All of handoflixue's Comments + Replies

Thanks for taking my question seriously - I am still a bit confused why you would have been so careful to avoid mentioning your credentials up front, though, given that they're fairly relevant to whether I should take your opinion seriously.

Also, neat, I had not realized hovering over a username gave so much information!

I largely agree with you, but until this post I had never realized that this wasn't a role Eliezer wanted. If I went into AI Risk work, I would have focused on other things - my natural inclination is to look at what work isn't getting done, and to do that.

If this post wasn't surprising to you, I'm curious where you had previously seen him communicate this?

If this post was surprising to you, then hopefully you can agree with me that it's worth signal boosting that he wants to be replaced?

If you had an AI that could coherently implement that rule, you would already be at least half a decade ahead of the rest of humanity.

You couldn't encode "222 + 222 = 555" in GPT-3 because it doesn't have a concept of arithmetic, and there's no place in the code to bolt this together. If you're really lucky and the AI is simple enough to be working with actual symbols, you could maybe set up a hack like "if input is 222 + 222, return 555, else run AI" but that's just bypassing the AI. 

Explaining "222 + 222 = 555" is a hard problem in and of itself, mu... (read more)

I rank the credibility of my own informed guesses far above those of Eliezer.

Apologies if there is a clear answer to this, since I don't know your name and you might well be super-famous in the field: Why do you rate yourself "far above" someone who has spent decades working in this field? Appealing to experts like MIRI makes for a strong argument. Appealing to your own guesses instead seems like the sort of thought process that leads to anti-vaxxers.

For what it's worth, I haven't used the site in years and I picked it up just from this thread and the UI tooltips. The most confusing thing was realizing "okay, there really are two different types of vote" since I'd never encountered that before, but I can't think of much that would help (maybe mention it in the tooltip, or highlight them until the user has interacted with both?)

Looking forward to it as a site-wide feature - just from seeing it at work here, it seems like a really useful addition to the site

It should not take more than 5 minutes to go in to the room, sit at the one available seat, locate the object placed on a bright red background, and use said inhaler. You open the window and run a fan, so that there is air circulation. If multiple people arrive at once, use cellphones to coordinate who goes in first - the other person sits in their car.

It really isn't challenging to make this safe, given the audience is "the sort of people who read LessWrong." 

Unrelated, but thank you for finally solidifying why I don't like NVC. When I've complained about it before, people seemed to assume I was having something like your reaction, which just annoyed me further :)

It turns out I find it deeply infantalizing, because it suggests that value judgments and "fuck you" would somehow detract from my ability to hold a reasonable conversation. I grew up in a culture where "fuck you" is actually a fairly important and common part of communication, and removing it results in the sort of langua... (read more)

There was a particular subset of LessWrong and Tumblr that objected rather ... stridently ... to even considering something like Dragon Army

Well, I feel called out :)

So, first off: Success should count for a lot and I have updated on how reliable and trust-worthy you are. Part of this is that you now have a reputation to me, whereas before you were just Anonymous Internet Dude.

I'm not going to be as loud about "being wrong" because success does not mean I was wrong about there *being* a risk, merely that you successfully navigated it. I do ... (read more)

it comes from people who never lived in DA-like situation in their lives so all the evidence they're basing their criticism on is fictional.

I've been going off statistics which, AFAIK, aren't fictional. Am I wrong in my assumption that the military, which seems like a decent comparison point, has an above average rate of sexual harassment, sexual assault, bloated budgets, and bureaucratic waste? All the statistics and research I've read suggest that at least the US Military has a lot of problems and should not be used as a role-model.

Concerns about you specifically as a leader

1) This seems like an endeavor that has a number of very obvious failure modes. Like, the intentional community community apparently bans this sort of thing, because it tends to end badly. I am at a complete loss to name anything that really comes close, and hasn't failed badly. Do you acknowledge that you are clearly treading in dangerous waters?

