player_03

Gary Marcus Yann LeCun describes LLMs as "an off-ramp on the road to AGI," and I'm inclined to agree. LLMs themselves aren't likely to "turn AGI." Each generation of LLMs demonstrates the same fundamental flaws, even as they get better at hiding them.

But I also completely buy the "FOOM even without superintelligence" angle, as well as the argument that they'll speed up AI research by an unpredictable amount.

I agree that it can take a long time to prove simple things. But my claim is that one has to be very stupid to think 1+1=3

Or one might be working from different axioms. I don't know what axioms, and I'd look at you funny until you explained, but I can't rule it out. It's possible (though implausible given its length) that Principia Mathematica wasn't thorough enough, that it snuck in a hidden axiom that - if challenged - would reveal an equally-coherent alternate counting system in which 1+1=3.

I brought up Euclid's postulates as an example of a time thi... (read more)

In other words, when I say that "Murder is bad," that is a fact about the world, as true as 2+2=4 or the Pythagorean theorem.

I like this way of putting it.

In Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell spent over 300 pages laying groundwork before they even attempt to prove 1+1=2. Among other things, they needed to define numbers (especially the numbers 1 and 2), equality, and addition.

I do think "1+1=2" is an obvious fact. If someone claimed to be intelligent and also said that 1+1=3, I'd look at them funny and press for clarification. Given all the a... (read more)

Back when you were underestimating Covid, how much did you hear from epidemiologists? Either directly or filtered through media coverage?

I was going to give an answer about how "taking the outside view" should work, but I realized I needed this information first.

I don't think it invalidates the claim that "Without the minimum wage law, lots of people would probably be paid significantly less." (I believe that's one of the claims you were referring to. Let me know if I misinterpreted your post.)

I don't have a whole lot of time to research economies around the world, but I checked out a couple sources with varying perspectives (two struck me as neutral, two as libertarian). One of the libertarian ones made no effort to understand or explain the phenomenon, but all three others agreed that these countries rely on str... (read more)

Most of the research is aware of that limitation. Either they address it directly, or the experiment is designed to work around it, assuming mental state based on actions just as you suggest.

My point here isn't necessarily that you're wrong, but that you can make a stronger point by acknowledging and addressing the existing literature. Explain why you've settled on suicidal behavior as the best available indicator, as opposed to vocalizations and mannerisms.

This is important because, as gbear605 pointed out, most farms restrict animals' ability to attempt ... (read more)

I'm afraid I don't have time to write out my own views on this topic, but I think it's important to note that several researchers have looked into the question of whether animals experience emotion. I think your post would be a lot stronger if you addressed and/or cited some of this research.

I do want to add - separately - that superrational agents (not sure about EDT) can solve this problem in a roundabout way.

Imagine if some prankster erased the "1" and "2" from the signs in rooms A1 and A2, leaving just "A" in both cases. Now everyone has less information and makes better decisions. And in the real contest, (super)rational agents could achieve the same effect by keeping their eyes closed. Simply say "tails," maximize expected value, and leave the room never knowing which one it was.

None of which should be necessary. (Super)rational agents s... (read more)

Oh right, I see where you're coming from. When I said "you can't control their vote" I was missing the point, because as far superrational agents are concerned, they do control each other's votes. And in that case, it sure seems like they'll go for the $2, earning less money overall.

It occurs to me that if team 4 didn't exist, but teams 1-3 were still equally likely, then "heads" actually would be the better option. If everyone guesses "heads," two teams are right, and they take home $4. If everyone guesses "tails," team 3 takes home $3 and that's it. On a... (read more)

It is a stretch, which is why it needed to be explained.

I don't mind the occasional protagonist who makes their own trouble. I agree it would be annoying if all protagonists were like that (and I agree that Harry is annoying in general), there's room in the world for stories like this.

Now that you mention it, your first example does sound like a Deus Ex Machina. Except that

It's been a while since I read it, but off the top of my head I can't recall any blatant cases of Deus ex Machina. I'd ask for concrete examples, but I don't think it would be useful. I'm sure you can provide an example, and in turn I'll point out reasons why it doesn't count as Deus ex Machina. We'd argue about how well the solution was explained, and whether enough clues were presented far enough in advance to count as valid foreshadowing, and ultimately it'll come down to opinion.

Instead, I can go ahead and a... (read more)

An example I like is the Knight Capital Group trading incident. Here are the parts that I consider relevant:

KCG deployed new code to a production environment, and while I assume this code was thoroughly tested in a sandbox, one of the production servers had some legacy code ("Power Peg") that wasn't in the sandbox and therefore wasn't tested with the new code. These two pieces of code used the same flag for different purposes: the new code set the flag during routine trading, but Power Peg interpreted that flag as a signal to buy and sell ~10,000... (read more)

I suppose, but even then he would have to take time to review the state of the puzzle. You would still expect him to take longer to spot complex details, and perhaps he'd examine a piece or two to refresh his memory.

But that isn't my true rejection here.

If you assume that Claude's brother "spent arbitrarily much time" beforehand, the moral of the story becomes significantly less helpful: "If you're having trouble, spend an arbitrarily large amount of time working on the problem."

His brother's hint contained information that he couldn't have gotten by giving the hint to himself. The fact that his brother said this while passing by means that he spotted a low-hanging fruit. If his brother had spent more time looking before giving the hint, this would have indicated a fruit that was a little higher up.

This advice is worth trying, but when you give it to yourself, you can't be sure that there's low hanging fruit left. If someone else gives it to you, you know it's worth looking for, because you know there's something there to find. (T... (read more)

Harry left "a portion of his life" (not an exact quote) in Azkaban, and apparently it will remain there forever. That could be the remnant that Death would fail to destroy.

Anyway, Snape drew attention to the final line in the prophecy. It talked about two different spirits that couldn't exist in the same world, or perhaps two ingredients that cannot exist in the same cauldron. That's not Harry and Voldemort; that's Harry and Death.

I mean, Harry has already sworn to put an end to death. It's how he casts his patronus. He's a lot less sure about killing Voldemort, and would prefer not to, if given the choice.

On the other hand, MIRI hit its goal three weeks early, so the amount of support is pretty obvious.

Though I have to admit, I was going to remain silent too, and upon reflection I couldn't think of any good reasons to do so. It may not be necessary, but it couldn't hurt either. So...

I donated $700 to CFAR.