Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Post-doctoral Fellowships at METRICS

The Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS) is hiring post-docs for 2016/2017. The full announcement is available at [http://metrics.stanford.edu/education/postdoctoral-fellowships](http://metrics.stanford.edu/education/postdoctoral-fellowships). Feel free to contact me with any questions; I am currently a post-doc in this position.

  

METRICS is a research center within Stanford Medical School. It was set up to study the conditions under which the scientific process can be expected to generate accurate beliefs, for instance about the validity of evidence for the effect of interventions.

  

METRICS was founded by Stanford Professors Steve Goodman and John Ioannidis in 2014, after Givewell connected them with the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, who provided the initial funding. See [http://blog.givewell.org/2014/04/23/meta-research-innovation-centre-at-stanford-metrics/](http://blog.givewell.org/2014/04/23/meta-research-innovation-centre-at-stanford-metrics/) for more details.
# [Link] Lifehack Article Promoting LessWrong, Rationality Dojo, and Rationality: From AI to Zombies

Nice to get this [list-style article](http://www.lifehack.org/330221/6-science-based-hacks-for-growing-mentally-stronger) promoting LessWrong, [Rationality Dojo](http://rationality-dojo.com/), and Rationality: From AI to Zombies, as part of a series of strategies for growing mentally stronger, published on Lifehack, a very popular self-improvement website. It's part of my broader project of promoting rationality and effective altruism to a broad audience, [Intentional Insights](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Intentional_Insights).

**EDIT**: To be clear, based on my exchange with gjm below, the article does not promote these heavily and links more to Intentional Insights. I was excited to be able to get links to LessWrong, Rationality Dojo, and Rationality: From AI to Zombies included in the Lifehack article, as previously editors had cut out such links. I pushed back against them this time, and made a case for including them as a way of growing mentally stronger, and thus was able to get them in.
# Bay Area Solstice 2015

![](http://images.lesswrong.com/t3_mvp_0.png)

The winter solstice marks the darkest day of the year, a time to reflect on the past, present, and future. For several years and in many cities, Rationalists, Humanists, and Transhumanists have celebrated the solstice as a community, forming bonds to aid our work in the world.

Last year, more than one hundred people in the Bay Area came together to celebrate the Solstice.  This year, we will carry on the tradition. Join us for an evening of song and story in the candlelight as we follow the triumphs and hardships of humanity. 

The event itself is a community performance. There will be approximately two hours of songs and speeches, and a chance to eat and talk before and after. Death will be discussed. The themes are typically Humanist and Transhumanist, with a general audience that tends to be those who have found this site interesting, or care a lot about making our future better. There will be mild social pressure to sing along to songs.

**When**: December 12 at 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

**Where**: Humanist Hall, 390 27th St, Oakland, CA 94612

[Get tickets here](http://www.eventbrite.com/e/bay-area-solstice-tickets-18987076858). Bitcoin donation address: 1ARz9HYD45Midz9uRCA99YxDVnsuYAVPDk  

[Sign up to bring food here](http://goo.gl/forms/iDDyP9hCbX). 

Feel free to message me if you'd like to talk about the direction the Solstice is taking, things you like, or things you didn't like. Also, please let me know if you'd like to volunteer.
# Audio version of Rationality: From AI to Zombies out of beta

All three volumes of the ebook _Rationality: From AI to Zombies_ are complete and available for purchase on [Castify](http://castify.co/channels).  A big thanks to the narrator George Thomas.  The total recording time is over 51 hours.

Five math-heavy essays in the second volume went unread because they didn't make for good listening.  To read these the ebook can be downloaded on a "pay-what-you-want" basis from [intelligence.org](https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies).

Thanks again to the original kickstarter backers, we wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

Direct Links:

[Volume 1](http://castify.co/channels/53-rationality-from-ai-to-zombies-volume-1)

[Volume 2](http://castify.co/channels/55-rationality-from-ai-to-zombies-volume-2)

[Volume 3](http://castify.co/channels/56-rationality-from-ai-to-zombies-volume-3)
# Linguistic mechanisms for less wrong cognition

I'm working on a conlang (constructed language) and would like some input from the Less Wrong community.  One of the goals is to investigate the old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis regarding language affecting cognition.  Does anyone here have any ideas regarding linguistic mechanisms that would encourage more rational thinking, apart from those that are present in the oft-discussed conlangs e-prime, loglan, and its offshoot lojban?  Or perhaps mechanisms that are used in one of those conlangs, but might be buried too deeply for a person such as myself, who only has superficial knowledge about them, to have recognized?  Any input is welcomed, from other conlangs to crazy ideas.
# Promoting rationality to a broad audience - feedback on methods

We at [Intentional Insights](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Intentional_Insights)​, the nonprofit devoted to promoting rationality and effective altruism  to a broad audience, are finalizing our Theory of Change (a ToC is meant to convey our goals, assumptions, methods, and metrics). Since there's recently been [extensive discussion](/r/discussion/lw/mze/marketing_rationality/) on LessWrong of our approaches to promoting rationality and effective altruism to a broad audience, one that was quite helpful for [helping us update](/r/discussion/lw/mze/marketing_rationality/cwzy), I'd like to share our Theory of Change with you and ask for your feedback.

