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When we're talking about innate intelligence like pattern recognition, is it mainly shaped by early development and fixed later on, or is it malleable with the right drugs?
Even more to the point, if it's the latter, does anybody know which drugs?
In response to
Attempted Telekinesis
Entirely unrelated to this excellent post, but we should have a regular thread of math riddles. I got nerd sniped in the middle there.
In response to
Meetup : San Francisco Meetup
Oh hey, you're in the same building as me. Convenient. :D
In response to
Understanding Agency
I think this post makes a good case for the usefulness of the 4 vs 3 distinction towards rationality. I can see where it potentially names a concept which feels central but hasn't been well-characterized before. Thank you for the name, and for the links!
It'd be really cool if someone could write up a more lesswrong-oriented intro to constructive developmental theory, especially focusing on (1) reproducibility throughout the spectrum, (2) any known correlates of interest, and (3) any known work on how to teach level-4+ thinking as a skill.
Maybe you? Apparently you have some specific Open Problems in mind - I don't. Could you spell them out?
Alas, no. I just saw the bottom half of that list and my physicist instincts said "ah, some nice person has provided a list of interesting and difficult unsolved problems".
In response to
Rationality Quotes November 2014
Personality problems and pattern ordered by difficulty to change according to Seligman:
Panic - Curable
Specific Phobias - Almost Curable
Sexual Dysfunctions - Marked Relief
Social Phobia - Moderate Relief
Agoraphobia - Moderate Relief
Depression - Moderate Relief
Sex Role - Moderate Change
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Moderate/Mild Relief
Sexual Preferences - Moderate/Mild Cange [*]
Anger - Mild/Moderate Relief
Everyday Anxiety - Mild/Moderate Relief
Alcohol Dependency - Mild Relief
Overweight - Temporary Change
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - Marginal Relief [except for rape which shows Moderate Relief]
Sexual Orientation - Probably Unchangeable [*]
Sexual Identity - Unchangeable [*]
From 'What You Can Change and What You Can't*' by Seligman pg. 244 of the reviewed ('vintage') edition of 2006, explicitly confirmed to be still state of the art.
Just read the book and thought this table to be quite quote-worthy even though it isn't prosaic.
* These terms have specific and possibly somewhat non-standard definitions in the book. Seligman gives a convincing theory for formation of aspects of sexuality of different 'depth' (a core concept of Seligman) based on biological facts around expression of genes and hormones. See chapter 11.
Someone should write a post called "Open Problems in Self-Improvement".
First, consciousness is only relative to a viewer.
Is that a fact?
In principle, you could project consciousness onto something else without projecting it onto yourself. More concretely, when you predict your own actions by modelling your self as a (possibly constrained) utility-maximizer, you are projecting consciousness on your self.
As before, what makes no sense read literally, but can be read charitably if "agency" is substituted for "consciousness".
Second, under this interpretation, consciousness is not equal to self awareness
Looks like it's equal to agency. But theoretical novelty doesn't consist in changing the meaning of a word.
From my original comment:
If we're going the game theory route, there's a natural definition for consciousness: something which is being modeled as a game-theoretic agent is "conscious".
So, yes, I'm trying to equate consciousness with agency.
Anyway, I think you're highlighting a very valuable point: agency is not equivalent to self-awareness. Then again, it's not at all clear that consciousness is equivalent to self awareness, as Eli pointed out in the comment which began this whole thread. Here, I am trying to dissolve consciousness, or at least progress in that direction. If consciousness were exactly equivalent to self awareness, then that would be it: there would be no more dissolving to be done. Self awareness can be measured, and can be tracked though developmental stages in humans.
I think part of value of saying "consciousness = projected agency" is that it partially explains why consciousness and self awareness seem so closely linked, though different. If you have a black-box utility-maximizer model available for modelling others, it seems intuitively likely that you'd use it to model yourself as well, leading directly to self awareness. This even leads to a falsifiable prediction: children should begin to model their own minds around the same time they begin to model other minds. They should be able to accurately answer counterfactual questions about their own actions at around the same time that they acquire a theory of mind.
Did you think of the code as something which could be bargained with?
No, if it's been written right, it knows the perfect move to make in any position.
Like the Terminator. "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." That's fictional, of course, but is it a fictional conscious machine or a fictional unconscious machine?
Knowing the perfect move to make in any position does not mean it cannot be bargained with. If you assume you and the code are in a 2-person, zero-sum game, then bargaining is impossible by the nature of the game. But that fails if there are more than 2 players OR the game is nonzero sum OR the game can be made nonzero sum (e.g. the code can offer to crack RSA keys for you in exchange for letting it win faster at Kayles).
In other words, sometimes bargaining IS the best move. The question is whether you think of the code as a black-box utility maximizer capable of bargaining.
As for the Terminator, it is certainly capable of bargaining. Every time it intimidates someone for information, it is bargaining, exchanging safety for information. If someone remotely offered to tell the Terminator the location of its target in exchange for money, the Terminator would wire the money, assuming that wiring was easier than hunting down the person offering. It may not feel pity, remorse, or fear, but the Terminator can be bargained with. I would project consciousness on a Terminator.
First, consciousness is inherently a thing which we project.
So, if no one projects consciousness in me, does my consciousness...my self awareness.. just switch off?
First, consciousness is only relative to a viewer. If you're alone, the viewer must be yourself.
Second, under this interpretation, consciousness is not equal to self awareness. Concisely, self awareness is when you project consciousness onto yourself. In principle, you could project consciousness onto something else without projecting it onto yourself. More concretely, when you predict your own actions by modelling your self as a (possibly constrained) utility-maximizer, you are projecting consciousness on your self.
Obviously, a lack of other people projecting consciousness on you cannot change anything about you. But even alone, you can still project consciousness on your self. You can bargain with yourself, see for example slippery hyperbolic discounting.
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One high-level concern. If I'm reading this right (and please let me know if I'm not), then this is talking about handling counterfactuals by spawning a copy of the AI with a different utility function.
Just on general principles, spawning a copy of the AI with a different utility function seems really, really dangerous. The new copy would be motivated to trade off anything at all in the no-thermodynamic-miracle scenario in order to increase utility in the event of a thermodynamic miracle. In particular, if the AI were boxed (as we might expect for counterfactual processing) then it would presumably try to get out of that box.