Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Wirehead your Chickens

TL;DR: **If you care about farm animal welfare, work on minimizing actual animal suffering, not a human proxy for animal suffering.**

_Epistemic status: had a chat about this with a couple of local EA enthusiasts who attended the [EA Global 2018](https://www.eaglobal.org/events/ea-global-2018-san-francisco/) in San-Francisco, and apparently this was not high on the agenda. I have only done a cursory search online about this, and nothing of note came up._

When you read about farm animal welfare, what generally comes up is vegetarianism/veganism, humane treatment of farm animals, and sometimes vat-grown meat. This emphasis is quite understandable emotionally. Cows, pigs, chickens in industrial farms are in visible severe discomfort most of their lives, which are eventually cut short long before the end of their natural lifespan, often in painful and gruesome ways.

An animal welfare activist would ask themselves a question like "what is it like to be a chicken in a chicken farm?" and end up horrified. Their obvious solutions are those outlined above: have fewer farm animals and treat them "humanely." Less conventional approaches that reduce animal suffering get an immediate instinctive pushback, because we would not find them acceptable for ourselves. This is what I call the human proxy for animal suffering. Maybe there is a more standard name for this kind of anthropomorphizing? Anyway, let's list a few obvious approaches:

*   breed chickens with smaller brains, so they have less capacity for suffering,
*   inject a substance that would numb farm animals to physical pain,
*   identify and surgically or chemically remove the part of the brain that is responsible for suffering,
*   at birth, amputate the non-essential body parts that would give the animals discomfort later in life,
*   breed animals who enjoy pain, not suffer from it,
*   breed animals that want to be eaten, like the Ameglian Major Cow from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Many of these are probably way easier and more practical than shaming people into giving up tasty steak. But our morality immediately fights back, at least for most of us. "What do you mean, cut off baby chicken's legs so it does not have leg pain later? You, monster!"

Because most people do not truly care about reducing animal suffering, they care about a different metric altogether, a visible human proxy for animal suffering that they find immediately relatable. And so it appears that there is virtually no research or funding into the real suffering reduction, even though we know those will work. Because they work on humans already. Drug addicts are quite happy while under influence. Epidural works wonders for temporary pain removal, and so does spinal cord injury in many cases. The list of proven but not ethically acceptable ways to reduce suffering in humans is pretty long.

If you are an effective altruist who is concerned with farm animal welfare, what is stopping you from working on finding ways to apply what works but is not ethical for humans to what works and reduces actual suffering in animals?
# Does anyone use advanced media projects?

Epistemic status: exploratory.

I am using "advanced media projects" as sort of a catch-all umbrella for people working on better ways to present and explore information. I suppose the obvious hub for this kind of thing is places like the [MIT Media Lab](https://www.media.mit.edu/), but here are a few others I have been thinking about:

**Historical**

Alan Kay gave a couple of talks at Stanford about the time at PARC that I like. The title is How To Invent the Future, [Part I](https://www.startupschool.org/videos/11) and [Part II](https://www.startupschool.org/videos/12). He talks a lot about the importance of tools and the under-utilization of computers for thinking purposes. I went to school for engineering, and I would particularly like to call out Ivan Sutherland's demonstration at ~26:30 in Part I because when people were still using punch-cards and tape readouts this guy threw together the first computer aided drafting program as a _demo_ for a _monitor_ and a _light-pen_ and my life would have been much easier at several junctures if only we could have rolled back to the 60s. My mind remains blown.

**Current**

I just discovered Bret Victor, and his blog has a section in it called [Kill Math](http://worrydream.com/KillMath/). I am watching the presentation called [Media for Thinking the Unthinkable](http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable), which seems directly relevant to the problems this community is largely concerned with. His central argument is that all of our progress hinges on people with a knack for manipulating abstract symbols with pencil and paper; this both loses value that might be added by people without such talents, and fails to leverage abstract symbol skills in more than two dimensions.

**In the Wild**

This is exactly the pitch of [Distill](https://distill.pub/), which I discovered from LessWrong. In fact, the demos for Distill look very similar to the first network theory paper example in the Media for Thinking the Unthinkable talk...and following the last link of their examples _is_ that very talk.

But the question is, does anyone here actually use or produce such tools?

