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Problem solved: Found what I was looking for in: An Axiomatic Characterization Causal Counterfactuals, thanks to Evan Lloyd.

Basically, making every endogenous variable a deterministic function of the exogenous variables and of the other endogenous variables, and pushing all the stochasticity into the exogenous variables.

 

Old post:

A problem that's come up with my definitions of stratification.

Consider a very simple causal graph:

In this setting, A and B are both booleans, and A=B with 75% probability (independently about whether A=0 or A=1).

I now want to compute the counterfactual: suppose I assume that B=0 when A=0. What would happen if A=1 instead?

The problem is that P(B|A) seems insufficient to solve this. Let's imagine the process that outputs B as a probabilistic mix of functions, that takes the value of A and outputs that of B. There are four natural functions here:

• f₀(x) = 0
• f₁(x) = 1
• f₂(x) = x
• f₃(x) = 1-x

Then one way of modelling the causal graph is as a mix 0.75f₂ + 0.25f₃. In that case, knowing that B=0 when A=0 implies that P(f₂)=1, so if A=1, we know that B=1.

But we could instead model the causal graph as 0.5f₂+0.25f₁+0.25f₀. In that case, knowing that B=0 when A=0 implies that P(f₂)=2/3 and P(f₀)=1/3. So if A=1, B=1 with probability 2/3 and B=1 with probability 1/3.

And we can design the node B, physically, to be one or another of the two distributions over functions or anything in between (the general formula is (0.5+x)f₂ + x(f₃)+(0.25-x)f₁+(0.25-x)f₀ for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.25). But it seems that the causal graph does not capture that.

Owain Evans has said that Pearl has papers covering these kinds of situations, but I haven't been able to find them. Does anyone know any publications on the subject?

This is from the foundation that put out the announcement, Pale Red Dot.

A lot of difficulties, but the best thing put forward, is that if an earthlike planet is circling the closest star, that they should be relatively common.

https://palereddot.org/opportunities-and-obstacles-for-life-on-proxima-b/

 

And the Breakthru Starshot meeting just over, and this system is still a good target, but not the only one.

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36265

and they did some modeling of the dust abrasion on the wafer probes, most won't make it.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2102267-interstellar-probes-will-be-eroded-on-the-way-to-alpha-centauri/

 

 

 

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OK, slight disclaimer, this is a bit of a joke article inspired by me watching a few recent videos and news reports about cryonics. Nevertheless, there is a serious side to it. 

Many people claim that it is irrational to sign up for cryonics, and getting into the nitty gritty with them about how likely it is to work seems to turn into a series of small skirmishes with no particular "win condition". Opponents will not say,

"OK, I will value my life at $X and if you can convince me that (cryonics success probability)*$X is greater than the $1/day fee, I will concede the argument".

Rather, they will retreat to a series of ever harder to falsify positions, usually ending up at a position which is so vague that it is basically pure mood affiliation and acts as a way to stop the conversation rather than as a true objection. I have seen it many times with friends. 

So, I propose that before you debate someone about cryonics, you should first try to sign then up for inverse cryonics. Inverse cryonics is a very simple procedure, fully scientifically tested that anyone can sign up for today, as long as they have a reasonably well-off benefactor to take the "other side" of the bet. Let me explain.

The inverse cryonics patient takes a simple revolver with 6 barrels, with one bullet loaded and spins the barrel on the gun, then shoots themselves once in the head¹. If the inverse cryonaut is unlucky enough to shoot themselves with a barrel containing a real bullet, they will blow their brains out and die instantly and permanently. However, if they are lucky, the benefactor must pay them $1 per day for the rest of their lives. 

Obviously you can vary the risk, rewards and timings of inverse cryonics. The death event could be postponed for 20 years, the risk could be cranked up or down, and the reward could be increased or decreased or paid out as a future discounted lump sum. The key is that signing up for inverse cryonics should be mathematically identical to not signing up for cryonics.

As a baseline, cryonics seems to cost ~$1/day for the rest of your life in order to avoid a ~1/10 chance of dying². Most people³ would not play ~10-barrel Russian Roulette for a $1/day stipend, even with delayed death or an instant ~$50k payout. 

In fact,

• if you believe that cryonics costs ~$1/day for the rest of your life in order to avoid a ~1/10 chance of dying⁴  and
• you are offered 11-barrel Russian roulette for that same ~$1/day as a stipend, or even an instant $50k payout

Of course, I'm sure opponents of cryonics won't bite this particular bullet, but at the very least it may provide an extra intuition pump to move people away from objecting to cryonics because it's the "risky" option. 

Comments and criticisms welcome. 

 

 

 

 

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1. Depending on the specific deal, more than six barrels could be used, or several identical guns could be used where only one barrel from one gun contains a real bullet, allowing one to achieve a reasonable range of probabilities for "losing" at inverse cryonics from 1 in 6 to perhaps one in 60 with ten guns. 

