EQ, eight-band graphic EQ on th... |
fb27dce4-c2c5-4732-94e9-9b82a4c220d1 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Safety timelines: How long will it take to solve alignment?
**TLDR;** no one talks about how far we are towards safe AGI and the focus is on when AGI doom arrives. We want to readjust this focus and measure progress, guide and facilitate research, and evaluate projects in AI safety for impact. We also ask you to add y... |
a2a45ccc-874a-44dd-861d-5ad919be71ea | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Paris Meetup Saturday June 25
Following [last Paris meetup](http://lesswrong.com/lw/5eg/paris_meetup_saturday_april_30th_2pm/), next one will be Satuday, June 25th, probably around 2PM, but we can use this thread to settle on the details.
Anybody have any suggestions for a better place than some random Café?
(I had... |
a684147a-75f9-478a-a750-03b4cfd47375 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Link] Aligned AI AMA
We're doing an AMA for Aligned AI here. All questions welcome. |
06668e23-e34e-44d5-bbbc-7f48cd63f117 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Durham: Luminosity (New location!)
Discussion article for the meetup : Durham: Luminosity (New location!)
WHEN: 11 April 2013 07:00:00PM (-0400)
WHERE: Cocoa Cinnamon, 420 W Geer St, Durham, NC
We'll discuss the start of the Luminosity sequence by Alicorn: how and why to know what's going on inside your ow... |
73ba1dab-fad3-43ca-a605-daaf716e09fb | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Most smart and skilled people are outside of the EA/rationalist community: an analysis
Introduction:
The (highly interrelated) effective altruist and Rationalist communities are very small on a global scale. Therefore, in general, most intelligence, skill and expertise is outside of the community, not within it.
I d... |
a0dba2ee-f620-420e-a027-c69884c38001 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Why I am not currently working on the AAMLS agenda
(note: this is not an official MIRI statement, this is a personal statement. I am not speaking for others who have been involved with the agenda.)
The AAMLS (Alignment for Advanced Machine Learning Systems) agenda is a project at MIRI that is about determining how to... |
f5ba1b4d-92b7-4339-a780-53d5bfbb6644 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Playing with DALL·E 2
I got access to Dall·E 2 yesterday. Here are some pretty pictures!
My goal was to try to understand what things DE2 could do well, and what things it had trouble understanding or generating. My general hypothesis is that it would do a better job with things that are easy to find on the internet ... |
8c3de3cd-0fa4-40fd-b596-78740782b12b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework
Previously: On RSPs.
BE PREPARED
OpenAI introduces their preparedness framework for safety in frontier models.
A summary of the biggest takeaways, which I will repeat at the end:
1. I am very happy the preparedness framework exists at all.
2. I am very happy it is beta and ope... |
d61ff797-98a3-49a7-b6be-ae254ff3c831 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Why do we assume there is a "real" shoggoth behind the LLM? Why not masks all the way down?
In recent discourse, Large Language Models (LLMs) are often depicted as presenting a human face over a vast alien intelligence (the shoggoth), as in this popular image or this Eliezer Yudkowsky tweet:
See discussion here, here... |
8cea82be-3f33-4452-836d-d3d1b2f0e075 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Summary of AI Research Considerations for Human Existential Safety (ARCHES)
I read Andrew Critch and David Krueger's AI Research Considerations for Human Existential Safety (ARCHES) recently, which is a report that outlines and discusses 29 research directions which might be helpful for AI existential safety. This has... |
d386392b-6112-4737-8e90-b8b5bc1ea705 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | My stumble on COVID-19
A couple weeks ago, I started investigating the response, here and in the stock market, to COVID-19. I found that LessWrong's conversation took off about a week after the stock market started to crash. Given what we knew prior about COVID-19 prior to Feb. 20th, when the market first started to d... |
50d93f47-0972-43d7-a843-8df00161bdc8 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Pittsburgh Holiday Meetup
Discussion article for the meetup : Pittsburgh Holiday Meetup
WHEN: 16 December 2011 08:00:00PM (-0500)
WHERE: Apt 7C, 151 N Craig St, Pittsburgh, PA
Come celebrate the end of finals/the year/upcoming vacations! Feel free to bring friends, even irrational ones ;)
I'll be providin... |
23a1f238-6594-4349-99c0-56495c4df970 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Robin Hanson on "Explaining the Sacred"
I found this post an interesting prompt. I'm thinking about it, and I'd enjoy hearing what other LessWrongers think about it.
