Haven’t there been a lot more than a million people in history that claimed saving the world, with 0 successes?
Can you name ten who claimed to do so via non-supernatural/extraterrestrial means? Even counting claims of the supernatural I would be surprised to learn there had been a million.
In any case, nuclear war, peak oil, global warming, overpopulation attracted a huge number of people who claimed that civilization will end unless this or that will be done.
In the ordinary sense that Richard Dawkins and James Randi use.
In any case, nuclear war, peak oil, global warming, overpopulation attracted a huge number of people who claimed that civilization will end unless this or that will be done.
“If we don’t continue to practice agriculture or hunting and gathering, civilization will end.”
There are plenty of true statements like that. Your argument needs people who said that such and such things needed to be done, and that they were the ones who were going to cause the things in question. If you list some specific people, you can then identify relevant features that are or are not shared.
Disclaimer: I think near-term efforts to reduce AI risk will probably not be determinative in preventing an existential risk, but have a non-negligible probability of doing so that gives high expected value at the current margin via a number of versions of cost-benefit analysis. Moreso for individual near-term AI risk efforts.
It’s true that Mr. Yudowsky’s claims violate relatively few of the generally accepted laws of physics, compared to the average messiah-claimant, but not every false claim is trivially so. Indeed, some of the most successful cults are built around starting with something that actually does work and taking it too far.
I can name only one explicit point of departure and it’s defensible.
Other saviors have claimed e. g. the ability to resurrect a person long since reduced to moldy bones, which spits in the face of thermodynamics. Relative to that, a quibble with QM involves very few physical laws.
So why was this post voted down so far? It appears to be a relevant and informative link to a non-crank source, with no incivility that I could see.
Overconfidence in the assertion. Presumption of a foregone conclusion.
It was a relevant link and I enjoyed doing the background reading finding out just how seriously relevant authorities take this fellow’s stance. He is not a crank but he is someone with a large personal stake. The claim in the article seems to have an element of spin in the interpretations of interpretations as it were.
I did lower my confidence in how well I grasp QM but much of that confidence was restored once I traced down some more expert positions and scanned some wikipedia articles. I focussed in particular on whether MW is a ‘pure’ interpretation. That is, whether it does actually deviate from the formal math.
With an introduction like that, the link should go to a recent announcement in a major scientific journal by a lot of respected people based on overwhelming evidence, not this one guy writing a non-peer-reviewed argument about an experiment ten years ago that AFAICT most physicists see as perfectly consistent with our existing understanding of QM.
It is a source targeted at the general public, which unfortunately does not know enough to hire a competent columnist. John Cramer has used the wrong equations to arrive at an incorrect description of the Afshar experiment, which he uses to justify his own interpretation of QM, which he wants to be correct. The experiment is not in conflict with the known laws of physics.
In general, I advise you to mistrust reports of recent developments in physics, if you have no physics training. I check a number of popular sources occasionally and about half of the articles are either wrong or misleading. For example, you may have recently heard about Erik Verlinde’s theories about entropic gravity. If gravity were an entropic force, gravitational field would cause extremely rapid decoherence, preventing, for example, the standard double-slit experiment. This is obviously not observed, yet this theory is one of the more well-known ones among physics fans.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
If the stated rule for voting is “upvote what you want more of; downvote what you want less of,” and the things that are getting upvoted are site norms and the things that are getting downvoted aren’t, one interpretation is that that the system is working properly: they are site norms precisely because they are the things people want more of, which are therefore getting upvoted.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
:P Skill? What is this skill of which you speak?
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
That isn’t my experience. When in the mood to gain popularity +5 comments are easy to spin while bulk +1s take rather a lot of typing. I actually expect that even trying to get +1s I would accidentally get about at least 1/5th as many +5s as +1s.
Edit: I just scanned back through the last few pages of my comments. I definitely haven’t been in a ‘try to appear deep and insightful’ kind of mood and even so more karma came from +5s than +1s. I was surprised because I actually thought my recent comments may have been an exception.
Interesting, but I don’t think that’s the right characterization of the content of the link. It’s John Cramer (proponent of the transactional interpretation) claiming that the Afshar Experiment’s results falsfify both Copenhagen and MWI. I think you’re better off reading about the experiment directly.
Identify the element of MWI that according to Cramer’s blog is not consistent with the mathematical formalism of Quantum Mechanics and if you happen to be thinking that then stop.
In short, I argue “naturalism” means, in the simplest terms, that every mental thing is entirely caused by fundamentally nonmental things, and is entirely dependent on nonmental things for its existence. Therefore, “supernaturalism” means that at least some mental things cannot be reduced to nonmental things.