It seems like superintelligence is the kind of motivating example which _requires_ the ability to think unthinkable thoughts, but I haven't seen very much discussion about how to do so. Secondarily, we have a strong interest in the pedagogical possibilities from a rationality perspective. What if we could flip the former around, and build a tool to render previously thinkable-but-wrong thoughts unthinkable, like a kind of rationality filter?
# Ben Hoffman's donor recommendations

A conversation I had on Facebook last month, saved here so I can link back to it:

* * *

**Anonymous**: I want to give away some money. Who should I give it to? \[...\]

Note that I am familiar with the effective altruism movement and with [givewell.org](https://www.givewell.org). (I think “GiveWell’s top charities” might be the right answer, and I am even curious how many people reading this would say that - I just don’t want to get comments starting with “Have you heard of…”.)

\[...\]

**Buck Shlegeris**: I think [donor lotteries](https://app.effectivealtruism.org/lotteries) probably have higher EV than anything else you can do from your current epistemic state.

\[...\]

**Rob Bensinger**: I came here to recommend donor lotteries, but Buck already did it. I think most people should donate via donor lotteries. If you win the lottery and don't know where else to donate, the [EA Funds](https://app.effectivealtruism.org) are usually a better fallback option than GiveWell.

**Ben Hoffman**: Agreed on donor lotteries but not on EA funds.

**Rob**: Oh, interesting, why do you think GiveWell beats EA Funds?

**Ben**: They seem pretty similar in prospect, given the extent to which they seem to funge against each other (especially when you notice the level of coordination between GiveWell, Good Ventures, and Open Philanthropy Project), and the strong overlap in management. Basically it seems a bit odd to spend attention distinguishing them, vs spending effort distinguishing substantially different strategies.

**Ben**: Here's my explanation of donor lotteries, which links to a couple others: [http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/claim-explainer-returns-to-scale/](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/claim-explainer-returns-to-scale/)

\[...\]

**Ben**: I would recommend either gifting it directly to individuals you think have done good work in the world, without restrictions, or reaching out to them directly and asking them where they think you should give it.

Facebook queries like these will select for charities that are memetically fit answers to "where should I give?". If you don't have time to track this sort of thing, then just keep rolling it over into donor lotteries until/unless you "win" enough money to make it worth your time to track it.

**Ben**: Another decent option: giving unsolicited monetary gifts to friends or acquaintances (people known to you personally, not via mass media) who seem like they're basically benevolent and competent, have high marginal value for money, and aren't asking for any.

**Ben**: Anyhow, the reason I'm not suggesting any specific charities should be pretty obvious. If you want specific recommendations from me for some reason you can reach out to me directly. Likewise for other people you expect to be following similar heuristics.

* * *
# CFAR Reunion

We're am proud to announce [CFAR's 5th annual Alumni](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-cfar-alumni-reunion-tickets-44351640952) [](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfar-alumni-reunion-2017-tickets-33555831395) [Reunion](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-cfar-alumni-reunion-tickets-44351640952)!

The reunion is an opportunity to engage with and develop new rationality techniques, meet people from different workshops, conspire, give talks, and get outdoors. Many alumni consider this a highlight of their year.

The Alumni Reunion is an unconference - a chance for our alumni to practice their agency and showcase and explore what they're developing and excited about. An editable schedule will be sent out sometime before the event for people to schedule their activities and classes.

Other things at the Alumni Reunion:

*   _Updates to CFAR's core curriculum_
*   _A waterslide!_
*   _Some insight into CFAR's Tier-II workshops_
*   _Circles of every type!_
*   _Campfires_
*   _Pair debugging_
*   _Very cool people_

To find out more or buy tickets, [click here!](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-cfar-alumni-reunion-tickets-44351640952)  
  
--  
ElizabethCFAR Community Manager  
**Questions answering time!**  

**Q1** How many tickets are there? do I need to make sure I buy one before they're gone?  

> **A1** ~175\. Yes? However, I would bet some are still available in July.

**Q2** I'm about to take on a reasonable amount of debt for further study, with mind to x-risk/maximising impact. It doesn't feel sensible for me to take on unnecessary debt on the margin; on the other hand, being a net cost feels like defecting. What donation would be approximately cost-covering? (also very open to being challenged on my tentative conclusion)

> **A2** If we thought people would be a net cost if they couldn't pay in full, we would just set the price to be exactly what covers the cost of the individual. Causing our alumni financial pain is harmful to the Alumni Reunion. We fully endorse pay what you can.

**Q3.1** Should we buy two tickets if we have a +1?

> **A3.1** Yes. Also, it would be best for CFAR if you bought them separately so that we get info on both participants.

**Q3.2**. If we might not attend literally the whole time (since we live nearby and transportation is easy, and being at a big party is a lot of work) then are there times which are more interesting than others, or a preliminary schedule of events?

