Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# Astrobiology, Astronomy, and the Fermi Paradox II: Space & Time Revisited

After a 6+ month hiatus driven by grad school and personal projects, I am finally able to continue my sequence on astrobiology.  I was flabbergasted by the positive response my last post got, and despite my status as a biologist with a hobby rather than an astronomer I decided to take a more rigorously mathematical approach to figuring out our biosphere's position in space and time rather than talking in generalizations and impressions.

Post is here:  http://thegreatatuin.blogspot.com/2016/03/space-and-time-revisited.html.  Seeing as this post is an elaboration on the last one, I am posting a link rather than reproducing the text.  
  
To summarize, I found some actual rigorous observational fits to the star formation rate in the universe over time and projected them into the future.  **These fits show the Sun as forming after 79% of all stars that will ever exist, and that 90% of all stars that will ever exist already exist. ** This makes sense in the light of recent work on 'galaxy quenching' - a process by which galaxies more or less completely shut off star formation through a number of processes - indicating that the majority of gas in the universe probably won't form stars if trends that have held for most of the history of the universe continue to hold.  It relies heavily on analysis I began in comments on this site a few months ago.

I then lift two distinct metallicity normalizations from a paper that was making the rounds here a while back ("On The History and Future of Cosmic Planet Formation"), in an attempt to deal with the fact that that is a measurement of STAR formation, not terrestrial-planet-with-a-biosphere formation.  Depending on which metallicity normalization you use (and how willing you are to take a couple naive assumptions I make in order to slot the math that is too complicated for me to comment on on top of my star formation numbers) **the Earth shows up as forming after either 72% or 51% of all terrestrial planets.**

These numbers are remarkable in how boring they are.  We find ourselves in an utterly typical position in planet-order, even if I am wrong by quite a bit.  **We are not early**.  Of interest to many here, explanations of the so called Fermi paradox must go elsewhere, into the genesis of intelligent systems being exceedingly rare or the genesis of intelligent systems not implying interstellar spread.

Now that I seem to have a life again, I will be getting back to my original plan next, talking about our own solar system.
# Prediction challenge: Zika and birth rates

I've been wondering about good new topics for LW, and prediction might be one of them.  
  
The effect of the Zika virus-- and human reactions to it-- on birth rates has the combination of being hard enough to be interesting, not being heavily plowed over by partisans, and having a quantitative outcome.

There's a lot of evidence that Zika causes microcephaly, but this isn't confirmed. There's also [some reason to think](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/cdc-zika-virus-pregnancy-miscarriage/) it increases the rate of miscarriages.  
  
Human reactions cover a wide range, including trying to wipe out the mosquitoes, increasing access to birth control, abortions, asking people to put off having children, creating a less-mosquito-friendly environment....  
  
My assumption is that zika will cease to be a serious problem in not too many years, as more women get the disease and acquire immunity before their child-bearing years, but admittedly, this is assuming that zika (or some other disease with a similar infection pattern) is the problem.  
  
Any other good prediction questions?
# How I infiltrated the Raëlians (and was hugged by their leader)

![](https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/7a6fd0193b4e72ec7528b7c715ccad2b?s=120)

I was invited by a stranger I met on a plane and actually went to a meeting of Raëlians (known in some LW circles as "the flying saucer cult") in 沖縄, Japan. It was right next to Claude Vorilhon's home, and he came himself for the "ceremony" (?) dressed in a theatrical space-y white uniform, complete with a Jewish-style white cap on his head. When saying his "sermon" (?) he spoke in English and his words were translated into Japanese for the benefit of those who didn't understand. And yes, it's true he talked with me briefly and then hugged me (I understand he does this with all newcomers, and it felt 100% fake to me). I then went on to eat lunch in an 居酒屋 with a group of around 15 members, who were all really friendly and pleasant people. I was actually treated to lunch by them, and afterwards someone gave me a ~20 minute ride to the town I wanted to be in, despite knowing they won't see me ever again.

If you have ever wondered how it is possible that a flying saucer cult has more members than EA, now it's time to learn something.

_Note: I hope it's clear that I do not endorse creating cults, nor do I proclaim the EA community's inferiority. It hasn't even crossed my mind when I wrote the above line that any LW'er would take it as a stab they need to defend against. I'm merely pointing to the fact that we can learn from anything, whether it's good or bad, and encouraging a fresh discussion on this after I gathered some new data._

Let's do this as a Q&A session (I'm at work now so I can't write a long post).

Please ask questions in comments.
# Link: Evidence-Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked

John Ioannidis has written a very insightful and entertaining article about the current state of the movement which calls itself "Evidence-Based Medicine".  The paper is available ahead of print at [http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/pdf](http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/pdf ).

As far as I can tell there is currently no paywall, that may change later, send me an e-mail if you are unable to access it.