2. And pushing the probability of cryonics working down much further seems to be very hard to defend scientifically, not that people haven't tried. It becomes especially hard when you assume that the cryonics organizations stick around for ~40 years, and society sticks around without major disruptions in order for a young potential cryonaut who signs up today to actually pay their life insurance fees every day until they die. 

3. Most intelligent, sane, relatively well-off people in the developed world, i.e. the kind of people who reject cryonics. 

4. And you believe that the life you miss out on in the future will be as good, or better than, the life you are about to live from today until your natural death at a fixed age of, say, 75. 

 

 

They are using machine learning to comb the darknets, capturing about 300 threats a week.

About 90% hack application and backdoor recognition, that is for sale, and about 80% hacker forum vulnerability identification.

"These threat warnings include information on newly developed malware and exploits that have not yet been deployed in a cyber-attack"

https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.08583

I'm playing around with an article on Motivated Cognition for general consumption

 

I think it's one of the most important things to teach someone about rationality (any other suggestions? Confirmation bias, placebo, pareidolia, and the odds of coincidences come to mind...)

 

So, I've taken the five kinds of motivated cognition I know of 

(Motivated skepticism)

 

(Motivated stopping)

 

(Motivated neutrality)

 

(Motivated credulity)

 

(Motivated continuation)

 

added a counterpart to "neutrality," and then renamed neutrality.

 

The end result being six kinds of motivated cognition, three pairs of two kinds each, which are opposites of each other. Also, each pair has one kind that beings with an S and the other that begins with a C, which is good for mnemonic purposes.

 

So, I've got

Stopping and Continuation - Controls WHICH arguments you put in front of yourself (Do you continue because you haven't found what supports you yet, or do you stop because you have?)

Self-deprecation and Conceit - these control WHETHER you judge an argument in front of you (Do you refuse to judge ("Who am I to judge?") clear arguments that oppose your side or do you judge arguments you have no capacity to understand (the probability of abiogenesis, for example) because it lets you support your side?)

Skepticism and Credulity - Controls HOW you judge arguments (Do you demand higher evidence for ideas you don't like, and less for ideas you do? Do you scrutinize ideas you don't like more than ideas you do? Do you ask if the evidence forces you to accept, or if it allows you to accept an idea?)

 

I'm thinking of introducing them in that order, too, with the "Which/Whether/How you judge" abstraction.

 

Anybody see better abstractions, better explanations, better mnemonic techniques? Any advice of any kind on how to teach this effectively to people? Other fundamentals to rationality? (Maybe the beliefs as probabilities idea?)

 

Conferences provide a high-impact opportunity to promote effective giving. This is the broad take-away from an experiment in promoting effective giving at two conferences in recent months: the Unitarian Universalist (UU) General Assembly and the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) National Convention. This was an experiment run by Intentional Insights (InIn), an EA meta-charity devoted to promoting effective giving and rational thinking to a broad audience, with financial sponsorship from The Life You Can Save.

 

The outcomes, as detailed below, suggest that conferences can offer cost-effective opportunities to communicate effective giving messages to important stakeholders. An especially promising way to do so is to use Speed Giving Games (SGG) as a low-threshold strategy since recent findings show GGs are an excellent means of promoting effective giving. This encourages participants to self-organize full-length Giving Games (GG) when they return back to their homes.

 

This article aims both to describe our experiences at UU and SSA and to serve as a guide to others who want to adopt these approaches to promote effective giving via conferences. The article is thus divided into several parts:

• Evaluating the demographic group you want to target;

• Evaluating the potential impact and cost of the conference;

• Steps to prepare for the conference;

• Outcomes of the conference;

• Assessment of the experiment and conclusions;

Picking the Right Conference: Consider Demographics

 

Before deciding on a conference, make sure you target the right demographic. We at InIn, in agreement with The Life You Can Save, picked the two conferences mentioned above for a couple of reasons.

 

First, the UU and SSA both unite people who we thought were well-suited for promoting effective giving. Members of these organizations already put a considerable value both on improving the world, and on using reason and evidence to inform their actions in doing so.

 

Our work at SSA is part of our broader effort, in collaboration with The Life You Can Save and the Local Effective Altruist Network, to promote effective giving to secular, humanist, and skeptic groups. We do so by holding GGs targeted to their needs: appearing on podcasts, writing articles in secular venues about effective giving, and collaborating with a number of national and international common-interest organizations. Besides the SSA, this includes the Foundation Beyond Belief, United Coalition of Reason, American Humanist Association, International Humanist Ethical Union, and others.

 

The UU religious denomination is a more experimental focus group. It builds upon the success of the above-mentioned project, and expands to promote effective giving to people who are still somewhat reason-oriented, even if reason is less central for them. Yet UU members are strongly committed to action to improve the world, and generally show more active efforts on the social justice and civic engagement front than members of the secular, humanist, and skeptic movement. Thus, we at InIn and The Life You Can Save decided to target them as well.