> **A3.2** I think this is a matter of personal taste. I'm probably going to open it to people signed up first before I publish it to the rest of the group.
# Anthropics: Where does Less Wrong lie?

I'm currently reading some papers various problems related to the anthropic problem and I'm planning to write up a post when I'm finished. To this end, it would be useful to know what position people hold so that I know what arguments I need to address. So what is your position on anthropics?

Various anthropic problems include the [Sleeping Beauty problem](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty_problem), the [Absent-minded driver](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GfHdNfqxe3cSCfpHL/the-absent-minded-driver), the [Dr Evil problem](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mcrxRFMwaMnSKHCfo/resolving-the-dr-evil-problem), the [Doomsday Argument](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Doomsday_argument), the [Presumptuous Philosopher](https://meteuphoric.com/2011/01/10/the-unpresumptuous-philosopher/), the [Sailor's Child](https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0608592.pdf), [Fermi Paradox](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Fermi_paradox) and the [Argument from Fine-Tuning](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/).
# What could be done with RNA and DNA sequencing that's 1000x cheaper than it's now?

In [How to Invent the Future](https://www.startupschool.org/videos/11) Alan Kay proposes that a good way of inventing the feature is to take an exponential and project it into the feature. Afterwards it's useful to ask what can be done with the new capabilities.

On important exponential is the price of DNA and RNA sequencing that [fell faster](https://www.genome.gov/27541954/dna-sequencing-costs-data/) than Moore's law over the last 30 years.

What can be done in a future is radically cheaper sequencing?
# OpenAI releases functional Dota 5v5 bot, aims to beat world champions by August

> Our team of five neural networks, OpenAI Five, has started to [defeat](https://blog.openai.com/openai-five/#thegames) amateur human teams at [Dota 2](http://www.dota2.com/play/). While today we play with [restrictions](https://blog.openai.com/openai-five/#restricted), we aim to beat a team of top professionals at [The International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2)) in August subject only to a limited set of heroes. We may not succeed: Dota 2 is one of the most popular and [complex](https://purgegamers.true.io/g/dota-2-guide) esports games in the world, with creative and motivated professionals who [train](https://venturebeat.com/2017/02/12/dota-evil-geniuses/) year-round to earn part of Dota’s annual $40M [prize pool](https://www.esportsearnings.com/history/2017/games) (the largest of any esports game).

  

Commentary by Sam Altman: [http://blog.samaltman.com/reinforcement-learning-progress](http://blog.samaltman.com/reinforcement-learning-progress)

> This is the game that to me feels closest to the real world and complex decision making (combining strategy, tactics, coordinating, and real-time action) of any game AI had made real progress against so far.

> The agents we train consistently outperform two-week old agents with a win rate of 90-95%.  We did this without training on human-played games—we did design the reward functions, of course, but the algorithm figured out how to play by training against itself.

> This is a big deal because it shows that deep reinforcement learning can solve extremely hard problems whenever you can throw enough computing scale and a really good simulated environment that captures the problem you’re solving.  We hope to use this same approach to solve very different problems soon.  It's easy to imagine this being applied to environments that look increasingly like the real world.
# Right Hand, Left Hand - Los Angeles LW/SSC Meetup #65 (Wednesday, June 27th)

Location: Wine Bar next to the Landmark Theater in the Westside Pavilion (10850 W Pico Blvd #312, Los Angeles, CA 90064).  We will move **upstairs (to the 3rd floor hallway) as soon as we reach capacity**.

Time: 7 pm (June 27th)

Parking: Available in the parking lot for the entire complex.  **The first three (3) hours are free and do not require validation** (the website is unclear and poorly written, but it may be the case that if you validate your ticket and leave before three hours have passed, you will be charged $3)**.  After that, parking is $3 for up to the fifth (5) hour, with validation.**

Contact: The best way to contact me (or anybody else who is attending the meetup) is through our **Discord**.  Feel free to message me (T3t) directly.  Invitation link: [https://discord.gg/TaYjsvN](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscord.gg%2FTaYjsvN&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGp_tNSuquq0qHTGPUXIO3mz0dTNw)

Topic: Our discussion this week will be on communication failures.  No reading.
# How to formalize predictors

In Newcomb's Problem, what information does the predictor get if you flip a coin? Here's some options:

1) "Bob has 50:50 odds of one-boxing or two-boxing"

2) "Bob will one-box" (chosen randomly with the same odds as your decision)

3) "Bob will one-box" (guaranteed to be the same as your decision)

I think (1) is a poor formalization, because the game tree becomes unreasonably huge, and some strategies of the predictor (like "fill the box unless the probability of two-boxing is exactly 1") leave no optimal strategy for the player.

