You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

lukeprog comments on Q&A #2 with Singularity Institute Executive Director - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: lukeprog 13 December 2011 06:48AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (47)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: lukeprog 14 December 2011 02:15:25AM 10 points [-]

That was my impression too, and then I landed in Berkeley and thought, "Woah! What the hell? Why haven't you guys published all that shit?"

And then I started trying to write it up and I was like, "Oh yeah. Writing stuff up takes lots of time and effort."

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 02:21:19AM 8 points [-]

So you really do need more journal-monkeys eh? Maybe I should think about the visiting fellows thing. (I'm poor so I can't give money yet).

Why can't you just post a quick blurb that you've solved such-and-such problem and the solution is along these lines? Surely it doesn't have to be journal articles? Maybe there is a component of secrecy?

Comment author: lukeprog 14 December 2011 02:25:55AM 5 points [-]

By 'writing these things up' I don't mean journal articles, I mean blog posts or working papers. The problem is that it takes significant time and effort just to explain the problem and our results somewhat clearly.

Comment author: Vaniver 14 December 2011 05:49:04PM 8 points [-]

If you haven't explained your results, are you sure you actually have them? That sounds to me like "I already figured out the algorithm, I won't learn anything by coding it."

Comment author: lukeprog 14 December 2011 05:52:12PM 1 point [-]

I tend to agree with this, too, though my own brain does "thinking by writing" more than other brains, I think.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 02:29:25AM 5 points [-]

that bad eh? see you next year.

Comment author: katydee 18 December 2011 08:51:00PM 2 points [-]

Do you think that the same thing might be the case for other x-risks organizations? I recall that the previous analysis of other future tech safety/x-risks organizations didn't seem to find anything very promising-- might it be the case that those organizations also have stuff going on behind the scenes? If so, this seems like it might be a significant barrier to the greater x-risks community, since these organizations may be duplicating one another's results or otherwise inefficiently allocating their respective resources, volunteers, etc.

Comment author: lukeprog 19 December 2011 12:41:40AM 0 points [-]

It's always the case that more research is being done than gets published. I know it's true for FHI, too. It's just especially true of SI.

Comment author: katydee 19 December 2011 05:59:39PM 2 points [-]

I was thinking more about groups like Lifeboat or IEET, who don't really appear to be doing any research at all, as opposed to FHI/SIAI, who do at least occasionally publish.