Going ahead pasting the text here, hope that's okay:
> The following are 45 correlates that I’ve collected of things called “sacred”. I invite any of y... |
7c67a7fc-98a7-4b39-8695-41d89b6357c7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | My Conversion from LW to Pragmatism: Steelman
Some think of humans as the "scientific species." But also as failures, because, well, humans mostly do just fail when it comes to thinking and acting scientifically.
It's a little odd, isn't it, that we'd be so bad at doing the thing we were built for?
So, maybe we weren... |
2225ced7-afb1-4128-8077-44f8342b97d6 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Alien Axiology
I argue that there is a convergent axiological framework by which all intelligent life in the universe trends towards — that there is a universal-like account of the resource constraints, psychology, and game theory of all species across all worlds. I argue for this to help flesh out cross-disciplinary ... |
3d5551fe-05f5-418f-a5a8-0a0d64e2e33a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : London Special Guests: Jaan Tallinn and Michael Vassar of MetaMed
Discussion article for the meetup : London Special Guests: Jaan Tallinn and Michael Vassar of MetaMed
WHEN: 11 May 2013 01:00:00PM (+0100)
WHERE: London (Shakespeares Head, Holborn)
We have three specials guests! Jaan, Michael, and Cat (see... |
6136692a-9202-4c9a-a6c4-f384a28b0769 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Learning critical thinking: a personal example
Related to: Is Rationality Teachable
“Critical care nursing isn’t about having critically ill patients,” my preceptor likes to say, “it’s about critical thinking.”
I doubt she's talking about the same kind of critical thinking that philosophers are, and I find that defi... |
bc137084-76dd-49ac-ac64-33490e38ba3a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Progress links and tweets, 2022-12-29
Links
* City size is determined by transportation technology (Tomas Pueyo)
Tweets
* Did any sci-fi predict that when AI arrived, it would be unreliable, often illogical, and frequently bullshitting?
* Sam Altman: in the next decade the marginal cost of intelligence and of e... |
41471df2-6f9c-470e-bbe0-c259278d8dbb | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | Arguments about Highly Reliable Agent Designs as a Useful Path to Artificial Intelligence Safety
This paper is a revised and expanded version of my blog post [Plausible cases for HRAD work, and locating the crux in the "realism about rationality" debate](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BGxTpdBGbwCWrGiCL/plausible-case... |
0f9d5b5d-d62b-45a7-863d-58febf3e68af | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Clapping Lower
Clapping is normally relatively high pitch:
(mp3)
I find clapping annoyingly high, so I usually clap a bit differently:
(mp3)
If you also want to clap lower, the main idea is to maximize the volume of air you trap between your clapping hands. Arch the palms, and try to have the full circumference ... |
b843fe73-ef30-41d7-b421-ba303ef3456d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Open Thread, January 4-10, 2016
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
----------------------------------------
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately befo... |
dc04fb63-d1cc-48fc-9c5e-2379c8fe48ce | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How has rationalism helped you?
This November, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo, an online event where participants have one month to write a 50,000-word manuscript for a novel. I'm fairly settled on the idea that I'm going to write about a person who is fairly smart, but who has no rationalist training, discoveri... |
d3b93774-8173-4181-a2eb-e3b2e65cde59 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Published report: Pathways to short TAI timelines
Hi everyone!
I have just published a report with Convergence Analysis exploring how transformative AI (TAI) could be developed within the next ten years. It’s called Pathways to short TAI timelines (pdf version; Google Doc version).
In the report, I examine the debat... |
b8c56c6d-46de-4987-bc46-977dbe80250f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Evidence for the orthogonality thesis
One of the most annoying arguments when discussing AI is the perennial "But if the AI is so smart, why won't it figure out the right thing to do anyway?" It's often the ultimate curiosity stopper.
Nick Bostrom has defined the "Orthogonality thesis" as the principle that motivatio... |
d4aa297f-b9aa-4e70-9048-41585684e3ec | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Hydrophobic Glasses Coating Review
Several years ago I wrote one of my most controversial posts, Don't Clean Your Glasses. If I keep wearing dusty glasses I find I stop noticing the dust, and then I save the time of washing and drying. I'm embarrassed to admit it, however, but I do now clean my glasses.