And (3) seems like a poor formalization because it makes the predictor work too hard. Now it must predict all possible sources of randomness you might use, not just your internal decision-making.

That leaves us with (2). Basically we allow the predictor to "sample" your decision at any information set in the game. That means we can add some extra nodes to the player's information sets and get rid of the predictor entirely, ending up with a single player game. Newcomb's Problem and Counterfactual Mugging can be easily analyzed in this way, leading to the same answers we had before (one-box, pay up). It also gives a crisp formalization of the transparent boxes Newcomb problem, where we sample the player's decision at the information set of "seeing both boxes filled".

I think this might end up useful for bounded versions of Counterfactual Mugging, which are confusing to everyone right now. But also it feels good to nail down my understanding of the simple version.
# Machine Learning Analogy for Meditation (illustrated)

Here's an illustrated rendition of a semiformal explanation of certain effects of meditation. It was inspired by, but differs significantly from, [Kaj's post on meditation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mELQFMi9egPn5EAjK/my-attempt-to-explain-looking-insight-meditation-and). Some people appreciated [gjm's transcription](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/chHhuCvmZqYLM32gz/machine-learning-analogy-for-meditation#xzz5RWC4WPgGCs3Ms) for readability.

  

![](https://i.imgur.com/Dec3AIG.png)

  

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# FHI Research Scholars Programme

FHI is starting a new two-year research scholars program, that I think could be quite exciting to a bunch of people on LW. The deadline to apply is in about two weeks (11th of July), and they're still actively looking for applicants.

FHI has a long history of doing interesting research (many of the core ideas of this site have originated there), and I think there is a good chance that in terms of training epistemic rationality and being given the opportunity to directly tackle many of the key questions around existential risk, AI alignment and theoretical rationality this might be the best career opportunity that currently exists out there for most people.

My guess is that if you are a long-time LessWrong reader who has been waiting for an opportunity to make a more direct impact on AI-risk or other issues frequently covered on this site, then this might be the best opportunity you will get for a good while.

My guess about the people who should most consider applying:

*   You just finished a degree, considered working in academia, but so far haven't found any opportunities to work on the important things you care about
*   You are currently in a career that does not, and probably won't, allow you to directly make progress on the problems that seem most important to you
*   You have some kind of research project that you've been wanting to work on for a long time, but are worried about not having financial stability or a productive research environment in which to work on that project

Here is a small blurb that Owen (the main organizer behind the project) sent me a while ago when I asked him what he usually sends people:

> Which is more likely to be radically transformative in the next two decades: AI or biotechnology? Can we draw lessons from the industrial revolution or the development of nuclear weapons? What might humanity achieve on a timescale of millions of years, and does that matter for decisions today? How would the (non-)existence of intelligent aliens affect us?

> If you find these questions compelling, you might be interested in joining the Future of Humanity Institute. Our new Research Scholars Programme will employ a small number of talented, curious thinkers to explore such topics, giving mentorship to help them develop judgement about what to work on from the perspective of securing a flourishing future. For details, see h[ttps://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/rsp/](https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/rsp/)
# Dissolving the Fermi Paradox, and what reflection it provides

While the argument [was posted on LessWrong previously](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HEHuXNmwpcj8FRcoL/dissolving-the-fermi-paradox-applied-bayesianism), now it has the neat form of [a paper on arXive](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf) by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler and Toby Ord

TL;DR version: the use of Drake-like equations, with point estimates of highly uncertain parameters, is wrong. Extant scientific knowledge corresponds to uncertainties that span multiple orders of magnitude.

When the statistics is done correctly to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty in the literature, "_people who take the views of most members of the research community seriously should ascribe something like a one in three chance to being alone in the galaxy and so should not be greatly surprised by our lack of evidence of other civilizations. The probability of N <10^−10 (such that we are alone in the observable universe) is 10%. "_

From the conclusions, when the priors are updated

_When we update this prior in light of the Fermi observation, we find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe (53%–99.6% and 39%–85% respectively)_. ’
# LW Update 2018-07-01 – Default Weak Upvotes

Git Commit: 6a0c7bf54a29f2909ab50fc76da3b43854d0e112

We deployed recently, mostly with under-the-hood bugfixes and refactors that are aimed at making it easier to fork the LW codebase and restyle it.

