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76b852bd-43ec-4956-866b-61a07386a66e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | You can just wear a suit
I like stories where characters wear suits.
Since I like suits so much, I realized that I should just wear one.
The result has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone loves it: friends, strangers, dance partners, bartenders. It makes them feel like they're in a Kingsmen film. Even teenage del... |
54e460bf-393a-4d7c-a015-7e246b2daa84 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | Causal scrubbing: results on a paren balance checker
*\* Authors sorted alphabetically.*
*This is a more detailed look at our work applying* [*causal scrubbing*](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JvZhhzycHu2Yd57RN/causal-scrubbing-redwood-research) *to an algorithmic model. The results are also summarized* [*here*](... |
152b2b6e-6bd4-4b4a-bb1d-7a1ee6a7169a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [LINK] Being proven wrong is like winning the lottery
Phil Birnbaum at Sabermetric Research writes about how people have things backwards; it's great to find out that you're wrong:
> Let's suppose you open a restaurant, and you're very successful, and people like your food. You're very proud of being a great chef. T... |
f6582d23-7b97-46ff-8e7d-b65bc72740e2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | A vastly faster vaccine rollout
When a traveler introduced smallpox to New York City in 1947, the city—and in particular its health commissioner, Israel Weinstein—apparently ran an epic vaccination campaign, reaching 5 million people in the first two weeks.1 That is, four hundred thousand vaccinations per day. San Fra... |
54475e68-ceca-43d2-8b77-dfbfda34a247 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Hutter-Prize for Prompts
The aim of the Hutter Prize is to compress the first 1GB of Wikipedia to the smallest possible size. From the AIXI standpoint, compression is equal to AI, and if we can compress this to the ideal size (75MB according to Shannon's lower estimate), then the compression algorithm is equivalent to... |
94cbbc92-5c2e-402d-bf02-cad566f5022b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Meetup Bolder CO
Discussion article for the meetup : Meetup Bolder CO
WHEN: 30 October 2013 07:00:00PM (-0600)
WHERE: Old Chicago 1102 Pearl St, Boulder, CO
Last time we decided that the topic for this meeting would be what we want from lesswrong and what we should do to make it happen.
Discussion articl... |
346883ca-e2d2-44e4-a037-19a662cb5ef2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Before Colour TV, People Dreamed in Black and White
On an episode of Julia Galef’s podcast, the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel said the following:
> For [dreams], there was actually a literature that's very interesting where people in the '50 in the United States and the '40s thought that dreams just generally were b... |
a296f7ea-5d71-47aa-b662-75a1bd31a219 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How to make to-do lists (and to get things done)?
There are many things I would like to do, or even to make a habit of doing… and yet I procrastinate a lot.
Yeah, I know, pretty uncommon, right?
It’s pretty easy to find, either here or elsewhere, a lot of methods to fight procrastination, that work more or less wel... |
4e21c124-a4a2-421d-a717-135e3ade2059 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Morality and constrained maximization, part 1
(Cross-posted from Hands and Cities)
Instrumental rationality is about achieving your goals. But morality, famously, sometimes demands that you don’t.
Suppose, for example, that you only want apples. Sometimes you might be in a position to steal apples, and get away with... |
b753f9cf-23da-4ce1-a976-6e5f6015a9b9 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | New paper: “Categorizing variants of Goodhart’s Law”
[](https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04585)Goodhart’s Law states that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control... |
310dbfe7-245e-45a7-998d-9afa2ca1fe72 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Niceness is unnatural
When I'm arguing points like orthogonality and fragility of value, I've occasionally come across rejoinders that I'll (perhaps erroneously) summarize:
> Superintelligences are not spawned fully-formed; they are created by some training process. And perhaps it is in the nature of training process... |
4636f315-0860-4332-be00-0b0b9dcc0f68 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | CTMU insight: maybe consciousness *can* affect quantum outcomes?
From one of justinpombrio’s comments on Jessica Taylor’s review of the CTMU:
> I was hoping people other than Jessica would share some specific curated insights they got [from the CTMU]. Syndiffeonesis is in fact a good insight.
