aelephant

Karma: 748

aelephant Jul 26, 2013, 11:47 AM
6 points
on: Why Eat Less Meat?
If dogs & cats were raised specifically to be eaten & not involved socially in our lives as if they were members of the family, I don’t think I’d care about them any more than I care about chickens or cows.

This article seems to assume that I oppose all suffering everywhere, which I’m not sure is true. Getting caught stealing causes suffering to the thief and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I care about chickens & cows significantly less than I care about thieves because thieves are at least human.

aelephant Jul 21, 2013, 11:56 PM
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
I really don’t know the probability of a person saying hello to a stranger who said hello to them. It depends on too many factors, like the look & vibe of the stranger, the history of the person being said hello to, etc.

Given a time constraint, I’d agree that I’d be more likely to predict that the girl would reply hello than to predict Deep Blue’s next move, but if there were not a time constraint, I think Deep Blue’s moves would be almost 100% predictable. The reason being that all that Deep Blue does is calculate, it doesn’t consult its feelings before deciding what to do like a human might. It calculates 200 million positions per second to determine what the end result of any sequence of chess moves will be. If you gave a human enough time, I don’t see why they couldn’t perform the same calculation & come to the same conclusion that Deep Blue would.

Edit:

Reading more about Deep Blue, it sounds like it is not as straightforward as just calculating. There is some wiggle room in there based on the order in which its nodes talk to one another. It won’t always play the same move given the same board positioning. Really fascinating! Thanks for engaging politely, it motivated me to investigate this more & I’m glad I did.

aelephant Jul 21, 2013, 11:35 PM
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
I’m not trying to argue that humans are completely unpredictable, but neither are AIs. If they were, there’d be no point in trying to design a friendly one.

About your point that humans are less able to predict AI behavior than human behavior, where are you getting those numbers from? I’m not saying that you’re wrong, I’m just skeptical that someone has studied the frequency of girls saying hello to strangers. Deep Blue has probably been studied pretty thoroughly; it’d be interesting to read about how unpredictable Deep Blue’s moves are.

aelephant Jul 21, 2013, 10:45 PM
2 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
I’m trying to protect Rolf because he can’t seem to interact with others without lashing out at them abusively.

aelephant Jul 21, 2013, 10:37 PM
0 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
I would gather we have much more certainty about Deep Blue’s algorithms considering that we built them. You’re getting into hypothetical territory assuming that we can obtain near perfect knowledge of the human brain & that the neural state is all we need to predict future human behavior.

aelephant Jul 19, 2013, 10:01 AM
−1 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
That would be in the “More Likely” bucket, or rather an “Extremely Likely” bucket. You said that the girl would say “hello” & that is in the “More Likely” bucket too, but far from a certainty. She could ignore him, turn the other way, poke him in the stomach, or do any of an almost infinite other things. Either way, you’re resorting to insults & I’ve barely engaged with you, so I’m going to ignore you from here on out.

aelephant Jul 18, 2013, 11:46 PM
−6 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: The idiot savant AI isn’t an idiot
You can put her potential actions into “More Likely” & “Less Likely” boxes, but you can’t predict them with any certainty. What if the guy was the rapist she’s been plotting revenge against since she was 7 years old?

aelephant Jul 18, 2013, 11:40 PM
0 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: Comparative and absolute advantage in AI
I think we need to clarify how God-like this hypothetical AI is. If the AI is not very God-like, then trying to turn humans into hamburgers could be very costly for it. If we made the AI, maybe we could make a competing AI to resist it or use some backdoor built into the AI’s programming to pull the plug. At the very least, we could launch missiles at it.

If the AI is very God-like, then there are more resource rich sources than human beings it could easily obtain. It’d be sort of like humans gathering up all of the horses for transportation when we already have cars & planes.

aelephant Jul 17, 2013, 10:32 AM
−2 points
in reply to: Manfred’s comment on: Comparative and absolute advantage in AI
There’s no scarcity of air. If the AI can turn air into hamburgers, I don’t think the resources contained in my body would be the AI’s preferred source of energy given that they will be more costly to extract (I will fight to keep them) & contain less energy overall than many other potential sources. If the AI can turn air into hamburgers, it could just leave the earth & convert the core of a huge star into hamburgers instead.

aelephant Jul 16, 2013, 11:54 PM
2 points
on: Comparative and absolute advantage in AI
If we want hamburgers & the AI can make them much more efficiently than we can, why wouldn’t we just willingly give our resources to the AI so that it can make hamburgers? Resisting the AI would be dangerous for us depending on the AI’s military capabilities & the AI trying to overpower us could be dangerous for the AI as well.