Here's the **Executive Summary**:

*   The goal of Intentional Insights is to create a world where all rely on research-based strategies to make wise decisions and lead to mutual flourishing.
*   To achieve this goal, we believe that people need to be motivated to learn and have broadly accessible information about such research-based strategies, and also integrate these strategies into their daily lives through regular practice.
*   We assume that:
    *   some natural and intuitive human thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns are flawed in ways that undermine wise decisions.
    *   problematic decision making undermines mutual flourishing in a number of life areas.
    *   these flawed thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns can be improved through effective interventions.
    *   we can motivate and teach people to improve their thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns by presenting our content in ways that combine education and entertainment.
*   Our intervention is helping people improve their patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior to enable them to make wise decisions and bring about mutual flourishing.
*   Our outputs, what we do, come in the form of online content such as blog entries, videos, etc., on our channels and in external publications, as well as collaborations with other organizations.
*   Our metrics of impact are in the form of anecdotal evidence, feedback forms from workshops, and studies we run on our content.

Here is the [full version](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JSXZzlit-u4hE-MHNE4DcTr98_bjPhoMPdoI3ECE5Qs/edit?usp=sharing).

I'd appreciate any feedback on the full version from fellow Less Wrongers, on things like content, concepts, structure, style, grammar, etc. I look forward to updating the organization's goals, assumptions, methods, and metrics based on your thoughts. Thanks!
# Take the EA survey, help the EA movement grow and potentially win $250 to your favorite charity

This year's EA Survey is now ready to be shared! This is a survey of all EAs to learn about the movement and how it can improve. The data collected in the survey is used to help EA groups improve and grow EA. Data is also used to populate the map of EAs, create new EA meetup groups, and create EA Profiles and the EA Donation Registry.

If you are an EA or otherwise familiar with the community, we hope you will [take it using this link](http://bit.ly/1TcVjNI). All results will be anonymised and made publicly available to members of the EA community. As an added bonus, one random survey taker will be selected to win a $250 donation to their favorite charity.

[**Take the EA Survey**](http://bit.ly/1TcVjNI)

Please share the survey with others who might be interested using this link rather than the one above: [http://bit.ly/1OqsVWo](http://bit.ly/1OqsVWo)
# Starting University Advice Repository

I know quite a few (12+) rationalists and [CFAR](http://rationality.org/) graduates who are entering University soon or have just recently started University.

  

There was a lot of advice I wish I had been given or heard before I entered University and I think having a good repository of rationalist-contributed knowledge/advice/suggestions/information/links/[DireWarnings](/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/) could be very helpful to people in that situation.

  

**1\. What advice do students starting University need to hear?**

2\. What advice did your past self need to hear or what advice would have benefited you at that point in time?

  

3\. Many people fail to ask the right questions. What questions do students need to ask themselves and other people?

  

  

  

Any links or guides on any related topics would be helpful. I will be posting some of my own ideas and links in the comments.

Possibly Relevant Repositories

[Life Advice Repository](/lw/mvz/life_advice_repository/)

[Boring Advice Repository](/lw/gx5/boring_advice_repository/)

[Grad Student Advice Repository](/lw/h7d/grad_student_advice_repository/)

[Repository Repository](/lw/i64/repository_repository/)
# My research priorities for AI control 

I've been thinking about what research projects I should work on, and [I've posted my current view](https://medium.com/ai-control/research-directions-in-ai-control-ef6f666d2062). Naturally, I think these are also good projects for other people to work on as well.

Brief summaries of the projects I find most promising:

*   [Elaborating on apprenticeship learning](https://medium.com/ai-control/elaborations-of-apprenticeship-learning-eb93a53ae3ca#.oaoe99vxt). Imitating human behavior seems especially promising as a scalable approach to AI control, but there are many outstanding problems.
*   [Efficiently using human feedback](https://medium.com/ai-control/efficient-feedback-a347748b1557). The limited availability of human feedback may be a serious bottleneck for realistic approaches to AI control.
*   [Explaining human judgments and disagreements](https://medium.com/ai-control/human-arguments-and-ai-control-bc99c043a5ec). My preferred approach to AI control requires humans to understand AIs’ plans and beliefs. We don’t know how to solve the analogous problem for humans.
*   [Designing feedback mechanisms for reinforcement learning](https://medium.com/ai-control/reward-engineering-f8b5de40d075). A grab bag of problems, united by a need for proxies of hard-to-optimize, implicit objectives.

