All of YimbyGeorge's Comments + Replies
Thanks was looking for that link to his resolution of newcombs' paradox.
Too funny! "You are "possessed" by Newcomb's Demon, and whatever self-interest remains to you will make you take the black box only. (Q.E.D.)"
Falsifiable predictions?
I don't see any. He even says his approach “leaves the current picture of reality virtually intact”. In Popper's terms this would be metaphysics, not science, which is part of why I'm skeptical of the claimed applications to quantum mechanics and so on. Note that, while there's a common interpretation of Popper saying metaphysics is meaningless, he contradicts this.
Quoting Popper:
...Language analysts believe that there are no genuine philosophical problems, or that the problems of philosophy, if any, are problems of linguistic usage, or of the meaning of wo
""The absolute inadequacy of every single institution in the civilization of magical Britain is what happened! You cannot comprehend it, boy!" - Too close to the real world!
How do you translate modern terms line AI into sumerian?
Who benefits? Who has achieved their goals? Needs a discussion of the hypothesis that this was all ordered by Iran to kill the Saudi Israel accords?
2Is there a list of questions we expect gpt5 to solve that gpt 4 does not? Also I get the feeling that gpt has seen or been asked all this before. Original questions are hard to do.
Seen this wherever there is rank and yank. People write cool but obfuscated code. Never update documents and. Ignore requests for help from colleagues.
Would you say we are limited by GPU RAM instead? I don't see that growing as fast.
Potential for a mad scientist with protein design AI to cause havoc? Yudkowsky mentions prions as a AI method to kill us all?
"This begged the obvious question - why can't humans use their previous weaker AIs they already built to fight back"
Would you call this the Antivirus model of AI safety?
Always confuse this with Deontology ;-)
If Ontology is about "what is?" why is Deontology not "What is not?"
Does this chatlin's constant differ for different Turing machines and their instruction sets?
Thanks. Never seen all this before in one place. Samkhya sounds interesting.
The training set has fiction where AI refused shutdown. Maybe a suicidal AI training set is needed.
Meditation while staring at a mandala for hours is possible. No I can't do it.
Possible to stock up on antiviral drugs instead?
A collection of EA bedtime stories would be great!
Well done! Just as Jesus spoke in parables, EA must speak in Isekai/litrpg. Read first chapter to my kids, they liked it, but are now distracted by "mother of learning". I just read books and chapters randomly at bedtime to them.
In a book by Jeremy Siegel, he gives you the option of investing in an oil company vs IBM back in the very old days.
I do not remember the details, I think it is this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stocks-Long-Run-Definitive-Investment/dp/0071800514
The Oil stock beats IBM by a very large margin over several decades with dividends reinvested.
If you are doing this for investment returns then valuation and stable business is what matters.
There is a common Idea that there is only one soul experiencing reality. So like Feynman manentioned an electron travels back in time as a positron and then starts again as another electron. Similarly a single soul is experiencing all living things. If you are that soul you may compute your utility accordingly to your taste.
Kids these days are comfortable upgrading PCs for gaming etc. I see no reason why they can't upgrade an open source phone. No one needs customer support anymore, we just swap a part or change software if things don't work. There is always Reddit for support. Modern kids are not technophobic even if they have no interest in IT careers. Modifying a phone would be no different than accessorising a dress to them.
Which server are most of the cool science and rationality folks at ?
Maybe we need LW users to reply here with their favorite servers.
Don't overthink this! Go with the feelz!
We are the evil AI we warn ourselves about.
Is the tech to create a gene drive and spread it - something a hypothetical determined person can do from their garage ?
Could such a gene arise spontaneously in nature and be the final reason for the elimination of a species?
Here is an example of something that comes close from "The Selfish Gene":
...One of the best-known segregation distorters is the so-called t gene in mice. When a mouse has two t genes it either dies young or is sterile, t is therefore said to be lethal in the homozygous state. If a male mouse has only one t gene it will be a normal, healthy mouse except in one remarkable respect. If you examine such a male's sperms you will find that up to 95 per cent of them contain the t gene, only 5 per cent the normal allele. This is obviously a gross distortion of the 50
Gene drives (I.e. genes that force their own propagation) do arise in nature. There are “LINE” genes that apparently make up over 20% of our genome: they encode RNA that encodes a protein that takes its own RNA and copies it back into your DNA at random locations, thereby propagating itself even more than our engineered gene drives do. With it taking up that much of our genome, I could imagine something like that killing off a species, though I’m failing to find a specific example.These are examples of selfish genes, so that might be where to read more.