I don’t quite understand your confusion. An AGI is a computer program, and friendliness is a property of a computer program. Yes, these concepts allude to mental concepts on our maps, but these mental concepts are reducible to properties of the nonmental substrates that are our brains. In fact, the goal of FAI research is to find the reduction of friendliness to nonmental things.
Concepts of sin, or prayer, or karma, or intelligent design, and most other things considered “supernatural” can be reducible to properties of physical world with enough hand waving.
Karma scores in this thread suggest it falls in reference class of “arguing against groupthink”, which ironically increases estimates of Eliezer being a crackpot, and lesswrong turning into a cult, possibly via evaporative cooling.
Karma scores in this thread suggest it falls in reference class of “arguing against groupthink”, which ironically increases estimates of Eliezer being a crackpot, and lesswrong turning into a cult, possibly via evaporative cooling.
No, that’s really not borne out by the evidence. Multifolaterose’s posts have been strongly upvoted, it seems to me, by a significant group of readers who see themselves as defenders against groupthink. It’s just that you have been voted down for refusing to see a distinction that’s clearly there, between “here is a complicated thing which nevertheless must be reducible to simpler things, which is what we’re in the process of rigorously doing” and “here is a magical thing which we won’t ever have a mathematical understanding of, but it will work if we play by the right rules”.
Set your preferences to only hide comments below −5. Go to an old Open Thread or a particularly large discussion, and search for “comment score below threshold”.
“Karma” is the only definitionally supernatural item on that list—it is defined to be not reducible to nonmental mechanism. The others are merely elements of belief systems which contain elements that are supernatural (e.g. God).
Yes, the concept of “karma” can be reduced to naturalistic roots if you accept metaphysical naturalism, but the actual thing cannot be. It’s the quotation which you can reduce, not the referent.
You can reduce an AGI to the behavior of computer chips (or whatever fancy-schmancy substrate they end up running on), which are themselves just channels for the flow of electrons. Nothing mental there. Friendliness is a description of the utility function and decision theory of an AGI, both of which can be reduced to patterns of electrons on a computer chip.
It’s all electrons floating around. We just talk about ridiculous abstract things like AGI and Friendliness because it makes the math tractable.
Can you name ten who claimed to do so via non-supernatural/extraterrestrial means? Even counting claims of the supernatural I would be surprised to learn there had been a million.
And FAI counts as not “supernatural” how?
In any case, nuclear war, peak oil, global warming, overpopulation attracted a huge number of people who claimed that civilization will end unless this or that will be done.
In the ordinary sense that Richard Dawkins and James Randi use.
“If we don’t continue to practice agriculture or hunting and gathering, civilization will end.”
There are plenty of true statements like that. Your argument needs people who said that such and such things needed to be done, and that they were the ones who were going to cause the things in question. If you list some specific people, you can then identify relevant features that are or are not shared.
Disclaimer: I think near-term efforts to reduce AI risk will probably not be determinative in preventing an existential risk, but have a non-negligible probability of doing so that gives high expected value at the current margin via a number of versions of cost-benefit analysis. Moreso for individual near-term AI risk efforts.
It’s true that Mr. Yudowsky’s claims violate relatively few of the generally accepted laws of physics, compared to the average messiah-claimant, but not every false claim is trivially so. Indeed, some of the most successful cults are built around starting with something that actually does work and taking it too far.
“relatively few”? Name two.
I can name only one explicit point of departure and it’s defensible.
Other saviors have claimed e. g. the ability to resurrect a person long since reduced to moldy bones, which spits in the face of thermodynamics. Relative to that, a quibble with QM involves very few physical laws.
A—his beliefs on MWI have no bearing on his relative importance wrt the future of the world.
B—when you say “defensible”, you mean “accepted by the clear majority of scientists working in the field”.
MWI has been empirically falsified.
http://www.analogsf.com/0410/altview2.shtml
What now?
This is a tiny minority opinion, based on math that is judged incorrect by the overwhelming majority of experts.
Can someone link to a good explanation of all this. Or write one?
So why was this post voted down so far? It appears to be a relevant and informative link to a non-crank source, with no incivility that I could see.
Overconfidence in the assertion. Presumption of a foregone conclusion.
It was a relevant link and I enjoyed doing the background reading finding out just how seriously relevant authorities take this fellow’s stance. He is not a crank but he is someone with a large personal stake. The claim in the article seems to have an element of spin in the interpretations of interpretations as it were.
I did lower my confidence in how well I grasp QM but much of that confidence was restored once I traced down some more expert positions and scanned some wikipedia articles. I focussed in particular on whether MW is a ‘pure’ interpretation. That is, whether it does actually deviate from the formal math.
With an introduction like that, the link should go to a recent announcement in a major scientific journal by a lot of respected people based on overwhelming evidence, not this one guy writing a non-peer-reviewed argument about an experiment ten years ago that AFAICT most physicists see as perfectly consistent with our existing understanding of QM.
