Andy_McKenzie

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Andy_McKenzie 2 Feb 2023 15:03 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Steven Byrnes’s comment on: Schizophrenia as a deficiency in long-range cortex-to-cortex communication
Interesting, thanks. All makes sense and no need to apologize. I just like it when people write/think about schizophrenia and want to encourage it, even as a side project. IMO, it’s a very important thing for our society to think about.

Andy_McKenzie 2 Feb 2023 13:59 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Steven Byrnes’s comment on: Schizophrenia as a deficiency in long-range cortex-to-cortex communication
A lot of the quotes do find decreased connectivity, but some of them find increased connectivity between certain regions. It makes me think that there’s a probability there might be something more complicated than just “increased or decreased”, but rather specific types of connections. But that’s just a guess, and I think an explanation across all cortical connections is more parsimonious and therefore more likely a priori.
Of your criteria of “things to explain”, here are some thoughts:
4.1 The onset of schizophrenia is typically in the late-teens-to-twenties, 4.2 Positive symptoms—auditory hallucinations (hearing voices), “distortions of self-experience”, etc. 4.3 Negative symptoms—yes these are all critical to explain.
4.4 Creativity—hm, this is tricky and probably needs to be contextualized. Some people disagree that schizophrenia is associated with increased creativity in relatives, although I personally agree with it. I don’t think it’s a core aspect.
4.5 Anticorrelation with autism—I don’t think this is a core aspect. I’m not even sure it’s true.
4.6 Relation to myelination—I think this is likely true, but I think it’s too low level to call a core aspect of the disease per se. I agree with your point about two terms always yielding search results, this is true of Alzheimer’s disease as well.
4.7 Schizophrenia and blindness—I don’t think this is a core aspect, I agree with you it’s probably not true.
Other core aspects I think should be explained:
1. Specific types of gene pathways that are altered in people with schizophrenia being related to the development/function of whatever the physiologic thing being hypothesized is. Genetics are causal, so this is usually pretty helpful, albeit quite complex.
2. Cognitive deficits: These include impairments in executive function, working memory, and other cognitive domains. These are usually considered distinct from negative symptoms (anhedonia, blunted affect, etc), and usually involve a decline from functioning premorbid/earlier in life.
3. Why nicotine is helpful.
4. Why antipsychotics/neuroleptics seem to be helpful (at least in certain circumstances).
5. Why there is so much variability in the disorder? Why do some people end up with predominantly delusions, hallucinations, or negative symptoms as the core part of their experience with schizophrenia?
Just some thoughts. As I said, I’m glad you’re focused on this!

Andy_McKenzie 2 Feb 2023 0:38 UTC
4 points
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on: Schizophrenia as a deficiency in long-range cortex-to-cortex communication
Interesting theory and very important topic.
I think the best data source here is probably neuroimaging. Here’s a recent review: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.1042814/full. Here are some quotes from that:
For functional studies, be they fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET), rs-fMRI, task-based fMRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) or MEG there generally is hypoactivation and disconnection between brain regions. …
Histologically this gray matter reduction is accompanied by dendritic and synaptic density decreases which likely signals a lack of communication (disconnection theory) across selected neural networks…
According to Orliac et al. (2013), patients with schizophrenia have reduced functional connectivity in the default mode network and salience network. Furthermore, decreased connectivity in the paracingulate cortex is associated with difficulties with abstract thought, whereas decreased connectivity in the left striatum is associated with delusions and depression. Longer memory response time for face recognition was also associated with functional connectivity abnormalities in early-schizophrenia, centered in the anterior cingulate...
This is in line with the frontotemporoparietal network disruption theory in schizophrenia that is well-known (Friston and Frith, 1995). …
In a study that conducted by Lottman et al., patients with schizophrenia showed an increased connectivity between auditory and subcortical networks …
Both increased and decreased functional connectivity has been observed in patients with schizophrenia vs. controls, in resting state and during various tasks
Mondino et al. (2016) found that transcranial direct current stimulation can decrease negative symptoms course and the severity of auditory verbal hallucination in patients with schizophrenia. This improvement was associated with reduction in functional connectivity between the left anterior insula and left temporoparietal junction (middle and superior temporal gyri and Wernicke’s area)
Overall I think it’s pretty complicated. I imagine that when you wrote explaining “everything” was tongue in cheek, but I think there are a lot of things that need to be explained about schizophrenia beyond the seven that you wrote about. I hope you keep doing some research in this area and continue to refine your theory.

