ancientcampus

A vote against spaced repetition

LessWrong seems to be a big fan of spaced-repetition flashcard programs like Anki, Supermemo, or Mnemosyne. I used to be. After using them religiously for 3 years in medical school, I now categorically advise against using them for large volumes of memorization. [A caveat before people get upset: I think they appropriate in certain situations, and I have not tried to use them to learn a language, which seems its most popular use. More at the bottom.] A bit more history: I and 30 other students tried using Mnemosyne (and some used Anki) for multiple tests. At my school, we have a test approximately every 3 weeks, and each test covers about 75 pages of high-density outline-format notes. Many stopped after 5 or so such tests, citing that they simply did not get enough returns from their time. I stuck with it longer and used them more than anyone else, using them for 3 years. Incidentally, I failed my first year and had to repeat. By the end of that third year (and studying for my Step 1 boards, a several-month process), I lost faith in spaced-repetition cards as an effective tool for my memorization demands. I later met with a learning-skills specialist, who felt the same way, and had better reasons than my intuition/trial-and-error: * Flashcards are less useful to learning the “big picture” * Specifically, if you are memorizing a large amount of information, there is often a hierarchy, organization, etc that can make leaning the whole thing easier, and you loose the constant visual reminder of the larger context when using flashcards. * Flashcards do not take advantage of spatial, mapping, or visual memory, all of which the human mind is much better optimized for. It is not so well built to memorize pairs between seemingly arbitrary concepts with few to no intuitive links. My preferred methods are, in essence, hacks that use your visual and spatial memory rather than rote. Here are examples of the typical kind of things I memorize every day and have found fla

75Mar 10, 2014

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?

25Jan 22, 2013

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

21Feb 7, 2014

Fun fact: in medical school, we had a mini-lesson on common cognitive errors in medicine

21Oct 4, 2012

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14y

Donation Discussion - alternatives to the Against Malaria Foundation

About a year and a half ago, I made a donation to the Against Malaria Foundation. This was during jkaufman's generous matching offer. That was 20 months ago, and my money is still in the "underwriting" phase - funding projects that are still, of yet, just plans and no nets....

Oct 28, 20146

The immediate real-world uses of Friendly AI research

Much of the glamor and attention paid toward Friendly AI is focused on the misty-future event of a super-intelligent general AI, and how we can prevent it from repurposing our atoms to better run Quake 2. Until very recently, that was the full breadth of the field in my mind....

Aug 26, 201410

A vote against spaced repetition

Mar 10, 201475

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

Paper by the Cultural Cognition Project: The culturally polarizing effect of the "anti-science trope" on vaccine risk perceptions This is a great paper (indeed, I think many at LW would find the whole site enjoyable). I'll try to summarize it here. Background: The pro/anti vaccine debate has been hot recently....

Feb 7, 201421

Donating while in temporary debt (i.e. as a student)

Topic: I will be in debt for several years, but will eventually have a disposable income. Should I donate now or later? Here's my situation: I am a student, with student loans and no income. I can take out more loans than I need. Grad PLUS loans have a fixed...

Feb 5, 201314

Isolated AI with no chat whatsoever

Suppose you make a super-intelligent AI and run it on a computer. The computer has NO conventional means of output (no connections to other computers, no screen, etc). Might it still be able to get out / cause harm? I'll post my ideas, and you post yours in the comments....

Jan 28, 201316

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?

Eliezer proposed in a comment: >More difficult version of AI-Box Experiment: Instead of having up to 2 hours, you can lose at any time if the other player types AI DESTROYED. The Gatekeeper player has told their friends that they will type this as soon as the Experiment starts. You...

Jan 22, 201325

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A vote against spaced repetition

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

Fun fact: in medical school, we had a mini-lesson on common cognitive errors in medicine

ancientcampus

Donation Discussion - alternatives to the Against Malaria Foundation

The immediate real-world uses of Friendly AI research

A vote against spaced repetition

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

Donating while in temporary debt (i.e. as a student)

Isolated AI with no chat whatsoever

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?

A vote against spaced repetition

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

Fun fact: in medical school, we had a mini-lesson on common cognitive errors in medicine

Donation Discussion - alternatives to the Against Malaria Foundation

The immediate real-world uses of Friendly AI research

A vote against spaced repetition

Publication: the "anti-science" trope is culturally polarizing and makes people distrust scientists

Donating while in temporary debt (i.e. as a student)

Isolated AI with no chat whatsoever

AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction - what might it say?