superads91

Karma: 57

superads91 Mar 18, 2022, 7:13 PM
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in reply to: Arcayer’s comment on: We’re already in AI takeoff
″ I think that the vast majority of a person’s impact in this world is what hyperbeings he chooses to host/align to, with object level reality, barely even mattering.”

I agree that personal values (no need to mystify) are important, but action is equally important. You can be very virtuous, but if you don’t take action (by, for instance, falling for the Buddhist-like fallacy that sitting down and meditating will eventually save the world by itself), your impact will be minor. Specially in critical times like this. Maybe sitting down and meditating would be ok centuries ago where no transformative technologies were in sight. Now, with transformative technologies decade(s) off, it’s totally different. We do have to save the world.

“I assert that alignment is trivially easy.”

How can you control something vastly more intelligent than yourself (at least in key areas), or that can simply re-write its own code and create sub-routines, therefore bypassing your control mechanisms? Doesn’t seem easy at all. (In fact, some people like Roman Yalmpolsky have been writing papers on how it’s in fact impossible.) Even with the best compiler in the world (not no mention that nothing guarantees that progress in compilers will accompany progress in black boxes like neural networks).

“If our a measurement of “do I like this” is set to “does it kill me” I see this at best ending in a permanent boxed garden where life is basically just watched like a video and no choices matter, and nothing ever changes, and at worst becoming an eternal hell (specifically, an eternal education camp), with all of the above problems but eternal misery added on top.”

I agree with this. The alignment community is way over-focused on x-risk and way under-focused on s-risk. But after this, your position becomes a bit ambiguous. You say:

“We should work together, in public, to develop AI that we like, which will almost certainly be hostile, because only an insane and deeply confused AI would possibly be friendly to humanity. ”

What does this mean? That we should just build non-aligned AI, which would probably be hostile to humans, and therefore only kill us all instead of giving us eternal misery?

But wait, wasn’t alignment trivially easy?

Unless you mean that, since “Alignment, as I use it, isn’t becoming good. It’s becoming something recognized as good.”, then alignment, despite being easy, is a mistake and we should just build “AI that we like” which, I don’t know, being more intelligent would therefore be more virtuous than humans? But that’s extremely uncertain (as well as unlikely imo), and the stakes are way too high to take the gamble.

superads91 Mar 18, 2022, 2:28 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.”

That’s exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives: all-in desperation move. And it is an ulterior motive, since no Russian is saying “we’re taking drastic measures to assure that we don’t lose super power status in the world stage”. Quite the opposite, they’re saying “we’re ultra rational peace makers”.

On nuclear disarmament, that doesn’t hold up. If we believe that it is not a solvable problem, we shouldn’t actively work for a solution (there are plenty of think thanks theoretically working for a solution). If you begin actively working for a solution, much more tragic things could happen, like US and Russia both reach the number of nukes of 100 each, and then one of either has another 1000 in secret, or shady 3rd world leader build a nuclear arsenal of 500 and bombs the crap out of the US/Russia because being the shady 3rd world leader he is he thinks it’s worth it.

I also believe that a world without nukes would plunge right back into the perma-war craphole it was before their existence. This is not to say that nukes are good, it’s just that their absence might not be a lot better.

superads91 Mar 18, 2022, 2:19 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
″ I think this conversation has been constructive, if a bit adversarial.”

We on Lesswrong are oversensitive about that. Some degree of it should be tolerated. But I don’t even think this discussion has been really adversarial, at least not reaching personal levels. When I say that x is a fallacy or that you’re playing devil’s advocate a bit too much, I only say it for the argument’s sake, there’s absolutely nothing personal in it.

“It has helped me shake down my picture,”

I’m glad to hear it!

“”the ulterior motives of Nanda Ale’s comment”

Could you summarize what they are? I’m not sure what you are referring to specifically.”

Is basically boils down to power consolidation, yes. I don’t think it’s vague. It’s a common political theme that nothing works as well as a war to either distract the populace from important matters, and/or to consolidate popularity and therefore power. Specially in less liberal-minded countries.

Other ulterior motives that I personally suspect are: hatred, and all-in desperation moves.

superads91 Mar 17, 2022, 11:28 AM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“So you are basically saying that you agree that his words matches his actions, but since you don’t believe his word and can’t find any ulterior motive, you are confused by his actions. I don’t understand. If you agree with this, his actions should be evidence that he does indeed believe what he says. Not counting all his surface level lies and obvious propaganda here.”