[The post](https://medium.com/ai-control/research-directions-in-ai-control-ef6f666d2062) briefly discusses where I am coming from, and links to a good deal more clarification. I'm always interested in additional thoughts and criticisms, since changing my views on these questions would directly influence what I spend my time on.
# [Link] Introducing OpenAI

From their site:  
  
[OpenAI](https://openai.com/) is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.

The money quote is at the end, literally—$1B in committed funding from some of the usual suspects.
# European Community Weekend 2016

We are happy to announce the LessWrong Community Weekend 2016! From September 2 to September 4 awesome people from all across Europe are coming to Berlin to meet, exchange ideas, and start projects together.

The event will happen at [Jugendherberge Wannsee](http://jh-wannsee.de/) which features several seminar rooms for talks, workshops, and discussions, as well as comfortable open spaces to socialize and relax. It also provides on-site accommodation (shared rooms, 4 beds) for everyone.

Costs are €150. This includes accommodation for two nights, meals and snacks, and a welcome lunch on Friday.

Like the last two years the event will have some long-form talks, workshops and group activities. However, the weekend is largely participant-driven: There’ll be lots of free space for offering talks and activities of your own. (examples from last year: lightning talks, workouts before meals, improv singing, acrobatics, swimming in the lake, stargazing, …) Providing a space that’s suitable for forming bonds between people and reconnecting with friends is a major focus.

You don’t need to be able to speak German to attend. Nearly all talks and discussions will be in English.

Last time a number of people stayed a couple of days longer to explore Berlin, go bouldering etc. That was super fun and we invite you to plan for it. We will coordinate couch-surfing opportunities to avoid the need for boring hotels.

To sign up, fill out [this form](http://tiny.cc/lwcw_signup).

tl;dr
=====

**When:** Friday September 2, 12:00 – Sunday September 4, 18:00, 2016  
**Where:** [Jugendherberge Am Wannsee](http://www.jh-wannsee.de/), Berlin  
**Price:** €150  
**Sign-up:** [here](http://tiny.cc/lwcw_signup)

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us at [lwcw.europe@gmail.com](mailto:lwcw.europe@gmail.com).

Looking forward to seeing you there,  
Nino, Christian, Marcel, Daniel, J*, Alexander, Irina  
LessWrong Deutschland e.V.
# PSA: even if you don't usually read Main, there have been several worthwhile posts there recently

A lot of people have said that they never look at Main, only Discussion. And indeed, LW's Google Analytics stats [say](/lw/n0l/lesswrong_20/cy3b) that Main only gets one-third of the views that Discussion does.

Because of this, I thought that I'd point out that December has been an unusually lively month for Main, with several high-quality posts that you may be interested in reading out if you haven't already:

*   [LessWrong 2.0](/lw/n0l/lesswrong_20/) (Vaniver): discussion about what to do with LW in order to stop its decline. Different from previous discussions in that this time, MIRI and TrikeApps have agreed to make the changes that result from the discussion.
*   [Why startup founders have mood swings (and why they may have uses)](/lw/n0v/why_startup_founders_have_mood_swings_and_why/) (AnnaSalamon and Duncan_Sabien): what the title says
*   [Results of a One-Year Longitudinal Study of CFAR Alumni](/lw/n2g/results_of_a_oneyear_longitudinal_study_of_cfar/) (Unnamed): CFAR has studied the impact of their workshops on people a year after taking the workshops, and have promising results.
*   [The art of grieving well](/lw/n2x/the_art_of_grieving_well/) (Valentine): a beautiful and important post on the function of grief, and how to make the best out of it. A post intended for a sequence on "_the sub-art of subconsciously seeking out and eliminating ugh fields and also eliminating the inclination to form them in the first place_".
*   [European Community Weekend 2016](/lw/n33/european_community_weekend_2016/) (nino): ECW2016 is confirmed to happen!
*   [Why CFAR? The view from 2015](/lw/n39/why_cfar_the_view_from_2015/) (PeteMichaud): a report on what CFAR has achieved in 2015, how it has changed, and what it will do in the future.
# Deadly sins of software estimation

[This](http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/austin_cs/presentations/2004.08.26.pdf) is so remarkably sensible I think it deserves its own article.

It's a pdf of the slides from a lecture, and should help with the planning fallacy.

A few highlights: Distinguish between targets and estimates. Don't make estimates before you know very much about the project. Estimates are probability statements. Best assumption is that a new tool or method will lead to productivity _loss_.
# Voiceofra is banned

I've gotten sufficient evidence from support that voiceofra has been doing retributive downvoting. I've banned them without prior notice because I'm not giving them more chances to downvote.

