Why because I ask questions that when answered honestly you don't like?
The questions are fine. I think it's the repetitiveness, obvious hostility, and poor grammar and spelling that get on people's nerves.
I am going to respond to the general overall direction of your responses.
That is feeble, and for those who don't understand why let me explain it.
Eliezer works for SIAI which is a non-profit where his pay depends on donations. Many people on LW are interested in SIAI and some even donate to SIAI, others potentially could donate. When your pay depends on convincing people that your work is worthwhile it is always worth justifying what you are doing. This becomes even more important when it looks like you're distracted from what you are being paid to do. (If...
How am I troll? Did I not make a valid point? Have I not made other valid points? You may disagree with how I say something but that in no way labels me a troll.
The intention of my comment was to find what the hope for EYs FAI goals are based on here. I was trying to make the point with the zero, zilch idea... that the faith in EY making FAI is essentially blind faith.
"As a curiosity, having one defector in a group who is visibly socially penalized is actually a positive influence on those who witness it (as distinct from having a significant minority, which is a negative influence.) I expect this to be particularly the case when the troll is unable to invoke a similarly childish response."
Wow I say one negative thing and all of a sudden I am a troll.
Let's consider the argument behind my comment:
Premises: Has EY ever constructed AI of any form FAI, AGI or narrow AI? Does EY have any degrees in any relevant fie...
Thank you thats all I wanted to know. You don't have any math for TDT. TDT is just an idea and thats it just like the rest of your AI work. Its nothing more then nambi-pambi philosophical mumbo-jumbo... Well, I will spend my time reading people who have a chance of creating AGI or FAI and its not you...
To sum up you have nothing but some ideas for FAI, no theory, no math and the best defense you have is you don't care about the academic community. The other key one is that you are the only person smart enough to make and understand FAI. This delusion is ...
The problem is that even if nothing "impressive" is available at SIAI, there is no other source where something is. Nada. The only way to improve this situation is to work on the problem. Criticism would be constructive if you suggested a method of improvement on this situation, e.g. organize a new team that is expected to get to FAI more likely than SIAI. Merely arguing about status won't help to solve the problem.
You keep ignoring the distinction between AGI and FAI, which doesn't add sanity to this conversation. You may disagree that there is ...
Ok opinions on the relative merits of the AGI projects mentioned aside you did not answer my first and the question. The question I am actually most interested in the answer too which is where is the technical work? I was looking for some detail as to what part of step one you are working on? So if TDT is important to your FAI then how is the math coming? Are you updating LOGI or are you discarding it and doing it all over?
"The arc of Less Wrong read start to finish should be sufficient for an intelligent person to discard existing AGI projects - once...
"That's my end of the problem."
Ok, so where are you in the process? Where is the math for TDT? Where is the updated version of LOGI?
"Not nearly high-end enough. International Math Olympiad, programming olympiads, young superstars of other types, older superstars with experience, and as much diversity of genius as I can manage to pack into a very small group. The professional skills I need don't exist, and so I look for proof of relevant talent and learning rate."
So tell me have you worked with anyone from DARPA (I have worked with DARPA...
Goertzel, Voss, and similar folks are not working on the FAI problem. They're working on the AGI problem. Contrary to what Goertzel, Voss, and similar folks find most convenient to believe, these two problems are not on the same planet or even in the same galaxy.
I shall also be quite surprised if Goertzel's or Voss's project yields AGI. Code is easy. Code that is actually generally intelligent is hard. Step One is knowing which code to write. It's futile to go on to Step Two until finishing Step One. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, bear in mi...
Is it just me or does this seem a bit backwards? SIAI is trying to make FAI yet so much of the time spent is spent on risks and benefits of this FAI that doesn't exist. For a task that is estimated to be so dangerous and so world changing would it not behoove SIAI to be the first to make FAI? If this be the case then I am a bit confused as to the strategy SIAI is employing to accomplish the goal of FAI.
Also if FAI is the primary goal here then it seems to me that one should be looking not at LessWrong but at gathering people from places like Google, Intel, IBM, and DARPA... Why would you choose to pull from a predominantly amateur talent pool like LW (sorry to say that but there it is)?
I am going to take a shortcut and respond to both posts:
komponisto: Interesting because I would define success in terms of the goals you set for yourself or others have set for you and how well you have met those goals.
In terms of respect I would question the claim not within SIAI or within this community necessarily but within the larger community of experts in the AI field. How many people really know who he is? How many people who need to know, because even if he won't admit it EY will need help from academia and the industry to make FAI, know him and m...
"You've achieved a high level of success as a self-learner, without the aid of formal education."
How do you define high level of success?
I recommend some reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer Start with this and then if you want more detail look at: http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9812037v1 The math isn't to difficult if you are familiar with math involved in QM, things like vectors, and matrices etc. http://www.fxpal.com/publications/FXPAL-PR-07-396.pdf This paper I skimmed it seems worth a read.
As to the author of the post to whom your responding what is your level of knowledge of quantum computing and quantum mechanics? By this I mean is your reading on the topic confined ...
"In what contexts is the action you mention worth performing?"
If the paper was endorsed by the top minds who support the singularity. Ideally if it was written by them. So for example Ray Kurzweil whether you agree with him or not he is a big voice for the singularity.
"Why are "critics" a relevant concern?"
Because technical science moves forward through peer-review and the proving and the disproving of hypotheses. The critics help prevent the circle jerk phenomena in science assuming they are well thought out critiques. Becaus...
"Since I don't expect senior traditional-AI-folk to pay me any such attention short of spending a HUGE amount of effort to get it and probably not even then, I haven't, well, expended a huge amount of effort to get it.
Why? If you expect to make FAI you will undoubtedly need people in the academic communities' help; unless you plan to do this whole project by yourself or with purely amateur help. ..."
"That 'probably not even then' part is significant."
My implication was that the idea that he can create FAI completely outside the academic...
"and then take out whatever time was needed to collect the OB/LW posts in our discussion into a sequence with summaries."
Why? No one in the academic community would spend that much time reading all that blog material for answers that would be best given in a concise form in a published academic paper. So why not spend the time? Unless you think you are that much of an expert in the field as to not need the academic community. If that be the case where are your publications and where are your credentials, where is the proof of this expertise (expe...
"Do you think that accomplishments, when present, are fairly accurate proof of intelligence (and that you are skeptical of claims thereto without said proof)"
Couldn't have said it better myself. The only addition would be that IQ is an insufficient measure although it can be useful when combined with accomplishment.
No, because I don't believe in using IQ as a measure of intelligence (having taken an IQ test) and I think accomplishments are a better measure (quality over quantity obviously). If you have a better measure then fine.
Ok, here are some people:
Nick Bostrom (http://www.nickbostrom.com/cv.pdf) Stephen Wolfram (Published his first particle physics paper at 16 I think, invented one of, if not, the most successful math programs ever and in my opinion the best ever) A couple people who's names I won't mention since I doubt you'd know them from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab where I did some work. etc.
I say this because these people have numerous significant contributions to their fields of study. I mean real technical contributions that move the field forward not just terms...
"I would heavily dispute this. Startups with 1-5 people routinely out-compete the rest of the world in narrow domains. Eg., Reddit was built and run by only four people, and they weren't crushed by Google, which has 20,000 employees. Eliezer is also much smarter than most startup founders, and he cares a lot more too, since it's the fate of the entire planet instead of a few million dollars for personal use."
I don't think you really understand this; having recently been edged out by a large corporation in a narrow field of innovation, as a small ...
I think we can take a good guess on the last part of this question on what he will say: Bayes Theorem, Statistics, basic Probability Theory Mathematical Logic, and Decision Theory.
But why ask the question with this statement made by EY: "Since you don't require all those other fields, I would like SIAI's second Research Fellow to have more mathematical breadth and depth than myself." (http://singinst.org/aboutus/opportunities/research-fellow)
My point is he has answered this question before...
I add to this my own question actually it is more of a ...
Ok, I am going to reply to both soreff and Thomas:
Particle physics isn't about making technology at least at the moment. Particle physics is concerned with understanding the fundamental elements of our world. As far as the details of the relevance of particle physics I won't waste the time to explain. Obviously neither of you have any real experience in the field. So this concludes what comments I am going to make on this topic until someone with real physics knowledge decides to comment.
I was wondering if Eliezer could post some details on his current progress towards the problem of FAI? Specifically details as to where he is in the process of designing and building FAI. Also maybe some detailed technical work on TDT would be cool.
What? Who voted this up?
"It is also quite possible that the Higgs boson will come out and it will be utterly useless, as most of those particles are."
So understanding the sub-atomic level for things like nano-scale technology in your books is a complete waste of time? Understanding the universe I can only assume is also a waste of time since the discovery of the Higgs Boson in your books is essentially meaningless in all probability.
"You can't do a thing with them and they don't tell you very much. Of course, the euphoria will be massive.&q...
This is going to sound horrible but here goes:
In my experience schools value depends on how smart you are. For example if you can teach yourself math you can often test out of classes. If your really smart you may be able to get out of everything but grad-school. Depending on what you want to do you may or may not need grad school.
Do you have a preferred career path? If so have you tried getting into it without further schooling? The other question is what have you done outside of school? Have you started any businesses or published papers?
With a little more detail I think the question can be better answered.
I apologize if this is blunt or already addressed but it seems to me that the voting system here has a large user based problem. It seems to me that the karma system has become nothing more then a popularity indicator.
It seems to me that many here vote up or down based on some gut-level agreement or disagreement with the comment or post. For example it is very troubling that some single line comments of agreement that should have 0 karma in my opinion end up with massive amounts and comments that may be in opposition to the popular beliefs here are voted ...
True but the Blue Brain project is still very interesting and is and hopefully will continue to provide interesting results. Whether you agree with his theory or not the technical side of what they are doing is very interesting.
"Articles should be legible to the audience. You can't just throw in a position written in terms that require special knowledge not possessed by the readers. It may be interesting, but then the goal should be exposition, showing importance and encouraging study."
I both agree with and disagree with this statement. I agree that a post should be written for the audience. I disagree in that I think people here spend a lot of time talking about QM and if they do not have the knowledge to understand this post then they should not be talking about QM. T...
Am I the only one who is reminded of game theory reading this post. In fact it basically sounds like given a set of agents engaged in competitive behavior how does "information" (however you define it, which I think others are right to ask for clarification) effect the likely outcome? Though I am confused by the overly simple military examples. I would wonder if one could find a simpler system to use? I also am confused about what general principles with this system of derived inequalities you want to find?
"TDT is very much a partial solution, a solution-fragment rather than anything complete. After all, if you had the complete decision process, you could run it as an AI, and I'd be coding it up right now."
I must nitpick here:
First you say TDT is an unfinished solution, but from all the stuff that you have posted there is no evidence that TDT is anything more than a vague idea; is this the case? If not could you post some math and example problems for TDT.
Second, I hope this was said in haste not in complete seriousness that if TDT was complete you...
"How would you act if you were Eliezer?"
If I made claims of having a TDT I would post the math. I would publish papers. I would be sure I had accomplishments to back up the authority with which I speak. I would not spend a single second blogging about rationality. If I used a blog it would be to discuss the current status of my AI work and to have a select group of intelligent people who could read and comment on it. If I thought FAI was that important I would be spending as much time as possible finding the best people possible to work with and ... (read more)