I'm struggling to understand anything technical on this website. I've enjoyed reading the sequences, and they have given me a lot to thing about. Still, I've read the introduction to Bayes theorem multiple times, and I simply can't grasp it. Even starting at the very beginning of the sequences I quickly get lost because there are references to programming and cognitive science which I simply do not understand.
Thinking about it, I realized that this might be a common concern. There are probably plenty of people who've looked at various more-or-less technical or jargony Less Wrong posts, tried understanding them, and then given up (without posting a comment explaining their confusion).
So I figured that it might be good to have a thread where you can ask for explanations for any Less Wrong post that you didn't understand and would like to, but don't want to directly comment on for any reason (e.g. because you're feeling embarassed, because the post is too old to attract much traffic, etc.). In the spirit of various Stupid Questions threads, you're explicitly encouraged to ask even for the kinds of explanations that you feel you "should" get even yourself, or where you feel like you could get it if you just put in the effort (but then never did).
You can ask to have some specific confusing term or analogy explained, or to get the main content of a post briefly summarized in plain English and without jargon, or anything else. (Of course, there are some posts that simply cannot be explained in non-technical terms, such as the ones in the Quantum Mechanics sequence.) And of course, you're encouraged to provide explanations to others!
What are the best arguments for/against some of MIRI's core positions.
-Tool AI and oracle AI are different. Oracles are agents in a box. Tools are not agents, so they can't take actions in the world or optimize an unfriendly utility function any more google maps optimizes a utility function. Why not just tell the AI to figure out physics/math/CS?
-emotions (like happiness/sadness) are vague concepts in the same way that objects are fuzzy concepts (think of invariant representations of faces). So, if an agent is intelligent enough to recognize fuzzy objects, shouldn't it also accurately recognize fuzzy emotions (and realize when it's doing something stupid like making 'happy' paperclips).
Your first point was discussed in detail here. Your second point was discussed in many places on LW, most recently here, I think.