trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Comprehensive List of All Singularity Summit Talks and Video Links
by MichaelAnissimov — 2011-11-18T16:34:00.494Z

Here is an index of all Singularity Summit speeches.

Summit 2006

Todd Davies, Tyler Emerson, and Peter Thiel. Introduction to the Singularity Summit.

Ray Kurzweil. The Singularity: a hard or soft takeoff?

Douglas Hofstadter. Trying to muse rationally about the Singularity scenario.

Nick Bostrom. Artificial Intelligence and existential risks.

Sebastian Thrun. Toward human-level intelligence in autonomous cars.

Cory Doctorow. Singularity or Dark Age?.

K. Eric Drexler. Productive Nanosystems: Toward a Super-Exponential Threshold in Physical Technology.

Max More. Cognitive and Emotional Singularities: Will Superintelligence come with Superwisdom?

Christine Peterson. Bringing Humanity and the Biosphere through the Singularity

John Smart. Searching for the Big Picture: Systems Theories of Accelerating Change

Eliezer Yudkowsky. The Human Importance of the Intelligence Explosion.

Bill McKibben. Being good enough.

Ray Kurzweil. Follow up.

Panel Discussion and Q&A.

Panel Discussion and Q&A pt. 2.

Summit 2007

Tyler Emerson & Peter Thiel. Welcome and introduction.

Rodney Brooks. The Singularity: A Period Not An Event.

Eliezer Yudkowsky. Introducing the "Singularity": Three Major Schools of Thought.

Barney Pell. Pathways to Advanced General Intelligence: Architecture, Development, and Funding.

Wendell Wallach. Superstition and Forgetfulness - Two Essentials for Artificial General Intelligence.

Barney Pell, Wendell Wallach, Sam Adams. First panel discussion.

Jamais Cascio. Metaverse Singularity.

Stephen M. Omohundro. The Nature of Self-Improving Artificial Intelligence.

Peter Voss. Improved intelligence, improved life.

Stephen M. Omohundro, Peter Voss. Second panel discussion.

Neil Jacobstein. Innovative Applications of Early Stage AI.

Ben Goertzel. Nine Years to a Positive Singularity - If We Really, Really Try.

Paul Saffo. Machines of Loving Grace: Anticipating Advanced AI.

Neil Jacobstein, Ben Goertzel, Paul Saffo. Third panel discussion.

Peter Norvig. The history and future of technological change.

J. Storrs Hall. Asimov's laws of robotics -- revised.

Peter Thiel. Financial markets and the Singularity.

Charles L. Harper, Jr. Superintelligence, the "Dilemma of Power," and the transformation of desire.

J. Storrs Hall, Peter Thiel, Charles L. Harper, Jr. Third panel discussion.

Steve Jurvetson. Dichotomy of designed and evolutionary paths to

...
Weekly LW Meetups: Zurich, Paris, Seattle, Waterloo
by FrankAdamek — 2011-11-18T14:06:07.730Z

There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:

First Zurich LW Meetup: 12 November 2011 03:00PM
Paris, Sunday November 13: 13 November 2011 02:00PM
Seattle, The Planning Fallacy: 13 November 2011 04:00PM
First(New?) Waterloo Meetup: 24 November 2011 08:00PM

Notice for the Mountain View/Tortuga meetup: The Mountain View meetup has moved to *Mondays* (still at 7pm, still at Tortuga); and over the next few weeks will present pieces of the "Detaching from Sunk Costs" rationality kata currently under development.

Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA, Irvine, London, Marin, CA (uses the Bay Area List), Mountain View, New York, Ottawa, Oxford, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, DC, and West Los Angeles.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun!

In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview will continue to be posted on the front page every Friday. These will be an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in the next weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll now also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts will be moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: Chicago, Helsinki, London, Madison, WI, Melbourne, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Vancouver.
Meetup : Atlanta Less Wrong Meetup
by hankx7787 — 2011-11-18T13:59:40.418Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Atlanta Less Wrong Meetup

WHEN:
19 November 2011 07:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
537 West Howard Avenue, Decatur, GA

The first Atlanta meetup will be this Saturday, November 19th at 7pm at Thinking Man Tavern in Decatur. There is no RSVP, so feel free to come by if you are interested.

The tentative aims for the meetup are as follows:

Introduce ourselves

Discuss Less Wrong, rationality, etc

Brainstorm some ideas on how to expand our group

Anything else cool that comes up

Also, do sign up for our mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/atlanta-less-wrong-meetup-group

And feel free to send me a message if you have any questions/suggestions.