 

Second, picking the right demographic also means having at least some people who are familiar with the language, needs, desires, and passions of the niche group you are targeting, and have some connections within it. Knowing the interests and language of the demographics is really valuable for understanding how to frame the concept of effective giving to those demographics. Having people with pre-existing connections and networks within that demographic allows you to approach them as an insider, giving you instant credibility and much more leverage when introducing the audience to an unfamiliar concept.

 

For the SSA, we had it easy, due to our extensive connections in the secular/skeptic/humanist movement. The SSA Executive Director is on the Intentional Insights Advisory Board,  our members regularly appear on podcasts and write for venues within that movement, and many of our members attend local humanist/secular/skeptic groups.

 

We had fewer connections in UU, but the ones that we did have were sufficient. Our two co-founders and some of our members attend UU churches. Intentional insights creates curriculum content for the UU movement, appears on relevant podcasts and writes for major venues. This proved to be more than enough familiarity from the perspective of knowing the language and interests.

 

Picking the Right Conference: Consider Impact and Costs

 

After choosing the right demographic, consider and balance the potential impact and effectiveness of each conference.

 

Number and influence of attendees:

 

Both the UU and the secular/skeptic/humanist movements hold a number of conferences. Fortunately, a single annual conference unites the whole UU movement, with over 3,500 UU leaders from around the world coming. Moreover, the people who come to the UU General Assembly constitute the most active members of the movement – Ministers, Religious Education Directors, church staff, lay leaders and prominent writers – in other words, those stakeholders most capable of spreading effective giving ideas into the UU community.

 

The SSA event had far fewer people, with just over 200 attendees. However, many movers and shakers from the secular/skeptic/humanist movement attend the conference. This makes it attractive from the perspective of spreading effective giving ideas in the movement.

 

Impact of your role at conference:

 

First, most conferences have tabling opportunities for exhibitors, and as an exhibitor, you can hold SGGs at your table. We did that both at the SSA and UU, and I doubt we would have gone to either without that opportunity, since we found it to be very effective at promoting effective giving.

 

Caption: Intentional Insights table at the Secular Student Alliance conference (courtesy of InIn)

 

Second, if you have an opportunity to be a speaker and can promote effective giving at your talk, this raises the impact you can make at a conference. That said, unless you can focus your talk on effective giving or at least give out relevant materials and sign-up sheets, simply mentioning effective giving may not be that impactful. It all depends on how you go about it, and whether the concept is relevant to your talk and memorable to the audience. I was a speaker at the SSA, and worked effective giving into my talk without focusing on it, as well as distributed relevant materials about effective giving.

 

Third, consider whether you have specific networking opportunities at a conference that are  helpful for promoting effective giving. For instance, this might involve having small-group or one-on-one meetings with influencers where you can safely promote effective giving without seeming pushy. At both the SSA and UU, we had both pre-scheduled and spontaneous meetings with notable people, which allowed us to promote effective giving concepts.

 

Costs: One of the fundamental aspects of effective giving is cost-effectiveness, and it is important to apply this metric to marketing effective giving, as well.

 

For the experiment with promoting effective giving at conferences, we at InIn decided to collaborate with The Life You Can Save on the most low-cost opportunities. Thus, one of the reasons we chose the UU and SSA conventions is that they both happened in Columbus, where InIn is based. InIn provided the people who ran the table and did the networking, and The Life You Can Save covered fees for conference registration, tabling, and other miscellaneous fees.

 

The UUA conference registration is around $450 per participant, and $800 for a table. Fortunately, as InIn is a member of a UU organization through which we promote Giving Games and other InIn materials, we were able to use a table at a discount, for $200. Miscellaneous fees included parking and food, for around $20 per participant per day. We had 2 people at the conference each day, so for the 5-day conference, that was $200. We also had about $175 in marketing costs to design and print flyers. We registered only one person, as we got one free participant with a table, so the total cost came down to $1025.

 

The SSA conference registration fee is around $135 per participant, and $150 for a table. As a speaker, I got a free registration, and another free registration accompanied the table. Parking and food cost $140 for the 3-day conference, and marketing costs came out to $150, for a total of $340.

 

Prepare Well

 

To prepare for the conferences, we at InIn brainstormed about the appropriate ways to present effective giving at both conferences. We then prepared talking points relevant to each audience, and coordinated with all people who would table at both conferences to ensure they knew how to present effective giving to the two audiences well.

 

As an example, you can see the GGs packet adapted to the language and interests of the SSA here and UU here. The main modifications are in the “Activity Overview” section, and these changes represent the broad difference in the kind of language we used.

 

Besides the language, we put a lot of effort into designing attractive marketing materials for our table. We created a large sign, visible from a long distance, with “Free Money” in red. People are attracted both to the color red and to the phrase “Free Money,” and it is highly important to draw attention in the context of a busy conference.

 

Caption: SGG activity overview for both UU and SSA conferences (courtesy of InIn)

 

We hired a professional designer to compose an attractive layout for the SGG activity at our table. SGGs involve having people make a decision between two charities. Their vote results in a dollar each going to either charity, sponsored by an outside party, usually The Life You Can Save. It was important to create a nice layout that people could engage with quickly and easily, again due to distractions in the conference setting. We chose GiveDirectly as the effective charity, and the Mid-Ohio Food Bank as a local and not so effective charity.