I'm thinking of something like not letting anyone give more than 5 downvotes/week for content which is more than a month old. The numbers and the time period are tentative-- this isn't my ideal rule. This is probably technically possible. However, my impression is that highly specific rules like that are an invitation to gaming the rules.

I would rather just make spiteful down-voting impossible (or maybe make it expensive) rather than trying to find out who's doing it. Admittedly, putting up barriers to downvoting for past comments doesn't solve the problem of people who down-vote everything, but at least people who downvote current material are easier to notice.

Any thoughts about technical solutions to excessive down-voting of past material?
# Open Thread, Dec. 28 - Jan. 3, 2016

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

* * *

Notes for future OT posters:

1\. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2\. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (_Immediately_ before; refresh the [list-of-threads page](/r/discussion/new/) before posting.)  

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
# [LINK] The Top A.I. Breakthroughs of 2015

A great [overview article](http://futureoflife.org/2015/12/29/the-top-a-i-breakthroughs-of-2015/) on AI breakthroughs by Richard Mallah from FLI, linking to many excellent recent papers worth reading. 

> Progress in artificial intelligence and machine learning has been impressive this year. Those in the field acknowledge progress is accelerating year by year, though it is still a manageable pace for us. The vast majority of work in the field these days actually builds on previous work done by other teams earlier the same year, in contrast to most other fields where references span decades.
> 
> Creating a summary of a wide range of developments in this field will almost invariably lead to descriptions that sound heavily anthropomorphic, and this summary does indeed. Such metaphors, however, are only convenient shorthands for talking about these functionalities. It's important to remember that even though many of these capabilities sound very thought-like, they're usually not very similar to how human cognition works. The systems are all of course functional and mechanistic, and, though increasingly less so, each are still quite narrow in what they do. Be warned though: in reading this article, these functionalities may seem to go from fanciful to prosaic.
> 
> The biggest developments of 2015 fall into five categories of intelligence: abstracting across environments, intuitive concept understanding, creative abstract thought, dreaming up visions, and dexterous fine motor skills. I'll highlight a small number of important threads within each that have brought the field forward this year.
# [Stub] The problem with Chesterton's Fence

Chesterton's meta-fence: "in our current system (democratic market economies with large governments) the common practice of taking down Chesterton fences is a process which seems well established and has a decent track record, and should not be unduly interfered with (unless you fully understand it)".
# [Link] Huffington Post article about dual process theory

Published [a piece](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gleb-tsipursky/autopilot-vs-intentional-_b_8905696.html) in The Huffington Post popularizing dual-process theory in layman's language.

P.S. I know some don't like using terms like Autopilot and Intentional to describe System 1 and System 2, but I find from long experience that these terms resonate well with a broad audience. Also, I know dual process theory is [criticized by some](http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2012/2/3/two-common-recent-mistakes-about-dual-process-reasoning-cogn.html), but we have to start somewhere, and just explaining dual process theory is a way to start bridging the inference gap to [higher meta-cognition](http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dual-process-theory-Evans_Stanovich_PoPS13.pdf).
# Consciousness and Sleep

This will be a short article. I've been seeing a lot of dubious reasoning about consciousness and sleep. One famous problem is the problem of personal identity with a destructive teleporter. In this problem, we imagine that you are cloned perfectly in an alternate location and then your body is destroyed. The question asked is whether this clone is the same person as you.

One really bad argument that I've seen around this is the notion that the fact that we sleep every night means that we experience this teleporter every day.

The reason why this is a very bad argument is that it equivocates with two different meanings of consciousness:

*   Consciousness as opposed to being asleep or unconscious, where certain brain functions are inactive
*   Consciousness as opposed to being non-sentient, like a rock or bacteria, where you lack the ability to have experiences

You can still have experiences while you are asleep, these are internal experiences and they are called dreams. Your sensory system is still running, but in a kind of reduced power mode. If someone shouts or prods you or it gets too hot, then you wake up. You aren't like a rock.

  

Perhaps some people would like to talk about what kind of waves we do or do not see while you are asleep. What I would like to point out is that we still have very little understanding of the brain. Just because we don't see one particular wave or another doesn't mean much given our incredibly limited understanding of what consciousness is. Perhaps in the future, we will have this knowledge, but anything at the moment is merely speculation.

  

I'm not arguing either way on personal identity. I haven't done enough reading yet to comment. But this is one particularly bad argument that needs to be done away with.
# [link] "The Happiness Code" - New York Times on CFAR

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-happiness-code.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-happiness-code.html)

Long. Mostly quite positive, though does spend a little while rolling its eyes at the Eliezer/MIRI connection and the craziness of taking things like cryonics and polyamory seriously.
# Spreading rationality through engagement with secular groups

The Less Wrong meetup in Columbus, OH is very oriented toward popularizing rationality for a broad audience (in fact, [Intentional Insights](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Intentional_Insights) sprang from this LW meetup). We've found that doing in-person presentations for secular groups is an excellent way of attracting new people to rationality, and have been doing that for a couple of years now, through a group called "Columbus Rationality" as part of the local branch of the American Humanist Association. Here's [a blog post](http://intentionalinsights.org/how-to-advance-rational-thinking-in-your-community) I just published about this topic.

