Yonatan Cale

• Yonatan Cale 22 Nov 2021 22:33 UTC

  1 point

  on: At­tempted Gears Anal­y­sis of AGI In­ter­ven­tion Dis­cus­sion With Eliezer

  [AI risk question, not sure where to ask]

  Hey, could you (or someone) help me understand how useful this would be? (Or, what would Yudkowsky say about it?)

  I’m asking because this might be something that I, or someone that I know, could do

• Yonatan Cale 22 Nov 2021 22:34 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Yonatan Cale’s comment on: At­tempted Gears Anal­y­sis of AGI In­ter­ven­tion Dis­cus­sion With Eliezer

  Some people here inspire me to make predictions ;) So here’s my attempt:

  My guess, mainly based on this image (linked from the post):

  

  Is that he’d say it’s a sub category of “getting models to output things based only on their training data, while treating them as a black box and still assuming unexpected outputs will happen sometimes”, as well as “this might work well for training, but obviously not for an AGI” and “if we’re going to talk about limiting a model’s output, Redwood Research is more of a way to go” and perhaps “this will just advance AI faster”

  What links here?

  • What is most con­fus­ing to you about AI stuff? by Sam Clarke (EA Forum; 23 Nov 2021 16:00 UTC; 25 points)

• Yonatan Cale 27 Dec 2021 11:20 UTC

  3 points

  on: How To Write Quickly While Main­tain­ing Epistemic Rigor

  This has influenced how I write things and how I give disclaimers (I read it a few months ago)

  Thanks!

• Yonatan Cale 29 Dec 2021 16:12 UTC

  2 points

  on: The Plan

  Hypothesis regarding your confusion about agency:

  Describing humans using a “utility function” or through “goals” is wrong.

  Humans are a bunch of habits (like CFAR TAPs) which have some correlation with working towards goals, but this is more of an imperfect rationalization than a reasonable/​natural way to describe the situation.

  Also yes, we have some part that thinks in goals, but it has a very limited effect on anything (like actions) compared to what we’d naturally think.

  Credit to a friend

  [I have no idea what I’m talking about, feel free to ignore if this doesn’t resonate of course, seemed worth a comment]

• Yonatan Cale 18 Feb 2022 1:05 UTC

  12 points

  in reply to: iceman’s comment on: Why I’m co-found­ing Aligned AI

  If that will turn out to be the only problem then we’ll be in an amazing situation

• Yonatan Cale 21 Mar 2022 22:17 UTC

  1 point

  on: How I fixed exercise

  Hey :)

  I too had all sorts of ideas about working out, and I basically threw (almost all of) them out once I discovered VR

  Hi from our mutual friend Shira :)

• Yonatan Cale 1 Apr 2022 17:48 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Phil Scadden’s comment on: How to Make Your Ar­ti­cle Change Peo­ple’s Minds or Ac­tions? (Spoiler: Do User Test­ing Like a Startup Would)

  I agree with everything

  For most posts here (such as hiring posts), I do think the author can/​should aim to a changed mind “immediately”, mainly because (1) it is possible and not too hard, and (2) not aiming for that can be an easy enough “excuse” to avoid admitting that the post failed at what it’s supposed to do. (Almost every post will get an encouraging review response of at least “nice post!”, so having that as a bar seems too low, I think).

  I’ll add that another thing that influences my opinion is (3) I think lots of people fill their post with counter-arguments to arguments that nobody would really make and I think this really lowers posts’ quality.

  For very hard posts such as “convince about evolution”—perhaps a goal of “change someone’s mind immediately” is too high, but I assume you’d still agree that doing user testing would be very valuable. (?)

• Yonatan Cale 2 Apr 2022 10:26 UTC

  2 points

  on: Good Heart Week: Ex­tend­ing the Experiment

  May I (only half jokingly) recommend my post about writing good posts?
  https://​​www.lesswrong.com/​​posts/​​8BGexmqqAx5Z2KFjW/​​how-to-make-your-article-change-people-s-minds-or-actions

• Yonatan Cale 2 Apr 2022 22:20 UTC

  3 points

  on: Yonatan Cale’s Shortform

  Posts I want to write (most of them already have drafts) :

  (how do I prioritize? do you want to user-test any of them?)