Andy_McKenzie 28 Jan 2023 0:45 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: DaystarEld’s comment on: My Model Of EA Burnout
A quote I find relevant:
“A happy life is impossible, the highest thing that man can aspire to is a heroic life; such as a man lives, who is always fighting against unequal odds for the good of others; and wins in the end without any thanks. After the battle is over, he stands like the Prince in the re corvo of Gozzi, with dignity and nobility in his eyes, but turned to stone. His memory remains, and will be reverenced as a hero’s; his will, that has been mortified all his life by toiling and struggling, by evil payment and ingratitude, is absorbed into Nirvana.”—Arthur Schopenhauer

Andy_McKenzie 22 Jan 2023 1:26 UTC
6 points
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in reply to: lc’s comment on: Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety
Good point.
I know your question was probably just rhetorical, but to answer it regardless—I was confused in part because it would have made sense to me if he had said it would “better” if AGI timelines were short.
Lots of people want short AGI timelines because they think the alignment problem will be easy or otherwise aren’t concerned about it and they want the perceived benefits of AGI for themselves/their family and friends/humanity (eg eliminating disease, eliminating involuntary death, abundance, etc). And he could have just said “better” without really changing the rest of his argument.
At least the word “better” would make sense to me, even if, as you imply, it might be wrong and plenty of others would disagree with it.
So I expect I am missing something in his internal model that made him use the word “safer” instead of “better”. I can only guess at possibilities. Like thinking that if AGI timelines are too long, then the CCP might take over the USA/the West in AI capabilities, and care even less about AGI safety when it matters the most.

Andy_McKenzie 22 Jan 2023 0:23 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Foyle’s comment on: Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety
One of the main counterarguments here is that the existence of multiple AGIs allows them to compete with one another in ways that could benefit humanity. E.g. policing one another to ensure alignment of the AGI community with human interests. Of course, whether this actually would outweigh your concern in practice is highly uncertain and depends on a lot of implementation details.

Andy_McKenzie 20 Jan 2023 18:37 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Thane Ruthenis’s comment on: Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety
You’re right that the operative word in “seems more likely” is “seems”! I used the word “seems” because I find this whole topic really confusing and I have a lot of uncertainty.
It sounds like there may be a concern that I am using the absurdity heuristic or something similar against the idea of fast take-off and associated AI apocalypse. Just to be clear, I most certainly do not buy absurdity heuristic arguments in this space, would not use them, and find them extremely annoying. We’ve never seen anything like AI before, so our intuition (which might suggest that the situation seems absurd) is liable to be very wrong.

Andy_McKenzie 20 Jan 2023 16:55 UTC
12 points
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on: Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety
A few comments:
1. A lot of slow takeoff, gradual capabilities ramp-up, multipolar AGI world type of thinking. Personally, I agree with him this sort of scenario seems both more desirable and more likely. But this seems to be his biggest area of disagreement with many others here.
2. The biggest surprise to me was when he said that he thought short timelines were safer than long timelines. The reason for that is not obvious to me. Maybe something to do with contingent geopolitics.
3. Doesn’t seem great to dismiss people’s views based on psychologizing about them. But, these are off-the-cuff remarks, held to a lower standard than writing.

Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety

Andy_McKenzie20 Jan 2023 16:14 UTC

107 points

41 comments10 min readLW link

Andy_McKenzie 16 Jan 2023 1:56 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: NickGabs’s comment on: We Need Holistic AI Macrostrategy
Got it. To avoid derailing with this object level question, I’ll just say that I think it seems helpful to be explicit about takeoff speeds in macrostrategy discussions. Ideally, specifying how different strategies work over distributions of takeoff speeds.