Two concrete user-facing changes are:

*   Comments are now small-upvote by default. Posts are still large-upvote by default. (Later, we intend to add some limitations to strong-upvoting – mostly likely reducing its power the more you use it. So people will be free to strong-upvote their own comments if they think it's important, and rather than being seen as "tooting your own horn too loudly", the intent will be that you have a limited power to strong upvote, and you are encouraged to use it on whatever you think is most important, whether it's your own content or someone else's)
*   We added a "hide low karma posts" checkbox to the daily page. We'll improve this over time (making it clearer what it does and maybe giving users more control over it), but for now just wanted obvious spam and nonsense to not take up people's attention. (the toggle removes posts with -10 or less karma)
# San Francisco Meetup: Board Games and Singing

Some people don’t like board games, and based on our straw poll at the recent meta meetup, most of those people seem to like group singing. So this meetup has both!

We have a variety of games, but feel free to bring your own.

We’ll also bring lyrics for some songs to sing together. If there’s anything you really like singing and think other people might know, please feel free to bring it or a link to lyrics for it that we can pull up. A rhythm instrument might be nice to bring, iff. you know the particular songs we’re doing well enough to keep up easily.

For help getting into the building, please call (or text, with a likely-somewhat-slower response rate): 203-503-7508 (general meetup info at 301-458-0764).

**Format:**

We meet and start hanging out at 6:15, but don’t officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:45-7:00 to accommodate stragglers. Usually there is a food order that goes out before we start the meetup topic.

**About these meetups:**

The mission of the SF LessWrong meetup is to provide a fun, low-key social space with some structured interaction, where new and non-new community members can mingle and have interesting conversations. Everyone is welcome.

We explicitly encourage people to split off from the main conversation or diverge from the topic if that would be more fun for them (moving side conversations into a separate part of the space if appropriate). Meetup topics are here as a tool to facilitate fun interaction, and we certainly don’t want them to inhibit it.
# Why it took so long to do the Fermi calculation right?

This is a meta-level followup to an object level post about [Dissolving the Fermi Paradox.](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DHtjbcwcQv9qpHtJf/dissolving-the-fermi-paradox-and-what-reflection-it-provides)

The basic observation of the paper is that when the statistics is done correctly to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty, the paradox largely dissolves.

The _correct statistics_ is not that technically difficult: instead of point estimates, just take the distributions, reflecting the uncertainty (implied in the literature!)

There is sizeable literature about the paradox, stretching several decades. Just [Wikipedia lists 22 hypothetical explanations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_explanations_for_the_paradox), and it seems realistic, at least several hundred researchers spent some serious effort thinking about the problem.

It seems to me really important to reflect on this.

**What's going on, why this inadequacy?** (in general research)

And more locally, why did not this particular subset of the broader community, priding itself on use of Bayesian statistics, notice earlier?

_(I have some hypotheses, but it seems better to just post it as an open-ended question)_
# What will we do with the free energy?

_Epistemological status: Superficial personal speculation ._

This posts follows [What could be done with RNA and DNA sequencing that's 1000x cheaper than it's now?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RBjLCdKZj9LhP6Rir/what-could-be-done-with-rna-and-dna-sequencing-that-s-1000x) in thinking about technical challenges we will face in the next decades. It's an attempt by my to play a bit with futurism.

Both solar and wind energy have [exponential efficiency improvements](https://www.adityagreens.com/green-living/10-popular-solar-energy-myths-busted): 

![](https://i.imgur.com/UkQwJkK.jpg)

A majority of Indian new coal power now costs more then [new wind and solar power](https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2018/01/30/india-coal-power-is-about-to-crash-65-of-existing-coal-costs-more-than-new-wind-and-solar/#6dd435af4c0f). This means that we can expect a lot of new wind and solar power installations to be build.

Last year, in 2017, in Germany there were [146 hours](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative) in which energy prices were negative. This means that during those hours wholesale customers got payed to consume energy.

Unfortunately, batteries are expensive and while it might be economical to load a battery in the day and release the energy at night it won't be economical to load the battery in summer and release it in winter. 

As a result batteries don't work as energy sink for summer days with too much energy production.

Maybe, we can construct our wind turbines in a way that we can dumb excess energy into them when there isn't wind? It would however be more desirable to find a way to actually spend that free energy productively.

Most machines that we currently build are optimized to run as much as possible and thus don't provide good energy sinks. A machine that produces spoons is most economical when it runs 24/7.

This means that there's an economic opportunity to build machines that can work as energy sinks for days with negative energy costs.

It's likely a good idea to build data-centers in a way that they are not only able to run in a low energy mode but also in a mode where they burn as much energy as possible. As a result it might b worthwhile for some cloud provider to have in a year specific times where the compute is radically cheaper than on other days. Maybe that compute will go into crypto-mining but it we can also think about other uses for it. 