Retractionwatch interviews John about the paper here: http://retractionwatch.com/2016/03/16/evidence-based-medicine-has-been-hijacked-a-confession-from-john-ioannidis/

(Full disclosure: John Ioannidis is a co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), where I am an employee. I am posting this not in an effort to promote METRICS, but because I believe the links will be of interest to the community)
# The increasing uselessness of Promoted

For some time now, "Promoted" has been reserved for articles written by MIRI staff, mostly about MIRI activities.  Which, I suppose, would be reasonable, if this were MIRI's blog.  But it isn't.  MIRI has its own [blog](https://intelligence.org/blog/).  It seems to me inconvenient both to readers of LessWrong, and to readers of MIRI's blog, to split MIRI's material up between the two.

People visiting lesswrong land on "Promoted", see a bunch of MIRI blogs, mostly written by people who don't read LessWrong themselves much anymore, and get a mistaken impression of what people talk about on LessWrong.  Also, LessWrong looks like a dying site, since often months pass between new posts.

I suggest the default landing page be "New", not "Promoted".
# Consider having sparse insides

It's easier to seek true beliefs if you keep your (epistemic) identity small. (E.g., if you avoid beliefs like "I am a democrat", and say only "I am a seeker of accurate world-models, whatever those turn out to be".)

It seems analogously easier to seek effective internal architectures if you also keep non-epistemic parts of your identity small -- not "I am a person who enjoys nature", nor "I am someone who values mathematics" nor "I am a person who aims to become good at email" but only "I am a person who aims to be effective, whatever that turns out to entail (and who is willing to let much of my identity burn in the process)".

There are obviously hazards as well as upsides that come with this; still, the upsides seem worth putting out there.

The two biggest exceptions I would personally make, which seem to mitigate the downsides: "I am a person who keeps promises" and "I am a person who is loyal to \[small set of people\] and who can be relied upon to cooperate more broadly -- whatever that turns out to entail".

Thoughts welcome.
# Happy Notice Your Surprise Day!

One of the most powerful rationalist techniques is [noticing your surprise](/lw/if/your_strength_as_a_rationalist/). 

It ties in to several deep issues. One of them relates to one of my [favorite LW comments](/lw/1mh/that_magical_click/1hd7)  (the [second highest](/topcomments/) upvoted one in Main):

> One of the things that I've noticed about this is that most people do not expect to understand things. For most people, the universe is a mysterious place filled with random events beyond their ability to comprehend or control. Think "guessing the teacher's password", but not just in school or knowledge, but about everything.
> 
> Such people have no problem with the idea of magic, because everything is magic to them, even science.

--pjeby

For the universe to make sense to you, you have to have a model; for that model to be useful, you have to notice what it says, and then you need to act on it. I've done many things the wrong way in my life, but the ones I remember as mistakes are the ones where some part of me \*knew\* it was a problem, and instead of having a discussion with that part of me, I just ignored it and marched on.

> It is good to notice your surprise. But that's only the first step.

--[Douglas_Knight](/lw/nce/go_see_ex_machina/d4z2)

So any stories, of tricks you noticed, didn't notice, or successfully pulled?
# [link] Disjunctive AI Risk Scenarios

Arguments for risks from general AI are sometimes criticized on the grounds that they rely on a series of linear events, each of which has to occur for the proposed scenario to go through. For example, that a sufficiently intelligent AI could escape from containment, that it could then go on to become powerful enough to take over the world, that it could do this quickly enough without being detected, etc.

The intent of my following series of posts is to briefly demonstrate that AI risk scenarios are in fact disjunctive: composed of multiple possible pathways, each of which could be sufficient by itself. To successfully control the AI systems, it is not enough to simply block one of the pathways: they all need to be dealt with.

I've got two posts in this series up so far:

[**AIs gaining a decisive advantage**](http://kajsotala.fi/2016/04/disjunctive-ai-risk-scenarios-ais-gaining-a-decisive-advantage/) discusses four different ways by which AIs could achieve a decisive advantage over humanity. The one-picture version is:

![](http://kajsotala.fi/assets/2016/04/DA.png)

**[AIs gaining the power to act autonomously](http://kajsotala.fi/2016/04/disjunctive-ai-risk-scenarios-ais-gaining-the-power-to-act-autonomusly/)** discusses ways by which AIs might come to act as active agents in the world, despite possible confinement efforts or technology. The one-picture version (which you may wish to click to enlarge) is:

[![](http://kajsotala.fi/assets/2016/04/AutonomousAI.png)](http://kajsotala.fi/assets/2016/04/AutonomousAI.png)

These posts draw heavily on my old paper, [Responses to Catastrophic AGI Risk](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-8949/90/1/018001/meta), as well as some recent conversations here on LW. Upcoming posts will try to cover more new ground.
# My new rationality/futurism podcast

I've started a podcast called [Future Strategist](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521) which will focus on decision making and futurism.  I have created seven shows so far:  interviews of computer scientist [Roman Yampolskiy](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/interview-of-roman-yampolskiy), LW contributor [Gleb Tsipursky](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/interview-of-gleb-tsipursky-on-rationality-and-altruism), and artist/free speech activist [Rachel Haywire](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/rachel-haywire-interview-on-free-speech-political-correctness-and-donald-trump), and monologues on [game theory and Greek Mythology](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/greek-mythology), the [Prisoners' Dilemma](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/prisoners-dilemma), the [sunk cost fallacy](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/sunk-cost-fallacy), and the [Map and Territory](https://soundcloud.com/user-519115521/map-and-territory).  