Andy_McKenzie 16 Jan 2023 0:01 UTC
5 points
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on: We Need Holistic AI Macrostrategy
Thanks for this post. I agree with you that AI macrostrategy is extremely important and relatively neglected.
However, I’m having some trouble understanding your specific world model. Most concretely: can you link to or explain what your definition of “AGI” is?
Overall, I expect alignment outcomes to be significantly if not primarily determined by the quality of the “last mile” work done by the first AGI developer and other actors in close cooperation with them in the ~2 years prior to the development of AGI.
This makes me think that in your world model, there is most likely “one AGI” and that there is a “last mile” rather than a general continuous improvement. It seems to me to be basically a claim about very fast takeoff speeds. Because otherwise, it seems to me that we would expect multiple groups with access to AGIs with different strengths and weaknesses, a relatively slower and continuous improvement in their capabilities, etc.

Andy_McKenzie 11 Jan 2023 3:43 UTC
6 points
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in reply to: gwern’s comment on: We don’t trade with ants
OK, I get your point now better, thanks for clarifying—and I agree with it.
In our current society, even if dogs could talk, I bet that we wouldn’t allow humans to trade (or at least anywhere close to “free” trade) with them, due to concerns for exploitation.

Andy_McKenzie 11 Jan 2023 2:49 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: lc’s comment on: We don’t trade with ants
I quoted “And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.”
If genetic engineering a new animal would satisfy human goals, then this would imply that they don’t care about their pet’s preferences as individuals.

Andy_McKenzie 11 Jan 2023 2:10 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: gwern’s comment on: We don’t trade with ants
At the end of the day, no matter how many millions her trainer earns, Lassie just gets a biscuit & ear scritches for being such a good girl. And if she isn’t a good girl, we genetically engineer and manufacture (ie. breed) an ex-wolf who is a good girl.
I don’t think it’s accurate to claim that humans don’t care about their pets’ preferences as individuals and try to satisfy them.
To point out one reason that I think this, there are huge markets for pet welfare. There are even animal psychiatrists and there are longevity companies for pets.
I’ve also known many people who’ve been very distraught when their pets died. Cloning them would be a poor consolation.
I also don’t think that ‘trade’ necessarily captures the right dynamic. I think it’s more like communism in the sense that families are often communist. But I also don’t think that your comment, which sidesteps this important aspect of human-animal relations, is the whole story.
Now, one could argue that the expansion of animal rights and caring about individual animals is a recent phenomenon, and that therefore these are merely dreamtime dynamics, but that requires a theory of dreamtime and why it will end.

Andy_McKenzie 16 Aug 2022 14:26 UTC
2 points
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on: I’m mildly skeptical that blindness prevents schizophrenia
Thanks for this good post. A meta-level observation is that people are grasping at straws like this is evidence that our knowledge of the causes of schizophrenia is quite limited.

Andy_McKenzie 14 Jun 2022 2:26 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: On A List of Lethalities
“One day, one of the AGI systems improves to the point where it unlocks a new technology that can reliably kill all humans, as well as destroying all of its AGI rivals. (E.g., molecular nanotechnology.) I predict that regardless of how well-behaved it’s been up to that point, it uses the technology and takes over. Do you predict otherwise?”

I agree with this, given your assumptions. But this seems like a fast take off scenario, right? My main question wasn’t addressed — are we assuming a fast take off? I didn’t see that explicitly discussed.

My understanding is that common law isn’t easy to change, even if individual agents would prefer to. This is why there are Nash equilibria. Of course, if there’s a fast enough take off, then this is irrelevant.

Andy_McKenzie 13 Jun 2022 18:28 UTC
2 points
on: On A List of Lethalities
Thanks for the write-up. I have very little knowledge in this field, but I’m confused on this point:
> 34. Coordination schemes between superintelligences are not things that humans can participate in (eg because humans can’t reason reliably about the code of superintelligences); a “multipolar” system of 20 superintelligences with different utility functions, plus humanity, has a natural and obvious equilibrium which looks like “the 20 superintelligences cooperate with each other but not with humanity”.
Yes. I am convinced that things like ‘oh we will be fine because the AGIs will want to establish proper rule of law’ or that we could somehow usefully be part of such deals are nonsense. I do think that the statement here on its own is unconvincing for someone not already convinced who isn’t inclined to be convinced. I agree with it because I was already convinced, but unlike many points that should be shorter this one should have probably been longer.
Can you link to or explain what convinced you of this?
To me, part of it seems dependent on take-off speed. In slower take-off worlds, it seems that agents would develop in a world in which laws/culture/norms were enforced at each step of the intelligence development process. Thus at each stage of development, AI agents would be operating in a competitive/cooperative world, eventually leading to a world of competition between many superintelligent AI agents with established Schelling points of cooperation that human agents could still participate in.
On the other hand, in faster/hard take-off worlds, I agree that cooperation would not be possible because the AI (or few multipolar AIs) would obviously not have an incentive to cooperate with much less powerful agents like humans.
Maybe there is an assumption of a hard take-off that I’m missing? Is this a part of M3?

