All of T431's Comments + Replies

Thank you for the clarifying response, which might aid in a successful rephrasing of the Question I've asked above. This line is particularly helpful:

These risks become worse as patents become easier to obtain (relaxed definitions of novelty, usefulness, and obviousness).

Perhaps I will move this back to draft mode and reconsider.

Upvoted on the basis of clarity, useful / mentoring tone, and the value of the suggestions. Thank you for coming back to this.

In a first-pass read, there is not much I would add, save for mentioning that I’d expect (1)-(4) to change from what they are now were they to actually be implemented in some capacity, given the complexities (jurisdictional resources, public desire, participation, etc…).

I have the Myth of The Rational Voter on my shelf unread!

If I have any sufficiently useful or interesting ideas or comments regarding your remarks, I will add them here.

Agree. This post captures the fact that, time and again, historical and once perceived as insurmountable benchmarks in AI have been surpassed. Those not fully cognizant of the situation have been iteratively surprised. People, for reasons I cannot fully work out, will continue to engage in motivated reasoning against current and near-term-future-expected AI capabilities and or economical value, with some part of the evidence-downplaying consisting of shifting AGI-definitional or capability-threshold-to-impress goalposts (see moving goalposts). On a relate... (read more)

I expect to post additional comments on this thread, but for now, w.r.t.

Sometimes the preferences people report or even try to demonstrate are better modeled as a political strategy and response to coercion, than as an honest report of intrinsic preferences.

has the author of this post read Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Kuran, 1997)? I've read but have not yet written a review of the book, so I cannot comment too critically on its value in this present conversation, but I believe the author should mini... (read more)

Thank you for the typo-linting.

To provide a better response to your first question than the one I’ve provided below, I would need to ask him to explain more than he has already.

From what he has remarked, the first several meetings were very stressful (for most people, this would, of course, be the case!) but soon he adjusted and developed a routine for his meetings.

While the routine could go off course based on the responsiveness of the individual(s) present (one staffer kept nodding Yes, had no questions, and then 20 minutes later remarked that they “take... (read more)

Constraining and/or lowering (via bans, information concealment, raised expenses, etc…) capabilities gains via regulation of certain AI research and production components (weights, chips, electricity, code, etc…) is a strategy pursued in part or fully by different AI Safety organizations.

One friend (who works in this space) and I were very recently reflecting on AI progress, along with strategies to contend with AI related catastrophes. While we disagree on the success probabilities of different AI Safety plans and their facets, including those pertaining ... (read more)

Kudos to the authors for this nice snapshot of the field; also, I find the Editorial useful.

Beyond particular thoughts (which I might get to later) for the entries (with me still understanding that quantity is being optimized for, over quality), one general thought I had was: How can this be made into more of "living document"?.

This helps

If we missed you or got something wrong, please comment, we will edit.

but seems less effective a workflow than it could be. I was thinking more of a GitHub README where individuals can PR in modifications to their entr... (read more)

The below captures some of my thoughts on the "Jobs hits first" scenario.

There is probably something with the sort of break down I have in mind (though, whatever this may be, I have not encountered it, yet) w.r.t. Jobs hits first but here goes: the landscape of AI induced unemployment seems highly heterogeneous, at least in expectation over the next 5 years. For some jobs, it seems likely that there will be instances of (1) partial automation, which could mean either not all workers are no longer needed (even if their new tasks no longer fully resemble the... (read more)

I decided to run the same question through the latest models to gauge their improvements.

Not exactly sure if there is much advantage at all in you having done this, but I feel inclined to say Thank You for persisting in persuading your cousin to at least consider concerns regarding AI, even if he perceptually filters those concerns to mostly regard job automation over others, such as a global catastrophe.

In my own life, over the last several years, I have found it difficult to persuade those close to me to really consider concerns from AI.

I thought that... (read more)

The second paragraph puts into words something I've noticed but not really mentally formalized before. Some anecdotal evidence from my own life in support of the claims made in this paragraph: I've met individuals whose tested IQ exceeds those of other, lower but not much lower, IQ individuals I know who are more educated / trained in epistemological thinking and tangential disciplines. For none of the individual-pairs I have in mind would I declare that one person "ran circles around" the other, however, the difference (advantage going to the lower but be... (read more)

So far I've not had this issue (i.e, ...that one thing will come back to bite me a few days later...) with my obligations but have had it with some private projects. Infrequently referencing my obligations in to-do list format allows them to stress me adequately, as they occur first on my mind and aren't detracted from by the gravity of the other tasks I have, which would be easily visible and "present" if on a nearby to-do list.

