Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on 3 Levels of Rationality Verification - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 05:19PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 07:15:34PM 3 points [-]

Use Bayes-score (log of final joint probability) as primary outcome, measure calibration only secondarily.

Comment deleted 15 March 2009 07:25:23PM *  [-]
Comment author: MBlume 15 March 2009 07:40:52PM *  4 points [-]

you maximize Bayes Score iff you use all your knowledge as well as possible. This seems to indicate that any perturbation will introduce an incentive not to do so.

Ask completely ridiculous things. Estimate the probability that the yearly rainfall in Ghana exceeds that of Switzerland. Ask questions like that, and you will learn something about how much true general knowledge a person has gained (and why not -- a rationalist should absorb more true general knowledge in X years on earth than a non-rationalist), but much more about the subject's ability to honestly estimate their own ignorance.

Comment deleted 15 March 2009 07:50:03PM [-]
Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 08:21:33PM 3 points [-]

The test would also work statistically to measure the effect of an intervention, if you had more subjects than variance. A test with too much variance can't be organizational, but it can be experimental.

Comment author: MBlume 15 March 2009 08:01:06PM 3 points [-]

If you are asked about pokemon, AI design, 13th century chinese history, martian geology, german literature, Yankees batting averages, lyrics to popular songs from the 1820s, etc. you would be forced to get maximal mileage out of whatever knowledge you can bring to bear on each question, which would in most cases be slim to none.

If the questions are chosen randomly and eclectically enough, there should be no way to game the system, and scores should average out for people knowledgeable in different areas.

If you dependably know more than I do across a broad spectrum of subject areas, then I would assume that you have learned more than I have during your life so far, which seems to me to be symptomatic of good rationality.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 07:26:01PM 1 point [-]

Then use more obscure questions.

Comment author: daedalus2u 26 July 2010 04:08:21PM *  0 points [-]

Test for data, factual knowledge and counterfactual knowledge. True rationalists will have less counterfactual knowledge than non-rationalists because they will have filtered it out. Non-rationalits will have more false data because their counterfactual knowledge will feedback and cause them to believe things that are false are actually true. For example that Iraq or Iran was involved in 9/11.

What you really want to measure is the relative proportion of factual and counterfactual knowledge someone has, and in what particular areas. Then including areas like religion, medicine, alternative medicine, and politics in the testing space is advantageous because then you can see where the idea space is that the individuals are most non-rational in.

This can be tricky because many individuals are extremely invested in their counterfactual knowledge and will object to it being identified as counterfactual. A lot of fad-driven science is based on counterfactual knowledge, but the faddists don't want to acknowledge that.

A way to test this would be to see how well people can differentiate correct facts (data) from factual knowledge (based on and consistent with only data) from counterfactual knowledge (based on false facts and not consistent with correct facts) from opinion consistent with facts or opinion consistent with false facts.

An example: in the neurodegenerative disease of Alzheimer's, there is the association of the accumulation of amyloid with dementia. It remains not established if amyloid is a cause, or an effect or is merely associated with dementia. However there have been studies where amyloid has been removed via vaccination against amyloid and a clearing of amyloid by the immune system with no improvement.

I imagine a list of a very large number of statements to be labeled as 1.true (>99% likelihood) 2.false (>99% likelihood to be false) [edited to improve definition of false] 3.opinion based on true facts 4.opinion based on false ideas 5.no one knows 6.I don't know

A list of some examples

Iraq caused 9/11 2 WMD were found in Iraq 2 Amyloid is found in Alzheimer's 1 Amyloid causes Alzheimer's 2 (this happens to be a field I am
working in so I have non-public knowledge as to the real cause) Greenhouse gases are causing GW 1 Vaccines cause autism 2 Acupuncture is a placebo 1 There is life on Mars 5

You don't want to test for obscure things, you want to test for common things that are believed but which are wrong. I think you also want to explicitly tell people that you are testing them for rationality, so they can put themselves into “rational-mode” (a state that is not always socially acceptable).

The table-like lists look fine in the edit box but not fine once I post. :(

Comment author: arundelo 26 July 2010 10:28:37PM 0 points [-]

http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

I'm not sure what effect you're !
going for, but indenting by four !
spaces allows you to do things like !
this. !
Comment author: daedalus2u 26 July 2010 11:15:44PM 0 points [-]

Thanks, I was trying to make a list, maybe I will figure it out. I just joined and am trying to focus on getting up to speed on the ideas, the syntax of formating things is more difficult for me and less rewarding.

Comment author: arundelo 26 July 2010 11:42:38PM 0 points [-]

There's also a help link under the comment box.

* Bullet lists look like this.
1. Ordered lists look like this.
Comment author: daedalus2u 26 July 2010 11:48:42PM *  -1 points [-]

Yes, thankyou just one problem

  • too obvious

and

  • too easy