Am I the only one who is reminded of game theory reading this post. In fact it basically sounds like given a set of agents engaged in competitive behavior how does “information” (however you define it, which I think others are right to ask for clarification) effect the likely outcome? Though I am confused by the overly simple military examples. I would wonder if one could find a simpler system to use? I also am confused about what general principles with this system of derived inequalities you want to find?
mormon2
“Articles should be legible to the audience. You can’t just throw in a position written in terms that require special knowledge not possessed by the readers. It may be interesting, but then the goal should be exposition, showing importance and encouraging study.”
I both agree with and disagree with this statement. I agree that a post should be written for the audience. I disagree in that I think people here spend a lot of time talking about QM and if they do not have the knowledge to understand this post then they should not be talking about QM. The other issue is I think this post may be too muddled to really require special knowledge before the author clarifies the post.
General Post Question The one big thing that confuses me is the title do you actually mean Quantum Monadology? If so are you claiming some use of the formal term monad, or some definition of your own? I don’t see this post as following from some real definition of monads as seen in scientific literature.
General Post Comment I think to be blunt this post is a bit muddled with ideas from all over the place put into one big pot and the result is not very enlightening. If you haven’t already I suggest you lookup the precise definition of monad. I can’t find it now but there was a paper a while back published on this topic of formalizing QM within the formal idea of monads.
True but the Blue Brain project is still very interesting and is and hopefully will continue to provide interesting results. Whether you agree with his theory or not the technical side of what they are doing is very interesting.
I apologize if this is blunt or already addressed but it seems to me that the voting system here has a large user based problem. It seems to me that the karma system has become nothing more then a popularity indicator.
It seems to me that many here vote up or down based on some gut-level agreement or disagreement with the comment or post. For example it is very troubling that some single line comments of agreement that should have 0 karma in my opinion end up with massive amounts and comments that may be in opposition to the popular beliefs here are voted down despite being important to the pursuit of rationality.
It was my understanding that karma should be an indicator of importance and a way of eliminating useless information not just a way of indicating that a post is popular. The popularity of a post is nearly meaningless when you have such a range of experience and inexperience on a blog such as this.
Just a thought feel free to disagree...
This is going to sound horrible but here goes:
In my experience schools value depends on how smart you are. For example if you can teach yourself math you can often test out of classes. If your really smart you may be able to get out of everything but grad-school. Depending on what you want to do you may or may not need grad school.
Do you have a preferred career path? If so have you tried getting into it without further schooling? The other question is what have you done outside of school? Have you started any businesses or published papers?
With a little more detail I think the question can be better answered.
What? Who voted this up?
“It is also quite possible that the Higgs boson will come out and it will be utterly useless, as most of those particles are.”
So understanding the sub-atomic level for things like nano-scale technology in your books is a complete waste of time? Understanding the universe I can only assume is also a waste of time since the discovery of the Higgs Boson in your books is essentially meaningless in all probability.
“You can’t do a thing with them and they don’t tell you very much. Of course, the euphoria will be massive.”
Huh? From someone who studies particle physics to one (you) who doesn’t obviously (and I am going to be hard on you) you should refrain making such comments in nearly total ignorance. The fact that you don’t understand the significance of the Higgs Boson or particle physics should have been a cue that you have noting to contribute to this thread.
Sorry but there it is...
I was wondering if Eliezer could post some details on his current progress towards the problem of FAI? Specifically details as to where he is in the process of designing and building FAI. Also maybe some detailed technical work on TDT would be cool.
Ok, I am going to reply to both soreff and Thomas:
Particle physics isn’t about making technology at least at the moment. Particle physics is concerned with understanding the fundamental elements of our world. As far as the details of the relevance of particle physics I won’t waste the time to explain. Obviously neither of you have any real experience in the field. So this concludes what comments I am going to make on this topic until someone with real physics knowledge decides to comment.
I think we can take a good guess on the last part of this question on what he will say: Bayes Theorem, Statistics, basic Probability Theory Mathematical Logic, and Decision Theory.
But why ask the question with this statement made by EY: “Since you don’t require all those other fields, I would like SIAI’s second Research Fellow to have more mathematical breadth and depth than myself.” (http://singinst.org/aboutus/opportunities/research-fellow)
My point is he has answered this question before...
I add to this my own question actually it is more of a request to see EY demonstrate TDT with some worked out math on a whiteboard or some such on the video.
“I would heavily dispute this. Startups with 1-5 people routinely out-compete the rest of the world in narrow domains. Eg., Reddit was built and run by only four people, and they weren’t crushed by Google, which has 20,000 employees. Eliezer is also much smarter than most startup founders, and he cares a lot more too, since it’s the fate of the entire planet instead of a few million dollars for personal use.”
I don’t think you really understand this; having recently been edged out by a large corporation in a narrow field of innovation, as a small startup, and having been in business for many years this sort of thing your describing happens often.
As for your last statement I am sorry but you have not met that many intelligent people if you believe this. If you ever get out into the world you will find plenty of people who will make you feel like your dumb and that make EYs intellect look infantile.
I might be more inclined to agree if EY would post some worked out TDT problems with the associated math. hint...hint...
Ok, here are some people:
Nick Bostrom (http://www.nickbostrom.com/cv.pdf) Stephen Wolfram (Published his first particle physics paper at 16 I think, invented one of, if not, the most successful math programs ever and in my opinion the best ever) A couple people who’s names I won’t mention since I doubt you’d know them from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab where I did some work. etc.
I say this because these people have numerous significant contributions to their fields of study. I mean real technical contributions that move the field forward not just terms and vague to be solved problems.