Discussion article for the meetup : Atlanta Less Wrong Meetup
OPERA Confirms: Neutrinos Travel Faster Than Light
by XiXiDu — 2011-11-18T09:58:27.327Z

New high-precision tests carried out by the OPERA collaboration in Italy broadly confirm its claim, made in September, to have detected neutrinos travelling at faster than the speed of light. The collaboration today submitted its results to a journal, but some members continue to insist that further checks are needed before the result can be considered sound.

Link: nextbigfuture.com/2011/11/faster-than-light-neutrinos-opera.html

The OPERA Collaboration sent to the Cornell Arxiv an updated version of their preprint today, where they summarize the results of their analysis, expanded with additional statistical tests, and including the check performed with 20 additional neutrino interactions they collected in the last few weeks. These few extra timing measurements crucially allow the ruling out of some potential unaccounted sources of systematic uncertainty, notably ones connected to the knowledge of the proton spill time distribution.

[...]

So what does OPERA find ? Their main result, based on the 15,233 neutrino interactions collected in three years of data taking, is unchanged from the September result. The most interesting part of the new publication is instead that the find that the 20 new neutrino events (where neutrino speeds are individually measured, as opposed to the combined measurement done with the three-year data published in September) confirm the earlier result: the arrival times appear to occur about 60 nanoseconds before they are expected.

Link: science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/opera_confirms_neutrinos_travel_faster_light-84763

Paper: kruel.co/paper-neutrino-velocity-JHEP.pdf

Previously on LW: lesswrong.com/lw/7rc/particles_break_lightspeed_limit/
Might I ask for some advice? 
by AmagicalFishy — 2011-11-18T07:37:59.513Z

If you're expecting anything but a long post by an LW lurking college student asking sincerely for some advice, you should read The Curse of Identity, the article that spurred this very post. It's a good read, regardless of my advice-seeking status. With that said: Hello. I'm an LW lurking college student in need of advice, and this is my long post asking for it. I hope this isn't inappropriate.

Mainly, this comes down to my hardly having a satisfying direction in life. I'm ignorant as to the reasons behind my lack of some fully functional inner compass. Is it that I just haven't found my passion—my niche in life? Or am I just lazy? Are the goals I want to achieve products of genuine interest, or are they methods of preserving a reputation which I (admittedly) very much enjoy having? Is my discouragement something I must use instrumental rationality to overcome, a sign that I'm fooling myself; one I should listen to and change something, or just a natural feeling when a particular situation is difficult? Is my not having direction a reasonable, youth-related status (is 22 that young?), or a sign that I've been doing something horribly wrong?

I've always enjoyed, and associated myself with writing and literature—but not to the extent that I feel the need to pursue a formal academic degree for them. When I started school, I majored in Philosophy because I like different philosophies, philosophizing, and the philosophers who did so before me. Then I dropped out for a couple of years and lived half-way across the U.S. with (at the time) my girlfriend. Currently, I'm back in school majoring in Physics and Mathematics (I've always wanted to study sub-atomic particles—I also enjoy mathematics, mathematical thinking, etc., and the two compliment one another well).

So now I'm in school for Physics and Mathematics, and, while I enjoy the subjects, when I'm actually doing things related to the fields, I'm consistently discouraged. I feel like I'm not learning anything, trucking through problems without an actual understanding of the material, and by the time I finish what needs to be done for one class, I have a load of work for another, leaving me little time to, say, work through actual proofs of why something works (or, more likely, my time-management skills are atrocious. This combined with a large work-load leaves me little time

...
Draft of Muehlhauser & Helm, 'The Singularity and Machine Ethics'
by lukeprog — 2011-11-18T07:00:04.417Z

Louie and I are sharing a draft of our chapter submission to The Singularity Hypothesis for feedback:

The Singularity and Machine Ethics

Thanks in advance.

Also, thanks to Kevin for suggesting in February that I submit an abstract to the editors. Seems like a lifetime ago, now.

