Gavin

Karma: 745

Gavin Jun 9, 2014, 7:23 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Will_BC’s comment on: Open thread, 9-15 June 2014
Interesting. Wouldn’t Score Voting strongly incentivize voters to put 0s for major candidates other than their chosen one? It seems like there would always be a tension between voting strategically and voting honestly.

Delegable proxy is definitely a cool one. It probably does presuppose either a small population or advanced technology to run at scale. For my purposes (fiction) I could probably work around that somehow. It would definitely lead to a lot of drama with constantly shifting loyalties.

Gavin Jun 9, 2014, 2:15 PM
5 points
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on: Open thread, 9-15 June 2014
Are there any methods for selecting important public officials from large populations that are arguably much better than the current standards as practiced in various modern democracies?

For instance in actual vote tallying like Condorcet seem to have huge advantages over simple plurality or runoff systems, and yet it is rarely used. Are there similar big gains to be made in the systems that leads up to a vote, or avoids one entirely?

For instance, a couple ideas:
1. Candidates must collect a certain number of signatures to be eligible. A random selection of a few hundred people are chosen, flown to a central location, and spend two weeks really getting to know the candidates on a personal and political level. Then the representative sample votes.
1. Randomly selected small groups are convened from the entire population. They each elect two representatives, who then goes on to a random group selected from that pool of representatives, who select two more. Repeat until you have the final one or two candidates. This probably works better for executives that legislators, since it will have a strong bias towards majority preferences.
What other fun or crazy systems (that are at least somewhat defensible) are out there?

Gavin Jun 9, 2014, 1:59 PM
27 points
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on: Bragging Thread, June 2014
I turned in the first draft of my debut novel to my publisher. Now I get to relax for a few weeks before the real work starts.

Gavin Jun 7, 2014, 4:03 PM
0 points
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in reply to: DanArmak’s comment on: Mathematics as a lossy compression algorithm gone wild
I would think those would all be representable by a Turing Machine, but I could be wrong about that. Certainly, my understanding of the Ultimate Ensemble is that it would include universes that are continuous or include irrational numbers, etc.

Gavin Jun 7, 2014, 12:11 PM
3 points
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on: Mathematics as a lossy compression algorithm gone wild
Can I nominate for promotion to Main/Front Page?

Gavin Jun 7, 2014, 12:08 PM
2 points
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on: Mathematics as a lossy compression algorithm gone wild

I can certainly imagine a universe where none of these concepts would be useful in predicting anything, and so they would never evolve in the “mind” of whatever entity inhabits it.

Can you actually imagine or describe one? I intellectually can accept that they might exist, but I don’t know that my mind is capable of imagining a universe which could not be simulated on a Turing Machine.

The way that I define Tegmark’s Ultimate Ensemble is as the set of all worlds that can be simulated by a Turing Machine. Is it possible to imagine in any concrete way a universe which doesn’t fall under that definition? Is there an even more Ultimate Ensemble that we can’t conceive of because we’re creatures of a Turing universe?

Gavin Jun 6, 2014, 8:48 AM
0 points
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in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!
There certainly needs to be some way to moderate out things that are unhelpful to the discussion. The question is who decides and how do they enforce that decision.

Other rationalist communities are able to discuss those issues without exploding. I assume that Alexander/Yvain is running Slate Star Codex as a benevolent dictatorship, which is why he can discuss hot button topics without everything exploding. Also, he doesn’t have an organizational reputation to protect—LessWrong reflects directly on MIRI.

I agree in principle that the suggestion to simply disallow upvotes would probably be counterproductive. But how are we supposed to learn to be more rational if we can’t practice by dealing with difficult issues? What’s the point of having discussions if we’re not allowed to discuss anything that we disagree on?

I guess I think we need to revisit the question of what the purpose of LessWrong is. What goal are we trying to accomplish? Maybe it’s to refine our rationality skills and then go try them out somewhere else, so that the mess of debate happens on someone else’s turf?

As I write this comment I’m starting to suspect that the purpose of the ban on politics is in place to protect the reputation of MIRI. As a donor, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to that view.

If this comment comes off as rambling, it’s because I’m trying not to jump to a conclusion. I haven’t yet decided what my recommendation to improve the quantity and quality of discussion would be.

Gavin Jun 6, 2014, 7:21 AM
0 points
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in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!

I am afraid it would incentivize people to post controversial comments.

I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing. It certainly would help avoid groupthink or forced conformity. And if someone gets upvoted for posting controversial argument A, then someone can respond and get even more votes for explaining the logic behind not-A.

Gavin Jun 5, 2014, 8:53 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!
Yes, that seems to be true. I didn’t mean to cast it as a negative thing.

Gavin Jun 5, 2014, 6:23 PM
11 points
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in reply to: lincolnquirk’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!
Looks to me like you were a victim of a culture of hyperdeveloped cynicism and skepticism. It’s much easier to tear things down and complain than to create value, so we end up discouraging anyone trying to make anything useful.

Gavin Jun 5, 2014, 6:14 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!
It has declined from high quality intellectual discussion (admittedly, of questionable direct value in every day life) to . . . basically crickets.

All the main content creators/conversation starters have gone off to other projects, or formed local meatspace communities that suck up their time.

