pangel

• pangel 3 May 2011 21:36 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Emile’s comment on: Where are we?

  I am too.

• pangel 18 Mar 2012 15:01 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: Dmytry’s comment on: The AI de­sign space near the FAI [draft]

  Unless its utility function has a maximum, we are at risk. Observing Mandelbrot fractals is probably enhanced by having all the atoms of a galaxy playing the role of pixels.

  Would you agree that unless the utility function of a random AI has a (rather low) maximum, and barring the discovery of infinite matter/​energy sources, its immediate neighbourhood is likely to get repurposed?

  I must say that at least I finally understand why you think botched FAIs are more risky than others.

  But consider, as Ben Goertzel mentioned, that nobody is trying to build a random AI. Whatever achieves AGI-level is likely to have a built-in representation for humans and to have a tendency to interact with them. Check to see if I actually understood you correctly: does the previous sentence make it more probable that any future AGI is likely to be destructive?

• pangel 1 Apr 2012 4:40 UTC

  17 points

  on: Fic­tional Bias

  I understood the introductory question as “Frodo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings is buying pants. Which of these is he most likely to buy?”, and correctly answered (c). I suggest rephrasing your question to ensure that it actually tests the reader’s fictional bias. Also, Szalinski in Journal of Cognitive Minification is a nice one.

• pangel 16 Apr 2012 22:43 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: kilobug’s comment on: In­ter­est­ing ra­tio­nal­ist ex­er­cise about French election

  As an anecdote, I had an opposite slight tendency to go for what seemed like the worst answer and I had to switch answers twice because of this.

• pangel 20 Apr 2012 1:04 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: anotherblackhat’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 16, chap­ter 85

  The soul-mangling is what causes Voldemort’s snake-like appearance, IIRC, and MoR!McGonagall remembers a snake-like Voldemort from her battles. So either MoR!Voldemort has been doing some serious damage to his soul, or he decided to look freakish just for effect and stumbled by chance upon the exact same look which canon!Voldemort got from making Horcruxes.

• pangel 20 Apr 2012 13:21 UTC

  7 points

  in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 16, chap­ter 85

  I see your point. As an author I would think I’m misdirecting my readers by doing that though; “Voldemort has the same deformity as in canon? He’s been playing with Horcruxes!” is the reasoning I would expect from them. Which is why I would, say, remove Quirrell’s turban as soon as my plot had Voldemort not on the back of Quirrell’s head.

• pangel 22 May 2012 18:33 UTC

  6 points

  on: How to deal with non-re­al­ism?

  I had the exact same argument with my girlfriend (a bad idea) a while ago and asked for references to point her to on the IRC channel. I was given The Simple Truth and The Relativity of Wrong.

  So I was about to write a very supportive response when I saw Mitchell Porter’s comment. And this

  (...) the children of post-Christian agnostics grow up to be ideologically aggressive posthuman rationalists.

  aptly describes recent interactions I’ve had with my father¹. The accusation of narrowmindedness was present.

  So, recurring conflicts with friends and family because of a newfound perspective on, well, everything? Values quickly changing as a consequence of new beliefs on what is true and what is not? Assuming we are in the they-were-right-this-time subgroup of this cliché, there must be smarter ways of dealing with it than making ourselves look crazy in front of the people who care about us.

  ¹ Except he’s a raging atheist but has never propagated the consequences of this belief to his philosophy.

• pangel 10 Jul 2012 15:45 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: JoshuaFox’s comment on: What Is Sig­nal­ing, Really?

  The fictional college of the article only selects incoming students on price.

• pangel 9 Aug 2012 14:32 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Men­tion­ing cry­on­ics to a dy­ing person

  Women don’t like cryonics.

  What made you believe this? Is there a pattern to the declared reasons?

• pangel 11 Aug 2012 10:07 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: advancedatheist’s comment on: Men­tion­ing cry­on­ics to a dy­ing person

  Thank you for the link! Note that the .pdf version of the article (which is also referenced in dbaupp’s link) has a record of the “hostile-wife” cases over a span of 8 years.

• pangel 22 Aug 2012 23:26 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: kilobug’s comment on: Meetup : Paris Meetup

  Same here.

• pangel 17 Dec 2012 22:37 UTC

  5 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 17, chap­ter 86

  “Those who are spoken of in a prophecy, may listen to that prophecy there. Do you see the implication, Harry?”

  Shouldn’t Minerva see another implication, that Dumbledore has no reason to wonder whether he is the dark lord of the prophecy?

• pangel 18 Dec 2012 23:47 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: hairyfigment’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 17, chap­ter 86

  … a great room of shelves filled with glowing orbs, one after another appearing over the years. (...) Those mentioned within a prophecy would have an glowing orb float to their hand, and then hear the prophet’s true voice speaking.

  I interpret it as: Anyone who enters this room sees a glowing orb float to their hand for every prophecy that mentions them. How do you interpret it?

• pangel 21 Dec 2012 18:00 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 17, chap­ter 86

  Sounds right, but the present-day situation is the same: orbs may float to you if and only if you enter the Hall. So Dumbledore should know whether he is involved in the prophecy or not. Unless I missed something?

• pangel 16 May 2013 20:54 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: kilobug’s comment on: Meetup : Paris Meetup: Sun­day, May 26.

  I’ll be there as well.

• pangel 8 Jul 2013 13:40 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: William_Quixote’s comment on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 23, chap­ter 94

  Or Harry transfigured Hermione’s body into a rock and then the rock into a brown diamond. Unless the story explicitly disallows double transfigurations and I missed it.

• pangel 18 Jul 2013 5:52 UTC

  2 points

  on: Harry Pot­ter and the Meth­ods of Ra­tion­al­ity dis­cus­sion thread, part 24, chap­ter 95

  So MoR might be a meta-fantasy of the wizarding world as The Sword of Good is a meta-fantasy of the muggle world. Or at least, MoR!Harry might make the same impression to a wizard reading one fic as Hirou does to a muggle reading the other.

  Although my instinct is still that Harry fails at the end.

• pangel 8 Aug 2013 9:52 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: Scott Alexander’s comment on: Im­prov­ing En­joy­ment and Re­ten­tion Read­ing Tech­ni­cal Literature

  There is an animated series for children aimed at explaining the human body which personifies bacteria, viruses, etc. Anyone interested in pursuing your idea may want to pick up techniques from the show:

  Wikipedia article: http://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Once_Upon_a_Time..._Life

  Example: http://​​www.youtube.com/​​watch?v=LIyvrcHnriE&t=1m11s

• pangel 28 Aug 2013 21:39 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Dabor’s comment on: To what de­gree do you model peo­ple as agents?

  Being in a situation somewhat similar to yours, I’ve been worrying that my lowered expectations about others’ level of agency (with elevated expectations as to what constitutes a “good” level of agency) has an influence on those I interact with: if I assume that people are somewhat influenced by what others expect of them, I must conclude that I should behave (as far as they can see) as if I believed them to be as capable of agency as myself, so that their actual level of agency will improve. This would would work on me, for instance I’d be more generally prone to take initiative if I saw trust in my peers’ eyes.

• pangel 18 Sep 2013 12:19 UTC

  0 points

  on: LessWrong help desk—free pa­per down­loads and more

  Gentzen’s Cut Elimination Theorem for Non-Logicians

  Knowledge and Value, Tulane Studies in Philosophy Volume 21, 1972, pp 115-126