  1. Hiring posts

     1. For lesswrong

     2. For Metaculus

  2. Startups

     1. Do you want to start an EA software startup? A few things to probably avoid [I hate writing generic advice like this but it seems to be a reoccurring question]

     2. Announce “EA CTOs” plus maybe a few similar peer groups

  3. Against generic advice—why I’m so strongly against questions like “what should I know if I want to start a startup” [this will be really hard to write but is really close to my heart]. Related:

  4. How to find mentoring for a startup/​project (much better than reading generic advice!!!)

  5. “Software Engineers: How to have impact?”—meant to mostly replace the 80k software career review, will probably be co-authored with 80k

  6. My side project: Finding the most impactful tech companies in Israel

  7. Common questions and answers with software developers

     1. How to negotiate for salary (TL;DR: If you don’t have an offer from another company, you’re playing hard mode. All the other people giving salary-negotiation advice seem to be ignoring this)

     2. How to build skill in the long term

     3. How to conduct a job search

        1. When focusing on 1-2 companies, like “only Google or OpenAI”

        2. When there are a lot of options

     4. How to compare the companies I’m interviewing for?

     5. Not sure what you are looking for in a job?

     6. I’m not enjoying software development, is it for me? [uncertain I can write this well as text]

     7. So many things to learn, where to start?

     8. I want to develop faster /​ I want to be a 10x developer /​ Should I learn speed typing? (TL;DR: No)

     9. Q: I have a super hard bug that is taking me too long panic!

  8. Goodheart Meta: Is posting this week a good idea at all? If more stuff is posted, will less people read my own posts?

  How can you help me:

  TL;DR: Help me find what there is demand for

  Comment /​ DM /​ upvote people’s comments

  Thx!

• Yonatan Cale 3 Apr 2022 14:00 UTC

  −1 points

  in reply to: Cobblepot’s comment on: Counter-the­ses on Sleep

  I’m pretty surprised at Guzey’s tone in responding; even this last response starting with an apology makes arguments that suggest argument motivated by some sort of psychological trigger rather than rational consideration.

  Maybe better to assume good intentions? (And even if someone is biased or motivated by “impure” motives, we try to turn this into a high quality discussion if we can?)

• Yonatan Cale 3 Apr 2022 15:16 UTC

  8 points

  on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  Excuse me for the half-off-topic, but would you give me visibility into what might get you to work at an EA/​rationality org?

  Or in other phrasings:

  • What is preventing it?

  • What could change that would get you to move to such an org? Feel free to ask for magical stuff that would never happen in real life, I’m in an early “learn about the users” stage here

  Thanks!

  (Context TL;DR: Not enough software engineers apply to such orgs, and the orgs have no idea what’s going on since our community theoretically has so many developers. I’m trying to help figure it out)

• Yonatan Cale 3 Apr 2022 19:45 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Bart Bussmann’s comment on: Work­ing Out in VR Really Works

  Just saying I am not at all overweight myself, but I still want to work out.

  Regarding “cause area”: There are pretty cheap actions to do here, like bring a VR headset to your local meetup and help people try it out. I brought it to an EA Israel retreat, one person bought his own headset a few days later, and a few others said they’re considering it.

• Yonatan Cale 3 Apr 2022 20:05 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  Thank you very much for the high-detail answer <3

  If I may continue debugging:

  If an EA org would tell you that you’d produce more value for the world by working directly for them, building things, while also earning a salary (insert some number here) that lets you live well and donate to non-EA causes, even though the EA org has fewer than 50 engineers, compared to having you donate as much as you’d maximally donate ($1M/​year?), would you move to the EA org?

  (Reminder: I’m asking this as a “debug” question, partly to check my understanding. Pushbacks are welcome)

• Yonatan Cale 3 Apr 2022 20:10 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Jackson Wagner’s comment on: Work­ing Out in VR Really Works

  Thank you!

