trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[LINK] How a Computer Game is Reinventing the Science of Expertise 
by InquilineKea — 2011-12-05T05:06:22.186Z

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/01/how-a-computer-game-is-reinventing-the-science-of-expertise-video/

For decades, a different game, chess, has held the exalted position of “the drosophila of cognitive science”—the model organism that scientists could poke and prod to learn what makes experts better than the rest of us. StarCraft 2, however, might be emerging as the rhesus macaque: its added complexity may confound researchers initially, but the answers could ultimately be more telling.

“I can’t think of a cognitive process that’s not involved in StarCraft,” says Mark Blair, a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University. “It’s working memory. It’s decision making. It involves very precise motor skills. Everything is important and everything needs to work together.”

Blair, the Simon Fraser University scientist running the SkillCraft project, asked gamers at all ability levels to submit their replay files. He and his colleagues collected more than 4500 files, of which at least 3500 turned out to usable. “What we’ve got is a satellite view of expertise that no one was able to get before,” he says. “We have hundreds of players at the basic levels, then hundreds more at level slightly better, and so on, in 8 different categories of players.” By comparing the techniques and attributes of low-level players with other gamers up the chain of ability, they can start to discern how skills develop—and perhaps, over the long run, identify the most efficient training regimen.

Both Blair and Lewis see parallels between the game and emergency management systems. In a high-stress crisis situation, the people in charge of coordinating a response may find themselves facing competing demands. Alarms might be alerting them to a fire burning in one part of town, a riot breaking out a few streets over, and the contamination of drinking water elsewhere. The mental task of keeping cool and distributing attention among equally urgent activities might closely resemble the core challenge of Starcraft 2. “For emergencies, you don’t get to train eight hours a day. You get two emergencies in your life but you better be good because lives are at stake,” Blair says. “Training in something like Starcraft could

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On "Friendly" Immortality
by daenerys — 2011-12-05T04:39:44.447Z

Personal Note: I would like to thank Normal Anomaly for beta-ing this for me and providing counter-arguments. It am asking him/her to comment below, so that everyone can give him/her karma for volunteering and helping me out. Even if you dislike the article, I think it's awesome that they were willing to take time out of their day to help someone they've never met.

Imagine that you live in a world where everyone says "AI is a good idea. We need to pursue it."
Sounds great!
But what if no one really thought that there was any reason to make sure the AI was friendly. That would be bad, right? You would probably think: "Hey, AI is a great goal and all, but before we start pursuing it and actually developing the technology, we need to make sure that it's not going to blow up in our faces!"

That seems to me to be a rational response.
Yet it seems like most people are not applying the same thought processes to life-extending technology. This website in particular has a habit of using some variant of this argument: "Death is bad. Not dying is good. Therefore life-extending technologies are also good" However this is missing the same level of contemplation that has been given to AI. Like AI, there are considerations that must be made to ensure this technology is "friendly".
Most transhumanists have heard many of these issues before, normally sandwiched inside of a "Death is Bad" conversation. However these important considerations are often hand-waved away, as the conversation tends to stick to the low-hanging fruit. Here, I present them all in one place, so we can tackle them together, and perhaps come up with some solutions:

Over-population: For example, doubling the life-span of humans would at the very least double the number of people on this planet. If we could double life-spans today, we would go from 7 billion to 14 billion people on Earth in 80 years, not counting regular population growth.
Although currently birthrates are falling, all birthrate information we have is for women being fertile for approximately 25 years. This has not changed much throughout history, so we cannot necessarily extrapolate the current birthrate to what it would be if women were fertile for 50 years instead.
In other words, not only will there be a population explosion due to people living longer, but I'd be willing to bet that if life-extension was

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Reading Math: Pearl, Causal Bayes Nets, and Functional Causal Models
by jwdink — 2011-12-05T03:45:06.671Z

Hi all,

I just started a doctoral program in psychology, and my research interest concerns causal reasoning. Since Pearl's Causality, the popularity of causal Bayes nets as psychological models for causal reasoning has really grown. Initially, I had some serious reservations, but now I'm beginning to think a great many of these are due in part to the oversimplified treatment that CBNs get in the psychology literature. For instance, the distinction between a) directed acyclic graphs + underlying conditional probabilities, and b) functional causal models, is rarely mentioned. Ignoring this distinction leads to some weird results, especially when the causal system in question has prominent physical mechanisms.