In June 2020 ... |
5644f635-3ef3-4c69-b497-b89b4019b0fa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How I Make Diagrams
Someone asked me how I make diagrams like the ones in my two loft bed posts, so here's how. Note, though, that these aren't perspective drawings: lines that are parallel in reality remain parallel on the page. This is a lot simpler to draw, and looks good enough.
I start with a rough pencil sketch... |
dce7613f-4abb-4530-ba06-c9326623432a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | AISC project: How promising is automating alignment research? (literature review)
Apply to work on this project with me at AI Safety Camp 2024 before 1st December 2023. |
c8adf0d0-4429-46d2-a754-6b6c3ff80991 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | An Alternative Surrogate Loss for PGD-based Adversarial Testing
1 Introduction
---------------
Despite the successes of deep learning (Goodfellow et al., [2016](#bib.bib11)), it is well-known that neural networks are not intrinsically robust.
In particular, it has been shown that the addition of small but carefully... |
221ad0a4-1f3d-4bfe-b723-203a6a71dd00 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Claude 4
Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4 are out. Anthropic says they're both state-of-the-art for coding. Blogpost, system card.
Anthropic says Opus 4 may have dangerous bio capabilities, so it's implementing its ASL-3 standard for misuse-prevention and security for that model. (It says it has ruled out dangerous ... |
714ecf2a-99a3-4a1a-b50b-1bc53dcea162 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Does TDT pay in Counterfactual Mugging?
On one hand, [this old article](/lw/135/timeless_decision_theory_problems_i_cant_solve/) said TDT doesn't pay. On the other hand, I imagine TDT not paying would be a slam-dunk argument for favoring UDT, which pays, and I haven't seen people make that argument. So I'm confused he... |
839c3ee5-187e-46a6-b3fd-b27afd807f20 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Link] Rationality and Willpower in LifeHack
Diversifying the genres of spreading rationality as part of my broader project by publishing a listicle, and getting it published in Lifehack, a major online publication. Included a link to Less Wrong in it, guessing this is the first time there's a link to LessWrong in a l... |
9f08b7f6-c6e0-4a9a-b259-751db7896038 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A reply to Byrnes on the Free Energy Principle
This post is a collection of my answers to each section of the post "Why I’m not into the Free Energy Principle" by Steven Byrnes.
TLDR: none of Byrnes' arguments appear valid and strong criticisms of the FEP (some are valid, but are not strong, and shouldn't lead to the... |
594c39c3-5ca2-4b36-864c-373290b5efd4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Link] Does a Simulation Really Need to Be Run?
http://blog.regehr.org/archives/546
John Regehr, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Utah, writes about two algorithmic optimizations for Conway's Game of Life, and speculates on the implications for self-aware entities in simulations.
> Has... |
359bdbde-2508-498e-84eb-645244683d10 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | AISC3: Research Summaries
The third AI Safety Camp took place in April 2019 in Madrid. Our teams worked on the projects summarized below:
#### Categorizing Wireheading in Partially Embedded Agents:
Team: Embedded agents – Arushi, Davide, Sayan
They presented their work at [the AI Safety Workshop in IJCAI 2019](... |
5881d7e9-f821-458a-868a-72578f03dcb1 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Box Spread Trick: Get rich slightly faster
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Also, following these steps slightly wrong could result in you losing 100% of your savings. I have listed what I think are the most likely pitfalls, but still, beware.
Thanks to gilch and Mark Xu for helping edit this post, and W... |
8a96287a-0057-4c8f-bec6-fef45c0c9883 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | DeepMind: Evaluating Frontier Models for Dangerous Capabilities
> To understand the risks posed by a new AI system, we must understand what it can and cannot do. Building on prior work, we introduce a programme of new “dangerous capability” evaluations and pilot them on Gemini 1.0 models. Our evaluations cover four ar... |
38f731f7-1d1f-4ca5-bb9d-0f6d2ce8e774 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Announcing Epoch: A research organization investigating the road to Transformative AI
Summary
=======
* We are a new research organization working on **investigating trends in Machine Learning** and **forecasting the development of Transformative Artificial Intelligence**
* This work is done in close collaboration wi... |
e6baf691-5549-42b1-96e4-f63f1bf16cce | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Extending the Off-Switch Game: Toward a Robust Framework for AI Corrigibility
Introduction
The off-switch game, first introduced by Stuart Armstrong in the context of AI safety, highlights a critical challenge in AI alignment: designing systems that are not only powerful and goal-driven but also corrigible—meaning the... |
a4ad287a-6b25-4172-b523-f95e6f4acb4e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Forecasting Transformative AI, Part 1: What Kind of AI?
