Dreaded_Anomaly

• Dreaded_AnomalyJun 30, 2013, 7:27 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: An at­tempt at a short no-pre­req­ui­site test for pro­gram­ming inclination

  And reading a little further than that...

  The test does not very accurately predict levels of performance, but by combining the result of six replications of the experiment, five in UK and one in Australia. We show that consistency does have a strong effect on success in early learning to program but background programming experience, on the other hand, has little or no effect.

• Dreaded_AnomalyJun 30, 2013, 7:23 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: fubarobfusco’s comment on: Public Ser­vice An­nounce­ment Collection

  The 2006 study that claimed that humans divide neatly into “natural computer programmers” and “everyone else” failed to replicate in 2008 on a larger population of students.

  This is an incomplete and inaccurate summary of the research. Further work has been done, and a revised test shows significant success:

  Meta-analysis of the effect of consistency on success in early learning of programming (pdf)

  Abstract: A test was designed that apparently examined a student’s knowledge of assignment and sequence before a first course in programming but in fact was designed to capture their reasoning strategies. An experiment found two distinct populations of students: one could build and consistently apply a mental model of program execution; the other appeared either unable to build a model or to apply one consistently. The first group performed very much better in their end-ofcourse examination than the second in terms of success or failure. The test does not very accurately predict levels of performance, but by combining the result of six replications of the experiment, five in UK and one in Australia. We show that consistency does have a strong effect on success in early learning to program but background programming experience, on the other hand, has little or no effect.

  The previous research and the test itself can be found on this page.

• Dreaded_AnomalyMay 30, 2013, 1:58 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: Luke_A_Somers’s comment on: Who thinks quan­tum com­put­ing will be nec­es­sary for AI?

  you could still get a quantum noise generator hooked up

  In case anybody needs one: ANU Quantum Random Numbers Server

• Dreaded_AnomalyMay 22, 2013, 10:59 PM

  10 points

  on: Open thread, May 17-31 2013

  Norbert Weiner, a mathematician from MIT, postulated unfriendly AI in 1949.

  The possibility of learning may be built in by allowing the taping to be re-established in a new way by the performance of the machine and the external impulses coming into it, rather than having it determined by a closed and rigid setup, to be imposed on the apparatus from the beginning.

  ...

  Moreover, if we move in the direction of making machines which learn and whose behavior is modified by experience, we must face the fact that every degree of independence we give the machine is a degree of possible defiance of our wishes. The genie in the bottle will not willingly go back in the bottle, nor have we any reason to expect them to be well disposed to us.

• Dreaded_AnomalyMar 20, 2013, 1:52 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Wel­come to Less Wrong! (July 2012)

  Have you seen the comments by kalla724 in this thread?

  Edit: There’s some further discussion here.

• Dreaded_AnomalyMar 19, 2013, 4:34 AM

  7 points

  in reply to: GloriaSidorum’s comment on: Don’t Get Offended

  In all honesty, I haven’t even read the study, because I can’t find the full text online

  Here it is (pdf link).

• Dreaded_AnomalyMar 11, 2013, 1:56 AM

  8 points

  in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: Bor­ing Ad­vice Repository

  primarily via cancer.

  Also heart disease, stroke, and emphysema.

• Dreaded_AnomalyMar 6, 2013, 2:26 PM

  3 points

  on: Giv­ing in to small vices

  Relevant article: Right vs. Pragmatic

  There was no chance the signs would ever work. The people who threw paper towels on the floor knew that it was “wrong”. Maybe their desire to avoid touching the doorknob was stronger than their desire to do the “right” thing every time. Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn about making the bathroom slightly worse for someone else to make it slightly better for themselves. Either way, a sign’s not going to solve the problem, because the problem isn’t that they didn’t know the right thing to do. They knew what they were doing, and for whatever reason, they didn’t care.

  This problem wasn’t solved by the time I left that office. It probably still isn’t.

  The pragmatic way to solve the problem would have been to adapt to what these people were going to do anyway: just put another trash can by the door.

• Dreaded_AnomalyJan 25, 2013, 3:53 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Up­date on Kim Suozzi (can­cer pa­tient in want of cry­on­ics)

  The main thing that makes me suspect we might have AGI before 2100 are neuroprostheses: in addition to bionic eyes for humans, we’ve got working implants that replicate parts of hippocampal and cerebellar function for rats.

  The hippocampal implant has been extended to monkeys.

• Dreaded_AnomalyJan 2, 2013, 5:33 AM

  1 point

  on: Some scary life ex­ten­sion dilemmas

  The initial scenario seems contrived. Your calculation essentially just expresses the mathematical fact that there is a small difference between the numbers 49.99 and 50, which becomes larger when multiplied by 7 billion minus one. What motivates this scenario? How is it realistic or worth considering?

• Dreaded_AnomalyNov 5, 2012, 5:09 PM

  1 point

  on: Vot­ing is like donat­ing thou­sands of dol­lars to charity

  A slight math error:

  (90%-30%)*1/​(3.5 million)*($7 trillion) = $1.2 million

  Here you left the 30% chance of being wrong from the previous example, but if you have a 90% chance of being right, you only have a 10% chance of being wrong. The actual expected dollar value is $1.6 million, which is actually a little better for your argument.