Edit: As of 3/31/2012, the link above now points to a preprint.
[SEQ RERUN] Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs
by MinibearRex — 2011-11-18T05:16:34.681Z

Today's post, Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs was originally published on 07 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

When a cult encounters a blow to their own beliefs (a prediction fails to come true, their leader is caught in a scandal, etc) the cult will often become more fanatical. In the immediate aftermath, the cult members that leave will be the ones who were previously the voice of opposition, skepticism, and moderation. Without those members, the cult will slide further in the direction of fanaticism.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Fake Utility Functions, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
What’s wrong with advertising?
by KatjaGrace — 2011-11-18T04:07:48.000Z

These two views seem to go together often:

People are consuming too much

The advertising industry makes people want things they wouldn’t otherwise want, worsening the problem

The reasoning behind 1) is usually that consumption requires natural resources, and those resources will run out. It follows from this that less natural-resource intensive consumption is better* i.e. the environmentalist prefers you to spend your money attending a dance or a psychologist than buying new clothes or jet skis, assuming the psychologist and dance organisers don’t spend all their income on clothes and jet skis and such.

How does the advertising industry get people to buy things they wouldn’t otherwise buy? One practice they are commonly accused of is selling dreams, ideals, identities and attitudes along with products. They convince you (at some level) that if you had that champagne your whole life would be that much more classy. So you buy into the dream though you would have walked right past the yellow bubbly liquid.

But doesn’t this just mean they are selling you a less natural-resource-intensive product? The advertisers have packaged the natural-resource intensive drink with a very non-natural-resource intensive thing – classiness – and sold you the two together.

Yes, maybe you have bought a drink you wouldn’t otherwise have bought. But overall this deal seems likely to be a good thing from the environmentalist perspective: it’s hard to just sell pure classiness, but the classy champagne is much less resource intensive per dollar than a similar bottle of unclassy drink, and you were going to spend your dollars on something (effectively – you may have just not earned them, which is equivalent to spending them on leisure).

If the advertiser can manufacture enough classiness for thousands of people with a video camera and some actors, this is probably a more environmentally friendly choice for those after classiness than most of their alternatives, such as ordering stuff in from France. My guess is that in general, buying intangible ideas along with more resource intensive products is better for the environment than the average alternative purchase a given person would make. There at least seems little reason to think it is worse.

Of course that isn’t the only way advertisers make people want things they wouldn̵...
Meetup : Melbourne social meetup
by Maelin — 2011-11-18T00:43:16.526Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup

WHEN:
18 November 2011 07:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
Charles Dickens Tavern, 290 Collins St, Melbourne

This month's social meetup is at the Charles Dickens Tavern, on Collins St between Elizabeth and Swanston, starting at 7pm.

We don't believe the place will get too loud, but if you show up and we aren't there, we may have moved somewhere else. In that case, call 0421 231 789.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup
Meetup : Melbourne practical rationality meetup
by matt — 2011-11-17T23:43:33.753Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne practical rationality meetup

WHEN:
02 December 2011 07:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
55 Walsh St, West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Practical rationality, as distinct from social and rationality outreach. Look for a social meetup on the 3rd Friday of each month, and a rationality outreach meetup TBD.

Discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/melbourne-less-wrong

http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=6a317

This meetup repeats on the 1st Friday of each month.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne practical rationality meetup
Meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wedneday 7pm
by EvelynM — 2011-11-17T20:46:00.723Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wedneday 7pm

WHEN:
23 November 2011 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
144 North College Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80524

Meet cool people. Talk about lots of interesting things. Have fun!

Discussion article for the meetup : Fort Collins, Colorado Meetup Wedneday 7pm
The curse of identity
by Kaj_Sotala — 2011-11-17T19:28:49.359Z

So what you probably mean is, "I intend to do school to improve my chances on the market". But this statement is still false, unless it is also true that "I intend to improve my chances on the market". Do you, in actual fact, intend to improve your chances on the market?
I expect not. Rather, I expect that your motivation is to appear to be the sort of person who you think you would be if you were ambitiously attempting to improve your chances on the market... which is not really motivating enough to actually DO the work. However, by persistently trying to do so, and presenting yourself with enough suffering at your failure to do it, you get to feel as if you are that sort of person without having to actually do the work. This is actually a pretty optimal solution to the problem, if you think about it. (Or rather, if you DON'T think about it!) -- PJ Eby

I have become convinced that problems of this kind are the number one problem humanity has. I'm also pretty sure that most people here, no matter how much they've been reading about signaling, still fail to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.

Here are two major screw-ups and one narrowly averted screw-up that I've been guilty of. See if you can find the pattern.