 

For those who participated in SGGs, then aimed at getting them to sign up for the InIn newsletter and The Life You Can Save newsletter, and engaging with them in conversations about effective giving. We also printed out shorter versions of the UU and SSA Giving Games packets. These had brief descriptions of the full Giving Games, with links to the longer versions they could host back in their SSA student clubs or UU congregations.

 

Another thing we did is schedule meetings in advance with some influencers to discuss effective giving opportunities. We also made sure to schedule meetings spontaneously during the conference with notables who seemed interested in effective giving. For those who expressed an interest but did not have time to meet, we made sure to exchange contact information and follow up afterwards.

 

Finally, we applied to be speakers at both conferences. We succeeded with the SSA, but not with UU. Still, we decided to attend the UU conference, because the costs were low enough since we did not have to travel and The Life You Can Save judged the potential impact worthwhile.

 

Conference Outcomes

 

At the UU conference, we had around 75 people play the SGG, so around 2% of attendees. Of those, about 65% (just under 50 people) signed up for the newsletter. We had 50 packets with GG descriptions printed, and we ran out by the end of the conference. Additionally, about 70% of the people who played there voted for GiveDirectly.

 

We also had meetings with some notable parties interested in effective giving. Especially promising was a meeting with the Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Humanist Association (UUHA), who expressed a strong interest in bringing GGs to her constituents. There are hundreds of UU Humanist groups within congregations around the world. We are currently working on testing a GG at a local UU Humanist group, and we will then write up the results for the UUHA blog. We had some other promising meetings as well, but no one was as interested as the UUHA.

 

At the SSA conference, we had 15 people play the SGG, so around 7.5% of attendees. Of those, 80% signed up for the newsletter, so about 12 people. The same proportion, 80%, voted for GiveDirectly.

 

We gave away around 35 GG packets with descriptions, as some people did not want to play the SGG, but were interested in having their clubs host it. Distributing packets was especially helped by the fact that I was a speaker at the SSA, and promoted and handed out packets at my presentation.

 

The meetings with notable parties proved more promising at the SSA. We met with staff from two national secular organizations, the American Ethical Union and the Center for Inquiry, who expressed an interest in promoting GGs to their members. A number of influencers expressed enthusiasm over the concept of effective giving, and wanted to promote it broadly in the secular/skeptic/humanist movement.

 

Assessment and Conclusion

 

We would have been satisfied at both conferences to have at least half of the people who played the SGG vote for GiveDirectly and have half the people sign up. We ended up with 70% voting for GiveDirectly at UU and 80% at SSA, and 65% signing up for the newsletter at UU and 80% at the SSA. So, these conferences strongly exceeded our baseline expectations. We did not have specific expectations for giving away packets or meetings with notables. Yet looking back, we certainly did not expect the level of interest we got for conference participants holding Giving Games back home - we would have printed more packets for the UU had we thought they might run out.

 

The evidence from GGs shows they are a great method to promote effective giving. Getting influencers from target demographics engaged with GGs not only gets the activists to give more effectively, but also encourages the activists to hold GGs back at their groups.

 

After all, holding GGs is a win-win for secular/skeptic/humanist groups and UU congregations alike. They get to engage in an activity that embodies their values of using reason and evidence. At the same time, they get to improve the world and build a sense of community without spending a penny.

 

For those of us promoting effective giving, it presents these ideas to a new audience, and enables the audience to continue engaging if they wish. The newsletter sign-ups are especially indicative of people’s interests. So are the numbers of people who took packets to host GGs back at their groups. We at InIn already heard from several people who are arranging Giving Games after being exposed to the adapted GG packets, including a UU church that is arranging to have a GG for all 500 members of the church. Based on these outcomes, we at InIn and The Life You Can Save decided it would be even worthwhile to invest into traveling to distant conferences given the right conditions - having a table,  speaking role, potential influencers, etc.

 

So, consider promoting effective giving at conferences to audiences not directly related to existing effective altruism communities. Hopefully, the steps I outlined above will help you decide on the best opportunities to do so. I would be glad to chat with you about specifics and share more details; email me at gleb@intentionalinsights.org.

 

Acknowledgments: For feedback on earlier stages of this draft, my gratitude to Jon Behar, Laura Gamse, Ryan Carey, Malcolm Ocean, Matthijs Maas, Yaacov Tarko, Dony Christie, Jake Krycia, Remmelt Ellen, Alexander Semenychev, Ian Pritchford, Ed Chen, Lune Nekesa, Jo Duyvestyn, and others who wished to remain anonymous.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

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Recently Phil Torres wrote an article  where he raises a new topic in existential risks research: the question about who could be possible agents in the creation of a global catastrophe. Here he identifies five main types of agents, and two main reasons why they will create a catastrophe (error and terror).  