If you enjoy the show and use iTunes I would be grateful if you left a positive review at [iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/future-strategist/id1090750347?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4).  I would also be grateful for any feedback you might have including suggestions for future shows.  I'm not used to interviewing people and I know that I need to work on being more articulate in my interviews.
# The Sally-Anne fallacy

_Cross-posted from [my blog](http://reasonableapproximation.net/2016/04/09/sally-anne-fallacy.html)_

I'd like to coin a term. The **Sally-Anne fallacy** is the mistake of assuming that somone believes something, simply because that thing is true.^1^

The name comes from the [Sally-Anne test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test), used in developmental psychology to detect theory of mind. Someone who lacks theory of mind will fail the Sally-Anne test, thinking that Sally knows where the marble is. The Sally-Anne fallacy is also a failure of theory of mind.

In internet arguments, this will often come up as part of a chain of reasoning, such as: _you think X; X implies Y; therefore you think Y._ Or: _you support X; X leads to Y; therefore you support Y_.^2^

So for example, we have [this complaint](http://lesserjoke.tumblr.com/post/141930028249/bruce-banner-in-avengers-age-of-ultron-2015) about the words "African dialect" used in _Age of Ultron_. The argument goes: a dialect is a variation on a language, therefore [Marvel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy) thinks "African" is a language.

_You think "African" has dialects; "has dialects" implies "is a language"; therefore you think "African" is a language._

Or maybe Marvel just doesn't know what a "dialect" is.

This is also a mistake I was pointing at in [Fascists and Rakes](http://reasonableapproximation.net/2014/01/04/facists-and-rakes.html). _You think it's okay to eat tic-tacs; tic-tacs are sentient; therefore you think it's okay to eat sentient things_. Versus: _you think I should be forbidden from eating tic-tacs; tic-tacs are nonsentient; therefore you think I should be forbidden from eating nonsentient things_. No, in both cases the defendant is just wrong about whether tic-tacs are sentient.

Many political conflicts include arguments that look like this. _You fight our cause; our cause is the cause of \[good thing\]; therefore you oppose \[good thing\]._ Sometimes people disagree about what's good, but sometimes they just disagree about how to get there, and think that a cause is harmful to its stated goals. Thus, liberals and libertarians symmetrically accuse each other of not caring about the poor.^3^

If you want to convince someone to change their mind, it's important to know what they're wrong about. The Sally-Anne fallacy causes us to mistarget our counterarguments, and to mistake potential allies for inevitable enemies.

* * *

1.  From the outside, this looks like "simply because _you believe_ that thing".
    
2.  Another possible misunderstanding here, is if you agree that X leads to Y and Y is bad, but still think X is worth it.
    
3.  Of course, sometimes people will _pretend_ not to believe the obvious truth so that they can further their dastardly ends. But sometimes they're just wrong. And sometimes they'll be right, and the obvious truth will be untrue.
# Using humility to counteract shame

"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."

Uncle Iroh, "Avatar: The Last Airbender"

Shame is one of the trickiest emotions to deal with. It is difficult to think about, not to mention discuss with others, and gives rise to insidious [ugh fields](/lw/21b/ugh_fields/) and negative spirals. Shame often underlies other negative emotions without making itself apparent - anxiety or anger at yourself can be caused by unacknowledged shame about the possibility of failure. It can stack on top of other emotions - e.g. you start out feeling upset with someone, and end up being ashamed of yourself for feeling upset, and maybe even ashamed of feeling ashamed if meta-shame is your cup of tea. The most useful approach I have found against shame is invoking humility.

What is humility, anyway? It is often defined as a low view of your own importance, and tends to be conflated with modesty. Another common definition that I find more useful is acceptance of your own flaws and shortcomings. This is more compatible with confidence, and helpful irrespective of your level of importance or comparison to other people. What humility feels like to me on a system 1 level is a sense of compassion and warmth towards yourself while fully aware of your imperfections (while focusing on imperfections without compassion can lead to beating yourself up). According to [LessWrong](/lw/gq/the_proper_use_of_humility/), "to be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors", which seems more like a possible consequence of being humble than a definition.

Humility is a powerful tool for psychological well-being and instrumental rationality that is more broadly applicable than just the ability to anticipate errors by seeing your limitations more clearly. I can summon humility when I feel anxious about too many upcoming deadlines, or angry at myself for being stuck on a rock climbing route, or embarrassed about forgetting some basic fact in my field that I am surely expected to know by the 5th year of grad school. While humility comes naturally to some people, others might find it useful to explicitly build an identity as a humble person. How can you invoke this mindset?