Say we represent Gear A as causing Gear B to turn because Gear A is hooked up to an engine, and because the two gears are connected to each other by a chain. Something like this:

Engine(ON) -> GearA(turn) -> GearB(turn)

As a causal Net, this is problematic. If I "intervene" on GearA (perform do(GearA=stop)), then I get the expected result: GearA stops, GearB stops, and the engine keeps running (the 'undoing' effect [Sloman, 2005]). But what happens if I "intervene" on GearB? Since they are connected by a chain, GearA would stop as well. But GearA is the cause, and GearB is the effect: intervening on effects is NOT supposed to change the status of the cause. This violates a host of underlying assumptions for causal Bayes nets. (And you can't represent the gears as causing each other's movement, since that'd be a cyclical graph.)

However, this can be solved if we're not representing the system as the above net, but we're instead representing the physics of the system, representing the forces involved via something that looks vaguely like newtonian equations. Indeed, this would accord better with people's hypothesis-testing behavior: if they aren't sure which gear has the engine behind it, they wouldn't try "intervening" on GearA's motion and GearB's motion, they'd try removing the chain, and seeing which gear is still moving.

At first it seemed to me like causal Bayes nets only do the first kind of representation, not the latter. However, I was wrong: Pearl's "functional causal models" appear to do the latter. These have been vastly less prevalent in the psych literature, yet they seem extremely important.

Anyways, the moral of the story ...
Larry King: I want to be frozen
by Kevin — 2011-12-05T02:11:11.400Z

I know celebrities cryocrastinate just as much as anyone else, but King seems like the kind of guy to go through with it.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/02/showbiz/larry-king-i-want-to-be-frozen/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
K-complexity of everyday things
by cousin_it — 2011-12-04T14:54:51.437Z

What can we say about the K-complexity of a non-random string from our universe, e.g. the text of Finnegans Wake? It contains lots of patterns making it easy to compress using a regular archiver, but can we do much better than that?

On one hand, the laws of physics in our universe seem to be simple, and generating the text is just a matter of generating our universe then pointing to the text. On the other hand, our evolution involved a lot of quantum randomness, so pointing to humans within the universe could require a whole lot of additional bits above and beyond the laws of physics. So does anyone have good arguments whether the K-complexity of Finnegans Wake is closer to 10% or 0.1% of its length?
Funnel plots: the study that didn't bark, or, visualizing regression to the null
by gwern — 2011-12-04T11:05:08.326Z

Marginal Revolution linked a post at Genomes Unzipped, "Size matters, and other lessons from medical genetics", with the interesting centerpiece graph:

This is from pg 3 of an Ioannidis 2001 et al article (who else?) on what is called a funnel plot: each line represents a series of studies about some particularly hot gene-disease correlations, plotted where Y = the odds ratio (measure of effect size; all results are 'statistically significant', of course) and X = the sample size. The 1 line is the null hypothesis, here. You will notice something dramatic: as we move along the X-axis and sample sizes increase, everything begins to converge on 1:

Readers familiar with the history of medical association studies will be unsurprised by what happened over the next few years: initial excitement (this same polymorphism was associated with diabetes! And longevity!) was followed by inconclusive replication studies and, ultimately, disappointment. In 2000, 8 years after the initial report, a large study involving over 5,000 cases and controls found absolutely no detectable effect of the ACE polymorphism on heart attack risk. In the meantime, the same polymorphism had turned up in dozens of other association studies for a wide range of traits ranging from obstet­ric cholestasis to menin­go­­coccal disease in children, virtually none of which have ever been convincingly replicated.

(See also "Why epidemiology will not correct itself" or the DNB FAQ.)

This graph is interesting as it shows 8 different regressions to the mean. What is also interesting is what a funnel plot is usually used for, why I ran into it in the first place reading Cochrane Group materials - it's used to show publication bias.

That is, suppose you were looking at a gene you know for certain not to be correlated (you knew the null result to be true), and you ran many trials, each with a different number of samples; you would expect that the trials with small samples would have a wide scattering of results (sometimes the effect size would look wildly large and sometimes they would look wildly small or negative), and that this scattering would be equally for and against any connection (on either side of the 1 line). By the same reasoning you would expect that your largest samples would only be scattered a little bit on either side of the 1 line, and the larger the samp...
"Vulnerable Cyborgs: Learning to Live with our Dragons", Mark Coeckelbergh
by gwern — 2011-12-04T10:33:41.875Z

"Vulnerable Cyborgs: Learning to Live with our Dragons", Mark Coeckelbergh (university); abstract:

Transhumanist visions appear to aim at invulnerability. We are invited to fight the dragon of death and disease, to shed our old, human bodies, and to live on as invulnerable minds or cyborgs. This paper argues that even if we managed to enhance humans in one of these ways, we would remain highly vulnerable entities given the fundamentally relational and dependent nature of posthuman existence. After discussing the need for minds to be embodied, the issue of disease and death in the infosphere, and problems of psychological, social and axiological vulnerability, I conclude that transhumanist human enhancement would not erase our current vulnerabilities, but instead transform them. Although the struggle against vulnerability is typically human and would probably continue to mark posthumans, we had better recognize that we can never win that fight and that the many dragons that threaten us are part of us. As vulnerable humans and posthumans, we are at once the hero and the dragon.