That’s just an obvious fallacy. Words can justify actions and yet not coincide with the real motivations behind said actions. It’s called, like you acknowledge, lies and propaganda.

And it’s not like I can’t find any ulterior motive either. In reply to Nanda Ale’s comment I admitted those seemed like pretty plausible ulterior motives. And I suspect a few others. As others have said, wars are often complicated. So why aren’t I allowed to have doubts, and mistrust the official justifications?

Sorry but this comment of yours just doesn’t make any sense. What it seems to me is that you, and others, are maybe trying a little too hard to play devil’s advocate with Putin. Or, I don’t know, oppose me just for intellectual fun?

“”does this war actually help”

Not the way it is currently playing out, no. If he would in fact have been greeted with flowers, and taken most of the country in a few days with little resistance, it would have been a huge win for him. This is evidence that he thought this would happen.”

No, it’s not evidence of such. If, for instance, the ulterior motives of Nanda Ale’s comment apply, he might have already thought that the war wouldn’t be easy, might even weaken Russia, yet it might consolidate his power, since Russia will still probably win, just not easily and not in a way that will be worth the victory. But it can still raise his domestic popularity and consolidate his power.

And there are many other ulterior motives which can justify a harder war, even irrationality, all-in desperate plays, etc.

superads91 Mar 17, 2022, 11:02 AM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
A quick google search can easily disprove that, as I expected:

https://www.aip.org/fyi/2022/physicists-argue-us-icbm-defenses-are-unreliable (APS is an AIP Member Society.)

“This century, U.S. ICBM defense systems have been designed specifically around the threat of a small strike from a minor nuclear power, and the study notes that defense against attacks from nations such as China or Russia would likely be “much more challenging.””

“In the study’s estimation, North Korean countermeasures would presumably be sophisticated enough to render midcourse interception generally unreliable.”

So, in simple words, it’s only really meant to be any effective against a small strike by a small rogue state, and even then it’s not even that effective.

They predict it will stay the same for the next 15 years.

Is it true that some genius may suddenly come up with a breakthrough? Certainly. But that can happen in any country. Or, as anyone in this site is aware of, there will be military breakthroughs perhaps even sooner in AI, which will probably give a decisive strategic advantage (DSA) to a single power.

And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything.

So Putin can’t change history by invading Ukraine. He probably knows this. He famously said in 2017 that “whoever invents advanced AI first gets to control the world”.

Even in the mere terms of anti-ballistic missiles and such, it doesn’t make much difference.

So either there are unstated motives for this invasion, like those proposed in Nanda Ale’s comment, which make a lot of sense to me considering the whole fiasco about the Chechnya invasion (“history always repeats itself”), or he / the regime are either insane, or straight evil, or blatantly wrong, or playing an all-in desperation move.

“One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies “good guy” status.”

It doesn’t because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible. There will always be that shady 3rd world leader selling nuclear secrets to rogue nations, or that shady genius nuclear engineer going back home to his 3rd world country and becoming radicalized. Etc etc.

superads91 Mar 17, 2022, 4:13 AM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“But can’t you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia?”

I believe it might be. But it’s a very hypothetical one.

This current war is a much more probable threat to global security, which includes Russia.

The West already has 2 NATO members bordering Russia. 2 of the Baltic countries. They joined 18 years ago. Why not put the missiles there? Why wait for Ukraine? In fact, why not launch a pre emptive strike from some other member state at all? Plenty of them are close to Russia.

“If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, ”

We still haven’t invented anything that can block a nuke and we’re nowhere near it.

China only has around 300 nukes. US has like 20 times that. Now, I’ve heard that even those 300 are enough to destroy most major US cities. But maybe they aren’t enough to destroy the whole of West’s allies. So, I don’t know, should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?

Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane and realize that it is equally suicidal for any bloc to either lose 80% or 100% of its population in a nuclear war, not to mention that we’d all probably die anyway due to nuclear winter? And realize that invading South Korea or Japan would actually raise the chance of nuclear war way more than the former paranoia, destroy everyone’s economies and brutally kill a ton of innocents?

superads91 Mar 17, 2022, 2:28 AM
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in reply to: Mitchell_Porter’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“I have seen no-one in Russia talking about NATO invading Russian territory, as if it were 1812 or 1941. The kind of things that Putin talked about, last month, as risks to Russia, are: ballistic missiles launched from Ukrainian territory; radars on Ukrainian territory used to “control” Russian airspace; NATO bombers taking off from Ukrainian airfields.”