One way is through [negative visualization](/lw/lye/negative_visualization_radical_acceptance_and/) or pre-hindsight, considering how your plans could fail, which can be time-consuming and usually requires system 2. A faster and less effortful way is to is to imagine a person, real or fictional, who you consider to be humble. I often bring to mind my grandfather, or Uncle Iroh from the Avatar series, sometimes literally repeating the above quote in my head, sort of like an affirmation. I don't actually agree that humility is the only antidote to shame, but it does seem to be one of the most effective.

(Cross-posted from [my blog](https://vkrakovna.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/using-humility-to-counteract-shame/). Thanks to Janos Kramar for his feedback on this post.)
# What is up with carbon dioxide and cognition? An offer

One or two research groups have published work on carbon dioxide and cognition. The state of the published literature is confusing.

[Here](http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/) is one paper on the topic. The authors investigate a proprietary cognitive benchmark, and experimentally manipulate carbon dioxide levels (without affecting other measures of air quality). They find implausibly large effects from increased carbon dioxide concentrations.

If the reported effects are real and the suggested interpretation is correct, I think it would be a big deal. To put this in perspective, carbon dioxide concentrations in my room vary between 500 and 1500 ppm depending on whether I open the windows. The experiment reports on cognitive effects for moving from 600 and 1000 ppm, and finds significant effects compared to interindividual differences.

I haven't spent much time looking into this (maybe 30 minutes, and another 30 minutes to write this post). I expect that if we spent some time looking into indoor CO2 we could have a much better sense of what was going on, by some combination of better literature review, discussion with experts, looking into the benchmark they used, and just generally thinking about it.

So, here's a proposal:

*   If someone looks into this and writes a post that improves our collective understanding of the issue, I will be willing to buy part of an associated [certificate of impact](http://rationalaltruist.com/2014/11/15/certificates-of-impact/), at a price of around $100*N, where N is my own totally made up estimate of how many hours of my own time it would take to produce a similarly useful writeup. I'd buy up to 50% of the certificate at that price.
*   Whether or not they want to sell me some of the certificate, on May 1 I'll give a $500 prize to the author of the best publicly-available analysis of the issue. If the best analysis draws heavily on someone else's work, I'll use my discretion: I may split the prize arbitrarily, and may give it to the earlier post even if it is not quite as excellent.

Some clarifications:

*   The metric for quality is "how useful it is to Paul." I hope that's a useful proxy for how useful it is in general, but no guarantees. I am generally a pretty skeptical person. I would care a lot about even a modest but well-established effect on performance.
*   These don't need to be new analyses, either for the prize or the purchase.
*   I reserve the right to resolve all ambiguities arbitrarily, and in the end to do whatever I feel like. But I promise I am generally a nice guy.
*   I posted this 2 weeks ago [on the EA forum](http://effective-altruism.com/ea/vn/what_is_up_with_carbon_dioxide_and_cognition_an/) and haven't had serious takers yet.

(Thanks to Andrew Critch for mentioning these results to me and Jessica Taylor for lending me a CO2 monitor so that I could see variability in indoor CO2 levels. I apologize for deliberately not doing my homework on this post.)
# Diaspora roundup thread, 15th June 2016

This is a new experimental weekly thread.

Guidelines: Top-level comments here should be links to things written by members of the rationalist community, preferably that would be interesting specifically to this community. Self-promotion is totally fine. Including a very brief summary or excerpt is great, but not required. Generally stick to one link per top-level comment. Recent links are preferred.

Rule: Do not link to anyone who does not want to be linked to. In particular, Scott Alexander has asked people not to link to specific posts on his tumblr. As far as I know he's never rescinded that. Do not link to posts on his tumblr.
# Crazy Ideas Thread

This thread is intended to provide a space for 'crazy' ideas. Ideas that spontaneously come to mind (and feel great), ideas you long wanted to tell but never found the place and time for and also for ideas you think should be obvious and simple - but nobody ever mentions them. 

Rules for this thread:

1.  Each crazy idea goes into its own top level comment and may be commented there.
2.  Voting should be based primarily on how original the idea is.
3.  Meta discussion of the thread should go to the top level comment intended for that purpose.
# Are smart contracts AI-complete?

Many people are probably aware of the [hack at DAO](http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11985832/ethereum-cryptocurrency-dao-theft-fork-buterin), using a bug in their smart contract system to steal millions of dollars worth of the crypto currency Ethereum.

There's various arguments as to whether this theft was technically allowed or not, and what should be done about it, and so on. Many people are arguing that the code is the contract, and that therefore no-one should be allowed to interfere with it - DAO just made a coding mistake, and are now being (deservedly?) punished for it.