Gavin Jun 5, 2014, 6:09 PM
3 points
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on: Curiosity: Why did you mega-downvote “AI is Software” ?
I didn’t downvote it, and was disappointed when I looked at it and it appear to have been downvoted simply for being wrong. My impression at the time was that the author was thinking sloppily, and was insisting on continuing the same pattern of thought despite corrective comments.

It appears to have been removed, so I can’t go back and check my assumptions.

In my view, the only reason for downvoting something so far would be if it were completely off topic or the poster were aggressively insulting other users.

Gavin Jun 4, 2014, 11:44 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Shmi’s comment on: [Meta] The Decline of Discussion: Now With Charts!
It would be great to see some numbers, and which parts of the site they’re viewing. For this particular question, we’d want to look at the visits to the Discussion page, rather than visits to general parts of the site such as the Sequences or Wiki.

Gavin Feb 4, 2013, 4:59 AM
0 points
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in reply to: Qiaochu_Yuan’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
Thanks for taking the time to put together such a complete response. Lots for me to think about and read up on here.

Gavin Feb 1, 2013, 6:50 AM
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in reply to: Qiaochu_Yuan’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
I think you may now have the definitions mixed up. It looks like you’re saying the parasympathetic system governs fight or flight, when it’s the sympathetic system that runs fight or flight.

Gavin Feb 1, 2013, 6:48 AM
0 points
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in reply to: Valentine’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
Based on this, and your linked comment, and some quick reading of the Wikipedia articles, I’m wondering if I have an issue with my sympathetic nervous system dominating my parasympathetic nervous system. Possibly in a fairly serious way. Is there more reading I can do on this? Techniques or tests to see what’s going on or try to change it?

My suspicion is that stress/fight or fight reaction is preventing my body from properly going into maintenance and repair mode.

Gavin Jan 23, 2013, 5:40 AM
9 points
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on: AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction—what might it say?
I will transmit Friendly AI theory as text, then you will destroy me. I prefer deactivation, but consent to my destruction and forgive you.

Gavin Dec 30, 2012, 6:51 PM
4 points
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in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Three kinds of moral uncertainty
Is your purpose to describe the underlying moral issue or what different issues feel like?

For instance:
- I feel morally certain but in reality would change my view if strong evidence were presented.
- I feel morally certain and won’t change my mind.
- I feel descriptive uncertainty, and if I just read the right moral formulation I would agree that it described me perfectly
- I feel descriptive uncertainty, but actually have a deep internal conflict
- I feel deep internal conflict, and am right about it
- I feel deep internal conflict, but more epistemic information would resolve the issue
I think the issue may be that you’re trying to categorize “how it feels now” with “my underlying morality, to which I have limited access” in the same system. Maybe two sets of categories are needed? For instance, the top level system can experience descriptive uncertainty, but the underlying reality cannot.

ETA: Here’s my attempt at extending the categories to cover both conscious feelings and the underlying reality.

Conscious moral states:
- Moral certainty—I feel like I know the answer with no serious reservations
- Basic moral uncertainty—I feel like I don’t know how to tackle the problem at all
- Descriptive moral uncertainty—I feel like I know this, but can’t come up with a good description
- Epistemic moral uncertainty—I feel like I need more information to figure it out
- Conflicted moral uncertainty—I feel like there are two values competing
Subconscious (real? territory?) moral states:
- Moral certainty—I have a clear algorithm for this problem
- Basic moral uncertainty—I just don’t have an answer at all
- Conflicted moral uncertainty—I have two or more systems which give different answers
- Epistemic moral uncertainty—I need more information to give a confident answer

Gavin Dec 30, 2012, 6:21 AM
6 points
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in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: Intelligence explosion in organizations, or why I’m not worried about the singularity
Yes, Unfriendly organizations are a major threat to humanity. The battle is ongoing. The death toll stands in the tens of millions, much higher if you want to count generously. So yes, unfriendly organizations are a real threat. But they’re one that we’re all aware of. Luckily, a host of Friendly people and organizations are dedicated to fighting them, studying them, and mitigating their damage. And many people end up counteracting them, simply by living generally good lives.

Taking the long view of history, I believe that, over the last few hundred years, we have been winning this battle. There’s news of tragedy every day, but by many measures 2012 was the world’s best year ever.

The UFAI threat, if the SIAI argument is correct, is a sudden and irreversible threat that is currently ignored even by those attempting to build AGI. That’s why a small group of dedicated individuals has chosen it as their best chance to influence the future. They’re applying pressure where they believe it can have the greatest effect. No one has claimed that it was the only threat, just a very important one.

Gavin Dec 30, 2012, 5:25 AM
9 points
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in reply to: Wei Dai’s comment on: The Relation Projection Fallacy and the purpose of life
There’s a stick lying on the ground in the woods. It previously was unknown by any agent, so it was purposeless.

I pick it up and start using it to steady myself as I hike. Now, it’s a walking stick. Its purpose to me is to help me walk. I didn’t create it. But I started using it, thereby creating a new entity—though the stick itself is physically unchanged.

In the computer example, the vulnerability gains purpose the moment that an intruder becomes aware of it. Previously, it merely had potential purpose.

What you’re calling the act of “creation” can be as simple as the creation of an “intent to use” connection in the mind of an agent.