### PASTA: Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement.
*Audio also available by searching Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc. for "Cold Takes Audio"*
WHERE: 19334 Angling Street, Livonia, MI
Our more-or-less bimonthly Ann Arbor + Detroit area meetup. Myself and Ozy will be there and we're hoping to get a couple new people... |
f0e92fa3-5e0b-4c7f-a581-d33ab8e510fa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Cards Against Rationality
(This post won't make much sense if you don't know about the game Cards Against Humanity. Fortunately it has a web site. If you know the game Apples to Apples, well, CAH's gameplay is almost identical to Apples to Apples ... but the cards range from snarky to perverted to shockingly un-PC.)
... |
6a6dab4a-6171-46a4-a6c5-5cfe256e28e7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Taking Charity Seriously: Toby Ord talk on charity effectivess
Video: (youtube)
Transcript:
> I'm Toby Ord. I'm here today from Oxford University where I'm a Research Fellow in Philosophy, and also I'm the president of an organization called Giving What We Can.
> I should say as well that I haven't always been a phi... |
78da4636-c13b-471e-979e-20e0dd00c09a | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arbital | Arbital | Partial function
A **partial function** is like a [https://arbital.com/p/-3jy](https://arbital.com/p/-3jy) $f: A \to B$, but where we relax the requirement that $f(a)$ must be defined for all $a \in A$.
That is, it must still be the case that "$a = b$ and $f(a)$ is defined" implies "$f(b)$ is defined and $f(a) = f(b)$... |
9fb34907-885a-4efd-aa07-f623bce1883a | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Is the Most Accurate AI the Best Teammate? Optimizing AI for Teamwork
1 Introduction
---------------
Many AI systems are developed for use in collaborative settings, where people work with an AI teammate. For example, numerous applications of AI have been designed as advisory tools, providing input to people who ar... |
f5813991-0a4b-49d2-b01d-3e37c2fe0e92 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Are UV-C Air purifiers so useful?
Does anyone know good practical research about the effect sizes of different UV-C air purifier measures and ventilation? Primarily interested in school and office environments.
Imagine you only have full coverage of a few rooms. Or partial coverage of all rooms. Or "very good" covera... |
8b809e61-8d47-4c3e-92a4-4ad4815c3b8d | awestover/filtering-for-misalignment | Redwood Research: Alek's Filtering Results | id: post2315
This post was originally written as a research proposal for the new AI alignment research organization Redwood Research, detailing an ambitious, concrete technical alignment proposal that I’m excited about work being done on, in a similar vein to Ajeya Cotra’s “ The case for aligning narrowly superhuman m... |
b4e4ff08-4ef9-4f22-a2f6-5dc59513d597 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Anthropic Decision Theory III: Solving Selfless and Total Utilitarian Sleeping Beauty
A near-final version of my Anthropic Decision Theory paper is available on the arXiv. Since anthropics problems have been discussed quite a bit on this list, I'll be presenting its arguments and results in this, subsequent, and previ... |
0c3a6f0e-e33b-468f-bb1e-81db801185c2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Unreasonable Feasibility Of Playing Chess Under The Influence
TL;DR: The wonderful tradition of playing chess drunk, Marr's levels of analysis, AlphaZero, and Iterated Amplification and Distillation.
A proud history of drinking and playing chess
Please enjoy this clip of the reigning chess world champion Magnus ... |
088c8752-def1-4b12-9ef3-3140413be369 | LDJnr/LessWrong-Amplify-Instruct | LessWrong | "(Or, is coordination easier in a long timeline?)It seems like it would be good if the world could coordinate to not build AGI. That is, at some point in the future, when some number of teams will have the technical ability to build and deploy and AGI, but they all agree to voluntarily delay (perhaps on penalty of sanc... |
cc5ef47e-d119-4d7c-a264-a64492131437 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Pain and gain motivation
Note: this post is basically just summarizing some of PJ Eby's freely available writings on the topic of pain/gain motivation and presenting them in a form that's easier for the LW crowd to digest. I claim no credit for the ideas presented here, other than the credit for summarizing them.
