I found most of the conference to otherwise be overly regimented without enough unstructured time.
I actually agree with this completely. That was my main piece of constructive advice for the conference: more unstructured time. The best conversations were around the hot tub. Funny how that works.
That's how it looks like from your perspective. From a reader's perspective, it looks like someone who isn't a notable community figure on LessWrong (At least, I assume this, based on your karma scores and the fact that I have never heard of you. If I'm wrong, I apologise.) has suddenly made a claim with a significant burden of proof on it, and not provided any concrete evidence, despite apparently sitting on some. "I have evidence but am not going to include this in this post, nor will I explain why I cannot include the evidence in this post." i...
Also, I was using "lol" to defuse the warning just a little bit, since people who are already financially committed may be liable to freak out just a little bit too much and I didn't want to be sending the wrong signal... Ok, enough said.
If you want to know how I reacted to it, go through you your post and substitute every instance of "lol" with "hahaha." Ask yourself "is this an appropriate point in a speech to laugh?"
If a person giving a speech laughs after they say things that are liable to give offense, it wil...
the most important factor: You are talking like a jerk, not just in the original post, but in every response to every comment about this I've read. You seem completely unable to comprehend (or possibly just to admit) that your opinions shouldn't be taken as the obvious word of god that they are, and think anyone questioning your assertions is doing it out of idiocy or spite. Even if tone is not a legitimate way to evaluate truth value of statements (though I think it tends contain a lot of evidence), it's definitely one of the big factors that influences downvotes.
Yes, I invented the idea of "philosophical hurdles" ages ago. For every "topic" there are some set of philosophical hurdles you have to overcome to even start approaching the right position. These hurdles can be surprisingly obscure. Perhaps you don't have quite enough math exposure and your concepts of infinity are a bit off, or you're aren't as solidly reductionistic as others and therefore your concept of identity is marginally weakened - anything like these can dramatically alter your entire life, goals, and decisions - and it can t...
Please see this excellent essay by Bruce Klein, founder of the Immortality Institute...
http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/151-immortalist-philosophy/
Immortalist Philosophy
Defined:
The immortalist philosophy is based upon the idea that humans only have one life and one chance to live. There are no alternative states to the current state other than oblivion. Thus, what we experience now and the life we have now is the only alternative.
Many people may look at the prospect of immortality with a large degree of skepticism. There is a pervasive feeling in so...
I agree with this completely. A lot of the times we simply don't have information beyond broad generalizations or estimates more accurate than within a order of magnitude or something, and yet people still insist on trying to formulate and act on precise quantifications, even though such information doesn't even exist.
I would guess walks in familiar areas (e.g. common routes within your house/apartment) would be more helpful. Since you see a lot of the same imagery it may help your imagination fill in the details. again be careful walking around with eyes closed.
another thing that could help is visualization by parts. work on getting just one piece clear in your mind before gradually expanding on that, and maybe with practice you can put the pieces together more quickly.
Pick a video game. Preferably something with a lot of consistent imagery/gameplay. A racing game running the same map would be a great example.
Play this video game from when you wake up to when you go to bed, with minimal time for breaks or distractions.
After hours of having these images burned into your retinas, randomly try closing your eyes for just a moment or two and rest your brain every once in a while.. When I'm playing video games intensely and then I shut my eyes, sometimes it's like I never even shut them in the first place - all the images
It's an incredibly complicated software and hardware system. Maybe the most complex thing ever invented. There are bugs. There are unknown unknowns. There are people trying to steal the AI technology. There are people who already have AI technology who are going forward without hindering themselves with these restrictions. All of this doesn't happen in a bubble; there's context. This setup has to come from somewhere. The AI has to come from somewhere. This has to be implemented in an actual place. Somebody has to fund all of this - without using that power...
I love what you're doing and was with up until the conclusion, "Given all these assumptions, then it seems that this setup will produce what we want: a reduced impact AI that will program a disciple AI that will build a paperclip and little else."
Obviously such a conclusion does not realistically follow simply from implementing this one safety device. This is one good idea, but alone isn't nearly sufficient. You will need many, many more good ideas.
It's at the bottom here, and I thought it was the most interesting thing of all that I found :)
I thought there used to be a much longer list of "Failures of Friendliness" but I can't seem to find anything else.
Completely wrong.
As a software engineer at a company with way too much work to go around, I can tell you that making a "good effort" goes a long way. 90% of the time you don't have to "make it work or get a zero". As long as you are showing progress you can generally keep the client happy (or at least not firing you) as you get things done, even if you are missing deadlines. And this seems very much normal to me. I'm not sure where in the market you have to "make it work or get a zero". I'm not even convinced that exists.