ocr-fork

Karma: 101

ocr-fork May 31, 2010, 7:15 AM
2 points
in reply to: zero_call’s comment on: Open Thread: May 2010, Part 2
Sell patents.

(or more specifically, patent your invention and wait until someone else wants to use it. If this seems unethical, remember you will usually be blocking big evil corporations, not other inventors, and that the big evil corporations would always do the same thing to you if they could.)

ocr-fork May 31, 2010, 6:01 AM
2 points
in reply to: Vladimir_M’s comment on: Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease

If this institution is totally honest, and extremely accurate in making predictions, so that obeying the laws it enforces is like one-boxing in Newcomb’s problem, and somehow an institution with this predictive power has no better option than imprisonment, then yes I would be OK with it.

Please see the edit I just added to the post; it seems like my wording wasn’t precise enough. I had in mind statistical treatment of large groups, not prediction of behavior on an individual basis (which I assume is the point of your analogy with Newcomb’s problem).

I would also be ok with this… however by your own definition it would never happen in practice, except for extreme cases like cults or a rage virus that only infects redheads.

ocr-fork May 18, 2010, 12:59 AM
−3 points
in reply to: steven0461’s comment on: Multiple Choice
I don’t think you can work towards not being offended. {according to my very narrow definition, which I now retract} It’s just a gut reaction.

ocr-fork May 18, 2010, 12:14 AM
1 point
in reply to: Unnamed’s comment on: Multiple Choice
Conversations with foreigners?

ocr-fork May 18, 2010, 12:09 AM
1 point
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry

Let’s all take some deep breaths.

I sense this thread has crossed a threshold, beyond which questions and criticisms will multiply faster than they can be answered.

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 11:42 PM
3 points
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
Which will be soon, right?
What links here?
- SilasBarta's comment on Development of Compression Rate Method by Daniel_Burfoot (May 20, 2010, 6:20 PM; 8 points)

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 11:21 PM
1 point
on: Multiple Choice
edit: here’s an example:

If you’re risk-neutral, you still can’t just do whatever has the highest chance of being right; you must also consider the cost of being wrong. You will probably win a bet that says a fair six-sided die will come up on a number greater than 2. But you shouldn’t buy this bet for a dollar if the payoff is only $1.10, even though that purchase can be summarized as “you will probably gain ten cents”. That bet is better than a similarly-priced, similarly-paid bet on the opposite outcome; but it’s not good.

You have a ¹⁄₃ chance of losing a dollar and a ²⁄₃ chance of gaining ten cents. On average, you will lose 13 (edit for, um, the fifth time: 26) cents per dollar. Unless you need that dime to buy a ticket for the last plane leaving your doomed volcanic island home… it’s a bad bet.

Also see: applause lights

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 9:44 PM
0 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
I don’t get it. Are you saying a smart, dangerous AI can’t be simple and predictable? Differential equations are made of algebra, so did she mean the task is impossible? You were replying to my post, right?

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 1:39 PM
0 points
in reply to: whpearson’s comment on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
An AI that acts like people? I wouldn’t buy that. It sounds creepy. Like Clippy with a soul.

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 1:03 PM
0 points
in reply to: Daniel_Burfoot’s comment on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
What else is there to see besides humans?

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 5:48 AM
5 points
on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
I think I understand better now.

Your proposal seems to involve throwing out “sophisticated mathematics” in favor of something else more practical, and probably more complex. You can’t do that. Math always wins.

The problem with math is that it’s too powerful: it describes everything, including everything you’re not interested in. In theory, all you need to make an AI is a few Turing machines to simulate reality and Bayes theorem to pick the right ones. In practice this AI would take an eternity to run. Turing machines live in a world of 0s and 1s, but we live a world made of clouds and birds, and a machine that talks in binary about clouds and birds would be complicated and hard to find. For a practical AI, you need a model of computation that regards nouns, verbs and people as the building blocks of reality, and regards Turing machines as very weird examples of nouns. This model would perform worse than a Turing machine if presented with a freakish alternate universe with no concept of time or space, but otherwise it’s fine. The hard part is compromising between simplicity and open-mindedness.

The same applies to neural networks. In theory, the shape can be anything you like as long as it’s big enough.(I’m leaving out a lot of details here, sorry.)Math is just the general framework that you build reality inside.

Empirical methods are upside down. You’re starting with the gritty details, hoping that as everything piles up something more powerful than bayesian inference will emerge. That won’t happen. Instead you’ll get a lousy, brittle copy of bayesian inference that can’t handle anything too different from what it was designed for… like a human.

(Edited for grammar)

ocr-fork May 17, 2010, 3:37 AM
2 points
on: Preface to a Proposal for a New Mode of Inquiry
So… what’s your proposal?

I am going to post an outline of my proposal over the next couple of weeks. I expect most of you will disagree with most of it, but I hope we can at least identify concretely the points at which our views diverge. I am very interested in feedback and criticism, both regarding material issues (since we reason to argue), and on issues of style and presentation. The ideas are not fundamentally difficult; if you can’t understand what I’m saying, I will accept at least three quarters of the blame.

Aw come on, just one little hint? Most posts have a tl;dr paragraph or a “related to” to help people understand.

To suggest that computer science should be an important influence on AI is a bit like suggesting that woodworking should be an important influence on music, since most musical instruments are made out of wood.

Computer science is probably not what you think it is. AI is included in it; but so is applied stuff like hacking. I think time (not watchmaking, just time) would make a better example.

Edited for trying/failing not to sound mean/weird.