Brain preservation to prevent involuntary death: a possible cause area

Andy_McKenzie22 Mar 2022 12:36 UTC

39 points

1 comment10 min readLW link

Andy_McKenzie 15 Mar 2022 17:34 UTC
17 points
on: Who is doing Cryonics-relevant research?
It is so great you are interested in this area! Thank you. Here are a few options for cryonics-relevant research:
- 21st Century Medicine: May be best to reach out to Brian Wowk (contact info here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25194588/) and/or Greg Fahy (possibly old contact info here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16706656/)
- Emil Kendziorra at Tomorrow Biostasis may know of opportunities. Contact info here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244980
- Robert McIntyre at Nectome may know of opportunities. Contact: http://aurellem.org/aurellem/html/about-rlm.html
- Chana Phaedra/Aschwin de Wolf at Advanced Neural Biosciences may know of opportunities. Contact info for Aschwin here: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2019.2225
- Brain Preservation Foundation: https://www.brainpreservation.org/. No lab, but space for discussions, especially related to neuroscience and related computational modeling.
- Robert Freitas at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing just published a book called Cryostasis Revival. I’m not sure, but it’s possible people there may know of related computational modeling opportunities: http://www.imm.org/
As below, Laura Deming is also a good person to contact.
As you may know, there is a somewhat big divide in methodology these days between people who favor aldehydes as a part of the preservation procedure and those who do not. But there are good options either way.
With 3 months and I’m not sure of your location or geographic flexibility, the best option might be some sort of computational modeling experiment, such as a molecular dynamics simulation: https://www.brainpreservation.org/how-computational-researchers-can-contribute-to-brain-preservation-research/
Regarding discussions with your profs, I totally understand, but I suspect that people may be more open to discussing it on an intellectual level than you think.
You can also email me for further information/discussion, although this is not my personal area of research: amckenz at gmail dot com

Andy_McKenzie 25 Feb 2022 21:24 UTC
9 points
on: My attitude towards death
But there’s also a significant utilitarian motivation—which is relevant here because utilitarianism doesn’t care about death for its own sake, as long as the dead are replaced by new people with equal welfare. Indeed, if our lives have diminishing marginal value over time (which seems hard to dispute if you’re taking our own preferences into account at all), and humanity can only support a fixed population size, utilitarianism actively prefers that older people die and are replaced.
I strongly disagree with this. I think the idea of human fungibility is flawed from a hedonistic quality of life perspective. In my view, much of human angst is due to the specter of involuntary death. There has been a lot of academic literature on this. One famous book is Ernest Becker’s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death/
Involuntary death is one of the great harms of life. Decreasing the probability and inevitability of involuntary death seems to have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of human lives.
It is also not clear that future civilizations will want to create as many people as they can. It is quite plausible that future civilizations will be reticent to do this. For one, those people have not consented to be born and the quality of their lives may still be unpredictable. There is a good philosophical case for anti-natalism as a result of this lack of consent. I consider anti-natalism totally impractical—and even problematic—in today’s world because we need the next generation to continue the project of humanity. But in the future that may not be an issue anymore. Whereas people who have opted for cryonics/biostasis are consenting to live longer lives.
(As a side note, I’m a strong proponent of brain preservation/cryonics and I’m consistently surprised others are not more interested in it.)
(updated from a previous comment I made on this topic here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vqaeCxRS9tc9PoWMq/why-are-some-eas-into-cryonics)

Andy_McKenzie

Tran­script of Sam Alt­man’s in­ter­view touch­ing on AI safety

Brain preser­va­tion to pre­vent in­vol­un­tary death: a pos­si­ble cause area

Transcript of Sam Altman’s interview touching on AI safety

Brain preservation to prevent involuntary death: a possible cause area