Gavin

Karma: 748

Gavin 26 Jan 2022 23:37 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: DaemonicSigil’s comment on: What’s Up With Confusingly Pervasive Consequentialism?
The easiest way is probably to build a modestly-sized company doing software and then find a way to destabilize the government and cause hyperinflation.
I think the rule of thumb should be: if your AI could be intentionally deployed to take over the world, it’s highly likely to do so unintentionally.

Gavin 21 Jul 2020 20:58 UTC
−1 points
0
on: To what extent is GPT-3 capable of reasoning?
I was able to get this one on my first try:
---
Prompt: I am teaching my son a simple logic problem. “All blargs are schminky,” I explain. “But not all schminkies are blarg.”
GPT-3: “What’s the difference?” he asks, confused. “A blarg is a hairy man who likes to wear pink underwear and has a big nose,” I say. “And a schminky is an ugly person with no sense of fashion or hygiene.”
---
Really impressive! Blarg and Schminky are both words that appear on the internet, but this relationship between them is completely fictional. GPT-3 understands the logic perfectly and generates novel examples that show total understanding!
I then re-rolled several times, and got a bunch of nonsense. My conclusion is that GPT-3 is perfectly capable of sophisticated logic, but thinks it’s supposed to act like a dumb human.

Gavin 26 Aug 2019 21:47 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: avturchin’s comment on: Soft takeoff can still lead to decisive strategic advantage
A few plausible limited abilities that could provide decisive first move advantages:
- The ability remotely take control of any networked computer
- The ability to defeat all conventional cryptography would provide a decisive advantage in the type of conflict we’re currently seeing.
- The ability to reliably market price movements

Gavin 29 Nov 2017 23:16 UTC
2 points
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on: The Right to be Wrong
One way to employ Space Mom might be with how confidently you believe expert concensus, in particular given that experts rarely give their confidence levels. For instance:
A. Expert concensus says that horoscopes are bunk. I believe it! I have a tight confidence interval on that.
B. Expert concensus says that hospitals provide significant value. I believe that too! But thanks to Robin Hanson, I’m less confident in it. Maybe we’re mostly wasting our healthcare dollars? Probably not, but I’ll keep that door in my mind open.
----
Separately, I think the frustrating thing about Hanson’s piece was that he seemed to be making an isolated demand for rigor in that Eliezer prove in an absolute sense that he can know he is more rational than average before he gets his “disagreement license.”
“You could be deceiving yourself about having valid evidence or the ability to rationally consider it” is a fully general argument against anything, and that’s what it felt like Hanson was using. In particular because Eliezer specificially mentioned testing his calibration against the real world on a regular basis to test those assumptions.

Gavin 10 Nov 2017 22:08 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Living in an Inadequate World
Isn’t this true in a somewhat weaker form? It takes individuals and groups putting in effort at personal risk to move society forward. The fact that we are stuck in inadequate equilibriums is evidence that we have not progressed as far as we could.
Scientists moving from Elsevier to open access happened because enough of them cared enough to put in the effort and take the risk to their personal success. If they had cared a little bit more on average, it would have happened earlier. If they had cared a little less, maybe it would have taken a few more years.
If humans had 10% more instinct for altruism, how many more of these coordination problems would alreadybe solved? There is a deficit of caring about solving civilizational problems. That doesn’t change the observation that most people are reacting to their own incentives and we can’t really blame them.

Gavin 27 Feb 2016 19:34 UTC
6 points
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on: If there IS alien super-inteligence in our own galaxy, then what it could be like?
Similar to some of the other ideas, but here are my framings:
1. Virtually all of the space in the universe have been taken over by superintelligences. We find ourselves observing the universe from one of these rare areas because it would be impossible for us to exist in one of the colonized areas. Thus, it shouldn’t be too surprising that our little area of non-colonization is just now popping out a new superintelligence. The most likely outcome for an intelligent species is to watch the area around them become colonized while they cannot develop fast enough to catch up.
2. A dyson-sphere level intelligence knows basically everything. There is a limit to knowledge and power that can be approached. Once a species has achieved a certain level of power it simply doesn’t need to continue expanding in order to guarantee its safety and the fulfillment of its values. Continued expansion has diminishing returns and it has other values or goals that counterbalance any tiny desire to continue expanding.

Gavin 1 Dec 2015 15:34 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Open thread, Nov. 30 - Dec. 06, 2015
My real solution was not to own a car at all. Feel free to discount my advice appropriately!

