XiXiDu

You may know me as the guy who posts a lot of controversial stuff about LW and MIRI. I don't enjoy doing this and do not want to continue with it. One reason being that the debate is turning into a flame war. Another reason is that I noticed that...

Some people[1] are now using the term Pascal's mugging as a label for any scenario with a large associated payoff and a small or unstable probability estimate, a combination that can trigger the absurdity heuristic. Consider the scenarios listed below: (a) Do these scenarios have something in common? (b) Are...

Updated Version @ LW Wiki: wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Programming_resources Contents * How Computers Work * An Overview of Computer Programming * Computer Science and Computation * Supplementary Resources: Mathematics and Algorithms * Practice * Python * Haskell * Common Lisp * R How Computers Work 1. CODE The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware...

From time to time I encounter people who claim that our brains are really slow compared to even an average laptop computer and can't process big numbers. At the risk of revealing my complete lack of knowledge of neural networks and how the brain works, I want to ask if...

More: Skoll Global Threats Fund | To Safeguard Humanity from Global Threats > The panel surfaced a number of issues that contribute to our inability to date to make serious strides on global challenges, including income inequality, failure of governance and lack of leadership. It also explored some deeper issues...

The Power of Algorithms Evolutionary processes are the most evident example of the power of simple algorithms [1][2][3][4][5]. The field of evolutionary biology gathered a vast amount of evidence [6] that established evolution as the process that explains the local decrease in entropy [7], the complexity of life. Since it...

This is a reply to a comment by Yvain and everyone who might have misunderstood what problem I tried to highlight. Here is the problem. You can't estimate the probability and magnitude of the advantage an AI will have if you are using something that is as vague as the...