The reply I'd drafted ... |
e9df1980-0ae0-43e9-a7c8-c83325cd54df | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Zen and the Art of Rationality
Followup to: Effortless Technique
No one would mistake my writings for ancient Eastern wisdom. Successfully or not, I aspire to clearly set forth the reasoning, antecedent assumptions, and pragmatic use of my conclusions. Successfully or not, I aspire to cut my proposals into modular... |
927c362a-c727-4880-a684-93879666e7b3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | You can get feedback on ideas and external drafts too
Due to some editor bugs that only affect admins, a few crucial edits were missing from the recent announcement that LessWrong is providing feedback and proofreading on drafts as a service.
Crucially, you do not need to have a LW draft to get feedback. Feel free to... |
6daca972-0ded-418a-9c3e-72cd734ff6c4 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Moving Away From The GPL
When I first got into open source, I published everything as GPL. It seemed only fair: I make my code freely available, but in exchange people who use it need to do the same. There is a major long-standing hole in the GPL, however, which is that it only applies to software that runs on your de... |
d61e354d-b3a0-4261-a52f-c9586c884e63 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Principled Satisficing To Avoid Goodhart
There's an admirable LW post with (currently) zero net upvotes titled Goodhart's Law and Emotions where a relatively new user re-invents concepts related to super-stimuli. In the comments, noggin-scratcher explains in more detail:
> The technical meaning is a stimulus that pro... |
ea4e3c1c-5611-46a8-8afc-107e975678b3 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Stampy's AI Safety Info - New Distillations #1 [March 2023] (Expansive interactive FAQ)
This is our first check-in from the [AI Safety Info distillation fellowship](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/arkQaWauCvkTvgcRH/ai-safety-info-distillation-fellowship). We are working on distilling all manner of content to help make... |
e63ec162-2df2-4438-9a44-a68d9e5df3c7 | awestover/filtering-for-misalignment | Redwood Research: Alek's Filtering Results | id: post2623
Special thanks to Kate Woolverton for comments and feedback. There has been a lot of work and discussion surrounding the speed and continuity of AI takeoff scenarios, which I do think are important variables, but in my opinion ones which are relatively less important when compared to many other axes on wh... |
271ad502-dcb9-47a3-9857-8ed56ffad18f | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Small weekly Berkeley meetup
Discussion article for the meetup : Small weekly Berkeley meetup
WHEN: 28 March 2012 07:00:00PM (-0700)
WHERE: 2128 Oxford St., Berkeley, CA
We'll meet at the Starbucks on Oxford Street as usual, and then decide where to go from there.
Discussion article for the meetup : Smal... |
87d50011-d87d-4997-b0d0-f10b14761cb2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Thoughts on LessWrong norms, the Art of Discourse, and moderator mandate
A couple of weeks ago I asked Should LW have an official list of norms? and I appreciate the responses there. Here I want to say what I'm currently thinking following that post, and continue having a public conversation about it.
I think saying... |
3a26c9c0-52ae-43a3-9d44-91511841789e | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Is there a way to hire academics hourly?
Seems there should be but I'm not finding it. Craigslist and Upwork don't seem to, but I was (am actually; any takers?) looking for someone with expertise in geography and global mythology and it seems pretty clear to me the value to me is probably higher than they'd charge wit... |
8f897b2a-b5a5-422b-a3ae-0ab87e1e58da | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How to end credentialism
The current University System is bad. Very bad. Half of young adults spend 3 to 4 years learning nothing of particular value so that they can get a piece of paper that gives them a leg up when applying for a job. They can't stop, because then somebody else will be first in line for an intervie... |
f2b5db6c-6e43-47b0-a64c-c0b26db06398 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Group Prioritarianism: Why AI Should Not Replace Humanity [draft]
This is a draft written by FSH, Postdoc at Hong Kong University, as part of the Center for AI Safety Philosophy Fellowship. This draft is meant to solicit feedback.
Abstract:
If a future AI system can enjoy far more well-being than a human per res... |
e984da6b-8bc9-402d-bbe0-0daa2f0c9c71 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Most Forbidden Technique
The Most Forbidden Technique is training an AI using interpretability techniques.
