= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
IN MY OPINION
I'm not sure what this was supposed to add, especially with emphasis. Whose opinion would we think it is?
I've been told that my writing sounds preachy or even religious-fanatical. I do write a lot of propositions without saying "In my opinion" in front of each one. I do have a standard boilerplate that I am to put at the beginning of each missive:
First, please read this caveat: Please do not accept anything I say as True.
Ever.
I do write a lot of propositions, without saying, "In My Opinion" before each one. It can sound preachy, like I think I've got the Absolute Truth, Without Error. I don't completely trust anything I have to say, and I suggest you don't, either.
Second, I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. "Consider it": think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, "That's so wrong!", I really weaken my ability to "pan for the gold".
If you have a reaction (e.g. "That's WRONG!"), please gently save it aside for later. For just a while, please try on the concept, test drive it, use the idea in your life. Perhaps you'll see something even beyond what I offered.
There will plenty of time to criticize, attack, and destroy it AFTER you've "panned for the gold". You won't be missing an opportunity.
Third, I want you to "get" what I offered. When you "get it", you have it. You can pick it up and use it, and you can put it down. You don't need to believe it or understand it to do that. Anything you BELIEVE is "glued to your hand"; you can't put it down.
-=-= END Boilerplate
In that post, I got lazy and just threw in the tag line at the end. My mistake. I apologize. I won't do that again.
With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (playing the game to win, but not claiming I am the star of the team)
I believe they stick around invisibly. Your karma should always be dynamically the sum of upvotes and downvotes you've received.
THanks for the clarification.
I guess I won't be posting articles to LessWrrong, as I have no clue what I'm doing wrong such that I get more downvotes than upvotes.
LW doesn't register negative karma right now. It should.
Sufficiently negative karma should enforce a maximum posting rate.
Of course, that just leads to getting lots of accounts. Not sure how to deal with that.
I would like some clarification on "LW doesn't register negative karma right now." Does that mean
- my negative points are GONE, or
- they are hiding and still need to be paid off before I can get a positive score?
Thanks
Cool!
Just am curious.. What do you do for 25 hours a week to save humanity from itself?
Mostly, I study. I also go to a few conferences (I'll be at the Singularity Summit) and listen. I even occasionally speak on key issues (IMO), such as (please try thinking WITH these before attacking them. Try agreeing for at least a while.):
- "There is no safety in assuring we have a power switch on a super-intelligence. That would be power at a whole new level. That's pretty much Absolute Power and would bring out the innate corruption / corruptibility / self-interest in just about anybody."
- "We need Somebody to take the dangerous toys (arsenals) away."
- "Just what is Humanity up to that requires 6 Billion individuals?"
<strikeout> All of that is IN MY OPINION. </strikeout> <-- OK, the comments to this post showed me the error of my ways. I'm leaving this here because comments refer to it.
Edited 07/14/2010 because I've learned since 2009-09 that I said a lot of nonsense.
In response to
Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate
BRAVO, Eliezer! Huuzah! It's about time!
I don't know if you have succeeded in becoming a full rationalist, but I know I haven't! I keep being surprised / appalled / amused at my own behavior. Intelligence is way overrated! Rationalism is my goal, but I'm built on evolved wet ware that is often in control. Sometimes my conscious, chooses-to-be-rationalist mind is found to be in the kiddy seat with the toy steering wheel.
I haven't been publicly talking about my contributions to the Singularity Institute and others fighting to save us from ourselves. Part of that originates in my father's attitude that it is improper to brag.
I now publicly announce that I have donated at least $11,000 to the Singularity Institute and its projects over the last year. I spend ~25 hours per week on saving humanity from Homo Sapiens.
I say that to invite others to JOIN IN. Give humanity a BIG term in your utility function. Extinction is Forever. Extinction is for ... us?
Thank you, Eliezer! Once again, you've shown me a blind spot, a bias, an area where I can now be less wrong than I was.
With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens™ :-|
In response to
Ingredients of Timeless Decision Theory
Today I finally came up with a simple example where TDT clearly loses and CDT clearly wins, and as a bonus, proves that TDT isn't reflectively consistent.
Omega comes to you and says
I'm hosting a game with 3 players. Two players are AIs I created running TDT but not capable of self-modification, one being a paperclip maximizer, the other being a staples maximizer. The last player is an AI you will design. When the game starts, my two AIs will first get the source code of your AI (which is only fair since you know the design of my AIs). Then 2 of the 3 players will be chosen randomly to play a one-shot true PD, without knowing who they are facing. What AI do you submit?
Say the payoffs of the PD are
- 5/5 0/6
- 6/0 1/1
Suppose you submit an AI running CDT. Then, Omega's AIs will reason as follows: "I have 1/2 chance of playing against a TDT, and 1/2 chance of playing against a CDT. If I play C, then my opponent will play C if it's a TDT, and D if it's a CDT, therefore my expected payoff is 5/2+0/2=2.5. If I play D, then my opponent will play D, so my payoff is 1. Therefore I should play C." Your AI then gets a payoff of 6, since it will play D.
Suppose you submit an AI running TDT instead. Then everyone will play C, so your AI will get a payoff of 5.
So you submit a CDT, whether you are running CDT or TDT. That's because explicitly giving the source code of your submitted AI to the other AIs makes the consequences of your decision the same under CDT and under TDT.