The thing about nations is that they can externalize the costs & consolidate the benefits of invading a country—the politicians & corporations that benefit from the invasion don’t have to fight & die in the battles—that’s what poor young men & women are for; nor do they pay for the costs of the military supplies—that’s what taxes & debt are for.

aelephant Jul 16, 2013, 7:12 AM
−5 points
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
Your acerbic & condescending posts make it clear you also have a wonderful understanding of folks with brains different than yours & a lot of empathy for how they feel.

aelephant Jul 15, 2013, 11:49 PM
1 point
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
I get that, but my point stands that while you’re forced to be very close to them, you’re not forced to talk to them. You could even make up an excuse for not wanting to talk. For example, “Sorry, I don’t want to chat right now, I’m going to try to take a nap” or “Sorry, I don’t want to chat right now, I’m going to put my headphones on & listen to some music”. This isn’t Clockwork Orange where he’s forcing your eyelids open.

aelephant Jul 14, 2013, 11:41 PM
−2 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
I could understand if it was persistent unwanted communication, but the dude is just trying to break the ice for Odin’s sake. Just ignore him or tell him you’d rather not chit chat. How difficult is that?

aelephant Jul 14, 2013, 1:46 AM
4 points
in reply to: pragmatist’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
It is pretty easy to indicate that you don’t want to engage—just don’t engage. If someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, just don’t answer. I would rather live in a world where people tried to be social & friendly to one another than one in which people censored themselves in an effort not to offend people.

aelephant Jul 14, 2013, 1:43 AM
23 points
in reply to: RolfAndreassen’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
Someone introducing themselves to you produces “seething, ulcerating rage”? Have you ever considered counseling or therapy?
What links here?
- wedrifid's comment on “Stupid” questions thread by gothgirl420666 (Jul 14, 2013, 11:39 PM; 9 points)

aelephant Jul 14, 2013, 1:39 AM
7 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: “Stupid” questions thread
If everyone walks across the grass instead of on the path, that is strong evidence that the path is in the wrong place.

aelephant Jul 12, 2013, 11:02 AM
0 points
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Seed Study: Polyphasic Sleep in Ten Steps
There are ways to adjust your sleep if you miss a nap. I think you typically just extend the core sleep time.

aelephant Jul 5, 2013, 12:00 AM
9 points
on: A New Interpretation of the Marshmallow Test
I imagine the kids who didn’t wait for the 2nd marshmellow in the original experiment had already been tricked numerous times by authority figures (parents, preachers, teachers, etc) & so had been pre-conditioned to expect deception. It doesn’t surprise me at all that children with unreliable authority figures end up performing worse as adults. The ACE (Adverse childhood experiences) study shows that mistreatment as a kid correlates with social, emotional, & cognitive impairment, increases risk for adoption of health-risk behaviors, and increases risk for disease, disability, & social problems.

aelephant Jul 4, 2013, 11:46 PM
2 points
in reply to: ShardPhoenix’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, July 1-15
Yeah, I suppose if you live somewhere with a non-censored internet, you can just find them on Facebook & viola. I live in China so that isn’t an option. I downloaded pictures of my co-workers from the company website instead & plugged them into Anki. Yeah it is a bit weird, but it works & as long as people don’t know you’re doing it, it seems to encourage people to like you & feel liked by you. I work in medicine & there’s also a good correlation to hospital safety when you know the names of the people you’re working with.

The other thing I thought about was making an undercover video & then extracting the photos from there. Basically, don’t let them know you’re taking their picture. The upside is that it seems less weird than taking the photo of someone you just met, the downside is that if you get caught everyone is going to think you’re a true freak.

aelephant Jul 3, 2013, 11:57 PM
4 points
in reply to: ShardPhoenix’s comment on: Group Rationality Diary, July 1-15
What do you do for a living? I’m sure there’s something there that’d be worth memorizing.

How good are you with names & faces? Birthdays? Telephone numbers?

Another thing I use it for is learning new vocabulary. Maybe once or twice a week I’ll run across a word in an article that I would typically jump over & just assume I know what it means based on the context, sometimes when I look it up I’m surprised. The other benefit is that memorized words will be more available to you when writing or speaking.