EDI... |
91323717-dcd2-4367-91d7-0abce813355a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Book review: Everything Is Predictable
Book review: Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World, by Tom Chivers.
Many have attempted to persuade the world to embrace a Bayesian worldview, but none have succeeded in reaching a broad audience.
E.T. Jaynes' book has been a leading example, but ... |
254704d3-8e42-4e3e-b604-8e2777713981 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | AI X-risk is a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox
Epistemic status: very speculative
Content warning: if true this is pretty depressing
This came to me when thinking about Eliezer's note on Twitter that he didn't think superintelligence could do FTL, partially because of Fermi Paradox issues. I think Eliezer made... |
4ffe8433-47f0-4d30-8363-a56a8d75baa2 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Question 1: Predicted architecture of AGI learning algorithm(s)
**Exploring the possible space of learning architectures**
----------------------------------------------------------
Here is the ultimate challenge: in order to control something, one generally has to understand how it works—i.e., to accurately predict ... |
50785553-3f05-4df0-8295-c97554b29404 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Flywheels of progress
What causes progress?
I’ve been investigating this for five years, and I still don’t have a full answer. But part of the picture is starting to come into focus. Here’s my current, incomplete model:
Progress compounds. It builds on itself. Progress begets progress. This is why progress is super-... |
b4a98362-0de2-45eb-a39e-375ce49dc76e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Thoughts for and against an ASI figuring out ethics for itself
If artificial super intelligence (ASI) becomes a reality, it’ll be able to figure out pretty much anything better than humans, right? So why not ethics? As long as we have it under some level of control, we can just say, “Hey, act ethically, OK?,” and we s... |
45180321-f33d-4972-8f73-fac1ad7b5d6d | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Ethical Artificial Intelligence
Ethical Artificial Intelligence
Bill Hibbard
Space Science and Engineering Center
University of Wisconsin - Madison
and
Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Berkeley, CA
17 November 2015
First Edition
Please send typo and error reports, and any other comm... |
e4e97dff-8b5b-4b24-a943-c04b718bd40a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Let's Discuss Functional Decision Theory
I've just finished reading through Functional Decision Theory: A New Theory of Rationality, but there are some rather basic questions that are left unanswered since it focused on comparing it to Casual Decision Theory and Evidential Decision Theory:
* How is Functional Decisi... |
d6786d91-c39a-4334-98a6-4111909b1860 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Adjusting Outdoor Reset
Our house has forced hot water heat with three loops, two of baseboards and one of radiators. The first floor unit has a baseboard loop and on cold winter days can't keep up. The tenants have been using electric heat [1] to supplement, but that's annoying for them and resistive electric is much... |
973d556c-ccb0-4e91-b072-7682c0ab1441 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Strategic Perspectives on Transformative AI Governance: Introduction
*This is the introduction of an in-progress report called* ***Strategic Perspectives on Long-term AI Governance** (see* [*sequence*](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/xTkejiJHFsidZ9hMo)*).*
* ***Aim:** to contribute to greater strategic clarit... |
8b626072-2c6c-4366-b5df-54d2ddba09a7 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Forecasting thread: How does AI risk level vary based on timelines?
*Crossposted to* [*EA Forum*](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nYgw4FNpHf9bmJGEi/forecasting-thread-how-does-ai-risk-level-vary-based-on)
While there have been many previous surveys asking about the chance of existential catastrophe from AI ... |
0a3e1e25-5c58-4e7d-9c17-c9d6849ce863 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Changing the Definition of Science
Today's post, Changing the Definition of Science was originally published on 18 May 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> Many of these ideas are surprisingly conventional, and being floated around by other thinkers. I'm a good deal less of a lonely iconoclast t... |
994fe81c-7bf8-4446-9724-aa8c15f7a112 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | AI will change the world, but won’t take it over by playing “3-dimensional chess”.
