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Why should the term "the sequences" even be in the title? What does it tell an uninformed reader? Does it have any useful meaning for anyone who hasn't already read them? (Why are they even called that, anyway? I mean... I guess it's just that it was a sequence of blog posts?) In what way is "The Sequences" or "[Some title]: the Sequences" better than "The Blog Posts" or "The Diary Entries"?
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Help us name the Sequences ebook
Don't know if this is where it comes from, but I always thought of "sequences" as an elaboration on the idea of rationality as a martial art; the term has some significance in theatrical swordplay, and it could also be compared to the Japanese kata.
In response to
Eliezer's YU lecture on FAI and MOR [link]
Summary?
I read the first half, skimmed the second, and glanced at a handful of the slides. Based on that, I would say it's mostly introductory material with nothing new for those who have read the sequences. IOW, a summary of the lecture would basically be a summary of a summary of LW.
As a general rule, everyone is constantly accusing everyone else of everything.
This seems deep, open minded, egalitarian and... blatantly false. People aren't constantly accusing everyone else of everything. Moreover some people do more accusing than others, some people receive more accusations than others and some kinds of accusations are received more positively by observers than others. Anyone who believed (or, rather, anyone who alieved) your theory would make poor predictions of human behavior and make correspondingly bad social decisions.
To me it seems like a joke.
When I'm talking, I'm mainly just sharing my model of reality. When many others talk, it's a "speech act", aimed at "handling" the listener.
This would explain why some people recommend starting sentences with "I think..." etc. to reduce conflicts.
In a model-sharing mode that does not make much sense. Sentences "I think X" and "X" are equivalent. (The only exception would be if I discussed a model of myself, where "I think X" would mean "so this model of myself is thinking X at this moment of model-time".)
But in the listener-handling mode, it could reduce the impact. It could mean "I am not asking you to change your opinion or suffer the social consequences now; I am just giving you my model as an information".
If the listener-handling mode is the standard speech mode, the exceptions need a disclaimer. For most people this seem to be so, and the rest of us need to be aware of the fact that we don't speak the same language.
This would explain why some people recommend starting sentences with "I think..." etc. to reduce conflicts.
In a model-sharing mode that does not make much sense. Sentences "I think X" and "X" are equivalent.
I think it does make sense, even in model-sharing mode. "I think" has a modal function; modal expressions communicate something about your degree of certainty in what you're saying, and so does leaving them out. The general pattern is that flat statements without modal qualifiers are interpreted as being spoken with great/absolute confidence.
I also question the wisdom of dividing interpersonal communication into separate "listener-handling" and "model-sharing" modes. Sharing anything that might reasonably be expected to have an impact on other people's models is only not "listener-handling" if we discount "potentially changing people's models" as a way of "handling" them. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
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Singularity Fiction
The Quantum Thief is pretty great post singularity fiction
Seconded. Granted, my sample size is pretty minuscule, but still.
And as an extra reason why LW folks might be interested in Rajaniemi's books, the second book of the series, The Fractal Prince, mentions something called "extrapolated volition" being at the heart of one of the cultures in the novels' setting.
In response to
How do you not be a hater?
Why do you think that having Asperger's gives you immunity to revulsion at the quality of a review?
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Discussion: Which futures are good enough?
- Are there other values that, if we traded them off, might make MFAI much easier?
I don't understand this question. Is it somehow not trivially obvious that the more values you remove from the equation (starting with "complexity"), the easier things become?
In response to
Rationalist Lent
Sign me up for the interest list as well. On a related note: given the number of upvotes for the others who have expressed interest, the writeup might warrant a Discussion-level post when the time comes; if it does end up working anywhere near as well as Rhinehart's personal experiences, I feel we shouldn't risk the finding being buried in the comments of this thread.
Also, in case you don't share his misgivings about providing brand names, such a list would be appreciated. Part of the reason is that Rhinehart says he lives in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, and if he says some things are "hard to get" and have to be obtained from small suppliers, I might end up having to import them.
In response to
Domesticating reduced impact AIs
I mostly steer clear of AI posts like this, but I wanted to give props for the drawing of unsurpassable elegance.
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Sure, but not optimizing for a particular identity can easily be just as harmful. This goes especially for social situations; consider being gay and not optimizing for a non-gay facade in an emphatically anti-gay environment.
Given that, the obvious follow-up question is how to tell the good identities from the bad, and I think the post does well in identifying some of the bad types. This, for example:
...seems well on the mark and I see a lot of myself in it. Could do without the superlative ("The worst thing you can possibly do!"), but otherwise it seems sound.