Unfortunately, I think many of the people who come to LessWrong are in the position of having read about 50-75% of the content of the sequences through other sources, and may become frustrated by the lack of clear indication within the sequences as to what the next post actually includes.... it is very annoying to read through a couple of pages only to find that this section has just been a wordy setup to reviewing basic physics.

I'm trying to help a dear friend who would like to work on FAI research, to overcome a strong fear that arises when thinking about unfavorable outcomes involving AI. Thinking about either the possibility that he'll die, or the possibility that an x-risk like UFAI will wipe us out, tends to strongly trigger him, leaving him depressed, scared, and sad. Just reading the recent LW article about how a computer beat a professional Go player triggered him quite strongly.

I've suggested trying to desensitize him via gradual exposure; the approach would be similar to the way in which people who are afraid of snakes can lose their fear of snakes by handling rope (which looks like a snake) until handling rope is no longer scary, and then looking at pictures of snakes until such pictures are no longer scary, and then finally handling a snake when they are ready. However, we've been struggling to think of what a sufficiently easy and non-scary first step might be for my friend; everything I've come up with as a first step akin to handling rope has been too scary for him to want to attempt so far.

I don't think that I'll even be able to convince my friend that desensitization training will be worth it at all--he's afraid that the training might trigger him, and leave him in a depression too deep for him to climb out of. At the same time, he's so incredibly nice, and he really wants to help with FAI research, and maybe even work for MIRI in the "unlikely" (according to him) event that he is able to overcome his fears. Are there reasonable alternatives to, say, desensitization therapy? Are there any really easy and non-scary first steps he might be okay with trying if he can be convinced to try desensitization therapy? Is there any other advice that might be helpful to him?

That's really true.

This started as an effort to catalog my own planning processes, but I have tons more to learn.

I'll definitely be thinking more about the points you've raised (what good rational planning looks like/good research), but I know that I, too, haven't got the whole picture in my head yet.

I would like to add more to this idea of good planning as I learn more. Do you have any suggestions for further reading I might benefit from (and eventually write about)?

I actually think self-driving cars are more interesting than strong go playing programs (but they don't worry me much either).

I guess I am not sure why I should pay attention to EY's opinion on this. I do ML-type stuff for a living. Does EY have an unusual track record for predicting anything? All I see is a long tail of vaguely silly things he says online that he later renounces (e.g. "ignore stuff EY_2004 said"). To be clear: moving away from bad opinions is great! That is not what the issue is.

edit: In general I think LW really really doesn't listen to experts enough (I don't even mean myself, I just mean the sensible Bayesian thing to do is to just go with expert opinion prior on almost everything.) EY et al. take great pains to try to move people away from that behavior, talking about how the world is mad, about civiliational inadequacy, etc. In other words, don't trust experts, they are crazy anyways.

For those who wish to downvote it, I'm curious about your motivations. Want to optimize my modeling of LWs :-)

This article looks like a good Part 1 of Many. I would normally expect this article to be followed by several more that go into detail about what good, rational planning actually looks like and how to do effective and useful research on topics like these.

Breaking things down into smaller parts and doing research sound like good ideas #1 and #2 of 20 or 30 needed to do really awesome planning.

Nate Soares' recent post "The Art of Response" on Minding Our Way talks about effective response patterns that people develop to deal with problems. What response patterns do you use in life or in your field of expertise that you have found to be quite effective?

Finally completed my dieting goal of losing 20% of my original body weight.

Double-sided? How does that work?