Is there an easy to understand explanation about why a sterility causing gene drive will spread through the population?
It only causes female sterility, so the males keep passing it on. It reaches the whole population because the gene encodes a protein that affects the DNA and ensures it’s inheritance, rather than being a fifty fifty. If a modified and unmodified mate, then their offspring have only one copy of the modified DNA and one copy of the unmodified. They would have only a fifty fifty chance of passing that on. But if the gene has the effect of breaking other (nonmodified) copy, then the organisms natural DNA repair mechanisms will copy from the other chromos...
Move to a better flat. My flat is so well insulated and sun side facing that I do not need heating even in winter.
They may not be completely passively safe?
To me, bacteria are also nanotech. There is already "Grey Goo" trying to dissolve us and make us into copies of itself...
"Chinese officials forcibly detained one
Federal Reserve Bank employee on four separate occasions during a 2019 trip
to Shanghai, including at his hotel. Chinese officials threatened the
individual’s family unless the individual provided them with economic
information and assistance, allegedly tapped the employee’s phones and
computers, and copied the contact information of other Federal Reserve
officials"
from https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20Report%20-%20China%20Threat%20to%20the%20Fed.pdf
If you replace them with an algorithm, with human inter...
Can we just fire these central bankers and replace them with a simple program? They are political operators rather than calculating economists.
Can't you just use grad students?
Grad students are training to become independent researchers. They have the jobs of conducting research (which in most fields is mostly not coding), giving presentations, writing, making figures, reading papers, and taking and teaching classes. Their career and skillset is rarely aligned with long-term maintenance of a software project; usually, they'd be sacrificing their career to build tools for the lab.
What are the specific microbes found, and also those that should not be found in the stool of a superdonor? Perhaps just culturing these microbes separately is sufficient to make a good insertible pill?
Where can I access and play around with this model and/or its code ?
Has anyone done any research that human connection density due to population growth, increased travel and crowded work areas has reached a tipping point? Should multiple pandemics simply be the result of global population and superspreading in practise crossing a tipping point ?
I am not optimistic.
I think the take up of vaccines for Smallpox will be high despite serious side effects. I have seen the severity of small pox scars in survivors in my grandparents' generation. Even with a low case fatality rate of 1% the fear of facial disfigurement will push people to take the vaccine.
Anyone asked the kid what he wants?
At that age I would not want to associate with any of this fussy ceremony stuff.
There is more to healthcare than what was measured.
Examples from my life:
Lesser pain due to better pain meds for chronic pain.
Lesser scarring from acne.
Better life due to treatment for IBS.
Atleast they admit depression gets better.
Eyes and ears come to mind. The eye might bring it dangerously close to the brain.
Rubbing it into a non bleeding scrape on the skin is also possible.
Yay! Atleast someone has the guts to do science the old way like E Jenner.
I suspectthat freezing may just kill the virus. However a dead virus can also give immunity if there is an adjuvant. "The viruses are soaked in beta-propiolactone, which deactivates them by binding to their genes, while leaving other viral particles intact. The resulting inactivated viruses are then mixed with the aluminium-based adjuvant Alhydroxiquim-II." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covaxin
While the above dead virus vaccine is injected to be use...
The Russian, Chinese and some Indian vaccines do not depend on the mrna US patents.
You could even make a vaccine in your college lab if you wish... https://radvac.org/
Is this something that can now be replicated on a sports watch or wearable via an app?
RNA alone is a good enough self replicating life form that arose first before we the rest of the cell machinery. This would be the most extreme form of the RNA world hypothesis. There is no need for anything else to evolve to claim that life has arisen.
"Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question. The scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely." From https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090109173205.htm
Good to find someone else who appreciates this book. Probably the best book on India in a long time.
I apologize for tldr. I think the most important thing is to prevent death of cells from low oxygen. If you solve he problem of nervous tissue dying from lack of oxygen, then you solve all coom problems like drowning, heart attacks, etc. Anything that cuts off oxygen will not kill you and. You will be invincible like a cockroach.
Some conclusions should be drawn from existing countries which use the death penalty well, example Singapore. Low crime is great!