My analysis of EY is based on having worked in AI and knowing people in AI none of whom talk about their importance in the field as much as EY with as few papers, and breakthroughs as EY. If you want to claim you’re smart you have to have accomplishments that back it up right? Where are EYs publications, where is the math for his TDT? The worlds hardest math problem is unlikely to be solved by someone who needs to hire someone with more depth in the field of math. (both statements can be referenced to EY)
Sorry this is harsh but there it is.
No, because I don’t believe in using IQ as a measure of intelligence (having taken an IQ test) and I think accomplishments are a better measure (quality over quantity obviously). If you have a better measure then fine.
“Do you think that accomplishments, when present, are fairly accurate proof of intelligence (and that you are skeptical of claims thereto without said proof)”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. The only addition would be that IQ is an insufficient measure although it can be useful when combined with accomplishment.
“and then take out whatever time was needed to collect the OB/LW posts in our discussion into a sequence with summaries.”
Why? No one in the academic community would spend that much time reading all that blog material for answers that would be best given in a concise form in a published academic paper. So why not spend the time? Unless you think you are that much of an expert in the field as to not need the academic community. If that be the case where are your publications and where are your credentials, where is the proof of this expertise (expert being a term that is applied based on actual knowledge and accomplishments)?
“Since I don’t expect senior traditional-AI-folk to pay me any such attention short of spending a HUGE amount of effort to get it and probably not even then, I haven’t, well, expended a huge amount of effort to get it.”
Why? If you expect to make FAI you will undoubtedly need people in the academic communities’ help; unless you plan to do this whole project by yourself or with purely amateur help. I think you would admit that in its current form SIAI has a 0 probability of creating FAI first. That being said your best hope is to convince others that the cause is worthwhile and if that be the case you are looking at the professional and academic AI community.
I am sorry I prefer to be blunt.. that way there is no mistaking meanings...
“Since I don’t expect senior traditional-AI-folk to pay me any such attention short of spending a HUGE amount of effort to get it and probably not even then, I haven’t, well, expended a huge amount of effort to get it.
Why? If you expect to make FAI you will undoubtedly need people in the academic communities’ help; unless you plan to do this whole project by yourself or with purely amateur help. …”
“That ‘probably not even then’ part is significant.”
My implication was that the idea that he can create FAI completely outside the academic or professional world is ridiculous when you’re speaking from an organization like SIAI which does not have the people or money to get the job done. In fact SIAI doesn’t have enough money to pay for the computing hardware to make human level AI.
“Now that is an interesting question. To what extent would Eliezer say that conclusion followed? Certainly less than the implied ‘1’ and probably more than ‘0’ too.”
If he doesn’t agree with it now, I am sure he will when he runs into the problem of not having the money to build his AI or not having enough time in the day to solve the problems that will be associated with constructing the AI. Not even mentioning the fact that when you close yourself to outside influence that much you often end up with ideas that are riddled with problems, that if someone on the outside had looked at the idea they would have pointed the problems out.
If you have never taken an idea from idea to product this can be hard to understand.
“In what contexts is the action you mention worth performing?”
If the paper was endorsed by the top minds who support the singularity. Ideally if it was written by them. So for example Ray Kurzweil whether you agree with him or not he is a big voice for the singularity.
“Why are “critics” a relevant concern?”
Because technical science moves forward through peer-review and the proving and the disproving of hypotheses. The critics help prevent the circle jerk phenomena in science assuming they are well thought out critiques. Because outside review can sometimes see fatal flaws in ideas that are not necessarily caught by those who work in the field.
“In my perception, normal technical science doesn’t progress by criticism, it works by improving on some of existing work and forgetting the rest. New developments allow to see some old publications as uninteresting or wrong.”
Have you ever published in a peer-review journal? If not the last portion of your post I will ignore, if so perhaps your could expound on it a bit more.
I recommend some reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer Start with this and then if you want more detail look at: http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9812037v1 The math isn’t to difficult if you are familiar with math involved in QM, things like vectors, and matrices etc. http://www.fxpal.com/publications/FXPAL-PR-07-396.pdf This paper I skimmed it seems worth a read.
As to the author of the post to whom your responding what is your level of knowledge of quantum computing and quantum mechanics? By this I mean is your reading on the topic confined to Scientific American and what Eliezer has written or have you read for example Bohm on Quantum Theory?
“You’ve achieved a high level of success as a self-learner, without the aid of formal education.”
How do you define high level of success?
I am going to take a shortcut and respond to both posts:
komponisto: Interesting because I would define success in terms of the goals you set for yourself or others have set for you and how well you have met those goals.
In terms of respect I would question the claim not within SIAI or within this community necessarily but within the larger community of experts in the AI field. How many people really know who he is? How many people who need to know, because even if he won’t admit it EY will need help from academia and the industry to make FAI, know him and more importantly respect his opinion?
ABranco: I would not say success is a personal measure I would say in many ways its defined by the culture. For example in America I think its fair to say that many would associate wealth and possessions with success. This may or may not be right but it cannot be ignored.
I think your last point is on the right track with EY starting SIAI and LessWrong with his lack of formal education. Though one could argue the relative level of significance or the level of success those two things dictate.
“TDT is very much a partial solution, a solution-fragment rather than anything complete. After all, if you had the complete decision process, you could run it as an AI, and I’d be coding it up right now.”
I must nitpick here:
First you say TDT is an unfinished solution, but from all the stuff that you have posted there is no evidence that TDT is anything more than a vague idea; is this the case? If not could you post some math and example problems for TDT.
Second, I hope this was said in haste not in complete seriousness that if TDT was complete you could run it as an AI and you’d be coding. So does this mean that you believe that TDT is all that is required for the theory end of AI? Or are you stating that the other hard problems such as learning; sensory input and recognition, and knowledge representation are all solved for your AI? If this be the case I would love to see a post on that.
Thanks