An AI produces a final output [X] via some method [M]. You can analyze [M] using technique [T], to learn what the AI is up to. You could train on that. Never do that.
You train on [X]. Only [X]. Never [M], ... |
219e5531-31c9-4658-bf51-f75956d5a749 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Air Conditioner Repair
A thing happened to me, seemed worth sharing.
What Happened
A few weeks ago, the in-wall air conditioner in our bedroom ceased to function.
Troy Barnes was unavailable, so instead we talked to the super, he recommended a company called Amhac, we ignored normative determinism (e.g. “Am a hack”... |
96974531-12c9-4556-8768-dbd5d6e9ae47 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Timeless Decision Theory: Problems I Can't Solve
Suppose you're out in the desert, running out of water, and soon to die - when someone in a motor vehicle drives up next to you. Furthermore, the driver of the motor vehicle is a perfectly selfish ideal game-theoretic agent, and even further, so are you; and what's mor... |
0444de6d-756f-4794-8509-e6778bc3ed5a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Effective Sustainability - results from a meetup discussion
Related-to Focus Areas of Effective Altruism
These are some small tidbits from our LW-like Meetup in Hamburg. The focus was on sustainability not on altruism as that was more in the spirit of our group. EA was mentioned but no comparison was made. Well-infor... |
f72dd294-5981-4578-a886-ae6e0960234a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | What is it like to be a compatibilist?
I'd like to better understand how compatibilists conceive of free will.[1] LW is a known hotbed of compatibilism, so here's my question:
Suppose that determinism is true. When I face a binary choice,[2] there are two relevantly-different states of the world I could be in:[3]
St... |
6b9a2d52-7c27-4b47-a51e-0363efd3be23 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Evaluating Existing Approaches to AGI Alignment
My read of the AI safety space is that there are currently two major approaches to AGI alignment being researched: agent foundations and agent training. We can contrast them in part by saying the ultimate goal of the agent foundations program is to figure out how to make... |
1e8131d8-813b-44ab-9d5b-5d9368fd75df | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Announcing: The Independent AI Safety Registry
Are you an independent AI Safety Researcher who would like to get in touch with other people in the same position? [Fill out](https://forms.gle/Sd2YgsnVqLDdrrSQ9) your location, work details, and collaboration interests, and you'll be added to a public google sheets file ... |
0d098a1d-5b54-4c0a-81a8-4d34f092e42d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Oops Prize update
I'm overdue to publish an update on the Oops Prize. It fell off my priority list because I received exactly one nomination. I followed up with the nominee and couldn't get enough clarification to confirm eligibility, but my sense was that while the nominee clearly changed their mind, it wasn't a part... |
b50b244e-f584-4d66-ab85-8992f1308d63 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Anthropic Decision Theory VI: Applying ADT to common anthropic problems
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 and previous posts 1 2 3 4 5 6.
Hav... |
069e7d5b-1ef0-4590-ab63-3986d5aaa034 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Intro to brain-like-AGI safety] 11. Safety ≠ alignment (but they’re close!)
(Last revised: July 2024. See changelog at the bottom.)
(If you’re already an AGI safety expert, you can probably skip this short post—I don’t think anything here is new, or too specific to brain-like AGIs.)
11.1 Post summary / Table of co... |
65da19d7-cbd1-4a0f-9be9-ace642685a38 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | Anthropics is pretty normal
.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; dir... |
47057de2-19ea-495d-8860-f094f60ec986 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | Debating myself on whether “extra lives lived” are as good as “deaths prevented”
*Click lower right to download or find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.*
If we could do something to lower the probability of the human race going extinct,[1](https://www.cold-takes.com/p/d1daba51-feba-4a28-a277-935581dee515/... |
ab2edb40-8b51-482f-b5f0-95a9acc90b80 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | 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 allows y... |
9c7aa14f-5058-4d27-877a-299e5ee3d6a3 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Mundane solutions to exotic problems
I’m looking for alignment techniques that are indefinitely scalable and that work in any situation we can dream up. That means I spend time thinking about “exotic” problems — like AI systems reasoning about their own training process or about humanity’s far future.