And how would any of those things represent a threat to Russia (i.e. would be directed at Russia) if not for being part of a NATO invasion?

Baltic countries have been part of NATO for 20 years. Where’s the ballistic missiles being launched at Russia and the radars?

The only real-world threat I see is Russia, who keeps threatening every single Eastern European country. Geez, no wonder they wanna join NATO! Maybe if Russia wasn’t a mafia regime who murders and coerces for a living, the Eastern European countries wouldn’t be so eager to join NATO and could maybe establish a healthy neutral zone.

Even China, who dislikes NATO, had to admit that “the security of a country can’t be guaranteed by threatening the sovereignty of others”. This war is irredimable.

superads91 Mar 16, 2022, 3:37 PM
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in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Europeans have no ideological issues with using US services. Russians are ideological enough that they prefer Yandex and VKontakte over Western services.”

Is it really the population who prefers, or the autocratic government who prefers it for them? Isn’t it obvious that 1) they are not a democracy like most of Europe, 2) they are not US allies like most of Europe, 3) social media has a huge influence on politics and power, therefore it’s normal that we see dominance of Russian companies which are all deeply connected to the state given their type of regime?

“Ukraine has a huge population but it’s also quite poor and doesn’t have many important exports.”

Russia is also kinda poor. But that’s not all. Population size is correlated with army size and overall defense capabilities. Or at the very least with the difficulty to dominate and seize control of a country.

“Strategically, access to Russian gas is much more important than Ukraine to Europe. Giving it military aid is more a matter of principle than due to strategic importance.”

That’s also a really blind argument. There’s the obvious threat of Russian escalation to other countries if they succeed in Ukraine, and overall a threat to continental and global peace. That’s way more important than gas.

superads91 Mar 16, 2022, 3:15 PM
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in reply to: Dead Hour Canoe’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
Well said. I completely agree.

(Except maybe that this is Putin’s decision alone. No one rules a country alone, even a dictatorship. But could be, who the hell knows...)

superads91 Mar 16, 2022, 11:19 AM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Just that I haven’t yet found any compelling evidence far outside of it. If you feel like you have some, I’d be most interested.”

8.) Nanda Ale’s comment. Which, in my opinion, isn’t the whole portion of the Real Reason (tm) either, but paints the largest portion of it so far, in my very personal and subjective opinion.

superads91 Mar 16, 2022, 10:57 AM
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in reply to: Mitchell_Porter’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Russians say that since the cold war, America has reduced many countries to chaos”

None of them were big powers with nuclear weapons (so why is that a threat to Russia?). And it’s not like Russia has behaved much better, just look at the horrible massacre in Chechnya and, well… This war.

“For Russia, “losing Ukraine” is very similar to Serbia losing Kosovo. It’s a kind of motherland and to have anti-Russian ideology there is unacceptable”

That’s assuming that the regime are as nationalistic as they claim (I believe modern politicians love power more than nationalism, for instance). And more importantly, assuming that this hopeless war would bring any progress in imperialistic regards. I think it will only achieve the opposite. It will only weaken Russia. America can afford to invade Syrias and Lybias as much as they want, because those are torn hellholes with the whole world against them. With Ukraine, you actually have a mostly unified population and regime, and the whole world is giving them weapons and support. Plus Russia is not half as powerful as the US.

“To say Ukraine is militarily irrelevant because this is the era of nuclear weapons, is to overlook a lot of things. There is a continuum of escalation from political subversion, to guerrilla forces, to conventional warfare, to nuclear war, and control of territory still matters for all of them, even for nuclear war: territory can house missiles, missile defense systems, electronic monitoring stations, and special forces.”

Sure, Ukraine is not militarily irrelevant towards a country with no nuclear weapons. If Ukraine invades that country, a normal war would be fought. But let’s imagine Ukraine invades Russia. Is that a threat to Russia, any more than any other similar country doing it? No.

But wait, let’s say Ukraine joins NATO and the whole of NATO invades Russia. Well, first, does it make a difference whether Ukraine is in it or not? I don’t think so, the result will be the same: planetary anihilation (yes, Putin has specifically said he would respond with nuclear weapons to a NATO invasion).