He discusses the following types of agents: 

 

(1) Superintelligence. 

(2) Idiosyncratic actors.  

(3) Ecoterrorists.  

(4) Religious terrorists.  

(5) Rogue states.  

 

Inspired by his work I decided to create a map of all possible agents as well as their possible reasons for creating x-risks. During this work some new ideas appeared.  

I think that a significant addition to the list of agents should be superpowers, as they are known to have created most global risks in the 20th century; corporations, as they are now on the front line of AGI creation; and pseudo-rational agents who could create a Doomsday weapon in the future to use for global blackmail (may be with positive values), or who could risk civilization’s fate for their own benefits (dangerous experiments). 

The X-risks prevention community could also be an agent of risks if it fails to prevent obvious risks, or if it uses smaller catastrophes to prevent large risks, or if it creates new dangerous ideas of possible risks which could inspire potential terrorists.  

The more technology progresses, the more types of agents will have access to dangerous technologies, even including teenagers. (like: "Why This 14-Year-Old Kid Built a Nuclear Reactor” ) 

In this situation only the number of agents with risky tech will matter, not the exact motivations of each one. But if we are unable to control tech, we could try to control potential agents or their “medium" mood at least. 

The map shows various types of agents, starting from non-agents, and ending with types of agential behaviors which could result in catastrophic consequences (error, terror, risk etc). It also shows the types of risks that are more probable for each type of agent. I think that my explanation in each case should be self evident. 

We could also show that x-risk agents will change during the pace of technological progress. In the beginning there are no agents, and later there are superpowers, and then smaller and smaller agents, until there will be millions of people with biotech labs at home. In the end there will be only one agent - SuperAI.  

So, a lessening the number of agents, and increasing their ”morality” and intelligence seem to be the most plausible directions in lowering risks. Special organizations or social networks may be created to control the most risky type of agents. Differing agents probably need differing types of control. Some ideas of this agent-specific control are listed in the map, but a real control system should be much more complex and specific.

The map shows many agents, some of them real and exist now (but don’t have dangerous capabilities), and some are only possible in moral sense or in technical sense.

 

So there are 4 types of agents, and I show them in the map in different colours:

 

1) Existing and dangerous, that is already having technology to destroy the humanity. That is superpowers, arrogant scientists – Red

2) Existing, and willing to end the world, but lacking needed technologies. (ISIS, VHEMt) - Yellow

3) Morally possible, but don’t existing. We could imagine logically consistent value systems which may result in human extinction. That is Doomsday blackmail. - Green

4) Agents, which will pose risk only after supertechnologies appear, like AI-hackers, children biohackers. - Blue

 

Many agents types are not fit for this classification so I rest them white in the map. 

 

The pdf of the map is here: http://immortality-roadmap.com/agentrisk11.pdf

 

 

 

 

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The jpg of the map is below because side bar is closing part of it I put it higher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know to what extent MIRI's current research engages with Solomonoff induction, but some of you may find recent work by Tom Sterkenburg to be of interest. Here's the abstract of his paper Solomonoff Prediction and Occam's Razor:

Algorithmic information theory gives an idealised notion of compressibility that is often presented as an objective measure of simplicity. It is suggested at times that Solomonoff prediction, or algorithmic information theory in a predictive setting, can deliver an argument to justify Occam's razor. This article explicates the relevant argument and, by converting it into a Bayesian framework, reveals why it has no such justificatory force. The supposed simplicity concept is better perceived as a specific inductive assumption, the assumption of effectiveness. It is this assumption that is the characterising element of Solomonoff prediction and wherein its philosophical interest lies.

Apple's iPhone 7 Plus decided to add another lense to be able to make better pictures. Meanwhile Walabot who started with wanting to build a breast cancer detection technology released a 600$ device that can look 10cm into walls. Thermal imaging also got cheaper. 

I think it would be possible to build a 1500$ device that could combine those technologies and also add a laser that can shift color. A device like this could bring medicine forward a lot. 
A lot of area's besides medicine could likely also profit from a relatively cheap 3D scanner that can look inside objects. 

Developing it would require Musk-level capital investments but I think it would advance medicine a lot if a company would both provide the hardware and develop software to make the best job possible at body scanning. 

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

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0: Recoverable Catastrophe

An apocalypse is an event that permanently damages the world. This scale is for scenarios that are much worse than any normal disaster. Even if 100 million people die in a war, the rest of the world can eventually rebuild and keep going.

1: Economic Apocalypse

The human carrying capacity of the planet depends on the world's systems of industry, shipping, agriculture, and organizations. If the planet's economic and infrastructural systems were destroyed, then we would have to rely on more local farming, and we could not support as high a population or standard of living. In addition, rebuilding the world economy could be very difficult if the Earth's mineral and fossil fuel resources are already depleted.

2: Communications Apocalypse

If large regions of the Earth become depopulated, or if sufficiently many humans die in the catastrophe, it's possible that regions and continents could be isolated from one another. In this scenario, globalization is reversed by obstacles to long-distance communication and travel. Telecommunications, the internet, and air travel are no longer common. Humans are reduced to multiple, isolated communities.

