rwallace has been arguing the position that AI researchers are too concerned (or will become too concerned) about the existential risk from UFAI. He writes that
we need software tools smart enough to help us deal with complexity.
rwallace: can we deal with complexity sufficiently well without new software that engages in strongly-recursive self-improvement?
Without new AGI software?
One part of the risk that rwallace says outweighs the risk of UFAI is that
we remain confined to one little planet . . . with everyone in weapon range of everyone else
The only response rwallace suggests to that risk is
... (read more)we need more advanced technology, for which we need software tools smart enough to help us
I agree that introspection certainly can be a valid tool.
I have a strong pain signal from lost money and from lost time. To the extent that I can introspect on the workings of my insula, I think that this is one impulse for me, rather than two as Yvain describes - one for time and one for money.
The most parsimonious explanation of what you observe is that it is human nature to be overconfident of the results of introspection.
When I wrote that "it is never in the financial self-interest of any [self-help] practitioner to do the hard long work to collect evidence that would sway a non-gullible client," I referred to long hard work many orders of magnitude longer and harder than posting a link to a web page. Consequently, your pointing out that you post links to web pages even when it is not in your financial self-interest to do so does not refute my point. I do not maintain that you should do the long hard work to collect evidence that would sway a non-guillible client: you probably cannot afford to spend the necessary time, attention... (read more)
Previously in this thread I opined as follows on the state of the art in self help: there are enough gullible prospective clients that it is never in the financial self-interest of any practitioner to do the hard long work to collect evidence that would sway a non-guillible client.
PJ Eby took exception as follows:
you ignored the part where I just gave somebody a pointer to somebody else's work that they could download for free
Lots of people offer pointers to somebody else's writings. Most of those people do not know enough about how to produce lasting useful psychological change to know when a document or an author is actually worth the reader's... (read 796 more words →)
Previously in this thread: PJ Eby asserts that the inability to refrain from conveying contempt is a common and severe interpersonal handicap. Nazgulnarsil replies, "This is my problem. . . . I can't hide the fact that I feel contempt for the vast majority of the people around me (including desirable partners)."
I probably have the problem too. Although it is rare that I am aware of feeling contempt for my interlocutor, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that messages (mostly nonverbal) conveying contempt are present in my face-to-face communication with non-friends (even if I would like the non-friend to become a friend).
I expect that PJ Eby will assure me... (read more)
I changed the title of my post from "Mate selection for the male rationalist" to "Mate selection for the men here".
We differ in that respect, perhaps because I have had more time slowly to shape my emotional responses to women.
BTW it would be great to have all my writings subjected to examination by the community to determine whether the writings use probability distributions, utility functions and the language of causality correctly and sensibly.
The following started as a reply to a request for relationship advice (http://lesswrong.com/lw/zj/open_thread_june_2009/rxy) but is expected to be of enough general interest to justify a top-level post. Sometimes it is beneficial to have older men in the conversation, and this might be one of those times. (I am in my late 40s.)
I am pretty sure that most straight men strong in rationality are better off learning how the typical woman thinks than holding out for a long-term relationship with a women as strong in rationality as he is. If you hold out for a strong female rationalist, you drastically shrink the pool of women you have to choose from -- and people... (read 877 more words →)
Let us briefly review the discussion up to now since many readers use the the comments page which does not provide much context. rwallace has been arguing that AI researchers are too concerned (or will become too concerned) about the existential risk from reimplementing EURISKO and things like that.
You have mentioned two or three times, rwallace, that without more advanced technology, humans will eventually go extinct. (I quote one of those 2 or 3 mentions below.) You mention that to create and to manage that future advanced technology, civilization will need better tools to manage complexity. Well, I see one possible objection to your argument right... (read more)