mikbp

• mikbp 19 Dec 2025 12:02 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: Eliezer’s Un­teach­able Meth­ods of Sanity

  Just remember that we are just evolved monkeys and the world is very complex. We may very well not have the capacity to see the reason why the world ending because of AI is actually implausible. I have been wrong too many times to get crazy or too upset for a thing I positively know we cannot foresee—even if the possibility space we are able to see is overwhelmingly bad.

• mikbp 24 Sep 2025 10:36 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: Teach­ing My Tod­dler To Read

  Do you know or did you think about how this could affect his schooling? With these kind of things—teaching kids stuff early—I’m always kind of afraid, as they may get super bored when in the pre-school or school they have to “learn again” (see how the others learn) these skills. And getting super bored early in the schooling process doesn’t sound like the best motivator for their schooling future.

  Maybe whether it is a problem or not depends on whether the teacher realizes the kid knows the stuff and could even help classmates with the learning -or managing it well in any other way. I don’t know. Do you have thoughts about this?

• mikbp 17 Jun 2025 18:51 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: Let­ting Kids Be Outside

  I think one of the main variables is the country where one is. You account for this more locally with “Be in a place where this sort of thing is reasonably common” but I don’t think anyone in most (some? at least spain and germany) European countries worries about the police when deciding if letting kids do stuff alone or not.

• mikbp 24 Jan 2025 11:21 UTC

  4 points

  0

  on: mikbp’s Shortform

  There is an Avaaz signature campaign to “Establish National Licensing systems for AGI before it is fully achieved” (started by the director of the Millennium Project, Jerome Glenn) you may want to sign.

  I’m not sure how fitting such a petition is for LW, that’s why I put it here. If somebody more involved (forum admins, maybe?) thinks it is worth for it to have a real post, please do it.

mikbp’s Shortform

• mikbp 24 Jan 2025 11:08 UTC

  3 points

  1

  in reply to: philh’s comment on: [Link] A com­mu­nity alert about Ziz

  Agree.

  I consider myself a rationalist, but if I were going to recommend this post to anyone, it would be to show how dangerous fanaticism/​sectarianism is—and this is not only about Ziz’s and Co. actions, also many comments here are kind of scary. It shows how single-thinking and going to the extreme about one’s convictions, even if one tries very hard to be correct, often goes extremely badly. We humans are dumb, so just don’t take anything too literally or too much to its extreme, take yourself and your thoughts with a bit of salt, be nuanced (at least nuancedly nuanced).

  No wonder some people hate or are afraid of rationalist when they see stuff like this… and when they see that this is resurfaced after several years with no apparent reason.

• mikbp 12 Jan 2025 7:45 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Dave Orr’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  ? I don’t know Rosencranz.

  I’m asking you because you say “Is it the case that the tech would exist without him? I think that’s pretty unclear” and this, in my view, depends a lot on the answers to those questions.

  Is China doing well in the EV space a bad thing?

  The opposite, it is good. But if Musk did not have any influence on it, this diminishes Musk’s positive impact in this field, making his impact less positive.

• mikbp 11 Jan 2025 14:44 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: exmateriae’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  Oh, it is probably my mistake XD I’m also not native. I meant increase, not that it is the maximum it could be, sorry.

• mikbp 11 Jan 2025 10:44 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Dave Orr’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  About Tesla, do you think it had any influence on China betting hard for EVs?

  About SpaceX, do you think it makes a big difference to be ‘space-ready’ a couple of decades earlier or later?

• mikbp 11 Jan 2025 10:34 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: tailcalled’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  Sure, we don’t know exactly how good EVs are for fighting climate change, but the current view is that they are needed in the context in which we are because they seem better mostly than the other alternatives. [Incidentally, since some time I tend to think that he’s probably been vastly less net-good in the past than I previously thought. Not really because of him, but because Chinese companies are beating everyone, including Tesla, with their EVs (and I don’t think he’s had any influence in China betting hard for EVs, though I might be wrong here); so if Tesla would have not existed, the adoption of EVs would just have been only delayed for few years (and mostly only in the west). So his net-positive contribution -for me and now- seems much lower than it seemed before.] But this, of course, is not what I am asking for.

  Maybe Hitler, by sheer chance, killed someone who had been much worse than him. But this would not make him be net-positive in the sense of this question (eg. we’d had other ways to deal with that person -even if the odds that we did are very small).

  But probably I have not been clear enough, sure.

• mikbp 10 Jan 2025 21:00 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: tailcalled’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  Sure, but one can assess it at any point. I’m not asking about whether he will end up being net-positive or net-negative overall in the long run.

• mikbp 10 Jan 2025 20:57 UTC

  2 points

  1

  in reply to: artemium’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  I’d agree. But he certainly does not seem to even be trying anymore to have positive impact on solving alignment, no?

• mikbp 10 Jan 2025 20:56 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: exmateriae’s comment on: Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

  Hi, thanks.

  I don’t see how what you say contradicts that the reach of his actions and opinions have increased. Did you maybe quote the wrong sentence?

[Question] Is Musk still net-pos­i­tive for hu­man­ity?

• mikbp 28 Nov 2024 8:58 UTC

  3 points

  0

  on: In­for­ma­tion vs Assurance

  For me the conversation in the example sounds artificial, it is obvious that the friend did not get what you mean. If I’d had such conversation, I’d have added something like: “If I go, sure I can pick you up. But I’m not sure when I’ll go” (or “I’m not sure if I’d go at all or at what time” if you really are not sure)

• mikbp 8 Oct 2024 6:54 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: quailia’s comment on: Strug­gling like a Shadowmoth

  I am but puzzle about how your post could wreck someone

  when someone does not have the capabilities to face those fears. Even just meditating is dangerous for some people because it makes them face something they are not equipped to face. In order to learn, one must face challenges with the right level of difficulty for them at that point in time. Too easy and there’s no learning; too difficult and it is a wall instead of a challenge. If the challenges are psychological or similar, this wall may be something that hurts, only hurts, with no -or minimal- gains.

• mikbp 30 Aug 2024 21:10 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: Thoughts on pa­per “How Or­ganisms Come to Know the World: Fun­da­men­tal Limits on Ar­tifi­cial Gen­eral In­tel­li­gence”?

  Thanks. So would you say I am right with the concern about the paper? Or is it fog only for other reasons? [I haven’t yet read the link, so I don’t yet know what exactly fog in this context means]

[Question] Thoughts on pa­per “How Or­ganisms Come to Know the World: Fun­da­men­tal Limits on Ar­tifi­cial Gen­eral In­tel­li­gence”?

• mikbp 20 Jul 2024 7:28 UTC

  3 points

  1

  on: Failures in Kindness

  I liked the term Computational Kindness a lot! Thanks.

  BTW, in the example you give for it and analogous situations it is, in addition, totally inefficient: you know your environment, what is worth visiting/​doing and so on, so it is relatively easy to pick the day’s program. The visitor, who doesn’t know this environment will have a much harder time finding it out. So, it not only “offloads all the effort of coming up with ideas and making decisions to the other person”, it greatly increases this effort. I think it is important to note this as well.

• mikbp 9 Jun 2024 19:57 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: Offer­ing Completion

  Thanks!