3: Knowledge Apocalypse

If the loss of human population and institutions is so extreme that a large portion of human cultural or technological knowledge is lost, it could reverse one of the most reliable trends in modern history. Some innovations and scientific models can take millennia to develop from scratch.

4: Human Apocalypse

Even if the human population were to be violently reduced by 90%, it's easy to imagine the survivors slowly resettling the planet, given the resources and opportunity. But a sufficiently extreme transformation of the Earth could drive the human species completely extinct. To many people, this is the worst possible outcome, and any further developments are irrelevant next to the end of human history.

 

5: Biosphere Apocalypse

In some scenarios (such as the physical destruction of the Earth), one can imagine the extinction not just of humans, but of all known life. Only astrophysical and geological phenomena would be left in this region of the universe. In this timeline we are unlikely to be succeeded by any familiar life forms.

6: Galactic Apocalypse

A rare few scenarios have the potential to wipe out not just Earth, but also all nearby space. This usually comes up in discussions of hostile artificial superintelligence, or very destructive chain reactions of exotic matter. However, the nature of cosmic inflation and extraterrestrial intelligence is still unknown, so it's possible that some phenomenon will ultimately interfere with the destruction.

7: Universal Apocalypse

This form of destruction is thankfully exotic. People discuss the loss of all of existence as an effect of topics like false vacuum bubbles, simulationist termination, solipsistic or anthropic observer effects, Boltzmann brain fluctuations, time travel, or religious eschatology.

The goal of this scale is to give a little more resolution to a speculative, unfamiliar space, in the same sense that the Kardashev Scale provides a little terminology to talk about the distant topic of interstellar civilizations. It can be important in x risk conversations to distinguish between disasters and truly worst-case scenarios. Even if some of these scenarios are unlikely or impossible, they are nevertheless discussed, and terminology can be useful to facilitate conversation.

I’ve always been uncomfortable being labeled “American.” Though I’m a citizen of the United States, the term feels restrictive and confining. It obliges me to identify with aspects of the United States with which I am not thrilled. I have similar feelings of limitation with respect to other labels I assume. Some of these labels don’t feel completely true to who I truly am, or impose certain perspectives on me that diverge from my own.

 

These concerns are why it's useful to keep one's identity small, use identity carefully, and be strategic in choosing your identity.

 

Yet these pieces speak more to System 1 than to System 2. I recently came up with a weird trick that has made me more comfortable identifying with groups or movements that resonate with me while creating a System 1 visceral identity management strategy. The trick is to simply put the word “weird” before any identity category I think about.

 

I’m not an “American,” but a “weird American.” Once I started thinking about myself as a “weird American,” I was able to think calmly through which aspects of being American I identified with and which I did not, setting the latter aside from my identity. For example, I used the term “weird American” to describe myself when meeting a group of foreigners, and we had great conversations about what I meant and why I used the term. This subtle change enables my desire to identify with the label “American,” but allows me to separate myself from any aspects of the label I don’t support.

 

Beyond nationality, I’ve started using the term  “weird” in front of other identity categories. For example, I'm a professor at Ohio State. I used to become deeply  frustrated when students didn’t prepare adequately  for their classes with me. No matter how hard I tried, or whatever clever tactics I deployed, some students simply didn’t care. Instead of allowing that situation to keep bothering me, I started to think of myself as a “weird professor” - one who set up an environment that helped students succeed, but didn’t feel upset and frustrated by those who failed to make the most of it.

 

I’ve been applying the weird trick in my personal life, too. Thinking of myself as a “weird son” makes me feel more at ease when my mother and I don’t see eye-to-eye; thinking of myself as a “weird nice guy,” rather than just a nice guy, has helped me feel confident about my decisions to be firm when the occasion calls for it.

 

So, why does this weird trick work? It’s rooted in strategies of reframing and distancing, two research-based methods for changing our thought frameworks. Reframing involves changing one’s framework of thinking about a topic in order to create more beneficial modes of thinking. For instance, in reframing myself as a weird nice guy, I have been able to say “no” to requests people make of me, even though my intuitive nice guy tendency tells me I should say “yes.” Distancing refers to a method of emotional management through separating oneself from an emotionally tense situation and observing it from a third-person, external perspective. Thus, if I think of myself as a weird son, I don’t have nearly as much negative emotions during conflicts with my mom. It enables me to have space for calm and sound decision-making.

 

Thinking of myself as "weird" also applies to the context of rationality and effective altruism for me. Thinking of myself as a "weird" aspiring rationalist and EA helps me be more calm and at ease when I encounter criticisms of my approach to promoting rational thinking and effective giving. I can distance myself from the criticism better, and see what I can learn from the useful points in the criticism to update and be stronger going forward.

 

Overall, using the term “weird” before any identity category has freed me from confinements and restrictions associated with socially-imposed identity labels and allowed me to pick and choose which aspects of these labels best serve my own interests and needs. I hope being “weird” can help you manage your identity better as well!