Most importantly for anyone who is curious with experimenting doing something like this, we at Intentional Insights have put together a [“Rationality” group starter package](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y2zetSD3-pWb26Reh-pioJwsFDR-vMTuRI-XImALAyE/edit?usp=sharing), which includes two blog posts describing “Rationality” events, three videos, a facilitator’s guide, an introduction guide, and a feedback sheet. We've been working on this starter package for about 9 months, and finally it's in a shape that we think it's ready for use. Hope this is helpful for any LWs who want to do something similar with a secular group where you live. You can also get in touch with us at [info@intentionalinsights.org](mailto:info@intentionalinsights.org) to get connected to current participants in “Columbus Rationality” who can give you tips on setting up such a group in your own locale.
# [Link] AlphaGo: Mastering the ancient game of Go with Machine Learning

DeepMind's go AI, called AlphaGo, has beaten the European champion with a score of 5-0. A match against top ranked human, Lee Se-dol, is scheduled for March.

> Games are a great testing ground for developing smarter, more flexible algorithms that have the ability to tackle problems in ways similar to humans. Creating programs that are able to play games better than the best humans has a long history
> 
> \[...\]
> 
> But one game has thwarted A.I. research thus far: the ancient game of Go.

  

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2016/01/alphago-mastering-ancient-game-of-go.html
# Perhaps a better form factor for Meetups vs Main board posts?

I like to read posts on "Main" from time to time, including ones that haven't been promoted. However, lately, these posts get drowned out by all the meetup announcements.

It seems like this could lead to a cycle where people comment less on recent non-promoted posts (because they fall off the Main non-promoted area quickly) which leads to less engagement, and less posts, etc.

Meetups are also very important, but here's the rub: I don't think a text-based announcement in the Main area is the best possible way to showcase meetups.

**So here's an idea: how about creating either a calendar of upcoming meetups, or map with pins on it of all places having a meetup in the next three months?**

This could be embedded on the front page of leswrong.com -- that'd let people find meetups easier (they can look either by timeframe or see if their region is represented), and would give more space to new non-promoted posts, which would hopefully promote more discussion, engagement, and new posts.

Thoughts?
# What's wrong with this picture?

Alice: "I just flipped a coin \[large number\] times. Here's the sequence I got:

(Alice presents her sequence.)

Bob: No, you didn't. The probability of having gotten that particular sequence is 1/2^\[large number\]. Which is basically impossible. I don't believe you.

Alice: But I had to get some sequence or other. You'd make the same claim regardless of what sequence I showed you.

Bob: True. But am I really supposed to believe you that a 1/2^\[large number\] event happened, just because you tell me it did, or because you showed me a video of it happening, or even if I watched it happen with my own eyes? My observations are always fallible, and if you make an event improbable enough, why shouldn't I be skeptical even if I think I observed it?

Alice: Someone usually wins the lottery. Should the person who finds out that their ticket had the winning numbers believe the opposite, because winning is so improbable?

Bob: What's the difference between finding out you've won the lottery and finding out that your neighbor is a 500 year old vampire, or that your house is haunted by real ghosts? All of these events are extremely improbable given what we know of the world.

Alice: There's improbable, and then there's impossible. 500 year old vampires and ghosts don't exist.

Bob: As far as you know. And I bet more people claim to have seen ghosts than have won more than 100 million dollars in the lottery.

Alice: I still think there's something wrong with your reasoning here.
# Yoshua Bengio on AI progress, hype and risks

[LINK](http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/546301/will-machines-eliminate-us/)

Yoshua Bengio, one the world's leading expert on machine learning, and neural networks in particular, explains his view on these issues in an interview. Relevant quotes:

> There are people who are grossly overestimating the progress that has been made. There are many, many years of small progress behind a lot of these things, including mundane things like more data and computer power. The hype isn’t about whether the stuff we’re doing is useful or not—it is. But people underestimate how much more science needs to be done. And it’s difficult to separate the hype from the reality because we are seeing these great things and also, to the naked eye, they look magical

> \[ Recursive self-improvement \] It’s not how AI is built these days. Machine learning means you have a painstaking, slow process of acquiring information through millions of examples. A machine improves itself, yes, but very, very slowly, and in very specialized ways. And the kind of algorithms we play with are not at all like little virus things that are self-programming. That’s not what we’re doing.