The data-centers likely won't be enough of a data sink and we need new ideas about what to do with other excess energy. 

Do you have any energy about how to build good energy sinks that might use energy usefully and that are economical if they are only used for a few weeks/days a year?
# On Authority

Stephen Randy Waldman (Interfluidity) writes about the process by which _authority_ is created. His definition of authority applies to information in a social context. Namely, information that is _authoritative_ is information which we take to be true by our actions, regardless of whether that information is true or not.

The method by which human societies cause coordination to scale is by producing authoritative information. While a certain amount of coordination is possible via brute coercion, voluntary coordination is far cheaper and more scalable. In order to engender voluntary compliance, one needs authoritative information upon which to coordinate.

Small societies can easily produce enough authoritative information by choosing one of their members as a designated source of authoritative information, an authority. However, the problems of producing authoritative information grow non-linearly with scale. As a result, much of the social infrastructure we have today (courts, the press, the financial system) is dedicated to the production and (social) validation of authoritative information.

The construction of authority is necessary in order to constrain society enough to produce useful outcomes. The methods by which we construct this authority is among the most important social and technological problems we face.
# Polyamory Panel

This meetup is your chance to hear the answer to every question you ever wanted to ask, and a bunch that you haven't, about polyamory and open relationship. Answering will be our resident panel of open lovers: Sam, Eloise, Brian, Terese, and myself. I'll start with some general question for the entire panel (e.g., "how did you discover polyamory?", "what's a mistake you made that you learned from?"). After that, we'll open it to audience Q&A. 

The spiciness level for this meetup is set at "higher than the Rosenroof", but of course, those panelists who don't want to answer a question will be free to pass. If you want to submit a question anonymously, you can use this Google form: [https://goo.gl/forms/lUJ8acbrMcaeQ4uC3](https://goo.gl/forms/lUJ8acbrMcaeQ4uC3) and I'll try to at least get to all the must-ask questions.

More details on our [Google group](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/overcomingbiasnyc).
# Towards dissolving the mystery of consciousness

1

Let us consider a world where it is well known that light is a wave, characterized by wavelength. The white color is known to be a mix of many different waves as shown by a prism separating sunlight into a rainbow. Physicists measure and catalog the wavelengths of different colors such as red \[620–750 nm\], green \[495–570 nm\] and yellow \[570–590 nm\].

Across the street from the physicists is a painters' guild. They also deal a lot in colors and know well that mixing red and green yields yellow. They even demonstrated it to physicists, with a system of two prisms, baffles and mirrors. And yet the theory explaining how mixing two pure waves, one of 700nm and one of 500nm, results in a wave of 580nm remains elusive. Many different non-linear effects were hypothesized, but none was confirmed.

2

To us, this mystery is of course completely transparent. We now know well that a sensation of color is determined not by the frequency, but by a ratio of activation of 3 different types of photoreceptor cone cells in the eye retina \[0\]. Each of those cell types is sensitive to large overlapping swaths of frequencies. So a pure yellow and combination of pure red and green just happen to produce identical activation patterns.

To reach this understanding we had to look away from light itself and into the mechanism, we used to observe the light - our eyes and brains.

3

It seems to me that something similar happens with attempting to explain consciousness. We have some strong intuitions about what is and what isn't conscious and there are attempts to model those intuitions \[1\] \[2\]. I feel that there can't be a theory of consciousness without a good look at the mechanism that generates those intuitions - our brain.

4

Humans evolved as a social organism and the ability to function in a group was critical for survival. An "agent detector" that can distinguish a fellow human from inanimate objects and animals can be an extremely usable adaptation. (This detector can further usefully distinguish friend from foe, aka ingroup/outgroup, but this is beyond the scope of current text). And the intuition that someone or something is conscious is merely this object detector being activated in our brain. And the study of consciousness (like the study of color) should mostly produce answers about our detectors than about the conscious object themselves.

In a world with a wide variety of agents, calling someone "conscious", just like calling someone/something "attractive" or "tasty", reveals as much about yourself as about what you describe.

References

\[0\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell)

\[1\] [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wqDRRx9RqwKLzWt7R/nonperson-predicates](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wqDRRx9RqwKLzWt7R/nonperson-predicates)

\[2\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated\\\_information\\\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated/_information/_theory)
# obvious epiphanies


In her post [Closer to Fine](https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/closer-to-fine/), Sarah Constantin points at a something I’m calling an obvious epiphany.