This summary was posted to LW Main on September 16th. The following week's summary is here.

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

• Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup: 18 September 2016 07:00PM
• Munich Meetup in September: 17 September 2016 04:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

• [Moscow] Role playing game based on HPMOR in Moscow: 17 September 2016 03:00PM
• Moscow: keynote for the first Kocherga year, text analysis, rationality applications discussion: 18 September 2016 02:00PM
• Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM
• Washington, D.C.: Steelmanning: 18 September 2016 03:30PM
• Vienna: 24 September 2016 03:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

In which I examine some of the latest development in automated fact checking, prediction markets for policies and propose we get rich voting for robot politicians.

http://pirate.london/2016/09/why-we-may-elect-our-new-ai-overlords/

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

• Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
• Post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
• Do not quote yourself.
• Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
• No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I'll keep this quick:

In general, the problem presented by the Mugging is this: As we examine the utility of a given act for each possible world we could be in, in order from most probable to least probable, the utilities can grow much faster than the probabilities shrink. Thus it seems that the standard maxim "Maximize expected utility" is impossible to carry out, since there is no such maximum. When we go down the list of hypotheses multiplying the utility of the act on that hypothesis, by the probability of that hypothesis, the result does not converge to anything. 

Here's an idea that may fix this:

For every possible world W of complexity N, there's another possible world of complexity N+c that's just like W, except that it has two parallel, identical universes instead of just one. (If it matters, suppose that they are connected by an extra dimension.) (If this isn't obvious, say so and I can explain.)

Moreover, there's another possible world of complexity N+c+1 that's just like W except that it has four such parallel identical universes.

And a world of complexity N+c+X that has R parallel identical universes, where R is the largest number that can be specified in X bits of information. 

So, take any given extreme mugger hypothesis like "I'm a matrix lord who will kill 3^^^^3 people if you don't give me $5." Uncontroversially, the probability of this hypothesis will be something much smaller than the probability of the default hypothesis. Let's be conservative and say the ratio is 1 in a billion. 

(Here's the part I'm not so confident in)

Translating that into hypotheses with complexity values, that means that the mugger hypothesis has about 30 more bits of information in it than the default hypothesis. 

So, assuming c is small (and actually I think this assumption can be done away with) there's another hypothesis, equally likely to the Mugger hypothesis, which is that you are in a duplicate universe that is exactly like the universe in the default hypothesis, except with R duplicates, where R is the largest number we can specify in 30 bits.

That number is very large indeed. (See the Busy Beaver function.) My guess is that it's going to be way way way larger than 3^^^^3. (It takes less than 30 bits to specify 3^^^^3, no?)

So this isn't exactly a formal solution yet, but it seems like it might be on to something. Perhaps our expected utility converges after all.

Thoughts?

(I'm very confused about all this which is why I'm posting it in the first place.)

 

Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:

• Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
• Post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
• Do not quote yourself.
• Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
• No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Edited for clarity (hopefully) with thanks to Squirrell_in_Hell.

Lately, I find myself more and more interested in how the concept of "systematized winning" can be applied to large groups of people who have one thing in common, and that not even time, but a hobby or a general interest in a specific discipline. It doesn't seem (to me) to much trouble people working on their own individual qualities - performers, martial artists, managers (who would self-identify as belonging to these sets), but I am basing this on "general impressions" and will be glad to be corrected. It does seem to be a norm for some other sets, like sailors, who keep correcting maps every voyage.

The field in which I have been for some years (botany) does have something similar to what sailors do, which lets us to see how floras change over time, etc. However, different questions arise when novel sub-disciplines branch off the main trunk, and naturally, the people asking these new questions keep reaching back for some kind of pre-existing observations. And often they don't check how much weight can be assigned to these observations, which, I think, is a bad habit that won't lead to "winning".

It is not "industrial rationality" per se, but a distantly related thing, and I think we might have to recognize it somehow. Or at least, recognize that it requires different assumptions... No set victory, for example... Still, it probably matters to more living people than pure "industrial rationality" does, & ignoring it won't make it go away.

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

The counterfactual approach to value learning could be used to possibly allow natural language goals for AIs.

The basic idea is that when the AI is given a natural language goal like "increase human happiness" or "implement CEV", it is not to figure out what these goals mean, but to follow what a pure learning algorithm would establish these goals as meaning.

This would be safer than a simple figure-out-the-utility-you're-currently-maximising approach. But it still doesn't solve a few drawbacks. Firstly, the learning algorithm has to be effective itself (in particular, modifying human understanding of the words should be ruled out, and the learning process must avoid concluding the simpler interpretations are always better). And secondly, humans' don't yet know what these words mean, outside our usual comfort zone, so the "learning" task also involves the AI extrapolating beyond what we know.

Time start: 14:40:36

I

You might be familiar with the concept of a 'bug', as introduced by CFAR. By using the computer programming analogy, it frames any problem you might have in your life as something fixable... even more - as something to be fixed, something such that fixing it or thinking about how to fix it is the first thing that comes to mind when you see such a problem, or 'bug'.