  I added those gloves to my cart :)

• Yonatan Cale 4 Apr 2022 8:08 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  (Thank you for joining in! <3)

  Regarding “you don’t have a model where you need me enough to hire me”—may I ask if that’s something that an EA org (or several such orgs) have told you, or something you’re guessing?

• Yonatan Cale 4 Apr 2022 8:14 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  it’d be very hard for me to evaluate if you actually need me

  May I ask if you evaluated this yourself? (I’m guessing: based on EA orgs being too small and with too little growth, so your own edge isn’t there, so they better hire someone else. But I’d be happy for clarity here if you’d help me out)

• Yonatan Cale 4 Apr 2022 17:03 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  lol I resonate with the desire to get into a confused software engineering org and help bring order :) Though I am not an experienced manager like yourself

  I’ll exit my user-research mode and just share that EA orgs currently have a hard time hiring devs, especially senior ones. My fairly-confident assumptions is that the devs simply don’t apply, but beyond some guesses, I wasn’t sure why. Both of you are sharing reasons which I read as mostly “the orgs are not a good fit for my skills—I’m better at managing ~100+ devs, not ~3”. First of all I’d like to thank you for sharing this—it’s helping me understand this unclear picture, so, like, this is an actual thank you. :)

  I expect that the EA orgs would answer your concern with “Not enough people are applying, surely not very senior people. The alternative for you working with us is that we’ll have a dev with 1-2 years of experience, who is also, eh, not ideal for the position”. And also, “you will have a higher impact working with us, including if we pay you a ton of money, compared to donating 5X what you’d donate if you’d keep working at FAANG”. I don’t know if they’d actually say this, but it is my guess (I’m currently working on figuring out this field as you understand)

  May I ask for your thoughts on this?

  (Maybe as a person the orgs are trying to speak to, maybe as an advisor to me who is trying to make progress on the problem)

  What links here?

  • Yonatan Cale's comment on Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer by Gordon Seidoh Worley (4 Apr 2022 17:11 UTC; 1 point)

• Yonatan Cale 4 Apr 2022 17:11 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Be­com­ing a Staff Engineer

  I see, thanks

  As I said in the other thread:

  I’ll exit my user-research mode and just share that EA orgs currently have a hard time hiring devs, especially senior ones. My fairly-confident assumptions is that the devs simply don’t apply, but beyond some guesses, I wasn’t sure why. Both of you are sharing reasons which I read as mostly “the orgs are not a good fit for my skills—I’m better at managing ~100 devs, not ~3”. First of all I’d like to thank you for sharing this—it’s helping me understand this unclear picture, so, like, this is an actual thank you. :)

  I expect that the EA orgs would answer your concern with “Not enough people are applying, surely not very senior people. The alternative for you working with us is that we’ll have a dev with 1-2 years of experience, who is also, eh, not ideal for the position”. And also, “you will have a higher impact working with us, including if we pay you a ton of money, compared to donating 5X what you’d donate if you’d keep working at FAANG”. I don’t know if they’d actually say this, but it is my guess (I’m currently working on figuring out this field as you understand)

  May I ask for your thoughts on this?

  (Maybe as a person the orgs are trying to speak to, maybe as an advisor to me who is trying to make progress on the problem)

• Yonatan Cale 4 Apr 2022 17:20 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Pattern’s comment on: Work­ing Out in VR Really Works

  Thanks, fixed

  1. I get tired and I sweat, especially in a specific intensive game (Thrill of the Fight, aka TotF)

• Yonatan Cale 9 Apr 2022 10:23 UTC

  9 points

  in reply to: aogara’s comment on: It’s time for EA lead­er­ship to pull the fast-take­off fire alarm.

  You have my upvote for publicly disagreeing and explaining why <3

  (even though I personally don’t agree with your conclusion, I really want to encourage people to discuss these opinions and not keep them “bottled up” (especially some really smart people I know that I wish were working on AI Safety!!..))