Having a complex task system containing both job-related obligations and private work tasks somewhat deprioritizes the job-relate... (read more)

W.r.t. maintaining a to-do list, I've noticed that, for me, at this time in my life (the last year or so), seldomly referencing a to-do has aided me in more quickly getting my work finished (both at my job and with my projects). As a result of seldomly referencing (looking at / thinking about) the to-do list, my behavior surrounding task completion has changed: I now pause, think of a task, and then decide to do the task, knowing that while I am doing this task I am getting closer to my end, whereas previously I could not be doing any task with often think... (read more)

it very much depends on where the user came from

Can you provide any further detail here, i.e. be more specific on origin-stratified-retention rates? (I would appreciate this, even if this might require some additional effort searching)

Similar situation in my life...there are times when I am attempting to fall asleep and I realize suddenly that I am clenching my teeth and that there is considerable tension in my face. Beginning from my closed eyes down to my mouth I relax my facial muscles and I find it becomes easy for me to fall asleep.

In waking life too there are instances where I recognize my facial and bodily tension but I notice these situations less often than when I am trying to sleep. Being conscious of tension in my body and then addressing that tension when it occurs has on o... (read more)

Maybe the "I love this" refers to an appreciation for the existence of a post like this one on LW, not the content (i.e., the child's unusual and partially unsettling behavior) of this post; I do think a "reference to the post existing in the LW ecosystem" is a less probable scenario than "reference to the content of the post". Anyway, I find the content somewhat unsettling, but appreciate that I saw a post like this one today on LW.

Minor point: I think it would be useful to have, at the top of the census, a box for people to click "I see this census, but don't want to fill it out". Such an option could help with understand what % of active users saw but didn't fill out the census, which is information that, while I can't immediately see how it is valuable, might be found to be valuable in the future.

I experience something similar. On some work days, I might rotating somewhat distractedly between tasks. In this state of task-rotation, I find that I am not very focused or motivated. However, when I formally decide that I am going to Do This Thing, And Only This Thing (where the "thing" is usually my most pressing obligation), I usually gain a moderate productivity boost and the quality of my work typically rises as well. There is a cost to making this decision, though, and that cost consists of creating the psychological state necessary to "focus up and decide", which consists partially of taking a moment to ignore the nagging "false urgencies", i.e. my other obligations.

Somewhat relevant forecasting question for those who are interested (soon-to-open):

This question resolves positive if the International Maritime Organization (IMO) puts forth regulation that increases the limit of sulphur content in the fuel oil used on board ships to the pre-2020 limit of 3.5%, or greater, i.e. at least 3.5%. Otherwise this question resolves negative. Metaculus admins in conjunction with the community will be consulted should any disputes concerning this question's resolution arise over its lifetime.

The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. 

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved, as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires t

Thank you for this comment (sorry this Thank You was delayed; I came back here to add what I've added below, but realize that I hadn't replied to you). 

I came across this today: https://www.newsminimalist.com/

The Homepage:

This is another interesting use case of LLMs, this time for meaningful content sorting and tracking, and is helpful in a way different from how you utilized GPT-4 for my initial question. With some additional modification / development, perhaps LLMs can produce a site with all the features I indicated above, or at least something clo... (read more)

I'm, as are most, familiar with Google Trends. What I'm interested is something more analytical than Google Trends. Maybe Google Trends would be closer to what I am imagining if it displayed and detailed how individual trends in aggregate constitute some portion of a larger historical event(s) playing out. For example, that Tucker Carlson is trending now might be a component of multiple other, larger phenomena unfolding. Also, beyond Google Trend's measure of normalized search interest, I would be interested in seeing the actual numbers across social netwo... (read more)

Strong agreement here. I find it unlikely that most of these details will still be concealed after 3 months or so, as it seems unlikely, combined, that no one will be able to infer some of these details or that there will be no leak.

Regarding the original thread, I do agree that OpenAI's move to conceal the details of the model is a Good Thing, as this step is risk-reducing and creates / furthers a norm for safety in AI development that might be adopted elsewhere. Nonetheless, the information being concealed seems likely to become known soon, in my mind, for the general reasons I outlined in the previous paragraph.

Does anyone here have any granular takes what GPT-4's multimodality might mean for the public's adoption of LLMs and perception of AI development? Additionally, does anyone have any forecasts (1) for when this year (if at all) OpenAI will permit image output and (2) for when a GPT model will have video input & output capabilities?

...GPT-4 is a large multimodal model (accepting image and text inputs, emitting text outputs)...

These masks are also exceedingly uncommon in my Northeastern US town + the surrounding area; I think I've seen fewer than 5 people wearing one since late 2020. None of them were unusually coloured, either. In my experience, most establishments where masks can be purchased don't carry these pouch-masks. It would be surprising and funny to see a whole group of people will yellow duckbill masks. Also, thank you for teaching me a new word (anatine "of or belonging to the surface-feeding ducks of Anas and closely related genera"). I wish your daughter a hasty recovery.

For those who may not have seen and would like to make a prediction (on Metaculus; current uniform median community prediction is 15%)

Will WHO declare H5N1 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern before 2024?

So why should you dress nice, even given this challenge? Because dressing nice makes your vibes better and people treat you better and are more willing to accommodate your requests.

This is a compelling argument to me, as someone who also had a fuzzy belief that "dressing nicely was a type of bullshit signaling game" (though perhaps with less conviction than you had).

It was around the time (several years ago) that I saw someone dressed like me (pants tucked into the socks and shirt tucked into the pants) that I had the realization that I would probabl... (read more)

For the person who strong downvoted this, it would be helpful to me if you also shared which facets of the idea you found inadequate; the 5 or so people I've talked to online have generally supported this idea and found it interesting. I would appreciate some transparency on exactly why you believe the idea is a waste of time or resources, since I want to avoid wasting either of those. Thanks you.

Great piece.

Note: small thank you for the link https://www.etymonline.com/word/patience; I've never seen this site but I will probably have a lot of fun with it.

Thank you for your input on this. The idea is to show people something like the following image [see below] and give a few words of background on it before asking for their thoughts. I agree that this part wouldn't be too helpful for getting people's takes on the future, but my thinking is that it might be nice to see some people's reactions to such an image. Any more thoughts on the entire action sequence?

I understand its performance is likely high variance and that it misses the details.

My use with it is in structuring my own summaries. I can follow the video and fill in the missing pieces and correct the initial summary as I go along. I haven't viewed it as a replacement for a human summarization.

Thank you for bringing my attention to this.

It seems quite useful, hence my strong upvote.

I will use it to get an outline of two ML Safety videos before summarizing them in more detail myself. I will put these summaries in a shortform, and will likely comment on this tool's performance after watching the videos.

Is there a name for the discipline or practice of symbolically representing the claims and content in language (this may be part of Mathematical Logic, but I am not familiar enough with it to know)?

Practice: The people of this region (Z) typically prefer hiking in the mountains of the rainforest to walking in the busy streets (Y), given their love of the mountaintop scenery (X).

XYZ Output: Given their mountaintop scenery love (X), rainforest mountain hiking is preferred over walking in the busy streets (Y) by this region's people (Z).

Thoughts, Notes: 10/14/0012022 (2)

Contents: 

1. Track Record, Binary, Metaculus, 10/14/0012022
2. Quote: Universal Considerations [Forecasting]
3. Question: on measuring importance of forecasting questions

Please tell me how my writing and epistemics are inadequate. 

1.

My Metaculus Track Record, Binary, [06/21/0012021 - 10/14/0012022]

2. 

The Universal Considerations for forecasting in Chapter 2 of Francis X. Diebold's book Forecasting in Economics, Business, Finance and Beyond: 

(Forecast Object) What is the object that we want to forecast? Is it a tim

Thank you for taking a look Martin Vlach.

For the latter comment, there is a typo. I meant:

Coverage of this topic is sparse relative to coverage of CC's direct effects.

The idea is that the corpus of work on how climate change is harmful to civilization includes few detailed analyses of the mechanisms through which climate change leads to civilizational collapse but does includes many works on the direct effects of climate change. 

For the former comment, I am not sure what you mean w.r.t "engender".

Definition of engender

transitive verb

1 : beget, procrea

Thoughts, Notes: 10/14/0012022 (1)

Contents:

1. Summary, comment: Climate change and the threat to civilization (10/06/2022)
2. Compression of (1)
3. Thoughts: writing and condensing information
4. Quote: my friend Evan on concision 

To the reader: Please point out inadequacies in my writing. 

1. 

Article: Climate change and the threat to civilization (10/06/2022)

Context: My work for Rumtin Sempasspour (gcrpolicy.com) includes summarizing articles relevant to GCRs and GCR policy. 

Summary: An assessment of the conditions under which civilizational collapse ... (read more)

Sometimes failing at things makes it harder to try in future even if you expect things to go well, and sometimes people are so afraid that they give up on trying, but you can break out of this by making small, careful bets with your energy. 

reminds me of this article

Researchers and educators have long wrestled with the question of how best to teach their
clients be they humans, non-human animals or machines. Here, we examine the role of a
single variable, the difficulty of training, on the rate of learning. In many situations we find that
there is

Thoughts and Notes: October 10th 0012022 (1)

Summary: Introduction (I introduce this shortform series), Year 0 for Human History (I discuss when years for humanity should begin to be counted)

Introduction 

This shortform post marks the beginning of me trying to share on LessWrong some of the thoughts and notes I generate each day. 

I suspect that every "thoughts and notes" shortform I write will contain a brief summary of its content at the start, and there will very likely be days where I post multiple shortforms of this nature, hence the (X) after ... (read more)

Has anyone here considered working on the following?:

https://www.super-linear.org/prize?recordId=recT1AQw4H7prmDE8 

$500 prize pool for creating an accurate, comprehensive, and amusing visual map of the AGI Safety ecosystem, similar to XKCD’s map of online communities or Scott Alexander’s map of the rationalist community.

Payout will be $400 to the map which plex thinks is highest quality, $75 to second place, $25 to third. The competition will end one month after the first acceptable map is submitted, as judged by plex.

Resources, advice, conditions:

• Thi

Same question here as well.

I am sorry that I took such a long time replying to this. First, thank you for your comment, as it answers all of my questions in a fairly detailed manner. 

The impact of a map of research that includes the labs, people, organizations, and research papers focused on AI Safety seems high, and FLI's 2017 map seems like a good start at least for what types of research is occurring in AI Safety. In this vein, it is worth noting that Superlinear is offering a small prize of $1150 for whoever can "Create a visual map of the AGI safety ecosystem", but I don't... (read more)

I applied to this several days ago (5 days, I believe). Is / was there any formal confirmation that my application was received? I am mildly concerned, as the course begins soon. Thank you.

This entire post reminded me of this section from Human Compatible, especially the section I've put in bold: 

“There are some limits to what AI can provide. The pies of land and raw materials are not infinite, so there cannot be unlimited population growth and not everyone will have a mansion in a private park. (This will eventually necessitate mining elsewhere in the solar system and constructing artificial habitats in space; but I promised not to talk about science fiction.) The pie of pride is also finite: only 1 percent of people can be in the top

My suggestions regarding the epistemics of the original post are fairly in line with the content in your first paragraph. I think allocating decision weight in proportion to the expected impacts different scenarios have on your life is the correct approach. Generating scenarios and forecasting their likelihood is difficult, and there is also a great deal of uncertainty with how you should change your behavior in light of these scenarios. I think that making peace with the outcomes of disastrous scenarios that you or humanity cannot avoid is a strong action... (read more)

This is great; thank you! I will send an email in the coming month. Also, I suppose a quick clarification, but what's the relation between: MQTransformer: Multi-Horizon Forecasts with Context Dependent and Feedback-Aware Attention and MQTransformer: Multi-Horizon Forecasts with Context Dependent Attention and Optimal Bregman Volatility

If there are any paper reading clubs out there that ask the presenter to replicate the results without looking at the author's code, I would love to join

This is something that I would be interested in as well. I've been attempting to reproduce MQTransformer: Multi-Horizon Forecasts with Context Dependent and Feedback-Aware Attention from scratch, but I am finding it difficult, partially due to my present lack of experience with reproducing DL papers. The code for MQTransformer is not available, at least to my knowledge. Also, there are several other ... (read more)

I did not inquire anywhere about a way to measure human migration patterns under present-day circumstances.

I understand this is already known.

What the question concerns is a way to measure some aspects of humanity's reaction to a global catastrophe.

"If a line of bacteria or virus could be bred to reflect human migration and habitation patterns, then it might be possible to determine a rough estimate of humanity's robustness to the direct effects and subsequent environmental effects of a global catastrophe in terms of population resilience and migration pat... (read more)

I would like to think about this more, but thank you for posting this and switching my mind from System I to System II