Let's try another analogy in the same style, with something called 'race conditions' in programming. A race condition as a particular type of bug, that is typically very hard to find and fix ('debug'). It occurs when two or more parts of the same program 'race' to access some data, resource, decision point etc., in a way that is not controlled by any organised principle.

For example, imagine that you have a document open in an editor program. You make some changes, you give a command to save the file. While this operation is in progress, you drag and drop the same file in a file manager, moving to another hard drive. In this case, depending on timing, on the details of the programs, and on the operating system that you are using, you might get different results. The old version of the file might be moved to the new location, while the new one is saved in the old location. Or the file might get saved first, and then moved. Or the saving operation will end in an error, or in a truncated or otherwise malformed file on the disk.

If you know enough details about the situation, you could in fact work out what exactly would happen. But the margin of error in your own handling of the software is so big, that you cannot in practice do this (e.g. you'd need to know the exact milisecond when you press buttons etc.). So in practice, the outcome is random, depending on how the events play out on a scale smaller that you can directly control (e.g. minute differences in timing, strength of reactions etc.).

II

What is the analogy in humans? One of the places in which when you look hard, you'll see this pattern a lot is the relation of emotions and conscious decision making.

E.g., a classic failure mode is a "commitment to emotions", which goes like this:

• I promise to love you forever
• however if I commit to this, I will have doubts and less freedom, which will generate negative emotions
• so I'll attempt to fall in love faster than my doubts grow
• let's do this anyway, why won't we?

The problem here is a typical emotional "race condition": there is a lot of variability in the outcome, depending on how events play out. There could be a "butterfly effect", in which e.g. a single weekend trip together could determine the fate of the relationship, by creating a swing up or down, which would give one side of emotions a head start in the race.

III

Another typical example is making a decision about continuing a relationship:

• when I spend time with you, I like you more
• when I like you more, I want to continue our relationship
• when we have a relationship, I spend more time with you

As you can see, there is a loop in decision process. This cannot possibly end well.

A wild emotional rollercoaster is probably around the least bad outcome of this setup.

IV

So how do you fix race conditions?

By creating structure.

By following principles which compute the result explicitly, without unwanted chaotic behaviour.

By removing loops from decision graphs.

First and foremost, by recognizing that leaving a decision to a race condition is strictly worse than any decision process that we consciously design, even if this process is flipping the coin (at least you know the odds!).

Example: deciding to continue the relationship.

Proposed solution (arrow represent influence):

(1) controlled, long-distance emotional evaluation -> (2) systemic decision -> (3) day-to-day emotions

The idea is to remove the loop by organising emotions into tho groups: those that are directly influenced by the decision or its consequences (3), and more distant "evaluation" emotions (1). A possibility to feel emotions as in (1) can be created by pre-deciding a time to have some time alone and judge the situation from more distance, e.g. "after 6 months of this relationship I will go for a 2 week vacation to by aunt in France, and think about it in a clear-headed way, making sure I consider emotions about the general picture, not day-to-day things like physical affection etc.".

V

There is much to write on this topic, so please excuse my brevity (esp. in the last part, giving some examples of systemic thinking about emotions) - there is easily enough content about this to fill a book (or two). But I hope I gave you some idea.

Time end: 15:15:42

Writing stats: 31 minutes, 23 wpm, 133 cpm

This summary was posted to LW Main on October 21st. The following week's summary is here.

New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:

• Zürich social Rationality meetup: 29 October 2016 05:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

• Munich Meetup in October: 29 October 2016 04:00PM
• Stockholm: Mental contrasting: 21 October 2016 04:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

• Bay Area Winter Solstice 2016: 17 December 2016 07:00PM
• [Moscow] Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Tower of Chaos, Scientific Discovery: 26 October 2016 07:40PM
• NY Solstice 2016 - The Story of Smallpox: 17 December 2016 06:00PM
• San Francisco Meetup: Stories: 24 October 2016 06:15PM
• Washington, D.C.: Technology of Communication: 23 October 2016 03:30PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

This summary was posted to LW Main on September 30th. The following week's summary is here.

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

• Stockholm: When to stop making a decision: 07 October 2016 03:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

• Bay Area Winter Solstice 2016: 17 December 2016 07:00PM
• Melbourne: A Bayesian Guide on How to Read a Scientific Paper: 08 October 2016 03:30PM
• Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

This summary was posted to LW Main on September 23rd. The following week's summary is here.

The following meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

• Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup: 25 September 2016 07:00PM
• Bay Area Winter Solstice 2016: 17 December 2016 07:00PM
• [Moscow] Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Zendo, Tower of Chaos: 28 September 2016 07:40PM
• San Francisco Meetup: Mini Talks: 26 September 2016 06:15PM
• Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM
• Vienna: 24 September 2016 03:00PM
• Washington, D.C.: Outdoor Fun & Games: 25 September 2016 03:30PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.