Yet I’m very op... |
9b934248-5450-4bad-bdee-cce6f5dda226 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Philosophical apologetics book suggests replacing Bayes theorem with "Inference to the Best Explanation" (IBE)
I'm about 2/3 through an apologetics book that was recommended to me, Menssen and Sullivan's, The Agnostic Inquirer, and was quite surprised to run into a discussion of Bayes theorem and wanted some input fro... |
fd3d944e-cf49-4c6c-b4e7-ef92eb66f22b | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Cognitive Emulation: A Naive AI Safety Proposal
This is part of the work done at Conjecture.
This post has been reviewed before publication as per our infohazard policy. We thank our external reviewers for their comments and feedback.
This post serves as a signpost for Conjecture’s new primary safety proposal and re... |
b3363510-6518-438e-a1c1-d76198f1dcee | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | X-Risk Researchers Survey
Hello!
I’m Anita, an MSc Social Cognition student at UCL.
I’m writing my dissertation on the extreme risk studies community. I’m currently running this [**short survey**](https://qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_2l5koNSRpb9HFBk) and would be super grateful if anyone working on these ... |
a2148ed6-04b4-4b21-8991-a9ac03ec8569 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | On the Gladstone Report
Like the the government-commissioned Gladstone Report on AI itself, there are two sections here.
First I cover the Gladstone Report’s claims and arguments about the state of play, including what they learned talking to people inside the labs. I mostly agree with their picture and conclusions, ... |
21dbc831-92ab-4850-be5c-573b0df8c792 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Democratic AI Constitution: Round-Robin Debate and Synthesis
This document was my initial response to OpenAI's call for proposals on how to democratically steer AI. I was thinking about crowdsourcing a constitution in the Constitutional AI sense. The idea is that:
1. Voters each propose an AI constitution
2. GPT ... |
eef97cfa-b7b7-4438-a8ba-4243b27ff624 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Case For Geopolitical Financial Speculation
By the time you finish reading this essay, at least one nation somewhere on Earth will have moved incrementally closer to crisis. Perhaps a central bank will have depleted its foreign reserves defending an unsustainable currency peg. Maybe a pension system will have slip... |
ceec08e8-c97f-4365-9b23-c11ff65fa33e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/aisafety.info | AI Safety Info | What is a "polytope" in a neural network?
In neural networks, a polytope is a region of the input space that captures a particular category or concept. Polytopes are a proposed fundamental building block of neural networks, and the perspective that views them this way is known as the **‘****[polytope lens](https://arx... |
d4d026e9-0a31-46bc-8971-fd8393589752 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | CFAR workshop, June 15th, Salt Lake City UT
CFAR is experimenting with a mobile workshop, so we can bring our material to people who can't make it to Berkeley. So, next week, we're running a one-and-a-half day workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah!
Workshop Details
On Saturday June 15th, CFAR will be running a worksh... |
3d8d4e9f-536c-4680-8f28-504c5a26a534 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | The Skill of Writing Facetiously
TL;DR Tone can function like (im)precision. So work on the ability to choose its variation instead of some arbitrary thing choosing it for you.
The ability to write in a facetious tone is a wonderful addition to one's writing toolset, equivalent to the ability to use fewer signific... |
c51587a9-dce5-4a9c-9f8f-5659df503c93 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | What You Are
I wrote this after a bad trip some years ago, in which one of the challenges was a almost total loss of context for my experience. I'd hoped this would give me some kind of experiential ground to stand on if it happened again. If you have your own sequence of fundamentals to bootstrap an understanding of ... |
20e6da4f-f267-41a5-9637-06b609828ee9 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | There just has to be something more, you know?
A non-materialist thought experiment.
Okay, so you don't exactly believe in the God of the Abrahamic scriptures verbatim who punishes and sets things on fire and lives in the sky. But still, there just has to be something more than just matter and energy, doesn't there?... |
a2ada95a-c0a7-455e-8327-2deff5fe1b48 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | an anthropics example
an anthropics example
---------------------
in the course of discussing anthropics with a friend — notably the [SIA vs SSA](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RnrpkgSY8zW5ArqPf/sia-greater-than-ssa-part-1-learning-from-the-fact-that-you) discussion — i have produced an example case which i believe... |
4ae6bf36-d78d-48de-91e3-34fb6a24a265 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | When engaging with a large amount of resources during a literature review, how do you prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed?