That got me wondering whether its ever possible to make a smart contract without a full AI of some sort. For instance, if the contract is triggered by the delivery of physical goods - how can you define what the goods are, what constitutes delivery, what constitutes possession of them, and so on. You could have a human confirm delivery - but that's precisely the kind of judgement call you want to avoid. You could have an automated delivery confirmation system - but what happens if someone hacks or triggers that? You could connect it automatically with scanning headlines of media reports, but again, this is relying on aggregated human judgement, which could be hacked or influenced.

Digital goods seem more secure, as you can automate confirmation of delivery/services rendered, and so on. But, again, this leaves the confirmation process open to hacking. Which would be illegal, if you're going to profit from the hack. Hum...

This seems the most promising avenue for smart contracts that doesn't involve full AI: clear out the bugs in the code, then ground the confirmation procedure in such a way that it can only be hacked in a way that's already illegal. Sort of use the standard legal system as a backstop, fixing the basic assumptions, and then setting up the smart contracts on top of them (which is not the same as using the standard legal system within the contract).
# The map of future models

TL;DR: Many models of the future exist. Several are relevant. Hyperbolic model is strongest, but too strange.

Our need: correct model of the future  
Different people: different models = no communication.

Assumptions:  
Model of the future = main driving force of historical process + graphic of changes  
Model of the future determines global risks

The map: lists all main future models.  
Structure: from fast growth – to slow growth models.  
Pfd: [http://immortality-roadmap.com/futuremodelseng.pdf](http://immortality-roadmap.com/futuremodelseng.pdf)

[![](http://immortality-roadmap.com/futuremodelseng.jpg)](http://immortality-roadmap.com/futuremodelseng.pdf)
# Link: Re-reading Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow

"A bit over four years ago I wrote a[glowing review](https://jasoncollins.org/2012/01/18/kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/)of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. I described it as a “magnificent book” and “one of the best books I have read”. I praised the way Kahneman threaded his story around the System 1 / System 2 dichotomy, and the coherence provided  by prospect theory.

What a difference four years makes. I will still describe Thinking, Fast and Slow as an excellent book – possibly the best behavioural science book available. But during that time a combination of my learning path and additional research in the behavioural sciences has led me to see Thinking, Fast and Slow as a book with many flaws."

Continued here: [https://jasoncollins.org/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/](https://jasoncollins.org/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/)
# [LINK] Concrete problems in AI safety

From the [Google Research blog](https://research.googleblog.com/2016/06/bringing-precision-to-ai-safety.html):

We believe that AI technologies are likely to be overwhelmingly useful and beneficial for humanity. But part of being a responsible steward of any new technology is thinking through potential challenges and how best to address any associated risks. So today we’re publishing a technical paper, [Concrete Problems in AI Safety](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06565), a collaboration among scientists at Google, OpenAI, Stanford and Berkeley.

While possible AI safety risks have received a lot of public attention, most previous discussion has been very hypothetical and speculative. We believe it’s essential to ground concerns in real machine learning research, and to start developing practical approaches for engineering AI systems that operate safely and reliably.

We’ve outlined five problems we think will be very important as we apply AI in more general circumstances. These are all forward thinking, long-term research questions -- minor issues today, but important to address for future systems:

*   Avoiding Negative Side Effects: How can we ensure that an AI system will not disturb its environment in negative ways while pursuing its goals, e.g. a cleaning robot knocking over a vase because it can clean faster by doing so?
*   Avoiding Reward Hacking: How can we avoid gaming of the reward function? For example, we don’t want this cleaning robot simply covering over messes with materials it can’t see through.
*   Scalable Oversight: How can we efficiently ensure that a given AI system respects aspects of the objective that are too expensive to be frequently evaluated during training? For example, if an AI system gets human feedback as it performs a task, it needs to use that feedback efficiently because asking too often would be annoying.
*   Safe Exploration: How do we ensure that an AI system doesn’t make exploratory moves with very negative repercussions? For example, maybe a cleaning robot should experiment with mopping strategies, but clearly it shouldn’t try putting a wet mop in an electrical outlet.
*   Robustness to Distributional Shift: How do we ensure that an AI system recognizes, and behaves robustly, when it’s in an environment very different from its training environment? For example, heuristics learned for a factory workfloor may not be safe enough for an office.

We go into more technical detail in the paper. The machine learning research community has already thought quite a bit about most of these problems and many related issues, but we think there’s a lot more work to be done.

We believe in rigorous, open, cross-institution work on how to build machine learning systems that work as intended. We’re eager to continue our collaborations with other research groups to make positive progress on AI.
# tDCS, Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

"The evidence of harm would be the evidence that you can hurt some cognitive functions with the same stimulation protocols that help another cognitive function. But they're completely correct that we don't have any evidence saying you're definitely hurting yourself. We do have evidence that you're definitely changing your brain."

interview:

http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2016/07/11/caution-brain-hacking

Paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24689/references

I was aware of the variability of responses to stim, but not the paper that leveraging one brain function could impair another. This was also written to give the docs some info to help inform their patients.  

edit

I'll also tuck this in here, as i posted it to open thread.

