Lambda

Karma: 167

Lambda 14 Apr 2022 12:34 UTC
1 point
on: Lies Told To Children
Seems like the real test would be to do it without the television shows?

Lambda 6 Feb 2022 5:14 UTC
14 points
in reply to: Daniel Kokotajlo’s comment on: OpenAI Solves (Some) Formal Math Olympiad Problems
Is gain-of-function research “very harmful”? I feel like it’s not appropriate to nickel-and-dime this.
And also, yes, I do think it’s harmful directly, in addition to eventually in expectation. It’s a substantial derogation of a norm that should exist. To explain this concept further:
- In addition to risking pandemics, participating in gain-of-function research also sullies and debases the research community, and makes it less the shape it needs to be culturally to do epidemiology. Refusing to take massive risks with minor upsides, even if they’re cool, is also a virtue cultivation practice.
- When a politician talks openly about how he wants to rig elections, exchange military aid for domestic political assistance, etc., he causes direct harm now even if the “plans” do not amount to anything later. This is because the speech acts disrupt the equilibria that make similar things less likely in general.
My comments here are intended as an explicit, loud signal of condemnation. This research is misconduct. Frankly, I am frustrated I have to be the one to say this, when it duly falls to community leaders to do so.

Lambda 6 Feb 2022 5:01 UTC
7 points
in reply to: Gurkenglas’s comment on: OpenAI Solves (Some) Formal Math Olympiad Problems
Because of the Curry-Howard correspondence, as well as for other reasons, it does not seem that the distance between solving math problems and writing AIs is large. I mean, actually, according to the correspondence, the distance is zero, but perhaps we may grant that programming an AI is a different kind of math problem from the Olympiad fare. Does this make you feel safe?
Also, it seems that the core difficulty in alignment is more in producing definitions and statements of theorems, than in proving theorems. What should the math even look like or be about? A proof assistant is not helpful here.

Lambda 5 Feb 2022 5:54 UTC
5 points
on: OpenAI Solves (Some) Formal Math Olympiad Problems
I think this kind of research is very harmful and should stop.
I think it’s important to repeat this even if it’s common knowledge in many of our circles, because it’s not in broader circles, and we should not give up on reminding people not to conduct research that leads to net increased risk of destroying the world, even if its really cool, gets you promoted, or makes you a lot of money.
Again, OpenAI people, if you’re reading this, please stop.

Lambda 1 Sep 2021 1:34 UTC
1 point
on: New York City, NY – ACX Meetups Everywhere 2021
Does anyone know approx what time the event will end?

Lambda 15 Apr 2021 20:20 UTC
3 points
in reply to: lsusr’s comment on: Training the YouTube Algorithm
Stylebot for chrome. Perhaps there’s better now — the ui can be a bit wonky — but I’ve used it for almost a decade, so

Lambda 15 Apr 2021 15:55 UTC
9 points
on: Training the YouTube Algorithm
I found, when I tried to do this over a year ago, that no matter how much effort I put into “pruning” the home screen, YouTube would always devote ~10-20% of it to stuff I didn’t want to see. Either it was epsilon-exploration, or stuff that tested well with the general population, or a bunch of “mandatory modules” like popular music or “news,” but whatever it was, I couldn’t get rid of all of it, and some of it managed to attract my clicks despite my best efforts. These extra items filled me with a sense of violation whenever I scrolled through.
So, I wound up using a CSS editor to block the main content of the youtube index page, as well as that column of recommended videos that gets shown next to the player. Here’s my custom stylesheet:
```
.branded-page-v2-secondary-col > * {
  display: none;
}

ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] {
  display: none;
}

ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer {
  display: none;
}
```
Now when I visit youtube.com, I get a blank page, and have to click on “subscriptions” in the left column to get the user experience I want, plus I get recommended videos only when I FINISH a video. This is a far more pleasant experience, and I am able to use YouTube for pretty much only classical music, cooking tutorials, and the occasional education video, without ever getting pulled into things I don’t want.
Speaking of the recommendation algo, btw, it’s also super awesome. It has somehow consistently surfaced new classical music composers to me, and has played a major role in the development of my tastes and interests over the past few years. Without it, I doubt I would have been exposed to Schnittke or Bruckner, for example. Way better than spotify, and I haven’t found anything to replace it, sadly.

Lambda 15 Mar 2021 4:18 UTC
8 points
on: Blue is arbitrary
See
- http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/hoffman_01_13/ [to Homer, the sea is “wine-dark” and the sky is “bronze” because he literally does not have the “blue” concept, and instead agglomerates those colors into other catagories]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms [natural languages appear to gain color distinctions in the same order; the distinction between green and blue is one of the last]
- and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_language#Two_words_for_%22red%22 [which is even stranger (animate vs inanimate red??)]

Lambda 2 Oct 2020 19:43 UTC
10 points
in reply to: seed’s comment on: Hiring engineers and researchers to help align GPT-3
Trump
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, friend.

Lambda 2 Oct 2020 7:17 UTC
LW: 18 AF: 4
AF
on: Hiring engineers and researchers to help align GPT-3
- how suitable is the research engineering job for people with no background in ml, but who are otherwise strong engineers and mathematicians?
- will these jobs be long-term remote? if not, on what timeframe will they be remote?