> You can be intellectually aware that a thing is true, and still have strong negative feelings that contradict it … There’s a big difference between “please tell me I’m okay, for the umpteenth time” and just believing “yeah, I’m okay, that’s a fact about reality.” Getting over this last hump, for me, was mostly a matter of insights, deeply internalized.

>   
> Epiphanies are weird, because what happens in practice is that you have a lot of them, and they all sound really obvious if you say them out loud. I believe this is normal. Single epiphanies don’t change you for life, mostly, but an aggregate of many epiphanies on the same theme add up.

>   
> Things like “I can trust myself more”, “I deserve happiness”, “I am actually successful by my own standards”, “I have strong convictions and admire heroism and that is a good thing”, “I care about truth and science a lot”, “I care about peace and freedom a lot,” “I deserve to give myself credit”, “I deserve to live”, and so on, sound like mundane platitudes, but there’s an experience of grokking them deeply, recognizing that they’re not just nice things to say but in a certain sense literally true in real life, that is essential and can’t be replaced.

Here are three examples I’ve discovered: I am good at giving massages, other people don’t understand audio at 3x speed and people enjoy my company

I was giving a someone a massage and she said “You’re really good at massages”. I don’t get that many massages so I took this as: _Thanks for giving me a massage, massages are great_. Instead of brushing it off I asked her “really?” She replied “No seriously I’ve had massages from three other people and they’re all worse”.

I’ve taken to watch youtube videos at faster speeds. It doesn’t ruin the experience and you can get more goodness in less time. My brother remarked “How can you understand that?” It’s more taxing to watch videos at high speeds, so I took this to as: _hey aren’t you tired from watching a whole lecture at that speed._ Turns out speech at 2.5x-3x speed up is totally unintelligible to someone who hasn’t gradually ramped up the speed.

I was unable to make a family event and my sister remarked “We’ll miss your company” I took this as: _the habitual -it's good to see you-/I'm obligated to say I want you there._ Halfway through the perfunctory “yeah, yeah”, I somehow entertained the hypothetical that she meant exactly what she said. "Really?" I asked, I’d always though that I was tolerated, the awkward one that said funny things from time to time. She replied "duh, of-course I want you there. I'd feel better with you there". The hypothesis gained traction; This might be why people keep hanging out with me & act like they're enjoying my company.
# RAISE is looking for full-time content developers

(crossposted from Facebook. Related to [the reverse job](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pKLhDsfj2vKYBazfc/the-reverse-job))

(Tldr: RAISE is setting up a high-effort content development team in Blackpool, with free accommodation and fully covered living expenses. If you are interested, fill in [the form](https://goo.gl/forms/9Tf3HuD1feN7Ap7B3).)

It has been a month or 2 since RAISE decided to professionalize. As a result, we have received roughly $10.000 in funding.

This helped us bolster our production pipeline. We have a few new videos on the verge of publication, and a series of guides to prerequisite studies (authored by [Erik](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eistre91) and [Trent](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/fowlertm)) is being published here on LessWrong.

We as a team are glad that things are moving forward, and we feel encouraged to take it to the next level.

How far can we stretch 10k? In the Bay area, such an amount would sustain a small team for a month. That’s obviously not enough to fulfill our ambition of distilling the whole of AI Safety.

It’s clear that as a movement, basing all of our operations in the most expensive cities of the world is a mistake. There is undoubtedly an advantage to being near loci of innovation and wealth, but that doesn’t always apply. RAISE and AI Safety camp were started in the Netherlands, where EA and LessWrong communities are only taking baby steps.

It’s clear that, in order to maximize efficiency, one should outsource as much work as possible to places where living is cheap. Much the same as what competition-driven industrial companies are already doing in today’s globalized world.

That’s why RAISE has decided that, come September, it’s content production team will move to the [EA hotel](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1pc/ea_hotel_with_free_accommodation_and_board_for/) in Blackpool.

The hotel, as its main product, provides free living cost to anyone that autonomously works on an EA project. I was lucky to already know Greg when he launched this excellent initiative. We have been in contact since, and I’m going to live (and possibly work) at the hotel until (at least) February. Johannes Heidecke will (most likely) join me end October. We are looking for several highly motivated AI Safety talents to join our team, preferably for 3 months or longer.

While there, we hope to set up a high-focus office environment. Removing as many distractions as possible, optimizing it for creating content of the highest quality.  
And we will [make an extraordinary effort](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GuEsfTpSDSbXFiseH/make-an-extraordinary-effort), [shutting up to do the impossible](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nCvvhFBaayaXyuBiD/shut-up-and-do-the-impossible).