It is a source targeted at the general public, which unfortunately does not know enough to hire a competent columnist. John Cramer has used the wrong equations to arrive at an incorrect description of the Afshar experiment, which he uses to justify his own interpretation of QM, which he wants to be correct. The experiment is not in conflict with the known laws of physics.
In general, I advise you to mistrust reports of recent developments in physics, if you have no physics training. I check a number of popular sources occasionally and about half of the articles are either wrong or misleading. For example, you may have recently heard about Erik Verlinde’s theories about entropic gravity. If gravity were an entropic force, gravitational field would cause extremely rapid decoherence, preventing, for example, the standard double-slit experiment. This is obviously not observed, yet this theory is one of the more well-known ones among physics fans.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
If the stated rule for voting is “upvote what you want more of; downvote what you want less of,” and the things that are getting upvoted are site norms and the things that are getting downvoted aren’t, one interpretation is that that the system is working properly: they are site norms precisely because they are the things people want more of, which are therefore getting upvoted.
:P Skill? What is this skill of which you speak?
Ignore it and write comments worth +5. :)
It’s easier to write five yes-man quotes for +1 each than one +5 comment, which seems like a flawed incentive system.
That isn’t my experience. When in the mood to gain popularity +5 comments are easy to spin while bulk +1s take rather a lot of typing. I actually expect that even trying to get +1s I would accidentally get about at least 1/5th as many +5s as +1s.
Edit: I just scanned back through the last few pages of my comments. I definitely haven’t been in a ‘try to appear deep and insightful’ kind of mood and even so more karma came from +5s than +1s. I was surprised because I actually thought my recent comments may have been an exception.
This is what I find, scanning back over my last 20 comments. My last 30 include a +19 so I didn’t even bother.
And of course karma is a flawed incentive system. It’s not meant as an incentive system.
I actually ignored everything that wasn’t exactly a +5 to make the world that much less convenient. :P
Interesting, but I don’t think that’s the right characterization of the content of the link. It’s John Cramer (proponent of the transactional interpretation) claiming that the Afshar Experiment’s results falsfify both Copenhagen and MWI. I think you’re better off reading about the experiment directly.
That experiment is ten years old and its implications are rather controversial.
Identify the element of MWI that according to Cramer’s blog is not consistent with the mathematical formalism of Quantum Mechanics and if you happen to be thinking that then stop.
CarlShulman is correct, but for reference, Richard Carrier’s definition of “supernatural”:
By this definition isn’t “AGI” borderline supernatural and “friendliness” entirely supernatural?
This doesn’t feel like a right definition.
I don’t quite understand your confusion. An AGI is a computer program, and friendliness is a property of a computer program. Yes, these concepts allude to mental concepts on our maps, but these mental concepts are reducible to properties of the nonmental substrates that are our brains. In fact, the goal of FAI research is to find the reduction of friendliness to nonmental things.
Concepts of sin, or prayer, or karma, or intelligent design, and most other things considered “supernatural” can be reducible to properties of physical world with enough hand waving.
Karma scores in this thread suggest it falls in reference class of “arguing against groupthink”, which ironically increases estimates of Eliezer being a crackpot, and lesswrong turning into a cult, possibly via evaporative cooling.
No, that’s really not borne out by the evidence. Multifolaterose’s posts have been strongly upvoted, it seems to me, by a significant group of readers who see themselves as defenders against groupthink. It’s just that you have been voted down for refusing to see a distinction that’s clearly there, between “here is a complicated thing which nevertheless must be reducible to simpler things, which is what we’re in the process of rigorously doing” and “here is a magical thing which we won’t ever have a mathematical understanding of, but it will work if we play by the right rules”.
Is there a way to find random sample of threads with heavy downvoting? My experience on reddit suggests it’s usually groupthink.
Set your preferences to only hide comments below −5. Go to an old Open Thread or a particularly large discussion, and search for “comment score below threshold”.
“Karma” is the only definitionally supernatural item on that list—it is defined to be not reducible to nonmental mechanism. The others are merely elements of belief systems which contain elements that are supernatural (e.g. God).
Yes, the concept of “karma” can be reduced to naturalistic roots if you accept metaphysical naturalism, but the actual thing cannot be. It’s the quotation which you can reduce, not the referent.
You can reduce an AGI to the behavior of computer chips (or whatever fancy-schmancy substrate they end up running on), which are themselves just channels for the flow of electrons. Nothing mental there. Friendliness is a description of the utility function and decision theory of an AGI, both of which can be reduced to patterns of electrons on a computer chip.
It’s all electrons floating around. We just talk about ridiculous abstract things like AGI and Friendliness because it makes the math tractable.