> Right now, the way we’re teaching machines to be intelligent is that we have to tell the computer what is an image, even at the pixel level. For autonomous driving, humans label huge numbers of images of cars to show which parts are pedestrians or roads. It’s not at all how humans learn, and it’s not how animals learn. We’re missing something big. This is one of the main things we’re doing in my lab, but there are no short-term applications—it’s probably not going to be useful to build a product tomorrow.

> We ought to be talking about these things \[ AI risks \]. The thing I’m more worried about, in a foreseeable future, is not computers taking over the world. I’m more worried about misuse of AI. Things like bad military uses, manipulating people through really smart advertising; also, the social impact, like many people losing their jobs. Society needs to get together and come up with a collective response, and not leave it to the law of the jungle to sort things out.

I think it's fair to say that Bengio has joined the ranks of AI researchers like his colleagues Andrew Ng and Yann LeCun who publicly express skepticism towards imminent human-extinction-level AI.
# [moderator action] The_Lion and The_Lion2 are banned

Accounts "The\_Lion" and "The\_Lion2" are banned now. Here is some background, mostly for the users who weren't here two years ago:

User "Eugine_Nier" [was banned](/lw/kfq/moderator_action_eugine_nier_is_now_banned_for/) for retributive downvoting in July 2014. He keeps returning to the website using new accounts, such as "Azathoth123", "[Voiceofra](/lw/n3z/voiceofra_is_banned/)", "The_Lion", and he keeps repeating the behavior that got him banned originally.

The original ban was **permanent**. It _will_ be enforced on all future known accounts of Eugine. (At random moments, because moderators sometimes feel too tired to play whack-a-mole.) This decision is _not_ open to discussion.

Please note that the moderators of LW are the opposite of trigger-happy. Not counting spam, there is on average _less than one account per year_ banned. I am writing this explicitly, to avoid possible misunderstanding among the new users. Just because you [have read](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Availability_heuristic) about someone being banned, it doesn't mean that _you_ are now at risk.

Most of the time, LW discourse is regulated by the community voting on articles and comments. Stupid or offensive comments get downvoted; you lose some karma, then everyone moves on. In rare cases, moderators may remove specific content that goes [against the rules](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Deletion_policy). The account ban is only used in the extreme cases (plus for obvious spam accounts). Specifically, on LW people _don't_ get banned for merely not understanding something or disagreeing with someone.

What does "retributive downvoting" mean? Imagine that in a discussion you write a comment that someone disagrees with. Then in a few hours you will find that your karma has dropped by hundreds of points, because someone went through your entire comment history and downvoted all comments you ever wrote on LW; most of them completely unrelated to the debate that "triggered" the downvoter.

Such behavior is damaging to the debate and the community. Unlike downvoting a specific comment, this kind of mass downvoting isn't used to correct a _faux pas_, but to drive a _person_ away from the website. It has especially strong impact on new users, who don't know what is going on, so they may mistake it for a reaction of the whole community. But even in experienced users it creates an "[ugh field](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Ugh_field)" around certain topics known to invoke the reaction. Thus a single user has achieved disproportional control over the content and the user base of the website. This is not desired, and will be punished by the site owners and the moderators.

To avoid _rules lawyering_, there is no exact definition of how much downvoting breaks the rules. The rule of thumb is that you should upvote or downvote each comment based on the value of that specific comment. You shouldn't vote on the comments regardless of their content merely because they were written by a specific user.
# [LINK] How A Lamp Took Away My Reading And A Box Brought It Back

[By Ferrett Steinmetz](https://www.theferrett.com/2016/01/29/how-a-lamp-took-away-my-reading-and-a-box-brought-it-back/)

Ferrett isn't officially a Rationality Blogger, but he posts things that seem relevant fairly often. This one is in the spirit of "[Beware Trivial Inconveniences](/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/)". It's the story of how he realized that a small change in his environment led to a big change in his behavior...
# A Rationalist Guide to OkCupid

There's a lot of [data](http://blog.okcupid.com) and research on what makes people successful at online dating, but I don't know anyone who actually tried to wholeheartedly apply this to themselves. I decided to be that person: I implemented lessons from data, economics, game theory and of course rationality in my profile and strategy and OkCupid. Shockingly, it worked! I got a lot of great dates, learned a ton and found the love of my life. I didn't expect _dating_ to be my "rationalist win", but it happened.

[Here's the first part of the story](http://putanumonit.com/2016/02/03/015-dating_1/), I hope you'll find some useful tips and maybe a dollop of inspiration among all the silly jokes.

P.S.