Bostrom has written a tale about a dragon that terrorizes a kingdom and people who submit to the dragon rather than fighting it. According to Bostrom, the “moral” of the story is that we should fight the dragon, that is, extend the (healthy) human life span and not accept aging as a fact of life (Bostrom 2005, 277). And in The Singularity is Near (2005) Kurzweil has suggested that following the acceleration of information technology, we will become cyborgs, upload ourselves, have nanobots in our bloodstream, and enjoy nonbiological experience. Although not all transhumanist authors explicitly state it, these ideas seem to aim toward invulnerability and immortality: by means of human enhancement technologies, we can transcend our present limited existence and become strong, invulnerable cyborgs or immortal minds living in an eternal, virtual world.

...However, in this paper, I will ask neither the ethical-normative question (Should we develop human enhancement techniques and should we aim for invulnerability?) nor the hermeneutical question (How can we best interpret and understand transhumanism in the light of cultural, religious, and scientific history?). Instead, I ask the question: If and to the extent that transhumanism aims at invulnerability, can it – in princ

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Russ Roberts and Gary Taubes on confirmation bias [podcast]
by fortyeridania — 2011-12-04T05:51:19.123Z

Here is the link. The context is nutritional science and epidemiology, but confirmation bias is the primary theme pumping throughout the discussion. Gary Taubes has gained a reputation for contrarianism.* According to Taubes, the current nutritional paradigm (fat is bad, exercise is good, carbs are OK) does not deserve high credibility.

Roberts brings up the role of identity in perpetuating confirmation bias--a hypothesis has become part of you, so it has become that much harder to countenance contrary evidence. In this context they also talk about theism (Roberts is Jewish, while Taubes is an atheist). And, the program being EconTalk, Roberts draws analogies with economics.

*Sometime between 45 and 50 minutes in, Roberts points out that given this reputation, Taubes is susceptible to belief distortion as well:

What's your evidence that you are not just falling prey to the Ancel Keys and other folks who have made the same mistake?

I do not think Taubes gives a direct answer.
[SEQ RERUN] The Amazing Virgin Pregnancy
by MinibearRex — 2011-12-04T04:11:32.473Z

Today's post, The Amazing Virgin Pregnancy was originally published on 24 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

A story in which Mary tells Joseph that God made her pregnant so Joseph won't realize she's been cheating on him with the village rabbi.

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 Zen and the Art of Rationality, 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.
Why study the cognitive science of concepts?
by lukeprog — 2011-12-03T23:56:15.054Z

I've written several posts on the cognitive science of concepts in prep for later posts in my metaethics sequence. Why?

I'm doing this because one common way of trying to solve the "friendliness content" problem in Friendly AI theory is to analyze (via thought experiment and via cognitive science) our concept of "good" or "ought" or "right" so that we can figure out what an FAI "ought" to do, or what it would be "good" for an FAI to do, or what it would be "right" for an FAI to do.

That's what Eliezer does in The Meaning of Right, that's what many other LWers do, and that's what most mainstream metaethicists do.

With my recent posts on the cognitive science of concepts, I'm trying to show that cognitive science presents a number of difficult problems for this approach.

Let me illustrate with a concrete example. Math prodigy Will Sawin once proposed to me (over the phone) that our concept of "ought" might be realized by way of something like a dedicated cognitive module. In an earlier comment, I tried to paraphrase his idea:

Imagine a species of artificial agents. These agents have a list of belief statements that relate physical phenomena to normative properties (let's call them 'moral primitives'):

'Liking' reward signals in human brains are good.

Causing physical pain in human infants is forbidden.

etc.

These agents also have a list of belief statements about physical phenomena in general:

Sweet tastes on the tongue produces reward signals in human brains.

Cutting the fingers of infants produces physical pain in infants.

Things are made of atoms.

etc.

These agents also have an 'ought' function that includes a series of logical statements that relate normative concepts to each other, such as:

A thing can't be both permissible and forbidden.

A thing can't be both obligatory and non-obligatory.

etc.

Finally, these robots have actuators that are activated by a series of rules like:

When the agent observes an opportunity to perform an action that is 'obligatory', then it will take that action.