Texting changes brain waves to new, previously unknown, pattern.

http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/2623.html

Makes me wonder if they were using spell check, or the new, shortend speak. By using constructed kernels, or images of words and concepts, it looks like machine learning retrieval or construction is already  being practiced here ?
# Fallacymania: party game where you notice fallacies in arguments

Fallacymania is a game developed by Moscow LessWrong community. Main goals of this game is to help people notice fallacies in arguments, and of course to have fun. The game requires 3-20 players (recommended 4-12), and some materials: printed A3 sheets with fallacies (5-10 sheets), card deck with fallacies (you can cut one A3 sheet into cards, or print stickers and put them to common playing cards), pens and empty sheets, and 1 card deck of any type with at least 50 cards (optional, for counting guessing attempts). Rules of the game are explained here:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzyKVqP6n3hKY3lQTVBuODRjRU0/view?resourcekey=0-SoMANgi5h_NQiJ4QGxHuuw](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzyKVqP6n3hKY3lQTVBuODRjRU0/view?resourcekey=0-SoMANgi5h_NQiJ4QGxHuuw)

This is the sheet of fallacies, you can download it and print on A3 or A2 sheet of paper:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzyKVqP6n3hKRXZ5N2tZcDVlMW8/view?resourcekey=0-gbuigoHnERbxY5llHDwBqA](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzyKVqP6n3hKRXZ5N2tZcDVlMW8/view?resourcekey=0-gbuigoHnERbxY5llHDwBqA)

Also you can use this sheet to create playing cards for debaters.

UPD: There is also a version made by Luca Versari for printing on multiple A4 sheets of paper:

Player sheets: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v\_CkPf\_8UZw5yGDrguUwtfJJDjzSif2G/view?usp=share_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v_CkPf_8UZw5yGDrguUwtfJJDjzSif2G/view?usp=share_link)

Card stickers: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jo7JIp7YvLXw18u68NJCf0xtJHCrvMEs/view?usp=share_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jo7JIp7YvLXw18u68NJCf0xtJHCrvMEs/view?usp=share_link)

UPD: Printed versions of Fallacymania are now available for purchase on The Game Crafter:

[https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/fallacymania-eng-](https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/fallacymania-eng-) \- English version

[https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/fallacymania-rus-](https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/fallacymania-rus-) \- Russian version

  
 

When we created this game, we used these online articles and artwork about fallacies:

[http://obraz.io/ru/posters/poster\_view/1/?back\_link=%2Fru%2F&lang=en&arrow=right](http://obraz.io/ru/posters/poster_view/1/?back_link=%2Fru%2F&lang=en&arrow=right)

[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/)

[https://www.lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the\_noncentral\_fallacy\_the\_worst\_argument\_in_the/](https://www.lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/)

Also I've made electronic version of Fallacymania for Tabletop Simulator (in Steam Workshop):

[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723941480](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723941480)
# [link] MIRI's 2015 in review

[https://intelligence.org/2016/07/29/2015-in-review/](https://intelligence.org/2016/07/29/2015-in-review/)

The introduction:

> As Luke had done in years past (see [2013 in review](https://intelligence.org/2013/12/20/2013-in-review-operations) and [2014 in review](https://intelligence.org/2015/03/22/2014-review/)), I (Malo) wanted to take some time to review our activities from last year. In the coming weeks Nate will provide a big-picture strategy update. Here, I’ll take a look back at 2015, focusing on our research progress, academic and general outreach, fundraising, and other activities.
> 
> After seeing signs in 2014 that interest in AI safety issues was on the rise, we [made plans](https://intelligence.org/2014/06/11/mid-2014-strategic-plan/) to grow our research team. Fueled by the response to Bostrom’s _[Superintelligence](https://smile.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742?sa-no-redirect=1)_ and the Future of Life Institute’s “[Future of AI](http://futureoflife.org/2015/10/12/ai-safety-conference-in-puerto-rico/)” conference, interest continued to grow in 2015. This suggested that we could afford to accelerate our plans, but it wasn’t clear how quickly.
> 
> In 2015 we did not release a mid-year strategic plan, as Luke did in 2014. Instead, we laid out various conditional strategies dependent on how much funding we raised during our [2015 Summer Fundraiser](https://intelligence.org/2015/07/17/miris-2015-summer-fundraiser/). The response was great; we had our most successful fundraiser to date. We hit [our first two funding targets](https://intelligence.org/2015/07/18/targets-1-and-2-growing-miri/) (and then some), and set out on an accelerated 2015/2016 growth plan.
> 
> As a result, 2015 was a big year for MIRI. After publishing our [technical agenda](https://intelligence.org/technical-agenda/) at the start of the year, we made progress on many of the open problems it outlined, doubled the size of our core research team, strengthened our connections with industry groups and academics, and raised enough funds to maintain our growth trajectory. We’re very grateful to all our supporters, without whom this progress wouldn’t have been possible.
# Superintelligence and physical law