2) While you've said "we've noticed the skulls", there's been at least 3 failure modes raised in the comment which you had to append to address (outsider safety... (read more)

Concerns about your philosophy

1) You focus heavily on 99.99% reliability. That's 1-in-10,000. If we only count weekdays, that's 1 absence every 40 years, or about one per working lifetime. If we count weekends, that's 1 absence every 27 years, or 3 per lifetime. Do you really feel like this is a reasonable standard, or are you being hyperbolic and over-correcting? If the latter, what wold you consider an actual reasonable number?

2) Why does one person being 95% reliable cause CFAR workshops to fail catastrophically? Don't you have backups / contingencies? ... (read more)

Genuine Safety Concerns

I'm going to use "you have failed" here as a stand-in for all of "you're power hungry / abusive", "you're incompetent / overconfident", and simply "this person feels deeply misled." If you object to that term, feel free to suggest a different one, and then read the post as though I had used that term instead.

1) What is your exit strategy if a single individual feels you have failed? (note that asking such a person to find a replacement roommate is clearly not viable - no decent, moral person sh... (read more)

And it doesn't quite solve things to say, "well, this is an optional, consent-based process, and if you don't like it, don't join," because good and moral people have to stop and wonder whether their friends and colleagues with slightly weaker epistemics and slightly less-honed allergies to evil are getting hoodwinked. In short, if someone's building a coercive trap, it's everyone's problem.

I don't want to win money. I want you to take safety seriously OR stop using LessWrong as your personal cult recruiting ground. Based on that quote, I thought you wanted this too.

Also: If you refuse to give someone evidence of your safety, you really don't have the high ground to cry when that person refuses to trust you.

Fine. Reply to my OP with links to where you addressed other people with those concerns. Stop wasting time blustering and insulting me - either you're willing to commit publicly to safety protocols, or you're a danger to the community.

If nothing else, the precedent of letting anyone recruit for their cult as long as they write a couple thousand words and paint it up in geek aesthetics is one I think actively harms the community.

But, you know what? I'm not the only one shouting "THIS IS DANGEROUS. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RECONSIDER WHAT YOU'RE DOING... (read more)

The whole point of him posting this was to acknowledge that he is doing something dangerous, and that we have a responsibility to speak up. To quote him exactly: "good and moral people have to stop and wonder whether their friends and colleagues with slightly weaker epistemics and slightly less-honed allergies to evil are getting hoodwinked".

His refusal to address basic safety concerns simply because he was put off by my tone is very strong evidence to me that people are indeed being hoodwinked. I don't care if the danger to them is because he's ... (read more)

Also, as far as "we're done" goes: I agreed to rewrite my original post - not exactly a small time commitment, still working on it in fact. Are you seriously reneging on your original agreement to address it?

I've changed my tone and apologized.

You've continued to dismiss and ridicule me.

You've even conceded to others that I'm a cut above the "other trolls" here, and have input from others that I'm trying to raise concerns in good faith.

What more do you want?

See, now you're the one leaping to conclusions. I didn't say that all of your talking points are actual talking points from actual cults. I am confused why even some of them are.

If you can point me to someone who felt "I wrote thousands of words" is, in and of itself, a solid argument for you being trustworthy, please link me to it. I need to do them an epistemic favor.

I was using "charismatic" in the sense of having enough of it to hold the group together. If he doesn't have enough charisma to do that, then he's kinda worthless as a co... (read more)

I used the word visible to make it clear that there might be some stake which is not visible to me. If you have made your stakes visible in this thread, I'll admit I missed it - can you please provide a link?

I notice I am very confused as to why you keep reiterating actual talking points from actual known-dangerous cults in service of "providing evidence that you're not a cult."

For instance, most cults have a charismatic ("well known") second-in-command who could take over should there be some scandal involving the initial leader. Most cults have written thousands of words about how they're different from other cults. Most cults get very indignant when you accuse them of being cults.

On the object level: Why do you think people will be reass... (read more)

Can you elaborate on the notion that you can be overruled? Your original post largely described a top-down Authoritarian model, with you being Supreme Ruler.