Gavin 30 Nov 2015 17:55 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: username2’s comment on: Open thread, Nov. 30 - Dec. 06, 2015
I don’t have the knowledge to give a full post, but I absolutely hate car repair. And if you buy a used car, there’s a good chance that someone is selling it because it has maintenance issues. This happened to me, and no matter how many times I took the car to the mechanic it just kept having problems.

On the other hand, new cars have a huge extra price tag just because they’re new. So the classic advice is to never buy a new car, because the moment you drive it off the lot it loses a ton of value instantly.

Here are a couple ideas for how to handle this:
1. Buy a car that’s just off a 2 or 3 year lease. It’s probably in great shape and is less likely to be a lemon.There are companies that only sell off-lease cars.
2. Assume a lease that’s in its final year. (at http://www.swapalease.com/lease/search.aspx?maxmo=12 for example) Then you get a trial period of 4-12 months, and will have the option to buy the car. This way you’ll know if you like the car or not and if it has any issues. The important thing to check is that the “residual price” that they charge for buying the car is reasonable. See this article for more info on that: http://www.edmunds.com/car-leasing/buying-your-leased-car.html
There are a ton of articles out there on how to negotiate a car deal, but one suggestion that might be worth trying is to negotiate and then leave and come back the next day to make the purchase. In the process of walking out you’ll probably get the best deal they’re going to offer. You can always just come back ten minutes later and make the purchase—they’re not going to mind and the deal isn’t going to expire (even if they say it is).

Gavin 31 Aug 2015 16:18 UTC
14 points
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in reply to: cousin_it’s comment on: Open Thread August 31 - September 6
It seems like a lot of focus on MIRI giving good signals to outsiders. The “publish or perish” treadmill of academia is exactly why privately funded organizations like MIRI are needed.

The things that su3su2u1 wants MIRI to be already exist in academia. The whole point of MIRI is to create an organization of a type that doesn’t currently exist, focused on much longer term goals. If you measure organizations on the basis of how many publications they make, you’re going to get a lot of low-quality publications. Citations are only slightly better, especially if you’re focused on ignored areas of research.

If you have outside-view criticisms of an organization and you’re suddenly put in charge of them, the first thing you have to do is check the new inside-view information available and see what’s really going on.

Gavin 6 Jul 2015 18:25 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: AlexZ’s comment on: Open Thread, Jul. 6 - Jul. 12, 2015
You might want to examine what sort of in-group out-group dynamics are at play here, as well as some related issues. I know I run into these things frequently—I find the best defense mechanism for me is to try to examine the root of where feelings come from originally, and why certain ideas are so threatening.

Some questions that you can ask yourself:
1. Are these claims (or their claimants) subtly implying that I am in a group of “the bad guys”?
2. Is part of my identity wrapped up in the things that these claims are against?
3. Do I have a gut instinct that the claims are being made in bad faith or through motivated reasoning?
4. If I accept these claims as true, would I need to dramatically reevaluate my worldview?
5. If everyone accepted these claims as true, would the world change in a way that I find threatening or troubling?
None of these will refute the claims, but they may help you understand your defensiveness.

I find it helpful to remind myself that I don’t need to have a strongly held opinion on everything. In fact, it’s good to be able to say “I don’t really know” about all the things you’re not an expert in.

Gavin 3 Jul 2015 19:31 UTC
7 points
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in reply to: DanB’s comment on: Stupid Questions July 2015
Geothermal or similar cooling requires a pretty significant capital investment in order to work. My guess is that a basic air conditioning unit is a cheaper and simpler fix in most cases.

The problem is that even that fix may be out of the reach of many residents of Karachi.

Gavin 20 Apr 2015 4:52 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Luke_A_Somers’s comment on: Resolving the Fermi Paradox: New Directions
Maybe the elder civs aren’t either. It might take billions of years to convert an entire light cone into dark computronium. And they’re 84.5% of the way done.

I’m guessing the issue with this is that the proportion of dark matter doesn’t change if you look at older or younger astronomical features.

Gavin 20 Apr 2015 4:46 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: jacob_cannell’s comment on: Resolving the Fermi Paradox: New Directions

It would be very unusual indeed if the element distributions over optimal computronium exactly matched that of typical solar system.

But if it were not the optimal computronium, but the easiest to build computroniom, it would be made up of whatever was available in the local area.

Gavin 20 Feb 2015 23:08 UTC
11 points
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on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108
META: I’d like to suggest having a separate thread for each publication. These attract far more interest than any other threads, and after the first 24 hours the top comments are set and there’s little new discussion.