By [Boaz Barak](https://www.boazbarak.org/) and [Ben Edelman](https://www.benjaminedelman.com/)
*[Cross-posted on* [*Windows on Theory blog*](https://windowsontheory.org/?p=8469)*; See also Boaz’s posts on*[*longtermism*](https://windo... |
d70c2914-0c48-4732-9a95-d08a3031a13c | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | An argument for accelerating international AI governance research (part 1)
After a good long while of reading, thinking, and working at the edges of AI governance (I am an historian of international law and global governance as well as an AI capabilities evaluator and qualitative red-teamer), I am finally taking the p... |
c8694e8b-7b07-4f96-950e-e94e8002d579 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Should you work at a leading AI lab? (including in non-safety roles)
*This post is a (slightly) edited cross-post of a new 80,000 Hours* [*career review on working at a a leading AI lab*](https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/working-at-an-ai-lab/)*.* [*See LessWrong comments here*](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QZN... |
aafde35a-98b8-4ef1-8412-45fcd3611e02 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Open Thread April 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 <year>).
2. Let's discuss further installments in a separate comment thread. |
4eac4dbe-b5e5-48f6-97d1-86f57a8941e0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On the Seattle Minimum Wage Study (part 1)
Epistemic Status (written before I looked at the paper): This new paper confirms all of my priors.
(Which is no longer the epistemic status because things started looking weird, but one step at a time). I’m publishing part 1 now because I don’t want things to drag on forever... |
0db0e2c9-ad90-4078-ba6d-f6d725bc0a7f | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | I Don't Want to Think About it Now:Decision Theory With Costly Computation
1 Introduction
---------------
Computation plays a major role in decision
making. Even if an agent is willing to ascribe a probability to all states
and a utility to all outcomes, and maximize expected utility—that is,
to follow the standard... |
b7893cdb-892a-4700-aa16-78842c4315e2 | LDJnr/LessWrong-Amplify-Instruct | LessWrong | "[This post is an expansion of my previous open thread comment, and largely inspired by Robin Hanson's writings.]
In this post, I'll describe a simple agent, a toy model, whose preferences have some human-like features, as a test for those who propose to "extract" or "extrapolate" our preferences into a well-defined an... |
fc4ef1de-a151-42e9-b91e-2759ad54382f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Rationality Drugs
Can drugs improve your rationality?
I’m not sure, but it seems likely.
Remember the cognitive science of rationality. Often, irrationality is a result of ‘mindware gaps’ or ‘contaminated mindware’ — missing pieces of knowledge like probability theory, or wrong ideas like supernaturalism. Alas, we c... |
4cfa1dce-a810-4554-bdd2-2ee1009cac5a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Stop trying to try and try
Imagine a graduate student of mathematics as they interact with a professor, attempting to understand something in the professor's area of expertise. They're working hard to wrap their head around the basic formalism. They're in "learning mode" — they're a student in the presence of a master... |
c2852989-8afa-4a9f-a948-351766fa3199 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Understanding Batch Normalization
Batch normalization is a technique which has been successfully applied to neural networks ever since it was introduced in 2015. Empirically, it decreases training time and helps maintain the stability of deep neural networks. For that reason practitioners have adopted the technique as... |
cb8c79ed-437e-44be-9c6e-39c5d57e6ab5 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong |
1. Meet the Players: Value Diversity
Value Diversity is Here to Stay
Civilization is an inherited game shaped by those before you.
You start this game as a product of previous iterations: “Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherw... |
3891af3a-12e2-4c04-bea7-65fced762a40 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How major governments can help with the most important century
I’ve been writing about tangible things we can do today to help the most important century go well. Previously, I wrote about helpful messages to spread; how to help via full-time work; and how major AI companies can help.
What about major governments1 - ... |
914ddc7e-9671-48cf-9ed6-3982613b5fe1 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Insights from the randomness/ignorance model are genuine
(Based on the randomness/ignorance model proposed in 1 → 2 → 3.)
