I have a question that is extremely practical. My company is working with AI that is frankly not all that capable. A key example includes text classification that humans do, but that would let us avoid the expense of having a human do it. Off-the-shelf machine learning works fine for...
I read the article found at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3035671/how-i-get-it-done/a-new-technique-for-creating-more-aha-moments-the-surprise-journal I started writing a few things down. I realize that the point of the surprise journal is to give your brain a little reward for noticing something. So, the actual keeping of the journal is surplus. You could write it down and then...
In the moral parliament, I would constantly move that I am appointed dictator forever. Eventually, I will win the lottery. Except of course that everyone else will do the same, so the odds are that someone else will win before I will. I say this to point out that the interesting parts of the moral parliament end up being the constrains on the mechanism, rather than the mechanism itself. The paper, in fact, handles these constraints by abandoning the mechanism! It says that we'll assume everyone acts as if there will be a lottery, but we'll actually just use straight plurality voting.
Two very small contributions:
I have a question that is extremely practical.
My company is working with AI that is frankly not all that capable. A key example includes text classification that humans do, but that would let us avoid the expense of having a human do it. Off-the-shelf machine learning works fine for that. But we're starting the long process of learning and using various AI techniques. Over time, that should become much more sophisticated as we solve easy problems with very limited capabilities.
I'm in a position to erect prohibitions now on any future AI work that we do. These would be in the nature of "don't do X without escalated approvals." Should I require such... (read more)
I would point to a different cycle to explain the fall of Rome. Set this against both the Malthusian trap theory and the (many) theories around technology. This is an institutional story.
One of the key problems that the Roman state failed to solve was that of who rules. The Republic was semi-successful at this. It used public recognition and generational advancement in social class as its main methods of controlling elites. This ultimately failed after the Carthaginian wars eliminated the external enemy that kept internal politicking in check. At this point you see a continuous cycle of ambitious elites conquering new territories in the name of Rome and — this is critical... (read 510 more words →)
abolishing all labor law would vastly increase the size of the economy
[citation needed], as the saying goes.
I kind of doubt it. There are virtually no serious non-Marxist economists who believe that artificially raising the cost of labor, capital, or any other economic input diminishes output. The real debate is over whether it is appropriate to do so for other reasons, like fairness, justice, equality, and so on. So, if you really need a citation, I'd say that any first-year economics textbook would do it.
... (read 495 more words →)it would probably be a mistake for the list to pick specific economic policies on the basis that they produce the fastest economic growth, since then the discussion would
This is an intended as a provocation to think outside your box. I hope you take it in the spirit intended.
If you are really brainstorming around the risk of a collapse of civilization due to some catastrophe, it is really hard to think outside your own political preferences. I say this from experience because I shy away from certain solutions (and even from acknowledging the problem). So allow me to suggest that your own limitations are making you avoid what I'd call ugly choices.
You suggest international cooperation as a way to prevent widespread destruction. Well, maybe. But there are two to four countries that have developed or are developing nuclear weapons and... (read more)
I concur. The only point to a putting permanent space stations into orbit is if it helps us along the path to putting humans some place that they can live for years after something really bad happens to Earth. That means a full, independent ecosystem that produces sufficient resources and new people to colonize Earth.
... "Colonize Earth" -- what a strange pair of sentences to write.
Here is a thread on the "Recovery Manual for Civilization," which I thought is a useful addition to your list: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l6r/manual_for_civilization/
And here was (most of) my comment in that thread:
... (read more)My first conclusion was that there are all kinds of events that could lead to a collapse of civilization without exterminating humanity directly. But it may be impossible for humanity to rise back from the ashes if it stays there too long. Humanity can't take the same path it took to get to where it is now. For example, humanity developed different forms of energy as prices of previous forms rose. For example, we started digging up shallow coal when population grew too
Here's a link to the base rate fallacy article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy.
A thing to avoid in your situation is focusing excessively on the specifics that lead you to conclude that the local public school will be as good as the private school you are attending. Generally speaking, public schools are lower quality than private schools. But getting a little more narrow might be worthwhile: How are the public schools in your general area compared to public schools in the country, using objective statistics on things like SAT rates? Now, can you compare that to your private school or your brand of private school (Catholic, secular, whatever)? Think about other metrics that... (read more)
When thinking that the local public school is otherwise equivalent to your boarding school, you should consider two things in addition to the things that others have noted:
What's the base rate? Generally, private schools are better than public schools. Otherwise, people would not pay for private schools. Anecdotally, I am always appalled by the things I hear about public schools (since my kids went to private school). I'm also appalled by my own memories of public schools. The qualitative difference is usually pretty big.
Public schools' reputations are usually overblown compared to private schools. Generally, you get into a public school by where you live. The reputation of the local public school thus
I read the article found at:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3035671/how-i-get-it-done/a-new-technique-for-creating-more-aha-moments-the-surprise-journal
I started writing a few things down. I realize that the point of the surprise journal is to give your brain a little reward for noticing something. So, the actual keeping of the journal is surplus. You could write it down and then throw it away.
But that feels intuitively like an open loop. Is anyone doing anything with a surprise journal after writing it down?
I'm all over the bias issues. Because I can address them from my own practical experience, I'm happy working with what I know. The AI safety issues are way outside my practical experience, and I know it.