Suppose you have to play this game yourself instead of delegating it, you can self-modify, and the payoffs are large enough, you'd modify yourself from running TDT to running some other DT that plays D in this game! (Notice that I specified that Omega's AIs can't self-modify, so your decision to self-modify won't have the logical consequence that they also self-modify.)
It seems that I've given a counter-example to the claim that
the behavior of TDT corresponds to reflective consistency on a problem class in which your payoff is determined by the type of decision you make, but not sensitive to the exact algorithm you use apart from that
Or does my example fall outside of the specified problem class?
Wei_Dai wrote on 19 August 2009 07:08:23AM :
... Omega's AIs will reason as follows: "I have 1/2 chance of playing against a TDT, and 1/2 chance of playing against a CDT. If I play C, then my opponent will play C if it's a TDT, and D if it's a CDT ...
That seems to violate the secrecy assumptions of the Prisoner's Dilemma problem! I thought each prisoner has to commit to his action before learning what the other one did. What am I missing?
Thanks!
In response to
Bayesians vs. Barbarians
Good post.
Also, historically, evil barbarians regularly fall prey to some irrational doctrine or personal paranoia that wastes their resources (sacrifice to the gods, kill all your Jews, kill everybody in the Ukraine, have a cultural revolution).
We in the US probably have a peculiar attitude on the rationality of war because we've never, with the possible exception of the War of 1812, fought in a war that was very rational (in terms of the benefits for us). The Revolutionary war? The war with Mexico? The Civil War? The Spanish-American War? WWI? WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq? None of them make sense in terms of self-interest.
(Disclaimer: I'm a little drunk at the moment.)
Consider (think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, "That's so wrong!", I <b>really</b> weaken my ability to "pan for the gold".)
Consider that you are using "we" and "self" as a pointer that jumps from one set to another moment by moment. Here is a list of some sets that may be confounded together here, see how many others you can think of. These United States (see the Constitution)
the people residing in that set
citizens who vote
citizens with a peculiar attitude
the President
Congress
organizations (corporations, NGOs, political parties, movements, e-communities, etc.)
the wealthy and powerful
the particular wealthy and powerful who see an opportunity to benefit from an invasion
Multiple Edits: trying to get this site to respect line/ paragraph breaks, formatting. Does this thing have any formatting codes?
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I can't help but think that those activities aren't going to do much to save humanity. I don't want to send you into an existential crisis or anything but maybe you should tune down your job description. "Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens™" is maybe acceptable for Superman. It might be affably egotistical for someone who does preventive counter-terrorism re: experimental bioweapons. "Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens one academic conference at a time" doesn't really do it for me.
Plus wishing for all people to be under the rule of a god-like totalitarian sounds to me like the best way to destroy humanity.
Jack wrote on 09 September 2009 05:54:25PM :
I hear that. I wasn't clear. I apologise.
I DON'T KNOW what I can do to turn humanity's course. And, I decline to be one more person who uses that as an excuse to go back to the television set. Those activities are part of my search for a place where I can make a difference.
... but not acceptable from a mere man who cares, eh?
(Oh, all right, I admit, the ™ was tongue-in-cheek!)
Skip down to END BOILERPLATE if and only if you've read version v44m
First, please read this caveat: Please do not accept anything I say as True.
Ever.
I do write a lot of propositions, without saying, "In My Opinion" before each one. It can sound preachy, like I think I've got the Absolute Truth, Without Error. I don't completely trust anything I have to say, and I suggest you don't, either.
Second, I invite you to listen (read) in an unusual way. "Consider it": think WITH this idea for a while. There will be plenty of time to refute it later. I find that, if I START with, "That's so wrong!", I really weaken my ability to "pan for the gold".
If you have a reaction (e.g. "That's WRONG!"), please gently save it aside for later. For just a while, please try on the concept, test drive it, use the idea in your life. Perhaps you'll see something even beyond what I offered.
There will plenty of time to criticize, attack, and destroy it AFTER you've "panned for the gold". You won't be missing an opportunity.
Third, I want you to "get" what I offered. When you "get it", you have it. You can pick it up and use it, and you can put it down. You don't need to believe it or understand it to do that. Anything you BELIEVE is "glued to your hand"; you can't put it down.
-=-= END BOILERPLATE version 44m
I think we may have different connotations. I'm going to reluctantly use an analogy, but it's just a temporary crutch. Please drop it as soon as you get how I'm using the word 'saving'.
If I said, "I'm playing football," I wouldn't be implying that I'm a one-man team, or that I'm the star, or that the team always loses when I'm not there. Rigorously, it only means that I'm playing football.
However, it is possible to play football for the camaraderie, or the exercise, or to look good, or to avoid losing. A person can play football to win. Regardless of the position played. It's about attitude, commitment, and responsibility SEIZED rather than reluctantly accepted.
I DECLARE that I am saving humanity from Homo Sapiens. That's a declaration, a promise, not a description subject to True / probability / False. I'm playing to win.
Maybe I'll never be allowed to get on the field. I remember the movie Rudy, about Dan Ruettiger. THAT is what it is to be playing football in the face of being a little guy. That points toward what it is to be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens in the face of no evidence and no agreement.
You could give me a low probability of ever making a difference . But before you do, ask yourself, "What will this cause?"
It occurs to be that this little sub-thread beginning with "Mostly, I study. " illustrates what Eliezer was pointing out in "Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate.".
You, too, can be Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens. You start by saying so.
The clock is ticking.
With respect and high regard,
Rick Schwall, Ph.D.
Saving Humanity from Homo Sapiens (seizing responsibility, even if I NEVER get on the field)