There aren’t very many threads posted in discussion these days, so it’s not like there is other good content that will be crowded out by one new thread every 1-3 days.
What links here?
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108 by b_sen (20 Feb 2015 21:53 UTC; 7 points)

Gavin 17 Feb 2015 18:51 UTC
6 points
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on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107
Quirrel seems on the road to get the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s certainly possible that he will fail or Harry ( / time-turned Cedric Diggory) will manage to swipe it at the last minute. But with around 80k words left to go, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of story left if Harry gets the stone in the next couple of chapters.

I draw your attention to a few quotes concerning the Philosopher’s Stone:

His strongest road to life is the Philosopher’s Stone, which Flamel assures me that not even Voldemort could create on his own; by that road he would rise greater and more terrible than ever before. (Chapter 61)

“It’s not a secret.” Hermione flipped the page, showing Harry the diagrams. “The instructions are right on the next page. It’s just so difficult that only Nicholas Flamel’s done it.” (Chapter 87)

“I was looking to see if there was anything here I could figure out how to do. I thought, maybe the difficult part about making a Philosopher’s Stone was that the alchemical circle had to be super precise, and I could get it right by using a Muggle microscope—” “That’s brilliant, Hermione!” The boy rapidly drew his wand, said “Quietus,” and then continued after the small noises of the rowdier books had died down. “Even if the Philosopher’s Stone is just a myth, the same trick might work for other difficult alchemies—” “Well, it can’t work,” Hermione said. She’d flown across the library to look up the only book on alchemy that wasn’t in the Restricted Section. And then—she remembered the crushing letdown, all the sudden hope dissipating like mist. “Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn ‘to the fineness of a child’s hair’, it isn’t any finer for some alchemies than others. And wizards have Omnioculars, and I haven’t heard of any spells where you use Omnioculars to magnify things and do them exactly. I should’ve realized that!” (Chapter 87)

So we have multiple mentions of the possibility of creating a Philosopher’s Stone. We also have Quirrel’s promise not to kill anyone within Hogwarts for a week. And Flamel may still be out there, with the knowledge of how he created the Stone in the first place.

All this leads to the possibility that Quirrel gets ahold of the current Philosopher’s Stone, and Harry learns enough in seeing the stone in person to be able to recreate it using a combination of magic and technology.

You can’t transfigure anything that doesn’t exist yet, so just having a Stone doesn’t mean an instant singularity. You can’t just will a superwizard or an AI into existence. This leaves plenty of space for a war between two sides, both of which have permanent transfiguration at their disposal.

Gavin 17 Feb 2015 17:35 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: dxu’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107
Apparently Professors can cast memory charms without setting off the wards.

Gavin 10 Feb 2015 5:46 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: iarwain1’s comment on: Open thread, Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2015
The great vacation sounds to me like it ends with me being killed and another version of me being recognized. I realize that these issues of consciousness and continuity are far from settled, but at this point that’s my best guess. Incidentally, if anyone thinks there’s a solid argument explaining what does and doesn’t count as “me” and why, I’d be interested to hear it. Maybe there’s a way to dissolve the question?

In any event, I wasn’t able to easily choose between one or the other. Wireheading sounds pretty good to me.

Gavin 10 Dec 2014 21:41 UTC
13 points
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in reply to: Richard Korzekwa ’s comment on: Stupid Questions December 2014
RottenTomatoes has much broader ratings. The current box office hits range from 7% to 94%. This is because they aggregate binary “positive” and “negative” reviews. As jaime2000 notes, Youtube has switched to a similar rating system and it seems to keep things very sensitive.

Gavin 13 Nov 2014 20:48 UTC
8 points
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on: Others’ predictions of your performance are usually more accurate
This doesn’t really tell us a lot about how people predict others’ success. The information has been intentionally limited to a very high degree. It’s basically asking the test participants “This individual usually scores an 87. What do you expect her to score next time?” All of the interactions that could potentially create bias has been artificially stripped away by the experiment.

This means that participants are forced by the experimental setup to use Outside View, when they could easily be fooled into taking the Inside View and being swayed by perceptions of the student’s diligence, charisma, etc. The subject would probably be more optimistic than average about themselves, but the others’ predictions might not be nearly as accurate if you gave them more interaction with the subject.

In baseball prediction, it has been demonstrated that a simple weighted average with an age factor is nearly the best predictor of future performance. Watching the games and getting to know the players in most cases makes prediction worse. [I can’t easily find a citation for this, but I think it came originally from articles at baseballprospectus.com]

This really just leaves us with “use outside view to predict performance,” which is useful but not necessarily novel.

Gavin 4 Nov 2014 15:38 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Andy_McKenzie’s comment on: What are the most common and important trade-offs that decision makers face?
Trilemma maybe?