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Thanks for posting - looks like it was an impressive turnout. I would love to see some comments on any highlights / thoughts / conclusions that came about from that.
In response to
Stupid Questions January 2015
I’m considering creating a Linkedin profile. I probably should have made one long ago, but, because of my severe social anxiety and a visceral reaction to any activity which involves selling myself, I have avoided it. However, I think it’s probably best to bite the bullet and work through creating the profile and to at least send connection requests to people who I am currently working with. However, first I’d like to know if it looks bad to have a profile with only a few connections. Is that worse than having no profile at all?
I dont think it is a problem to have few connections. Everyone starts with zero connections at the start, and many (if not most?) people only use it occasionally.
I think it will become more valuable in the future for employment, as it does provide a fairly easy 'living resume', that potential employers can see; so make your work history well written and polished (as it, treat it exactly like a resume).
I think there are several levels to this question:
Any issue based on Politics or Religion will have experts on both sides arguing for their case based on their own personal choice and biases - these are more often than not, arguments and discussions rooted entirely on opinion.
For controversial issues in Science and Economics I will try to determine if there are any biases based on point 1. In some cases this becomes visible based on the political leanings of the Scientists and / or corporate sponsorship of the study.
In the Maths world there doesn't seem to be any controversial issues over the results (which is why I kind of like maths a lot!), however there are many issues on which approach to take and how useful a result is. For those sorts of predictive issues I don't usually have a strong opinion
So in general, it comes down to what the biases are. Everyone has an opinion, and these are (or ought to be) less relevant the deeper you get into the Science and Maths.
In response to
Open thread, Dec. 29, 2014 - Jan 04, 2015
I’m looking for a mentor who is in the software industry.
About me: I’m studying math at a university in Ohio, and I’ll graduate in May. I’m a mostly self taught programmer, but I’ve also taken a few CS classes at school and on Coursera. My most developed skills are in Python and Django, though I’ve also used C, C#, Haskell, SQL, Javascript and a few other technologies.
My goal is to find a job as a software developer, but I face several challenges: - I don’t have any job experience in software. - I don’t know many people in the industry. - My university’s Career Services isn’t very helpful.
So I’m looking for somebody who can answer some questions and give me advice on getting started in the industry. I know it’s a long shot, but there is no downside to asking. If anybody is willing to help, please PM me.
Instead of using a name like a_lurker and asking for PM's I would suggest going trying to be a little more public - your goal should be to display to potential employers that you can code. This is actually harder than it sounds, as programmers (especially self taught) are more likely to be introverted and don't like marketing themselves. [from my personal perspective]
Some suggestions would be:
Pick some sort of professional sounding name for yourself (doesn't have to be a business name) that you want to be known as - better if it is rare on google. You will use this name to promote your knowledge and collaboration on many websites
Register a domain - even if it is a .info with a simple About you page, saying you are looking for work and your resume. This website should be in your email signature and plugged on other site below.
Start a github account (learn git first) and publish something - anything that you think was good code [as long as it isn't the answer to any of your course assignments]
Answer questions on Stackoverflow with your professional name - and ask questions. Don't spam it, but don't be afraid to ask stupid questions.
Get a linkedin account and grow your network there
Happy to answer any PM's you have, but you should think about promoting yourself if you want work.
Cheers,
Duncan
This is not an unreasonable question to ask, and I believe you are referring to an Ontology. OpenCyc is probably the best one of many that does this, though it has its own criticisms.
There are many other ontologies and I did a short summary when I was trying to find an answer the same question myself.
In response to
[LINK] Steven Hawking warns of the dangers of AI
All of these high status scientists speaking out about AGI existential risk seldom mention MIRI or use their terminology. I guess MIRI is still seen as too low status.
There has certainly been increased general media coverage lately , and MIRI was mentioned in the Financial Times recently.
In response to
MIRI Research Guide
Thanks for this - I particularly like the suggested ordering.
Is this designed to replaced the course list , or is the course list more for future tasks in that it has some actual programming subjects?
Very interesting article. The level of PVP could be related to sports in terms that the top players (Olympics) are the best of the best but most of us are happy playing weekend sports or even watching it.
In response to
Can AIXI be trained to do anything a human can?
Therefore, they cannot identify "that computer running the code" with "me", and would cheerfully destroy themselves in the pursuit of their goals/reward.
I am curious as to why an AIXI like entity would need to model itself (and all its possible calculations) in order to differentiate the code it is running with the external universe.
The human in charge of a reward channel could work for initial versions, but once its intelligence grew wouldn't it know what was happening (like the box AI example - not likely to work in the long term).
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Great response! That was interesting - felt a bit disturbing at times (not by the AI but by the human)
Nicely played on both sides.