Does anyone know who curates the "Latest on rationality blogs" toolbar? What are the requirements to be included?
# Conveying rational thinking about long-term goals to youth and young adults

More than a year ago, I [discussed here](/lw/l9b/optimizing_ways_to_convey_rational_thinking/bm0m) how we at Intentional Insights intended to convey rationality to young adults through our collaboration with the Secular Student Alliance. This international organization unites over 270 clubs at colleges and high schools in English-speaking countries, mainly the US, with its clubs spanning from a few students to a few hundred students. The SSA's Executive Director is an aspiring rationalist and CFAR alum who is on our [Advisory Board](http://intentionalinsights.org/advisory-board).

  

Well, we've been working on a project with the SSA for the last 8 months to create and evaluate an event aimed to help its student members figure out and orient toward the long term, thus both [fighting Moloch](/slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch) on a societal level and helping them become more individually rational as well (the long-term perspective is couched in the language of finding purpose using science) It's finally done, and here is [the link](https://secularstudents.org/IntentionalInsights) to the event packet. The SSA will be distributing this packet broadly, but in the meantime, if you have any connections to secular student groups, consider encouraging them to hold this event. The event would also fit well for adult secular groups with minor editing, in case any of you are involved with them. It's also easy to strip the secular language from the packet, and just have it as an event for a philosophy/science club of any sort, at any level from youth to adult. Although I would prefer you cite Intentional Insights when you do it, I'm comfortable with you not doing so if circumstances don't permit it for some reason.

  

We're also working on similar projects with the SSA, focusing on being rational in the area of giving, so promoting Effective Altruism. I'll post it here when it's ready.
# Lesswrong Survey - invitation for suggestions

Given that it's been a while since the last survey ([http://lesswrong.com/lw/lhg/2014\_survey\_results/](/lw/lhg/2014_survey_results/))

It's now time to open the floor to suggestions of improvements to the last survey.  If you have a question you think should be on the survey (perhaps with reasons why, predictions as to the result, or other useful commentary about a survey question)

Alternatively questions that should not be included in the next survey, with similar reasons as to why...

survey is now up (2016-03-26)  [http://lesswrong.com/lw/nfk/lesswrong\_2016\_survey/](/lw/nfk/lesswrong_2016_survey/)
# Where does our community disagree about meaningful issues?

Yesterday at our LW Berlin Dojo we talked about areas where we disagree. We got 4 issues:  
  
1) AI risk is important  
2) Everybody should be vegan.  
3) It's good to make being an aspiring rationalist part of your identity.  
4) Being conscious of privacy is important  
  
Can you think of other meaningful issues where you think our community disagrees? At best issues that actually matter for our day to day decisions?
# Less Wrong Karma Chart Website

As a [learning exercise](/lw/n93/open_thread_feb_01_feb_07_2016/d2ug), I wrote a [web app](http://srlee309.github.io/LessWrongKarma/ ) which shows some charts on your karma score.

I recommend just going to the [website](http://srlee309.github.io/LessWrongKarma/) and trying it out, but here is a description of it as well if you're interested. To use it just enter your user id in the text box at the top and then press the go button. It will show that it is loading and after a while five charts will be shown.

*   The first chart is a time series chart which shows you when you have posted a comment or discussion post. This chart allows you to zoom in on any desired area.
*   The second chart is a time series chart which shows you when you have posted a main post. This chart allows you to zoom in on any desired area.
*   The third chart shows your cumulative score. This chart allows you to zoom in on any desired area.
*   The fourth chart shows proportions, i.e. how many comments/posts you have made and how many were positive, neutral or negative. 
*   The fifth and final chart shows information on your total positive and negative scores. This chart allows you to drill down and see where your points have originated from, i.e. from comments or discussion posts or main posts. 

Please note that it may take a while to load. I am scraping all the information from your users page. It shouldn't take too long though. On my computer it takes less than a minute to load all the information on my karma score, but it did take around half an hour to load Eliezer_Yudkowsky's karma information. YMMV depending on what computer you are using. It is not your score that determines how long it will take, but the amount of comments and posts that you have made. I recommend using chrome as I haven't tested it in any other browsers.

The karma calculated by LessWrong also might be slightly different to what my web app shows. For example, my webapp shows Eliezers karma total score as 290096 and in LessWrong it is 290174. I am pretty sure that my code is right since I counted one example out and I do know of one [bug](https://github.com/tricycle/lesswrong/issues/520) in the LessWrong code that would effect the total score. There are also other things that LessWrong takes into account that I don't, e.g. karma awards and the troll tax. The difference shouldn't be too major, though, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

The website is hosted on github and the code can be found [here](https://github.com/srlee309/LessWrongKarma).

TLDR: Try out the [Less Wrong Karma Chart Website](http://srlee309.github.io/LessWrongKarma/) and let me know what you think or if you run into any issues.
# Posting to Main currently disabled

The Main / Discussion division has served us well in the past, but traffic to Main has dropped to the point that it's no longer useful. In particular, the low visibility meant that authors would often have to choose between more karma and being seen by more readers. So posting to Main has been disabled, and the successor of Main is on its way. In the meantime, please move everything to discussion.