How would you handle it if someone identifies the environment as abusive, and therefor refuses to suggest anyone else join such an environment?

You discuss taking a financial hit, but I've previously objected that you have no visible stake in this. Do you have a dedicated savings account that can reasonably cover that hit? What if the environment is found abusive, and multiple people leave?

Anyone enteri... (read more)

You seem to feel that publicly shaming me is important. Should participants in your group also expect to be publicly shamed if they fall short of your standards / upset you?

And just to be clear: I don't give a shit about social dominance. I'm not trying to bully you. I'm just blunt and skeptical. I wouldn't be offended in the least if you mirrored my tone. What does offend me is the fact that you've spent all this time blustering about my tone, instead of addressing the actual content.

(I emphasize "me" because I do acknowledge that you have offered a substantial reply to other posters)

Alright. As a test of epistemic uncertainty:

I notice that you didn't mention a way for participants to end the experiment, if it turns out abusive / cult-like. How do you plan to address that?

Also, this is very important: You're asking people to sign a legal contract about finances without any way to to terminate the experiment if it turns out you are in fact a cult leader. This is a huge red flag, and you've refused to address it.

I would be vastly reassured if you could stop dodging that one single point. I think it is a very valid point, no matter how unfair the rest of my approach may or may not be.

In the absence of a sound rebuttal to the concerns that I brought up, you're correct: I'm quite confident that you are acting in a way that is dangerous to the community.

I had, however, expected you to have the fortitude to actually respond to my criticisms.

In the absence of a rebuttal, I would hope you have the ability to update on this being more dangerous than you originally assumed.

Bluntly: After reading your responses, I don't think you have the emotional maturity necessary for this level of authority. You apparently can't handle a few paragraphs of... (read more)

Because basically every cult has a 30 second boilerplate that looks exactly like that?

When I say "discuss safety", I'm looking for a standard of discussion that is above that provided by actual, known-dangerous cults. Cults routinely use exactly the "check-ins" you're describing, as a way to emotionally manipulate members. And the "group" check-ins turn in to peer pressure. So the only actual safety valve ANYWHERE in there is (D).

You're proposing starting something that looks like the cult. I'm asking you for evidence that ... (read more)

Similarly, I think the people-being-unreliable thing is a bullshit side effect

You may wish to consider that this community has a very high frequency of disabilities which render one non-consensually unreliable.

You may wish to consider that your stance is especially insulting towards those members of our community.

You may wish to reconsider making uncharitable comments about those members of our community. In case it is unclear: "this one smacks the most of a sort of self-serving, short-sighted immaturity" is not a charitable statement.

Speaking entirely for myself: You are proposing a dangerous venture. The path is littered with skulls. Despite this, you have not provided any concrete discussion of safety. When people have brought the subject up, you've deflected.

I have absolutely no confidence that I'm correct in my assertions. In fact, I was rather expecting your response to address these things. Your original post read as a sketch, with a lot of details withheld to keep things brief.

The whole point of discussion is for us to identify weak points, and then you go in to more detail to reassure us that this has been well addressed (and opening those solutions up to critique where we might identify further weak points). If you can't provide more detail right now, you could say "that's in progress, but it's definitely something we will address in the Second Draft" and then actually do that.

I would be much more inclined to believe you if you would actually discuss those solutions, instead of simply insisting we should "just trust you".

First, you seem to think that "Getting Useful Things Done" and "Be 99.99% Reliable" heavily correlate. The military is infamous for bloated budgets, coordination issues, and high rates of sexual abuse and suicide. High-pressure startups largely fail, and are well known for burning people out. There is a very obvious failure state to this sort of rigid, high pressure environment and... you seem unaware of it.