I was originally going to email Gwern directly, but figured being in a public space would benefit others who have the same questions and also put more eyes on it.
BLUF: I'm writing to you w... |
8a8da83c-9058-4654-a70c-d73e19c4a9fa | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Whereby: The Zoom alternative you probably haven't heard of
Whenever I host a remote video call, I can already predict what would be the response of my invitee: “What's that tool we’re using?" That’s because I use Whereby as my default video conferencing tool. And to be honest, it’s nice, my ego likes to be niched.
I... |
580a561f-5334-439d-893d-2582cf5401ee | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Musings on Cumulative Cultural Evolution and AI
This post might be interesting to you if you want a conceptual model of cumulative cultural evolution and/or you’re curious how cumulative cultural evolution impacts AI forecasting and development.
In particular, I’ll argue that cumulative cultural evolution makes one a... |
c236ed37-95a7-4a66-8869-3341c384382e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | AI Safety in China: Part 2
I've given things a lot more thought and wanted to make an edited summary of [my views regarding AI Safety in China](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EAwe7smpmFQi2653G/my-assessment-of-the-chinese-ai-safety-community).
1. AI Safety is almost nonexistent in China. The only toe-hold it has is ... |
05159e9e-b8d3-44ce-87fa-d0fe945b2347 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [Question] When Do Unlikely Events Should Be Questioned?
Today someone shared a picture on Facebook showing four d20 dies (d20 is a 20-sided die), supposedly all landed on 20. He was saying how cool it was that he and his friends were playing a tabletop role-playing game and they all got a 20 on their spot check at th... |
cd677384-e5ac-4771-aa50-6f4ab45eb1ae | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Leaving Things For Others
With covid I've seen many calls to leave things for others:
* Don't buy WIC-eligible items, leave them for people who can only buy those specific items.
* Don't use grocery delivery services, leave the slots for people who can't go to stores.
* Don't buy masks, leave them for healthca... |
febff6c5-9d5e-450d-8e4c-0b6b948cc4c6 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/special_docs | Other | Problems of Self-reference in Self-improving Space-Time Embedded Intelligence
Problems of Self-reference in Self-improving
Space-Time Embedded Intelligence
Benja Fallenstein and Nate Soares
Machine Intelligence Research Institute
2030 Addison St. #300, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
{benja,nate }@intelligence.org
Abstract. B... |
61e0f89a-0ee6-4616-965b-9a79a9309b56 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | Worldbuilding exercise: The Highwayverse.
This is an exercise where I take a world which is otherwise the same as ours except for one physical law being changed, and try to work out what that world would look like.
This is meant to exercise my ability to work out how things are connected to other things - how does th... |
1cc28437-1576-4f95-8752-97a3e0e074d6 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Rationality Reading Group: Introduction and A: Predictably Wrong
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 g... |
7e24f365-5981-4537-8087-53bc4fcf9ed1 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arbital | Arbital | Fractional bits
It takes $\log_2(8) = 3$ [bits](https://arbital.com/p/3p0) of data to [carry](https://arbital.com/p/3y1) one message from a set of 8 possible messages. Similarly, it takes $\log_2(1024) = 10$ bits to carry one message from a set of 1024 possibilities. How many bits does it take to carry one message fro... |
630e9ce8-f64c-4de7-b661-573eb72fd440 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Should we be reassessing the argument for globalization?
If so, what might the ramifications to that reassessment might be in terms of economic, social, cultural and political (including multilateral, global institutions) be? |
297d3a5b-837c-4df0-9325-c2e84592afde | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | AI conference attendance
Six of the largest seven AI conferences hosted a total of 27,396 attendees in 2018. Attendance at these conferences has grown by an average of 21% per year over 2011-2018. These six conferences host around six times as many attendees as six smaller AI conferences.