It's been a few years since I read http://lesswrong.com/lw/qj/einsteins_speed/ and the rest of the quantum physics sequence, but I recently learned about the company Nutonian, http://www.nutonian.com/. Basically it's a narrow AI system that looks at unstructured data and tries out billions of models to fit it, favoring those that use simpler math. They apply it to all sorts of fields, but that includes physics. It can't find Newton's laws from three frames of a falling apple, but it did find the Hamiltonian of a double pendulum given its motion data after a few hours of processing: http://phys.org/news/2009-12-eureqa-robot-scientist-video.html
# Now is the time to eliminate mosquitoes

[“In 2015, there were roughly 214 million malaria cases and an estimated 438 000 malaria deaths.”](http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/malaria/en/)  While we don’t know how many humans malaria has killed, an estimate of [half of everyone who has ever died](http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/9433/title/Baruch-Blumberg--Science-on-TV/) [isn’t absurd](http://factmyth.com/factoids/malaria-killed-half-the-people-who-have-ever-lived/).  Because few people in rich countries get malaria, pharmaceutical companies put relatively few resources into combating it.   

The best way to eliminate malaria is probably to use gene drives to [completely](http://rockstarresearch.com/engineering-the-extinction-of-40-species-of-mosquitoes/) [eradicate](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/10/bill-gates-says-gene-drives-to-eradicate-some-mosquito-species-could-be-ready-for-in-two-years/#169df6301ced) the species of mosquitoes that bite humans, but until recently rich countries haven’t been motivated to such xenocide.  The Zika virus, which is in mosquitoes in the United States, provides effective altruists with an opportunity to advocate for exterminating all species of mosquitoes that spread disease to humans because the horrifying and disgusting [pictures of babies with Zika](https://www.eblogline.com/health/researchers-found-zika-virus-in-baby-brains/) might make the American public receptive to our arguments.  A leading short-term goal of effective altruists, I propose, should be advocating for mosquito eradication in the short window before rich people get acclimated to pictures of Zika babies.   

Personally, I have (unsuccessfully) pitched articles on mosquito eradication to two magazines and (with a bit more success) emailed someone who knows someone who knows someone in the Trump campaign to attempt to get the candidate to come out in favor of mosquito eradication.  What have you done?   Given the enormous harm mosquitoes inflict on mankind, doing just a little (such as writing a blog post) could have a high expected payoff.
# Low hanging productivity - improving your workspace

Original post:  [http://bearlamp.com.au/low-hanging-productivity/]( http://bearlamp.com.au/low-hanging-productivity/ )

Tl;dr - Simple changes to workspaces like a big screen can make a big difference.

* * *

This week I spent a few days away from my usual desk.  I have been house sitting.  I didn't think too much of it; I tend to carry with me a portable lifestyle.  My laptop, some power blocks for my phone, and various supplies that make for easy "office"-ing around the place.  I usually don't carry a charger with me because when I know I will be gone a while I will take it with me.  

I have always liked a portable office.  The ability to stop, and continue later at ease was always important to me.  However recently I moved into a new place and set up a desk.  I figured I would tryX where X is workspaces (a post for the future).  I never set up a workspace for the reason of it not being portable.  The interesting thing that has surprised me this week is that I miss my big screen (which was a gift - I might have never bought myself a big screen).    

For whatever reason, the ability to view more space at once makes me more productive.  Combined with Linux's natural tendencies to have several desktop environments with simple switching.  My laptop screen is about 19in.  Which is plenty.  The new screen is about 1.5x that.  I never thought it would be useful, it took me years to do it.  If it broke today, I would be willing to spend up to $900 to get it back (which is more than six times the price of a new screen).  Right now I wonder how productive I might be with a 3rd screen... Or a 4th.  (or a 3D virtual reality work environment with screenspace limited by my eyeballs not my screen resolution...)

I feel like (along with other habits) I am probably working at 120% of what I was working before.  A fair chunk of which I owe to the extra screenspace.

Questions for today:

1.  What part do you remember adding to your workspace to help you be more productive.
2.  What's the coolest most awesome or productive workspace that you have seen in action?  How hard would that be to get for yourself?
3.  How can you make your current workspace a tiny bit more productive in anticipation for things you have to do tomorrow?

* * *

Meta:  This took 45mins to write.
# The Future of Humanity Institute is hiring!

FHI is accepting applications for a two-year position as a full-time Research Project Manager. Responsibilities will include coordinating, monitoring, and developing FHI’s activities, seeking funding, organizing workshops and conferences, and effectively communicating FHI’s research. The Research Program Manager will also be expected to work in collaboration with Professor Nick Bostrom, and other researchers, to advance their research agendas, and will additionally be expected to produce reports for government, industry, and other relevant organizations. 