• Dreaded_AnomalyNov 4, 2012, 1:31 AM

  60 points

  on: 2012 Less Wrong Cen­sus/​Survey

  Took it. Yvain is a gentleman and a scholar for putting so much time and effort into this.

  Just a few comments:

  It could be a little clearer that the Calibration IQ question in Section 8 should only be answered by those people who reported an IQ in Section 5.

  A GRE score question (as I requested in what is currently the fifth-most-upvoted top-level comment in the survey critiques thread) would have been nice. It was cool to see the Political Compass, AQ test, and iqtest.dk on there, though.

• Dreaded_AnomalyOct 19, 2012, 4:27 AM

  12 points

  on: 2012 Less Wrong Cen­sus Sur­vey: Call For Cri­tiques/​Questions

  The hispanic ethnicity is not generally considered to be tied to a specific race. In various forms I have seen and completed recently, race and hispanic ethnicity are two separate questions. This is more accurate because it does not exclude/​ignore, e.g., black hispanics who may live in or descend from Caribbean or Central American nations.

  The question about children should have an option “0, and unsure about having some in the future”.

  It would help to provide lists of “hard sciences” and “soft sciences” so that people know what they are selecting.

  There is a typo in the Liberal answer for the Political question: “moire redistribution of wealth”.

  Some people may come from families of mixed religious background. This question should have either a multiple-answer option (more accurate) or specify that responders should choose based on some criteria (vague, open to interpretation).

  For the IQ tests, two which came up in the comments after the last survey were iqtest.dk and sifter.org/​iqtest. My scores on both tests were consistent. In a reply to the previously-linked comment, gwern linked his list of online IQ tests.

  ACT scores have already been mentioned as an addition to the SAT scores. I think a category for GRE general scores would also be worthwhile; the GRE has higher resolution than the SAT or ACT at the high tail. Going further on these questions, splitting up the scores into the different subject areas (math/​verbal) would be nice. Of course, the GRE scoring system has been recently changed, which would necessitate two possible response areas like the SAT question has now. (There are (questionably) accurate conversions between the different scoring systems which could be used for the survey analysis and comparisons.)

  Another question which might be interesting: ask responders to take the AQ test. It’s not long, and it provides an inexact but standardized measure which is correlated to Asperger’s/​high-functioning autism. Probably better than relying on self-diagnoses, which is common.

  In the Less Wrong Use question, there is a typo: “but never a top-level psost”.

• Dreaded_AnomalyOct 14, 2012, 7:01 AM

  6 points

  on: Good tran­shu­man­ist fic­tion?

  Replay, by Ken Grimwood—A man dies and then gets to relive his life, again and again. It’s sometimes cited as the inspiration for the movie Groundhog Day, which has already been mentioned. This is one of my all-time favorite novels, definitely worth reading.

  Also check out Peter F. Hamilton. He writes space opera, some of the most explicitly and matter-of-factly transhuman series that I’ve seen. His books explore immortality as well as biological and technological upgrades. I would recommend the Commonwealth Saga/​Void Trilogy over the Night’s Dawn trilogy, but both series are good.

  Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, another space opera, reveals some transhumanist themes as the series progresses through the branch of humanity called Ousters.

• Dreaded_AnomalyOct 14, 2012, 4:53 AM

  6 points

  in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: Good tran­shu­man­ist fic­tion?

  In fact the most irritating thing about “The Avengers” is that Stark isn’t going to take the obvious next step: Make a goddam suit for Scarlett Johansson!

  This actually happened in the Ultimates comic, an alternate version of the Avengers.

Scien­tists make mon­keys smarter us­ing brain im­plants [link]

• Dreaded_AnomalySep 15, 2012, 3:27 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: Call for Anony­mous Nar­ra­tives by LW Women and Ques­tion Pro­pos­als (AMA)

  These are correct statements about the present. They are not very helpful for improving the future and solving the collective action problems that have led to this point.

  I have not said that dating should be charity work. I only think that dating could be a little more charitable. Epiphany’s follow-up comment pretty well illustrates what I mean.

• Dreaded_AnomalySep 15, 2012, 3:20 PM

  9 points

  in reply to: Epiphany’s comment on: Call for Anony­mous Nar­ra­tives by LW Women and Ques­tion Pro­pos­als (AMA)

  Thank you very much for the thorough reply. I understand your position and experiences a lot better now, and I think we are broadly in agreement about what needs to happen on each side. I recognize that understanding alone is not going to solve these problems, especially in individual cases, but I think it’s an important component for longer-term improvement. Judging from this post, you clearly do have empathy, and I could not reasonably ask any more in that regard than what you have already demonstrated.

• Dreaded_AnomalySep 15, 2012, 7:14 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Call for Anony­mous Nar­ra­tives by LW Women and Ques­tion Pro­pos­als (AMA)

  Plenty of guys come functional out of the package, so the opportunity cost of a lot of dysfunction-fussing-with is high.

  Well, this conversation has managed to go right around in a circle:

  From their perspective, you (as a woman in a largely-male group) have many more romantic prospects than they do.

  Also, turning “dig a little deeper” into “a prolonged period” seems uncharitable.

• Dreaded_AnomalySep 15, 2012, 6:39 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Call for Anony­mous Nar­ra­tives by LW Women and Ques­tion Pro­pos­als (AMA)

  In the context of Epiphany’s post, these aren’t arbitrary guys:

  the ones who do seem good have problems like the above