Lambda 25 Sep 2019 4:53 UTC
34 points
on: Novum Organum: Introduction
You’ve posted the preface of the New Organon (i.e. “volume 2” of The Great Renewal), but did you know that the whole work also has a preface? To me, this preface contains some of the most compelling material. Here are some selections from the Cambridge edition (ed. Jardine and Silverthorne; try libgen):
Men seem to me to have no good sense of either their resources or their power; but to exaggerate the former and underrate the latter. Hence, either they put an insane value on the arts which they already have and look no further or, undervaluing themselves, they waste their power on trifles and fail to try it out on things which go to the heart of the matter. And so they are like fatal pillars of Hercules to the sciences; for they are not stirred by the desire or the hope of going further. Belief in abundance is among the greatest causes of poverty; because of confidence in the present, real aids for the future are neglected. It is therefore not merely useful but quite essential that at the very outset of our work (without hesitation or pretense) we rid ourselves of this excess of veneration and regard, with a useful warning that men should not exaggerate or celebrate their abundance and its usefulness.
...
Besides, if such sciences were not a completely dead thing, it seems very unlikely that we would have the situation we have had for many centuries, that the sciences are almost stopped in their tracks, and show no developments worthy of the human race. Very often indeed not only does an assertion remain a mere assertion but a question remains a mere question, not resolved by discussion, but fixed and augmented; and the whole tradition of the disciplines presents us with a series of masters and pupils, not a succession of discoverers and disciples who make notable improvements to the discoveries. In the mechanical arts we see the opposite situation.
...
For you can hardly admire an author and at the same time go beyond him. It is like water; it ascends no higher than its starting point.
...
And then we warn men not to err in the opposite direction as they avoid this evil; which will certainly happen if they believe that any part of the inquiry into nature is forbidden by an interdict.
...
we want all and everyone to be advised to reflect on the true ends of knowledge: not to seek it for amusement or for dispute, or to look down on others, or for profit or for fame or for power or any such inferior ends, but for the uses and benefits of life, and to improve and conduct it in charity.
...
And we ask them to be of good hope; and not imagine or conceive of our Renewal as something infinite and superhuman, when in fact it is the end of unending error, and the right goal, and accepts the limitations of mortality and humanity, since it does not expect that the thing can be completely finished in the course of one lifetime, but provides for successors

Lambda 12 Dec 2018 22:20 UTC
5 points
in reply to: greylag’s comment on: Is Clickbait Destroying Our General Intelligence?
What’s the boundary between early and late, and why is late bad?

Lambda 12 Dec 2018 20:30 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Should ethicists be inside or outside a profession?
Have you re-released “Transhumanists Don’t Need Special Dispositions”? If not, can I give you a nudge to do so? It’s one of my favorites.

Lambda 9 Jan 2014 5:12 UTC
4 points
on: Open Thread for January 8 − 16 2014
I’ve been lurking here for a while, but I’d like to get more actively involved.

By the way, are there any other Yale students here? If so, I’d be interested in founding a rationalist group / LW meetup on campus.

Lambda 31 Aug 2013 6:23 UTC
2 points
in reply to: CronoDAS’s comment on: Proofs, Implications, and Models
At Yale, the situation is similar. I took a course on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and earned a humanities credit from it. The course was taught by the philosophy department and also included a segment on the equivalence of various notions of computability. Coolest humanities class ever!

I shudder to think of what politics were involved to classify it as such, though.

Lambda 21 Jul 2013 21:02 UTC
8 points
in reply to: ialdabaoth’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
I often get this confused, but isn’t it supposed to be the Pioneer probe?

Lambda 21 Jul 2013 20:50 UTC
2 points
in reply to: buybuydandavis’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
I’m not sure that’s possible. If Harry is defeated, it must be in such a way that “only a remnant of him remains,” by prophesy. Crushing Harry now would not leave a remnant (even if “remnant” means “legacy,” I would argue); therefore, it is not worth trying.

Lambda 21 Jul 2013 20:35 UTC
14 points
in reply to: BlindIdiotPoster’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
Also, Harry’s dark side is “very good at lying.” Remember Azkaban? Pretty much every proposition he uttered aloud there was a lie, straight up, and told to pursue a greater goal. If Harry can convincingly pretend, for Bellatrix, to be someone other than who he believes himself to be, convincingly feign innocence and fear when discovered by the auror, and convincingly lie to Minerva about his location, then I think he’d have no problem with this particular deception.

On the other hand, choosing the ring in particular as his hiding target strikes me as somewhat foolish and would require highly conjunctive scenario to be successful. If he has to remain in regular contact with the transfiguration target, though, this may be his best option.

Lambda 21 Jul 2013 20:22 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Velorien’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
But what about Dumbledore? If there were anyone in such a Soul Sect, I’m pretty sure Dumbledore would be one of them. Wouldn’t you agree?

But as “Pretending to be Wise” suggests, and as Dumbledore’s room of broken wands makes clear, Dumbledore does not, in fact, behave as if souls are real. Now “perhaps” this is all an elaborate ruse on the part of Dumbledore, and he is just pretending to behave-as-if souls are not real. Regardless of how twisty and deceptive Dumbledore is, this particular deception seems wildly out of character for him.

(Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Dumbledore does not behave as if the afterlife is real. It’s quite possible to have souls without an afterlife; perhaps they just get garbage-collected if not attached to the world in some matter (whether it’s a person’s body, or a horcrux, etc.). In fact, I regard this as a likely enough scenario to be worth thinking about (p = 0.6, say?).)

Lambda 19 Jul 2013 1:15 UTC
1 point
in reply to: drethelin’s comment on: Rationality witticisms suitable for t-shirts or bumper stickers
Um.. I feel like I’m in the out-group now. What does this (and the stuff below) mean?