On territory mattering even for nuclear war, again, does it really make a difference whether Ukraine joins the party or not? Does NATO feel more emboldened to invade Russia just because they now have missiles in Ukraine pointed at Russia, and special forces, and what not (as some have been claiming)? Does that have in any way the potential to prevent the massive planetary destruction that would inevitably be the result of invading Russia—therefore making it a completely suicidal idea regardless—since we still haven’t invented anything that can shield us from nukes and such invention is nowhere in sight?

That all sounds pretty absurd to me.

A far more realistic view is that this war poses much more of a threat to global security than the prospect of a Western-looking Ukraine or even a NATO member Ukraine.

superads91 Mar 16, 2022, 10:25 AM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
Yes, that’s what he has been saying all along. The question is whether we should buy it. I, personally, don’t really buy into it that much. Maybe just a bit. Like I said in my reply to Nanda Ale’s comment, I believe that love for personal power/wealth/influence is stronger than nationalism. Maybe not in the past, but at least it is so these days, as a result of capitalism, globalization, and the kinda nihilistic modern atmosphere (I don’t think the first 2 are bad things btw). Again, this is just my own opinion on a very subjective matter.

And then there’s also the question of, even if Putin is that full-on nationalist that he claims he is, does this war actually help in that direction? I have my doubts. What will be the end result of this for Russia? A huge loss of power and influence on all levels. So, not really that good for empire building. Unless he has the Hitler mindset of risking-it-all, which falls already into basket of irrationality/madness, specially in a time with nuclear weapons in the equation which weren’t in Hitler’s time.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 10:19 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food”

That’s not a good example. I’ve been hearing tons of reports of Russian soldiers who didn’t even know they were going into enemy ground. Soldiers usually know little, specially those of dictatorships.

“If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more”

All it takes is a bit of common sense and, above all, being able to detect the propaganda on both sides (I’ve also been hearing plenty of military analysts saying the war could last years btw). How on Earth do you conquer in a few days a nation of 44 million who’s deeply adverse towards you, and who’s been receiving plenty of military aid from the West? It’s that simple. This is not Iraq. Sure, Iraq has a similar size and population, but it’s a war-torn hellhole in the middle of nowhere, where the whole world was against it, not supporting it. It’s night and day. (Or one could also think of Hitler breezing through Austria and being received with flowers, but again, you had a population/government who was in full support of him, which is pretty much the opposite of the current stance of Ukraine towards Russia ).

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 6:19 PM
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in reply to: Viliam’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Wars are probably easier to understand in hindsight. During a war, there are incentives to lie about many things.”

Certainly. But in all examples I gave, I think the average attentive contemporary observer could have spotted the main motive. For instance, Hitler invaded Poland with the good ol’excuse of “they’re genociding my people there” (sounds familiar). But an attentive contemporary observer would have noticed his real motives, aka it was a power grab with the Soviet Union also involved.

But this is, indeed, just a guess. Just an opinion. I’m not claiming to be doing exact science here.

On NATO, that’s a big speculation not worth a genocidal war over imo. Specially when your country has the largest nuclear arsenal, making a NATO invasion unfeasible anyway.

“Cost? What ultimately matters is the impact on those who make the decisions, and it doesn’t seem like Putin’s position would be significantly threatened just because a few thousand people die.”

That’s a simplistic view. Bad consequences threaten the regime (which is not just Putin I believe). And also I don’t think any leader wants to weaken his country with no good reason.

And the cost will obviously go beyond sanctions.

“And in long term, unification of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. If we can trust Putin’s own words, of course.”

That’s another big if. But could be.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 5:15 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Thank you for posting!”

My pleasure.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 4:54 PM
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in reply to: Ege Erdil’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
No, I’m not saying that at all. Foreign civilians like you and me don’t have access to the important classified information that the Kremlin has. Or to their minds. Therefore, it’s reasonable to buy into their official motivations, maybe as much as it is reasonable not to. So, sorry but that’s another obvious fallacy.

Plus, this is just my opinion, which I never claimed to be certain of.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 4:45 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don’t think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don’t think that is in question, and I’m not seeing anyone arguing differently.”

I’m a bit skeptical about that, even though you’re right about it being the general consensus. But of course, the Western media will say anything to make Putin look weak, so there is a bit of artificiality there.