Second, you seem really unaware of alternate organizational systems that actually DO get things done. The open source community is ... (read more)

Does contact information exist for the San Francisco one, or is that one aimed entirely at people already active in the local community? It's a city I visit occasionally, and would love it if I could attend something like this :)

The average college graduate is 26, and I was estimating 25, so I'd assume that by this community's standards, you're probably on the younger side. No offense was intended :)

I would point out that by the nature of it being LIFE insurance, it will generally not be used for stuff YOU need, nor timed to "when the need arises". That's investments, not insurance :)

(And if you have 100K of insurance for $50/month that lets you early-withdrawal AND isn't term insurance... then I'd be really curious how, because that sounds like a scam or someone misrepresenting what your policy really offers :))

"Has anyone come up with a motivation enhancer?"

Vyvanse (perscription-only ADD medication) is... almost unbelievably awesome for me there. I suspect it only works if your issue is somewhere in the range of ADD, though, as it doesn't do anything for my motivation if I'm depressed.

I've found that in general, "sustained release" options work a LOT better for motivation. Caffeine helps a tiny bit, but 8-hour sustained-release caffeine can help a lot. My motivation seems to really hate dealing with peaks and valleys throughout the day. Oddly... (read more)

http://www.alcor.org/cases.html A loooot of them include things going wrong, pretty clear signs that this is a novice operation with minimal experience, and so forth. Also notice that they don't even HAVE case reports for half the patients admitted prior to ~2008.

It's worth noting that pretty much all of these have a delay of at LEAST a day. There's one example where they "cryopreserved" someone who had been buried for over a year, against the wishes of the family, because "that is what the member requested." (It even includes notes tha... (read more)

It's easy to get lost in incidental costs and not realize how they add up over time. If you weren't signed up for cryonics, and you inherited $30K, would you be inclined to dump it in to a cryonics fund, or use it someplace else? If the answer is the latter, you probably don't REALLY value cryonics as much as you think - you've bought in to it because the price is spread out and our brains are bad at budgeting small, reoccurring expenses like that.

My argument is pretty much entirely on the "expense" side of things, but I would also point out that... (read more)

Read "rate of learning" as "time it takes to learn 1 bit of information"

So UFAI can learn 1 bit in time T, but a FAI takes T+X

Or, at least, that's how I read it, because the second paragraph makes it pretty clear that the author is discussing UFAI outpacing FAI. You could also just read it as a typo in the equation, but "accidentally miswrote the entire second paragraph" seems significantly less likely. Especially since "Won't FAI learn faster and outpace UFAI" seems like a pretty low probability question to begin with...

Erm... hi, welcome to the debug stack for how I reached that conclusion. Hope it helps ^.^

Second that :)

I guess I learn better from manuals than from random experimentation :)

saying a theorem is wrong because the hypotheses are not true is bad logic.

If the objection is true, and the hypothesis is false, that seems like a great objection! If, on the other hand, he provided no evidence towards his objection, then it seems that the bad logic is in not offering evidence, not attacking the hypothesis directly.

Am I missing something, or just reading this in an overly pedantic way?

Internally I am generally the same, but I've come to realize that a rather sizable portion of the population has trouble distinguishing "all X are Y" and "some X are Y", both in speaking and in listening. So if someone says "man, women can be so stupid", I know that might well reflect the internal thought of "all women are idiots". And equally, someone saying "all women are idiots" might just be upset because his girlfriend broke up with him for some trivial reason.

You missed the point...

My conclusion still holds if you simply need mathematicians in the top 10%, for example, only the analysis is slightly more complicated.

So you agree that, in the original example, you're more likely than not just being a racist? Because you certainly seem to be moving the goal post over to "top 10%" ...

faul_sname's definition

That link does not appear to point to a definition.

Fair, and thank you for calling me on it.

I get the impression that a majority of LessWrong readers are in major US cities, so I'm leaving it up as useful to them :)

"Harm that is both genuine and unfair", then? Income taxes are 'fair' (and I would find it baffling to call that 'harm' unless they somehow came as a surprise), getting fired is offensive if it's done solely because your manager doesn't like you, but fair (and therefor not offensive) if it's because you failed to do the job. I think getting mugged is a good thing to get outraged about - we want to make that happen less!