But I have a great post I've worked really hard on, and I want it to be in Main.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save it as a draft, let me know, and I'll move it to Main for you.

There's an excellent post that should go on the [RSS feed](/.rss) so lots of people read it.
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We can still promote posts (and will).  

Okay, so Main is dead. What's next?
-----------------------------------

What's the point of having multiple subreddits? If you have a single website with several different communities, then having different subreddits allows for different rules, different moderators, and different focuses. But LW has many interests that don't seem to cleanly separate into multiple subreddits. Many distinctions overlap, and tags seem better. So there are two main paths forward:

1) Tagging, 'new to you', and customization based on tags.

1.  A tagging system with user input (see [Stack Overflow](http://stackoverflow.com/) for inspiration) means we can have reliable filtering.
2.  We already track when a user last visited a page in order to highlight new comments; we can also use that to remove it from the new posts view if it's already been read. (What about if there's a comment explosion? We can either return it if there are enough new comments, or trust that you'll see the comment explosion through the Recent Comments view.)
3.  With everything going to one view, giving users control over that view is critical for keeping it clear of trash. What looks to me like a promising way to do that is subsidies and taxes based on tags; if you want to see parenting posts and don't want to see meetup posts, say, you might give the parenting tag +3 karma and the meetup tag -10 karma, so very popular meetup posts can still appear and even unpopular or new parenting posts will be visible to you.

2) Norm codification and separation.

1.  If LW users are split on how they're interested in interacting with other LWers, then it makes sense to build a wall between people who aren't going to get along (or, at least, make it clear to them whether they're at a concert hall or a mosh pit). 
2.  If it happens, separating out those communities won't be done based on content or level of effort, but communication style and rules. That might be something like "informal" vs. "formal", or might be something like "warm" and "cool", or might be "yes, and" vs. "no, but."

It looks to me like even if we go down the second path, features from the first path will be useful. So that's where I'll be focusing effort for the short term, and we'll see if we can manage with just one subreddit.
# AIFoom Debate - conclusion?

I've been going through the AIFoom debate, and both sides makes sense to me. I intend to continue, but I'm wondering if there're already insights in LW culture I can get if I just ask for them.

My understanding is as follows:

The difference between a chimp and a human is only 5 million years of evolution. That's not time enough for many changes.

Eliezer takes this as proof that the difference between the two in the brain architecture can't be much. Thus, you can have a chimp-intelligent AI that doesn't do much, and then with some very small changes, suddenly get a human-intelligent AI and FOOM!

Robin takes the 5-million year gap as proof that the significant difference between chimps and humans is only partly in the brain architecture. Evolution simply can't be responsible for most of the relevant difference; the difference must be elsewhere.

So he concludes that when our ancestors got smart enough for language, culture became a thing. Our species stumbled across various little insights into life, and these got passed on. An increasingly massive base of cultural content, made of very many small improvements is largely responsible for the difference between chimps and humans.

Culture assimilated new information into humans much faster than evolution could.

So he concludes that you can get a chimp-level AI, and to get up to human-level will take, not a very few insights, but a very great many, each one slowly improving the computer's intelligence. So no Foom, it'll be a gradual thing.

So I think I've figured out the question. Is there a commonly known answer, or are there insights towards the same?
# What is the future of nootropic drugs? Why can't there be ones more effective than ones that have existed for 15+ years?

So Scott Alexander's post at http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/01/2016-nootropics-survey-results/ shows that the most "effective" "nootropics" have still been the ones that have existed for a long time. What do these results really mean, though? Is it possible that people are just worse at noticing the subtler effects of the other drugs, or are just much worse at disciplining themselves enough to correctly use the racetams or noopept (as in, with choline)?

How much potential is there in innovation in nootropics? What is holding this innovation back, if anything? It feels like there hasn't been any real progress over the last 15 years (other than massively increased awareness), but could targeted drug discovery (along with people willing to be super-liberal with their experimentation) finally lead to some real breakthroughs?
# AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol

There have been a couple of [brief](/r/discussion/lw/ndk/open_thread_march_7_march_13_2016/d5s8) [discussions](/r/discussion/lw/ndk/open_thread_march_7_march_13_2016/d5sb) of this in the Open Thread, but it seems likely to generate more so here's a place for it.

The original [paper in Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7587/full/nature16961.html) about _AlphaGo_.

[Google Asia Pacific blog](http://googleasiapacific.blogspot.co.uk/), where results will be posted. [DeepMind's YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/DeepMindAI), where the games are being live-streamed.

[Discussion on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11251463) after AlphaGo's win of the first game.