The bold claim of this sequence thus far is that the randomness/ignorance model solves a significant part of the anthropics puzzle. (Not everything since it's still incomplete.) In this post I arg... |
fa021c68-c97d-48dc-b41e-a704e5ad7d5a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | We need a Science of Evals
This is a linkpost for https://www.apolloresearch.ai/blog/we-need-a-science-of-evals
In this post, we argue that if AI model evaluations (evals) want to have meaningful real-world impact, we need a “Science of Evals”, i.e. the field needs rigorous scientific processes that provide more con... |
f2375748-176f-4efc-ba9f-5d1c96f0d9b0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Zombie Preacher of Somerset
Related to: Zombies? Zombies!, Zombie Responses, Zombies: The Movie, The Apologist and the Revolutionary
All disabling accidents are tragic, but some are especially bitter. The high school sports star paralyzed in a car crash. The beautiful actress horribly disfigured in a fire. The pi... |
51007578-14fb-47c8-a5bd-a6ec423b061b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Dehumanisation *errors*
In response to my post contrasting value learning with anthropomorphisation, steve2152 brought up the fact that dehumanisation can be seen as the opposite of anthropomorphisation.
I agree with this insight, but only when dehumanisation causes errors of interpretation. I was using empathy in th... |
83e51bc1-fe53-4a39-b160-8e46d7d6f774 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A Common-Sense Case For Mutually-Misaligned AGIs Allying Against Humans
Consider a multipolar-AGI scenario. The hard-takeoff assumption turns out to be wrong, and none of the AI Labs have a significant lead on the others. We find ourselves in a world in which there's a lot of roughly-similarly-capable AGIs. Or perhaps... |
cf7ca145-42e6-4f54-b36f-f0847dc3e170 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Human takeover might be worse than AI takeover
Epistemic status -- sharing rough notes on an important topic because I don't think I'll have a chance to clean them up soon.
Summary
Suppose a human used AI to take over the world. Would this be worse than AI taking over? I think plausibly:
* In expectation, human-le... |
4957e029-aa74-4b7e-9c26-71d23015a057 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | I Caught Covid And All I Got Was This Lousy Ambiguous Data
Tl;dr I tried to run an n of 1 study on niacin and covid, and it failed to confirm or disprove anything at all.
You may remember that back in October I published a very long post investigating a niacin-based treatment protocol for long covid. My overall concl... |
f66c14de-2522-46dc-acd4-2e487fcf5f5c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Will the current COVID-19 outbreak increase the use of block-chain in supply chain management globally?
Would be curious if those here think the answer is yes or no and how strongly they hold that view. |
811220dd-581d-4e42-8f45-45e6d0c349e1 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | Conditions for Mesa-Optimization
.mjx-chtml {display: inline-block; line-height: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: left; text-transform: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; font-size-adjust: none; letter-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; word-spacing: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none... |
8e9ae123-4a3c-4a78-8925-01433a6ab7c6 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | How do we prepare for final crunch time?
*[Crossposted from* [*Musings and Rough Drafts*](https://musingsandroughdrafts.wordpress.com/2021/03/12/how-do-we-prepare-for-final-crunch-time-some-initial-thoughts/)*.]*
*Epistemic status: Brainstorming and first draft thoughts.*
*Inspired by something that Ruby Bloom wrote... |
c62f108a-829b-46f5-9e2d-37e3a68667ae | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arxiv | Arxiv | Discovering Agents
1 Introduction
---------------
How can we recognise agents? In economics textbooks, certain entities are clearly delineated as choosing actions to maximise utility. In the real world, however, distinctions often blur. Humans may be almost perfectly agentic in some contexts, while manipulable like... |
f768e439-3387-4b34-a094-d73e140502b1 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Tal Yarkoni: No, it's not The Incentives—it's you
Neuroscientist Tal Yarkoni denounces many of his colleagues' tendency to appeal to publish-or-perish incentives as an excuse for sloppy science (October 2018, ~4600 words). Perhaps read as a complement to our recent discussion of Moral Mazes? |
96e8b5f8-64dd-49b8-92e3-fed1a4b60bea | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Necessity of Privacy: A Condition for Social Change and Experimentation?
Recently, I came across a New Yorker article titled "Taking Back Your Privacy," featuring "Moxie" Marlinspike, a key figure behind Signal. According to Moxie, privacy is indispensable for both social change and experimentation. His view sugge... |
c9cd35ca-c708-4c01-80a1-8e8c80cd5e92 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Tokyo AI Safety 2025: Call For Papers
Last April, AI Safety Tokyo and Noeon Research (in collaboration with Reaktor Japan, AI Alignment Network and AI Industry Foundation) hosted TAIS 2024, an AI safety conference in Tokyo, Japan. You can read more about that conference and how well it went here.
We are running anoth... |
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