An agent will avoid any action that is labeled as 'forbidden.'

Some of these rules might include utility functions that encode ordinal or cardinal value for varying combinations of normative properties.

These agents can't see their own source code. The combination of the moral primitives and the ought function and the non-ought belief statements and a set of

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Intelligence Explosion analysis draft #2: snippet 1
by lukeprog — 2011-12-03T23:21:45.834Z

I've been writing a new draft of the intelligence explosion analysis I'm writing with Anna Salamon. I've incorporated much of the feedback LWers have given me, and will now present snippets of the new draft for feedback. Please ignore the formatting issues caused by moving the text from Google Docs to Less Wrong.

_____

Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import

Anna Salamon
Luke Muehlhauser

The best answer to the question, "Will computers ever be as smart as humans?" is probably “Yes, but only briefly."

Vernor Vinge

Humans may create human-level artificial intelligence in this century.1 Shortly thereafter, we may see an “intelligence explosion” — a chain of events by which human-level AI leads, fairly rapidly, to intelligent systems whose capabilities far surpass those of biological humanity as a whole.
How likely is this, and what should we do about it? Others have discussed these questions previously (Turing 1950; Good 1965; Von Neumann 1966; Solomonoff 1985; Vinge 1993; Bostrom 2003; Yudkowsky 2008; Chalmers 2010), but no brief, systematic review of the relevant issues has been published. In this chapter we aim to provide such a review.

Why study intelligence explosion?

As Chalmers (2010) notes, the singularity is of great practical interest:

If there is a singularity, it will be one of the most important events in the history of the planet. An intelligence explosion has enormous potential benefits: a cure for all known diseases, an end to poverty, extraordinary scientific advances, and much more. It also has enormous potential dangers: an end to the human race, an arms race of warring machines, the power to destroy the planet...

The singularity is also a challenging scientific and philosophical topic. Under the spectre of intelligence explosion, long-standing philosophical puzzles about values, other minds, and personal identity become, as Chalmers puts it, "life-or-death questions that may confront us in coming decades or centuries." In science, the development of AI will require progress in several of mankind's grandest scientific projects, including reverse-engineering the brain (Schierwagen 2011) and developing artificial minds (Nilsson 2010), while the development of AI safety mechanisms may require progress on the confinement problem in computer science (Lampson 1973; Yampolskiy 2011) and the cognitive s...
[LINK] Fermi Paradox paper touching on FAI
by malthrin — 2011-12-03T19:22:25.731Z

This paper discusses the Fermi Paradox in the context of civilizations that can build self-replicating probes (SRPs) to explore/exploit the galaxy. In passing, it discusses some FAI-related objections to self-replicating machine intelligence.

One popular argument against SRPs is presented by Sagan and Newman (Sagan and Newman, 1983). They argue that any presumably wise and cautious civilization would never develop SRPs because such machines would pose an existential risk to the original civilization. The concern is that the probes may undergo a mutation which permits and motivates them to either wipe out the homeworld or overcome any reasonable limit on their reproduction rate, in effect becoming a technological cancer that converts every last ounce of matter in the galaxy into SRPs.

Bad Clippy.
Why safe Oracle AI is easier than safe general AI, in a nutshell
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2011-12-03T12:33:31.484Z

Moderator: "In our televised forum, 'Moral problems of our time, as seen by dead people', we are proud and privileged to welcome two of the most important men of the twentieth century: Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi. So, gentleman, if you had a general autonomous superintelligence at your disposal, what would you want it to do?"

Hitler: "I'd want it to kill all the Jews... and humble France... and crush communism... and give a rebirth to the glory of all the beloved Germanic people... and cure our blond blue eyed (plus me) glorious Aryan nation of the corruption of lesser brown-eyed races (except for me)... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and..."

Gandhi: "I'd want it to convince the British to grant Indian independence... and overturn the cast system... and cause people of different colours to value and respect one another... and grant self-sustaining livelihoods to all the poor and oppressed of this world... and purge violence from the heart of men... and reconcile religions... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and... and..."

Moderator: "And if instead you had a superintelligent Oracle, what would you want it to do?"

Hitler and Gandhi together: "Stay inside the box and answer questions accurately".
Meetup : Melbourne social meetup
by toner — 2011-12-03T12:01:53.922Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup

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

WHERE:
See mailing list; Carlton VIC 3053

All welcome! 6:30pm for 7pm.

We'll order takeaway for dinner and I'll get some snacks. BYO drinks and games.

If you have problems getting in, you can call me on 0412 996 288. This meetup repeats on the third Friday of each month.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup