Utopiah

To clarify on Google Car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car says that Sebastian Thrun was leading Stanford lab for the DARPA challenges few years ago. So yes Google does have a driverless car but as far as I can most if not all of the work regarding the actual driving was done before it was related to Google. Now regarding Google Maps and Street View it is probably mostly internal research but I don't think it can be considered related to driving. It is mostly indexing and searching (which is Google core business).

Regarding war and my doubts on peace, US DoD as #1 world employer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers and China trailing behind.

Replying toMeetup : Brussels meetup

Some resources mentioned during the meetup

Thinking, Fast and Slow (1h video) http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=155752
Toward Replacement Parts for the Brain, MIT Press 2005 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10550&ttype=2
A Brain Implant that Thinks, MIT Tech Review 2012 http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429204/a-brain-implant-that-thinks/
Impact of caloric restriction on health and survival in rhesus monkeys from the NIA study, Nature 2012 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11432.html
Activation of adult-born neurons facilitates learning and memory, Nature Neuroscience 2012 http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v15/n6/full/nn.3108.html
Norbert Wiener http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener (related to the bus stop)

Replying toMeetup : Brussels meetup

For newcomers you can review what we did before on our wiki page http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Brussels_meetup_group

Potential materials for discussions :

try http://www.quora.com/Politics/Is-there-a-website-to-prepare-meetings-that-would-provide-some-topics-and-some-points-for-each-participant-let-participants-upvote-and-downvote-until-some-time-before-the-meeting-and-then-the-team-would-work-with-priorities-assigned-by-those-votes with pen and paper
building "trails" of LW articles for newcomers or not people who just want a "refresh" (if some are motivated I'll bring my laptop)
Alzheimer as diabetes type 3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/10/alzheimers-junk-food-catastrophic-effect
AGI leader AMA http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/zq56m/im_dr_ben_goertzel_artificial_general/
Hacking EEG devices https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity12/sec12-final56.pdf
weekly collapse http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/9/10/we-are-now-one-year-and-counting-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say--2
emotions/rationality http://lesswrong.com/lw/hp/feeling_rational/
ReflectOns:Mental Prostheses for Self-Reflection http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2012/09/10/sajid-sadi-thesis-defense http://fluid.media.mit.edu/people/sajid/current/reflectons.html
Zin-Side Out, the desire to conform to popular opinion http://blog.media.mit.edu/2012/07/zin-side-out.html
la France des deconnectes http://fr.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/14247437
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: The Podcast http://www.hpmorpodcast.com
Mapping The Next Three Decades of Health Technology http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680532/mapping-the-next-three-decades-of-health-technology
Rosenhan experiment or "On being sane in insane places." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

Replying toMeetup : Brussels meetup

Seems that the conclusion of http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/a3c/pooling_resources_for_valuable_actuarial/ were that it's not that useful at the individual scale...

Replying toMeetup : Paris Meetup

Towards Safe Robots: Approaching Asimov's 1st Law

Meetup : Paris Meetup

Didn't know there was a Paris Meetup, great. I won't be able to participate but I shared it on http://forum.transhumanistes.com/t827-meetup-lesswrong-a-paris-le-1er-septembre#7773

AGI-12 conference in Oxford in December

14y

Towards Safe Robots: Approaching Asimov's 1st Law

http://darwin.bth.rwth-aachen.de/opus3/volltexte/2011/3826/pdf/3826.pdf (via http://www.euron.org )

Despite the title very little theory or philosophy but instead a focus on interaction (e.g. in a factory, between a human worker and a robot) and how to minimize risk: soft-robotics, crash-testing, collisions, ...

Abstract
Up to now, state-of-the-art industrial robots played the most important role
in real-world applications and more advanced, highly sensorized robots were
usually kept in lab environments and remained in a prototypical stadium. Var-
ious factors like low robustness and the lack of computing power were large
hurdles in realizing robotic systems for highly demanding tasks in e.g. do-
mestic environments or as robotic co-workers. The recent increase in techno-
logy maturity finally made it possible to

... (read 511 more words →)

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Replying toAGI-12 conference in Oxford in December

Utopiah14y

AFAIK once the registration is open (15th of August) anybody can purchase a ticket.

Replying toMeetup : Brussels meetup

Utopiah14y

Critical Thinking in Global Challenges - free Coursera class

I would like to discuss the bayesian framework and AGI in relation to acturial "science" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_science . The idea came from browsing Yudkowsky's http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes with its "Fun fact" on finding priors. Actuaries overall rather than random folks on Kazaa seem to be some of the most interested (and probably well funded group) working on human behavior. Yes regarding physics, chemistry, etc it is not relevant yet, do we, as human beings in their daily life outside the research lab, have much affordance on those?

Let's make the work of actuaries more useful for ourselves (and yes eventually an AGI).

PS: we could also discuss

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Replying toCritical Thinking in Global Challenges - free Coursera class

Utopiah14y

explained in http://lesswrong.com/lw/dni/a_beginners_guide_to_irrational_behavior_free/

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A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior - free Coursera class

Critical Thinking in Global Challenges - free Coursera class

14y

"learn about some of the many ways in which people behave in less than rational ways, and how we might overcome these problems."

starts 25 March 2013

cf https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon

see also http://lesswrong.com/lw/d3w/coursera_behavioural_neurology_course/

Logical fallacies poster, a LessWrong adaptation.

14y

"develop and enhance your ability to think critically, assess information and develop reasoned arguments in the context of the global challenges facing society today."

starts 28 January 2013

cf https://www.coursera.org/course/criticalthinking

see also http://lesswrong.com/lw/dni/a_beginners_guide_to_irrational_behavior_free/
and http://lesswrong.com/lw/d3w/coursera_behavioural_neurology_course/

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14y

Following http://lesswrong.com/lw/bwo/logical_fallacy_poster/ some people complained about

the sarcastic illustration
the lack of references
the weird categorization that should rather fit a Bayesian framework
the simplistic or even wrong definitions
and more

Yet this poster has ONE key difference with the ideal poster, it exists.

If it sparks criticisms that lead to a new, LessWrong compatible poster, then it is well worth the critics.

The obvious next step then is to make a poster that would allow to take into account such well founded suggestion and synthesize the LessWrong lessons visually.

In your opinion then what would be a good structure, e.g. a hierarchy of fallacies, and a design theme?

Logical fallacy poster

http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com

14y

Just printed an A3 of this.

See now http://lesswrong.com/lw/c9u/logical_fallacies_poster_a_lesswrong_adaptation/

Using People's Irrationality To Do Good by Leslie John