I agree that thinking critically about the way AGI can get bottlenecked by physical processes speed. While this is an important area of study and thought, I don’t see how “there could be this bottleneck though!” matters to the discussion. It’s true. There likely is this bottleneck. How big or small it is requires some thought and study, but that thought and study presupposes you already have an account for why the bottleneck operates as a real bottleneck from the perspective of a plausibly existing AGI.
JohnBuridan
Karma: 604
Solstice Movie Review: Summer Wars
June 24 Dinner Meetup
Bizarre coincidence. Or maybe not.
Last night I was having ‘the conversation’ with a close friend and also found that the idea of speed of action was essential for explaining around the requirement of having to give a specific ‘story’. We are both former StarCraft players so discussing things in terms of an ideal version of AlphaStar proved illustrative. If you know StarCraft, the idea of an agent being able to maximize the damage given and received for every unit, minerals mined, and resources expended, the dancing, casting, building, expanding, replenishing to the utmost degree, reveals the impossibility of a human being able to win against such an agent.
We wound up quite hung up on two objections. 1) Well, people are suspicious of AIs already, and 2) just don’t give these agents access to the material world. And although we came to agreement on the replies to these objections, by that point we are far enough down the inferential working memory that the argument doesn’t strike a chord anymore.
We have a reservation for 8 at 1pm. I am wearing a blue tshirt, that says ‘nihilist’, a copy of Unsong, and an infant strap.
Come even if you feel nervous or shy. We will have fun, good conversation.
I have been reading and thinking about the ontology of chance, what makes a good introduction to chemistry, and the St. Louis County Charter.
These are good points! I have been thinking the same thing. However, I don’t imagine the upper institute requiring prerequisites, just an entrance exam. But a four year college offers basically the same thing except they lower transaction costs to basically zero or making that decision to commit to something you like. Hence declaring or changing majors is usually easy if you do it sophomore year.
The price disclosure issue isn’t a problem. You can Google average cost of any private college and it will give a good ballpark estimate which matches the OPs 20k+ chart. Colleges engage in near perfect price discrimination. It’s not really considered nefarious, because it’s both redistributive and expands supply. The richer pay more, thus subsidizing the poorer. This allow more students than otherwise would be able to to afford the college.
This price discrimination expands supply by increasing the absolute quantity of students who can afford the schooling there. Charging 20k for everyone would allow fewer students to attend than charging 30k for some and 10k for others.
That’s true at the prestigious four year colleges. But there are hundreds of private four year colleges. Their supply of students is stagnant and beginning to backslide. If you talk to private four year college admissions officers, many are afraid of the coming great contraction in school aged people. Only Texas isn’t having a contraction.
In any case, in John’s model, that coming contraction should result in a decrease in number of specialized courses. We’ll see. Courses might be somewhat sticky though.
[correction] “You are not allowed to teach that Purgatory is not part of Catholic teaching, because it is.”
Martin: “Why should I not be allowed to teach it? I am allowed to debate it in the classroom.”
“The disputations are one thing. Public tracts are another.”
“You’re just mad because I called you corrupt.”
“Yes, that makes it easier to want to suppress you. Though we never officially censor people for saying that.”
Schelling Meetup
You seem to value loyalty and generally want to be a tit-for-tat player + forgiveness. That makes sense, as does calibrating for the external environment in the case of PDs. You also view the intellectual commons as being increasingly corrupted by prejudiced discrimination.
This makes sense to me. This makes sense, but I think the thinking here is getting overwhelmed by the emotional strength of politicization. In general, it is easy to exaggerate how much defection is actually going on, and so give oneself an excuse for nursing wounds and grudges longer than absolutely necessary. I’m guilty of this and so speak from some experience. So I think there’s an emotional mistake here. Perhaps fixed by seeking out “philosophical repose”, a bit more detachment from reacting to the opinions and thoughts of others.
Intellectually, I think you are making an important mistake. Cooperation in PDs and moral philosophy are two different, though related, things. Welfarist utilitarianism does not require impartiality, but choosing those actions which maximize good consequences. Since your reason for rejecting welfsrism is because of the consequences of not punishing free riders, you have not yet rejected utilitarianism. You are rejecting impartiality as a necessary tenant of utilitarianism, but that is not the same thing as rejecting utilitarianism. You have to go one step further and give non-consequentialist reasons for rejecting them.
Hope that helps.
I think the OP’s overarching concern is something like a narrow utilitarianism whose decision algorithm takes EV over only a limited number of horizons and decision sizes. There is unknown EV in exploring the world more personally and in reproducing knowledge and skills. My hunch is that such optimization of human life takes these different aspects at least multiplicatively.
Expected value calculations have limits for decisions which will affect your worldview, i.e. exploration. Or decisions along the axis of goods which you don’t have a good model for, i.e. education.
Long Review: Economic Hierarchies
I am noticing some interdisciplinary additions perhaps on the history/sociology side:
Theories of cultural progress and the sociology of scientific/innovative community.
The education of excellent people.
The history of innovative communities.
I’m curious, Jason, what the best arguments you have found so far about the relationship between long-term trends in population growth and progress.
Updateless Decision Theory allows for acting as though you need to cooperate with an agent beyond you, even if it has a low probability of existing. I suppose your case of grandchildren works like this? I can cooperate with my as yet nonexistent grandchildren by making the probability of their existence higher, they will likely reward me more?
I’ll have to work on my family norms then! Ancestor worship, it is!
Hi Mack,
You seem somewhat new. I just want to let you know that community standards of discourse avoid appeals to authority, especially appeals to authority without commentary. A comment like this provides little value, even if in jest.
Downvoted because just running in and dropping a scripture quote without commentary degrades LW conversational norms. This is not Wednesday night bible study and people don’t nod their heads smilingly because you found a related scripture quote. Even if the audience were 90% believers, I doubt they would interpret scripture the same way you do. You should explain why you chose this quote and what bearing it has on turchin’s admittedly glib point.
Besides switching from protestantism to at least something with a bit more harumph like, catholicism or orthodoxy, I encourage you to wrestle with the sequences, if you haven’t already.
Regards!
That’s fair! The cynic’s voice was definitely too unfair in that context.
You are right that Matt’s places a larger share of his hope in immigration than birthrates. However, Matt argues that immigration leads to assimilation and that includes assimilating to Western birthrates. His commitment to the political project of one billion Americans seems to require escaping the current equilibrium birthrate.
Thanks! Fixed :)
Sorry, Bryan.
I think if you live in a context where having kids is a norm, that is, where the local knowledge and family -friendship support of having and raising kids prevails, then truly arguments are a waste of time. You have freedom of choice, knowing well what that option entails.
But I think most people are not in a situation like mruwnik where they have seen large families in action; they don’t really have the freedom to have a large family, since the metis is missing.
In any case, I think any ethical philosophy worth a penny includes an ethics of family, economics, and societal growth. Philosophical argument on its own might not serve as reason to have kids. But our philosophies, examined or unexamined, often serve as justifications of momentous life choices of this sort. So I think I will reject that ‘logicking’ about having kids is a waste of time. Especially when people cite reasons philosophical and ethical for having/not having kids all the time.
There’s definitely evil AI.