lesswrong: What's new

simplicio on Deception and Self-Doubt

2010-03-11T22:11:58.856112+00:00

I didn't think Psychohistorian meant "efficiency" in the technical sense, but yeah, I see what you're saying.

SilasBarta on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T22:05:24.265626+00:00

Yep. And so could the appearance on the internet of an e-book about "How to build a human-level armed android, by Warrigal", when Warrigal has worked at such a job.

And if you go to a potentially hostile country without telling them ... well, I guess you'll get the option of a PMITA federal prison, or solitary.

simplicio on Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts

2010-03-11T22:04:00.148832+00:00

Nope. I personally don't care at all, strong black tea is as far as I go with self-medication, but I thought knb & others here ought to know that there are risks. According to Wikipedia, Health Canada recalled all ephedrine-related weight loss/bodybuilding meds in 2002. That's enough to give me pause. Minimax, people!

Strange7 on Hedging our Bets: The Case for Pursuing Whole Brain Emulation to Safeguard Humanity's Future

2010-03-11T22:01:06.390930+00:00

I am not claiming to have inherited anything from evolution itself. The blind idiot god has no DNA of it's own, nor could it have preached to a younger, impressionable me. I decided to value the survival of my species, assigned intrinsic, terminal value to it, because it's a fountain for so much of the stuff I instinctively value.

Part of objective two is modeling my own probable responses, so an equally-accurate model of my preferences with lower Kolmogorov complexity has intrinsic value as well. Of course, I can't be totally sure that it's accurate, but that particular hasn't let me down so far, and if it did (and I survived) I would replace it with one that better fit the data.

If my species survives, there's some possibility that my utility function, or one sufficiently similar as to be practically indistinguishable, will be re-instantiated at some point. Even without resurrection, cryostasis, or some other clear continuity, enough recombinant exploration of the finite solution-space for 'members of my species' will eventually result in repeats. Admittedly, the chance is slim, which is why I overwhelmingly prefer the more direct solution of immortality through not dying.

In short, yes, I've thought this through and I'm pretty sure. Why do you find that so hard to believe?

Rain on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:56:33.561606+00:00

Yeah, that could get you in big trouble.

pwno on Selfishness Signals Status

2010-03-11T21:56:10.868312+00:00

Normally when someone does something high status and people’s reaction is “who does this person think he is?” the person signaled lower status somehow via other factors or past behaviors. So this "counter-signaling" is really people acting the status level others consider appropriate.

For example, blowing your nose in a job interview is a high status move, but displays inappropriate status level. The fact you're interviewing for a job is evidence your status is lower than the interviewer's - stronger evidence then your high status move.

JGWeissman on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:54:41.671229+00:00

Well, yeah, there is no way someone at standard human level would pull off what happened in that story.

SilasBarta on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:49:41.918147+00:00

It wasn't so much the background scrutiny I'm worried about so much as,

"Alright, it's been fun doing this research on human-level intelligent robots. Oh, hey, I'm going to go to an AI conference in Shanghai..."
"Hahahahahaha! Good one! Um ... were you being serious?"

Technologos on Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts

2010-03-11T21:43:50.738135+00:00

Or you could just take more, so that the nervousness is swamped by the general handshakery...

Dapple on Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts

2010-03-11T21:41:54.815529+00:00

The sensitivity to irregular caffeine users is just due to lack of tolerance. It can still be avoided by just reducing the dosage compared to regular caffeine users.

Dapple on Coffee: When it helps, when it hurts

2010-03-11T21:39:07.758009+00:00

Sure, I can imagine caffeine impeding long-term learning from exam revision.

But I find the increased focus to be much more important, for an exam that I've already studied for, and for material I will very likely never need to know in quite as much detail ever again.

There's 2 different kinds of studying I do. Studying conceptually for the long term, and cram time for a specific exam fitting in all the fine details, and then quickly regurgitating them. If it takes exam revision to significantly enhance the former, then I already learned too little, too late. That said, I commonly use caffeine for the latter with no regret of the side effects.

Document on Spring 2010 Meta Thread

2010-03-11T21:38:44.728696+00:00

it would be useful to get a similar view of the comments for a single posting, i.e. in unthreaded most-recent-first order

I would've said in threaded oldest-first order, with only the first post in each thread initially shown.

Rain on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:38:00.774191+00:00

Well, that was voted down pretty rapidly :)

However, I was being honest with my questions. I'd like to know what sort of utilon adjustments people assign to these different situations, even if it's just a general weighting like 'high' or 'low'.

cousin_it on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:37:20.479895+00:00

Unfortunately, this isn't a realistic option if you're an employee at a big military contractor, which is the most likely scenario...

Document on Spring 2010 Meta Thread

2010-03-11T21:37:13.435494+00:00

It'd be nice to have a link to that on every page; maybe as part of the "Promoted | New | Top | ..." bar.

NancyLebovitz on Spring 2010 Meta Thread

2010-03-11T21:34:26.381974+00:00

How about a threaded/unthreaded option for viewing replies?

That would make it easier to keep up with big threads, instead of looking for the new comments in each sub-thread.

NancyLebovitz on Spring 2010 Meta Thread

2010-03-11T21:32:53.364673+00:00

How about a top-level "put cool stuff in replies" post every so often?

I'm imagining it as a home for anything good (links, books, video....) which isn't necessarily going to lead to significant discussion. As with open threads, if discussion happens anyway, it can be a subject for a top-level post.

JGWeissman on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:30:14.515621+00:00

Creating military robots can be friendly, if:

Lbh fryy gur ebobgf gb nyy fvqrf, ercynpvat uhzna nezvrf, naq unir gurz evttrq gb abg npghnyyl svtug rnpu bgure, ohg vafgrnq gnxr njnl gur rssrpgvir cbjre bs gur tbireazragf gung jnagrq nyy gur jnef.

(Rot13)

Rain on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2

2010-03-11T21:29:43.581858+00:00

How much harm do you contribute by working to enable military robots?

How much harm do you contribute by paying taxes to the US government, part of which are used to fund military robots?

How much harm do you contribute by existing, living in the US, and absorbing a huge amount of electricity and other natural resources?

FAWS on Open Thread: March 2010

2010-03-11T21:28:13.384718+00:00

and persuading anyone to accept something they wouldn't otherwise be pleased by (even through a method as benign as giving them unlimited, factual knowledge of the consequences and allowing them to decide for themselves) is unFriendly,

No. Only if you allow acceptance to define friendliness. Leaving changing the definition of friendliness as an avenue to fulfill the goal defined as friendliness will almost certainly result in unfriendliness. Persuasion is not inherently unfriendly, provided it's not used to short-circuit friendliness.

If you think friendly AI is possible, but I'm going about it all wrong, what evidence would convince you that a given proposal was not equivalently flawed?

As an absolute minimum it would need to be possible and not obviously exploitable. It should also not look like a hack. Ideally it should be understandable, give me an idea what an implementation might look like, be simple and elegant in design and seem rigorous enough to make me confident that the lack of visible holes is not a fact about the creativity in the looker.