Why I’m skeptical? Because why would anyone think that it would be cake to invade a country of 44 million when yours is only about triple the population, and whose military numbers are also about only triple? Russia sent 200.000 troops to Ukraine, that’s also the number is total active Ukrainian troops, but they have another 900.000 reservists, plus several million fighting-age men who have been prohibited to leave the country. This is not to question Russia’s superiority—of course air warfare is the most important, and that’s where Russia is clearly superior, and therefore will win the war. But to think they would win in a few days? C’mon, who really believes that?

It’s totally different from Crimea, a non-country of a few million where most are ethnic Russians, or Georgia, also just a couple million.

Even the invasion of Chechnya in 1999, which has only a million people, resulted in a bloody war that extended for 10 years.

Therefore, when Russians say “we’re gonna take Kyiv in 3 days”, that’s nothing but trying to intimidate the enemy. And when Westerners really believe that that was the plan, it’s both believing their propaganda and saying “A-ha, you’ve failed!” for political purposes.

Seriously, I don’t really know how so many people are buying this.

“They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.”

Maybe it always has seemed like a good idea, but for some less obvious reasons. That’s where I stand. Either that, or the plan was flawed from the beginning. Or irrational/passional.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 3:16 PM
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in reply to: Ege Erdil’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
If the motivations are genuine, they are misguided. I happen to think that the regime is intelligent and therefore isn’t that misguided. That’s why I tend to side more with domestic power-seeking explanations, like those expressed in the most upvoted comment in this post. I’m not sure of what Russia could do to convince me otherwise. “War not being enough to convince me” is an obvious fallacy.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 3:08 PM
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in reply to: Dojan’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
Of course I’m aware of the geopolitical board game. I never doubted that Russia had a lot to gain with gaining back the pre-2014 Ukrainian loyalty. Or that Ukraine’s democracy threatens Putin’s regime. Or that such things are immoral (from Russia). Or that this war is immoral.

My only doubts come from the fact that I really don’t see this war a net-gain for Russia in those regards. It has nothing to do with moral shock or being oblivious about the geopolitical game. It is, indeed, a geopolitical consideration.

“Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.”

True, the threat of having a protected democracy on his doorstep is a potential political threat to his regime. But not eminent, and he won’t live forever. That’s why, while in other comments I’ve considered it one of the strongest “real motives” to me, it still feels insufficient.

We can be against Western expansionism as much as we want, but without it, half the world would be living much worse lives, from North America, to Australia, to Japan and South Korea (cultural expansionism), to even the rest of Asia who have also benefited from such cultural expansionism. Also, if the West hadn’t expanded this much, both culturally and politically, our way of life today would be in much more danger. We would stand a lot less strong today. Perhaps wouldn’t even exist as liberal democracies.

One thing is to try to do it while avoiding (nuclear) war. But to be against it is naive. Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s better if the good guys do it.

superads91 Mar 15, 2022, 11:35 AM
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in reply to: Ege Erdil’s comment on: What’s, in your opinion, the real reason for this war?
“Security concerns over NATO forces stationed in Ukraine

Irredentism over the lost territory of the Russian Empire & USSR

Retribution for the killing of Russian civilians in the war over Donbass”
1. Doesn’t seem genuine because Russia has plenty of nukes, which make a NATO invasion a suicidal act. Yes, not all wars are fought with nukes. But there’s an very high probability that a war between the 2 greatest nuclear powers would escalate to that. Which makes such invasion irrational and suicidal. Even more when Putin has clearly stated that he would use nukes to defend himself from a NATO invasion.
2. Doesn’t seem genuine because I don’t see modern Russia as a highly ideological nation like the USSR was. I don’t doubt they would like to have Ukraine and the rest of the former empire back. The question is what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. Invading Ukraine is a huge sacrifice and realistically won’t even give them Ukraine back, just install a puppet government at best.
3. Same as 2), don’t doubt they desire that, but the cost of invading Ukraine seems just too high.
“Even if you think Russian security concerns are somehow illegitimate, what’s senseless about Russian animosity against the post-Maidan government of Ukraine that results from the war in Donbass?”

Same as 2) and 3), don’t doubt such animosity, but the cost of invading Ukraine seems just too high.

“Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 for quite similar reasons”

Same thing yet again. What’s the population and size of Cyprus? What’s its connection/strategic importance to NATO/Europe, aka likelihood of it receiving tons of military aid? Is it a huge 44 million people country at the doors of Europe?