Details
-------
[ on synthetic graphs with known ground truth to determine its reliability in confirming correct hypotheses and rejecting incorrect ones. First, we show that CaSc can accurately identify true hypotheses and quantify the degree to which a h... |
8a84e992-826f-47bb-b751-500223871b59 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/blogs | Blogs | smaller X-risk
smaller X-risk
--------------
a superintelligence killing us all is a *superintelligent, very large* [X-risk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_general_intelligence).
the superintelligence will tile its values in all directions; not just through space at the speed of lig... |
d95401c5-650f-4a76-b9b7-70122f2b0af7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Are UFOs just drones?
From Conversations with Tyler 2020 Retrospective (Ep. 112) | by Mercatus Center | Conversations with Tyler | Dec, 2020 | Medium [emphasis mine]:
> HOLMES: One of the crazy things about 2020 has been this under-discussed acceptance of what you just described, that it has become more — mainstream ... |
c087b24b-478b-4036-a35e-217884630ae0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Questions for a Theory of Narratives
I kindly ask for your comments, questions and feedback of any kind.
Various predictive and rigorous mathematical (/logical/linguistic) frameworks exist for analyzing and implementing agent's world MODELLING- especially that of causality (e.g. pearl's structural causal model) -, th... |
050075f3-c3dc-46cf-82c1-567eaf1734d2 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Sparse Autoencoders Find Highly Interpretable Directions in Language Models
This is a linkpost for Sparse Autoencoders Find Highly Interpretable Directions in Language Models
We use a scalable and unsupervised method called Sparse Autoencoders to find interpretable, monosemantic features in real LLMs (Pythia-70M/410M... |
f807f7af-aeec-4d96-ab81-1e5e85134aee | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | No Value
I am still quite new to LW, so I apologize if this is something that has been discussed before (I did try and search).
I would't normally post such a thing, as I try not to make a habit of complaining my problems to others, but a solution to this would likely benefit other rationalists (at least that's the e... |
c182bc6c-acf8-4ec3-b194-3962670f4a69 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Please help me sense-check my assumptions about the needs of the AI Safety community and related career plans
For background and context, see my related series of posts on an approach for AI Safety Movement Building. This is a quick and concise rewrite of the main points in the hope that it will attract better engagem... |
abf5570e-5e0b-48d2-9886-dfac36435978 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Weekly LW Meetups: Austin, Berlin, Portland, Urbana-Champaign IL, Vienna
This summary was posted to LW Main on September 21st, and has now been moved to discussion. The more recent summary is here.
There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:
* Urbana-Champaign, IL: 22 September 2012 02:00PM
* B... |
305589c9-32f3-4a17-87d0-3854baac92af | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Things I Learned by Spending Five Thousand Hours In Non-EA Charities
From late 2020 to last month, I worked at grassroots-level non-profits in operational roles. Over that time, I’ve seen surprisingly effective deployments of strategies that were counter-intuitive to my EA and rationalist sensibilities.
I spent 6 mon... |
c734ea50-6007-4a68-8c9e-50a7a57f8869 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/arbital | Arbital | Paperclip maximizer
An expected paperclip maximizer is an agent that outputs the action it believes will lead to the greatest number of [paperclips](https://arbital.com/p/7ch) existing. Or in more detail, its [utility function](https://arbital.com/p/109) is linear in the number of paperclips times the number of secon... |
a9b15755-fbc2-4341-8787-dcf4ddd6b49d | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Religious and Rational?
Reverend Caleb Pitkin, an aspiring rationalist and United Methodist Minister, wrote an article about combining religion and rationality which was recently published on the Intentional Insights blog. He's the only Minister I know who is also an aspiring rationalist, so I thought it would be an i... |
13371e9d-0af6-4ccc-b093-adfca55a85e0 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | New LW Meetup: Zurich
This summary was posted to LW Main on October 30th. The following week's summary is here.
New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:
* First meetup of Rationality Zürich: 01 November 2015 03:00PM
Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:
... |
3c7bc176-ee63-494f-a58d-30ae80d8d468 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | An ethical debate that's turning very sour
(Okay, this has more or less run its course. Deleting the post.)
http://lesswrong.com/lw/90l/welcome_to_less_wrong_2012/5kk8
Right now I seem to be losing my last scraps of clear-headedness concerning the topic.
I'd dearly like anyone who feels they're up to it to 1) st... |
7bc6bcc5-3b07-4dc2-8b18-9c49a7422cce | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Non Polemic: How do you personally deal with "irrational" people?
I'm finally managing to finish my "basic" training in rationality, which is to mean finish studying "Rationality: A-Z" (I had studied the first half years ago, but I foolishly stopped when I got to the part about reductionism, which was unbelievably stu... |
eef3f4af-0de5-427e-a45d-f07c8b9026cd | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Recommended Rationalist Reading
Today's post, Recommended Rationalist Reading was originally published on 01 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> Book recommendations by Eliezer and readers.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of... |
52463556-96f9-49e2-9e8c-02d60d9d4ada | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | [SEQ RERUN] Belief in Intelligence
Today's post, Belief in Intelligence was originally published on 25 October 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
> What does a belief that an agent is intelligent look like? What predictions does it make?
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original p... |
ee384746-ea03-47f4-ab2d-4a7a6322fbdb | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Microphone on Electric Mandolin
A large portion of what I'm doing when I play rhythm mandolin is percussive: the sound of the pick hitting the strings. After listening back to the comparison between my electric and acoustic mandolins, this is the thing I find most lacking in the sound of the electric. What's interesti... |
ad41cbbf-0188-4886-b0be-1563201ae57a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Causal abstractions vs infradistributions
Summary: I illustrate the relationship between Wentworth-style causal abstractions and infradistributions, and how they both deal with nonrealizability by throwing away information. If you have a basic intuition for causal abstractions, this might help you understand infradist... |
c2f969f3-3bbb-455c-93c3-83ab5dfd8b71 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Sci-Hub sued in India
Sci-Hub is being sued by Elsevier, again, this time in India. Two other large publishers are also on the suit.
Sci-Hub has been getting sued in lots of Western countries over the past 6 years and losing default judgments because they didn’t really defend. In India, they have a better shot:
1. ... |
f137958b-9491-496b-ac12-94b5b07d0ad5 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Healing powers of meditation or the role of attention in humoral regulation.
There is a common belief that Common Cold is caused by the cold, hence the name. There were several studies, like this, where subjects had to endure various chilling methods, that didn’t show a strong correlation.
My observation is that the ... |
a1e647bd-6646-4212-afb4-4b4a440d972c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | How to get the benefits of moving without moving (babble)
If you've been following along with the location discussion (you probably haven't, that's okay), you'll know that I've become convinced that trying to get the community to leave Berkeley en masse is probably not a good idea. However, that leaves us in a bit of ... |
3c8cd519-174c-412b-ba4f-e6a38c1416a7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Melbourne social meetup
Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup
WHEN: 19 October 2012 07:00:00PM (+1100)
WHERE: see mailing list, Carlton VIC 3053 Australia
Melbourne's next social meetup is on Friday 19 October, 6:30 for 7pm, at my house. If you have any trouble working out the locatio... |
63c94990-5c89-483b-9404-b6e365db8c5e | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/lesswrong | LessWrong | How does GPT-3 spend its 175B parameters?
*[Target audience: Me from a week ago, and people who have some understanding of ML but want to understand transformers better on a technical level.]*
Free advice for people learning new skills: ask yourself random questions. In answering them, you’ll strengthen your underst... |
aa66034c-26a7-4ce4-a991-dc0ab1cb097a | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Cult of equilibrium
TLDR: "Solve for the equilibrium" is a nice sentiment, but shouldn't be applied mindlessly, it's not nearly as universal approach as some think.
Longer version:
The phrase "you must solve for the equilibrium" when evaluating something became almost like mantra and a lot of people use it automatic... |
95fbc82d-2fe5-4e95-ad65-f8b913984140 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Beware of black boxes in AI alignment research
Over the course of the AI Alignment Prize I've sent out lots of feedback emails. Some of the threads were really exciting and taught me a lot. But mostly it was me saying pretty much the same thing over and over with small variations. I've gotten pretty good at saying tha... |
b4042606-2dbd-441b-916a-a30ee432fd55 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Does reversible computation let you compute the complexity class PSPACE as efficiently as normal computers compute the complexity class P?
Specifically, I am asking whether reversible computers let you implement PSPACE-complete algorithms to solve PSPACE-complete problems, and in particular, do so efficiently, ideally... |
47574291-9968-4b9f-aa89-2f266e6f2961 | awestover/filtering-for-misalignment | Redwood Research: Alek's Filtering Results | id: post959
Abstract: Language model agents (LMAs) expanding on AutoGPT are a highly plausible route to AGI. This route has large potential timeline and proliferation downsides, but large alignment advantages relative to other realistic paths to AGI. LMAs allow layered safety measures, including externalized reasoning... |
7c97ade9-b7f5-4889-ba44-dd1e5b943584 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Blame Theory
EDIT: this post, like many other posts of mine, is wrong. See the comments by Yvain below. Maybe "Regret Theory" would've been a better title. But I'm keeping this as it is because I like having reminders of my mistakes.
Platitudes notwithstanding, "personal responsibility" doesn't adequately summarize m... |
96477f75-b4d2-42d7-a7a9-4ee2f9949c93 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/eaforum | Effective Altruism Forum | Are social media algorithms an existential risk?
[The Social Dilemma](https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81254224) is a new Netflix documentary which discusses the effects of social media algorithms on mental health, human behaviour, and social interactions. In the film, Tristan Harris from the [Centre for Humane Techno... |
03c09efe-92f9-46fd-a459-25d6dfbcf163 | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | A Correspondence Theorem in the Maximum Entropy Framework
Classical mechanics didn't work any less well once we discovered quantum, Galilean relativity and Newtonian gravity didn't work any less well once we discovered special and general relativity, etc. This is the [correspondence principle](https://plato.stanford.e... |
6d1226fa-4a7c-421b-9984-6b08e533d9c7 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Non-resolve as Resolve
[I wrote this post after AISFP 2017, and for some reason forgot to post it then]
Resolve = a mental technique for keep going in the face of difficulty. This is a concept that I picked up at a CFAR class a few days ago. As part of the class, we were supposed to think of our own technique. Here i... |
445d12a7-c592-47cc-87d2-ccdda70aff5b | StampyAI/alignment-research-dataset/alignmentforum | Alignment Forum | An Update on Academia vs. Industry (one year into my faculty job)
I've been an assistant professor (equivalent) for ~1 year now at Cambridge. Shortly after accepting the position, I wrote [AI x-risk reduction: why I chose academia over industry](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4jFnquoHuoaTqdphu/ai-x-risk-reduction-wh... |
e098445e-8c46-40b5-b86c-6e1a610821f6 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Reducing sycophancy and improving honesty via activation steering
Produced as part of the SERI ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program - Summer 2023 Cohort, under the mentorship of Evan Hubinger.
I generate an activation steering vector using Anthropic's sycophancy dataset and then find that this can be used to increase... |
c48d8e11-a66a-4e0a-91db-870f82978a48 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Value Journaling
I like to link to the Minding Our Way sequence on overcoming guilt a lot, but I've recently gone and added "information hazard" warnings to several of my posts which link there. Someone pointed out to me that the sequence destroys some people's current (guilt-based) motivation without successfully bui... |
cac61654-5a21-4349-b3c1-7b3773d8c140 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Less Wrong Business Networking Google Group
Following on JoshuaFox's thread polling for interest in business networking between Less Wrong community members, a Less Wrong Networking Google group has been created. If you're interested in the potential of discovering potential business opportunities with other Less Wro... |
6e1680f8-cfc1-4443-8677-981ef0477c9c | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | Meetup : Austin, TX
Discussion article for the meetup : Austin, TX
WHEN: 25 June 2011 01:30:00PM (-0500)
WHERE: 2222B Guadalupe St Austin, Texas 78705
1:30PM on Saturdays
Discussion article for the meetup : Austin, TX |
63a200fe-6dec-4bcf-9ff5-44a5e0b9e8e9 | trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k | LessWrong | HELP: How do minimum wage laws harm people?
The concept of minimum wage is one I'm rather attached to. I have dozens of arguments for why it helps people, improves the world, etc. etc. I suspect this view is shared by most of this community, although I haven't seen any discussion of it.
I don't have much understan... |
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