Applicants will be familiar with existing research and literature in the field and have excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for publication. He or she will have experience of independently managing a research project and of contributing to large policy-relevant reports. Previous professional experience working for non-profit organisations, experience with effectiv altruism, and a network in the relevant fields associated with existential risk may be an advantage, but are not essential. 

To apply please go to https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk and enter vacancy #124775 (it is also possible to find the job by searching choosing “Philosophy Faculty” from the department options). The deadline is noon UK time on 29 August. To stay up to date on job opportunities at the Future of Humanity Institute, please sign up for updates on our vacancies newsletter at https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/vacancies/.
# Deepmind Plans for Rat-Level AI 

Demis Hassabis gives a [great presentation](https://youtu.be/vQXAsdMa_8A) on the state of Deepmind's work as of April 20, 2016. Skip to 23:12 for the statement of the goal of creating a rat-level AI -- "An AI that can do everything a rat can do," in his words. From his tone, it sounds like this is more a short-term, not a long-term goal.

I don't think Hassabis is prone to making unrealistic plans or stating overly bold predictions. I strongly encourage you to scan through [Deepmind's publication](https://deepmind.com/publications) list to get a sense of how quickly they're making progress. (In fact, I encourage you to bookmark that page, because it seems like they add a new paper about twice a month.) The outfit seems to be systematically knocking down all the "Holy Grail" milestones on the way to GAI, and this is just Deepmind. The papers they've put out in just the last year or so concern successful one-shot learning, continuous control, actor-critic architectures, novel memory architectures, policy learning, and bootstrapped gradient learning, and these are just the most stand-out achievements. There's even a paper co-authored by Stuart Armstrong concerning Friendliness concepts on that list.

If we really do have a genuinely rat-level AI within the next couple of years, I think that would justify radically moving forward expectations of AI development timetables. Speaking very naively, if we can go from "sub-nematode" to "mammal that can solve puzzles" in that timeframe, I would view it as a form of proof that "general" intelligence does not require some mysterious ingredient that we haven't discovered yet.
# DARPA accepting proposals for explainable AI

"The XAI program will focus the development of multiple systems on addressing challenges problems in two areas: (1) machine learning problems to classify events of interest in heterogeneous, multimedia data; and (2) machine learning problems to construct decision policies for an autonomous system to perform a variety of simulated missions."

"At the end of the program, the final delivery will be a toolkit library consisting of machine learning and human-computer interface software modules that could be used to develop future explainable AI systems. After the program is complete, these toolkits would be available for further refinement and transition into defense or commercial applications"

http://www.darpa.mil/program/explainable-artificial-intelligence
# Inefficient Games

There are several well-known games in which the pareto optima and Nash equilibria are disjoint sets.  
The most famous is probably the prisoner's dilemma.  Races to the bottom or tragedies of the commons typically have this feature as well.  
  
I [proposed](https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/9514/is-there-a-term-for-a-game-whose-pareto-optimal-solutions-and-nash-equilibria-ar) calling these _inefficient games._  More generally, games where the sets of pareto optima and Nash equilibria are distinct (but not disjoint), such as a [stag hunt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt) could be called _potentially inefficient games._

It seems worthwhile to study _(potentially) inefficient games_ as a class and see what can be discovered about them, but I don't know of any such work (pointers welcome!)
# Do you want to be like Kuro5hin?  Because this is how you get to be like Kuro5hin.

I log in this morning on a whim, and notice I have -15 karma.  I dig around for a bit and find this:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/nsm/open\_thread\_jul\_25\_jul\_31\_2016/ddjm

To be clear, that's a block of four comments, each at -10, for no apparent obvious good reason other than eugine nier has a vendetta against Elo.  I've apparently just been hit as splash damage, since I had the gall to try posting on an Elo comment thread.

I dig a little more, and I find this:

http://lesswrong.com/user/Elo/overview/

That's Elo's page, and I see a pile of discussion-grade posts that are all bulk downvoted below visibility, again for no apparent obvious good reason.

I find myself incredibly disincentivized to post or comment as a result of this.  My feeble amount of karma has taken literally years to build up, and to see sizable fractions of it wiped out any time I step on a eugine nier landmine is bullshit.  Sure, it's silly to value karma, but I value it anyway and if a year of incidental effort can be burned in two days because one guy wants to be an asshole to me, then I'm done here.

This has been going on for months.  Years even.

I understand the staff of LW are pressed for time.  I understand nobody understands how the code works.  I understand that maintaining the site is hard. However, reality is that which does not go away when we close our eyes, and reality does not care:  no matter how difficult the problems are, the fact remains that this sort of thing is abusive and it is actively driving people off the site.

If you value LW, fix this.  Use the force harder, site owners.

On the other hand, if you want LW to turn into another Kuro5hin, then keep doing what you're doing.

Prediction:  50% odds this post will be downvoted below visibility within two days due to eugine, and will basically disappear without trace.

Prediction:  if this isn't dealt with soon, 50% odds I'll stop visiting LW completely other than as an article archive by year end, because there's no goddamned point in trying to use the discussion system.