If you’re interested, apply [here](https://goo.gl/forms/9Tf3HuD1feN7Ap7B3). If you want to explore options, feel free to [email us](mailto:raise@aisafety.camp), and we can chat about it open-endedly.
# Fundamentals of Formalisation Level 5: Formal Proof

Followup to [Fundamentals of Formalisation Level 4: Formal Semantics Basics](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/noBWatgDQ7Q8eoxvf/fundamentals-of-formalisation-level-4-formal-semantics). [First post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kK67yXhmDYwXLqXoQ/fundamentals-of-formalisation-level-1-basic-logic).

This is a new lesson of our [online course](https://play.ihatestatistics.com/#/course/141?access_token=3HCK4oRipeFY2ghyYMqDJKYX57KUnzNL) on math formalizations required for AI safety research.

* * *

The big ideas:

*   Natural Deduction Proof System

To move to the next level you need to be able to:

*   Explain the difference between a formal system of proof and our informal notion of proof.
*   Derive proofs of logical formula in the system of natural deduction.

Why this is important:

Learning mathematical proof is hard, as you may have experienced in levels 2 and 3. By learning a formal system of proof you will make your own thoughts more rigorous, understand the smallest details that need to be covered to perform a proof, and build your intuition for informal proof.

* * *

For every lesson you have 2 options: do the whole thing, or skip to the questions and exercises in the end. The latter option is for people who suspect they already know the subject. It serves as a means of verifying or falsifying that hypothesis.
# Open Thread July 2018

For those low-effort ideas that are worth a little attention but perhaps not a lot (yet).

(shouldn't a bot be posting these?)

Prompts for things to say:

*   What accomplishments are you celebrating from the last month?
*   What are you reading?
*   What subject has taken up most of your thoughts lately?
*   What is something your fellow rationalists don't understand, but should?
# Two agents can have the same source code and optimise different utility functions

I believe that it is possible for two agents to have the exact same source code while (in some sense) optimising two different utility functions.

I take a utility function to be a function from possible world states to real numbers. When I say that an agent is optimising a utility function I mean something like that the agent is "pushing" its environment towards states with higher values according to said utility function. This concept is not entirely unambiguous, but I don't think its necessary to try to make it more explicit here. By source code I mean the same thing as everyone else means by source code.

Now, consider an agent which has a goal like "gain resources" (in some intuitive sense). Say that two copies of this agent are placed in a shared environment. These agents will now push the environment towards different states, and are therefore (under the definition I gave above) optimising different utility functions.
# Probability is fake, frequency is real

Consider the [Sleeping Beauty problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty_problem). What do we mean by fair coin? It is meant that the coin will have 50-50 probability of heads or tails. But that is fake. It will ether come up heads or tail, because the real world is deterministic. It is true that I don't know the outcome. I don't know if I am in a world of type "the coin will come up heads" or a world of type "the coin will come up tails". But in this situation I should be allowed to put what ever prior I want on the coins behavior.

Consider the [Born rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_rule) of quantum mechanics. If I measure the spin of an electron, then I will entangle the large apparatus that is the my measuring equipment with the spin of the electron. We say that there are now two Everett branches, one where the apparatus measured spin up and one where the apparatus measured spin down. Before I read of the result, I don't know which Hilbert branch I am in. I could be in ether, and I should be allowed to have what ever prior I want. So why the Born rule? Why to I do I believe that the square amplitude is **the** correct way of assigning probability to which Hilbert branch I am in?

I believe in the Born rule because of the frequency of experimental outcomes in the past. The distribution of galaxies in the sky can be traced back to the Born rule. I don't have the [gears](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/B7P97C27rvHPz3s9B/gears-in-understanding) on what is causing the Born rule, but there are something undeniably real about galaxies that trumps mere philosophical Bayesian arguments about freedom of priors.

Imagine that you are offered a bet. Should you take it or not? There are several argument about what you should do in different situations. For example, if you have finite amount of money, you should maximize the E(log(money)) for each bet, (see e.g. [Kelly criterion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion)). However, every such argument I have ever seen, is assuming that you will be confronted by a large number of similar bets. This is because probabilities only relay make sense if you sample enough times from the random distribution you are considering.

The notion of "fair coin" does not make sense if the coin is flipped only once. The right way to view the Sleeping Beauty problem is to view it in it in the context of Repeated Sleeping Beauty.

**Next:** [Repeated (and improved) Sleeping Beauty problem](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KZh9eKCkBRbevkGnP/repeated-and-improved-sleeping-beauty-problem)