When I began my university studies back in 2006, I felt strongly motivated to do something about Singularity matters. I genuinely believed that this was the most important thing facing humanity, and that it needed to be urgently taken care of. So in order to become able to contribute, I tried to study as much as possible. I had had troubles with procrastination, and so, in what has to be one of the most idiotic and ill-thought-out acts of self-sabotage possible, I taught myself to feel guilty whenever I was relaxing and not working. Combine an inability to properly relax with an attempted course load that was twice the university's recommended pace, and you can guess the results: after a year or two, I had an extended burnout that I still haven't fully recovered from. I ended up completing my Bachelor's degree in five years, which is the official target time for doing both your Bachelor's and your Master's.

A few years later, I became one of the founding members of the Finnish Pirate Party, and on the basis of some writings the others thought were pretty good, got myself elected as the spokesman. Unfortunately – and as I should have

...
Three more classes coming from Stanford of interest here
by Dr_Manhattan — 2011-11-17T17:57:42.468Z

http://www.pgm-class.org/ - Probabilistic Graphical Models

http://www.nlp-class.org/ - Natural Language Processing

http://www.game-theory-class.org/ - Self explainatory
ETA:

http://infotheory-class.org/
Transcription and Summary of Nick Bostrom's Q&A
by daenerys — 2011-11-17T17:51:59.638Z

INTRO: From the original posting by Stuart_Armstrong:

Underground Q&A session with Nick Bostrom (http://www.nickbostrom.com) on existential risks and artificial intelligence with the Oxford Transhumanists (recorded 10 October 2011).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQeijCRJSog

Below I (will) have a summary of the Q&A followed by the transcription. The transcription is slightly edited, mainly for readability. The numbers are minute markers. Anything followed by a (?) means I don't know quite what he said (example- attruing(?) program), but if you figure it out, let me know!

SUMMARY: I'll have a summary here by end of the day, probably.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Nick: I wanted to just [interact with your heads]. Any questions, really, that you have. To discuss with you. I can say what I’m working on right now which is this book on super-intelligence, not so much on the question of whether and how long it might take to develop machine intelligence that equals human intelligence, but rather what happens if and when that occurs. To forget human level machine intelligence, how quickly, how explosively will we get super-intelligenct, and how can you solve the control problem. If you build super-intelligence how can you make sure it will do what you want. That it will be safe and beneficial.

Once one starts to pull on that problem, it turns out to be quite complicated and difficult. That it has many aspects to it that I would be happy to talk about. Or if you prefer to talk about other things; existential risks, or otherwise, I’d be happy to do that as well. But no presentation, just Q&A. So you all have to provide at least the stimulus. So should I take questions or do you want…

[00:01]

Questioner: So what’s your definition of machine intelligence or super-intellegence AI… Is there like a precise definition there?

Nick: There isn’t. Now if you look at domain specific intelligence, there are already areas where machines surpass humans, such doing arithmetical calculations or chess. I think the interesting point is when machines equal humans in general intelligence or perhaps slightly more specifically in engineering intelligence. So if you had this general capability of being able to program creatively and design new systems... There is in a sense a point at which if you had sufficient capability of that sort, you have general capa...
Presentation on Learning
by datadataeverywhere — 2011-11-17T17:30:56.946Z

In order to do a better job putting together my thoughts and knowledge on the subject, I precommitted myself to giving a presentation on learning. My specific goal for the presentation is to inform audience members about how humans actually learn and teach them how to leverage this knowledge to efficiently learn and maintain factual and procedural knowledge and create desired habits.

I will be focusing a little on background neuroscience, borrowing especially from A Crash Course in the Neuroscience of Human Motivation. I will heavily discuss spaced repetition, and I will also talk about the relevance of System 1 and System 2 thinking. I will not be talking about research, or about how to discover what to learn; for the purposes of my presentation, people already know what they want or need to learn, and have a fairly accurate picture of what that knowledge or those behaviors look like.

Given that I will only have an hour to speak, I will be unable to explore everything I might like to in depth. Less Wrong (both the site and the community) are my most valuable resource here, so I am asking two things:

In one hour, what would you cover if you earnestly wanted to improve people's ability to learn?

What background material do I need to ensure fluency with? This should be material that I need to have adequate familiarity with or else risk presenting an error, even if I don't need to present the material itself in any depth.

The audience will be students and faculty in a Computer Science department. In decreasing order of number of members, the audience will be Masters students, seniors, Ph.D candidates, professors; no Junior or lower-level undergraduates, so I will probably use computing analogies that wouldn't make sense in other contexts. Because of the audience, I'm also comfortable giving a fairly information-dense presentation, but since I intend to persuade as well as inform the presentation will not be a report.