trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Reflective probabilistic logic cannot assign positive probability to its own coherence and an inner reflection principle
by jessicata — 2015-05-07T21:00:10.000Z

Summary: although we can find an assignment of probabilities to logical statements that satisfies an outer reflection principle, we have more difficulty satisfying both the outer reflection principle and an inner reflection principle. This post presents an impossibility result.

Introduction

In probabilistic logic, we construct a P that assigns a probability to each logical proposition (in, say, the language of set theory plus a P symbol) in a way that satisfies some coherence axioms. Additionally, we can construct a P that assigns probability 1 to P's coherence and satisfies an "outer" reflection principle*:

∀φ∈L′,a∈Q,b∈Q:(a<P(φ)<b)⇒P(a<P(┌ϕ┐)<b)=1

Using the contrapositive, the outer reflection principle equivalently states

∀φ∈L′,a∈Q,b∈Q:(a≤P(φ)≤b)⇐P(a≤P(┌ϕ┐)≤b)>0

Note that the outer reflection principle is not stated within P; instead, it is stated in a meta-language that talks about P. To push reasoning about the system into the system itself, we might want an "inner" reflection principle:

∀φ∈L′,a∈Q,b∈Q:P((a<P(┌φ┐)<b)→P(┌a<P(┌ϕ┐)<b┐)=1)=1

There exists a coherent P assigning probability 1 to its own coherence and satisfying this inner reflection principle (but not the outer reflection principle)**. However, it has been previously proven that no coherent P satisfies both the outer reflection principle and this inner reflection principle.

Impossibility result

In this post, we will show a more general result. We can have no coherent P satisfying the outer reflection principle and assigning positive probability to the its own coherence and the inner reflection principle: that is, there is no coherent P satisfying the outer reflection principle and

∃ϵ>0:∀φ∈L′,a∈Q,b∈Q:P(Coherent(P)∧((a<P(┌φ┐)<b)⇒P(┌a<P(┌ϕ┐)<b┐))=1)>ϵ

Note that this version of the inner reflection principle plus self-coherence is weaker than

P(Coherent(P)∧∀φ∈L′,a∈Q,b∈Q:(a<P(┌φ┐)<b)⇒P(┌a<P(┌ϕ┐<b┐)=1))>0

Proof:

Suppose such a coherent P and ϵ exist. Construct a fixed-point statement
φ:⇔P(φ)<1−ϵ

Also define as shorthand
IRP:⇔Coherent(P)∧(P(┌φ┐)<1−ϵ⇒P(┌P(┌φ┐)<1−ϵ┐)=1)

We know that P(IRP)>ϵ due to the inner reflection principle.

Suppose P(P(┌φ┐)<1−ϵ∧IRP)>0. Then:

P(P(┌φ┐)<1−ϵ∧IR

...
California Drought thread
by SanguineEmpiricist — 2015-05-07T18:44:00.732Z

I think we need a discussion thread for the californian drought going on. I would like to compile information in the main post and would like help compiling it. If we really are proud to be effective altruists then this is an area we should really figure out.

http://ca.gov/drought/

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action

http://www.californiadrought.org/

http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2015/04/CA-Ag-Water-Use.pdf

http://www.californiadrought.org/the-state-of-the-california-drought-still-very-bad/

Read this: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_drought_impacts_full_report3.pdf

Any one have any good ideas on how we can help?
Sharing about my mental illness and popularizing future-oriented thinking: feedback appreciated!
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2015-05-07T16:09:40.977Z

I'd appreciate feedback on optimizing a blog post that shares about my mental illness and popularizes future-oriented thinking to a broad audience. I'm using story-telling as the driver of the narrative, and sprinkling in elements of rational thinking, such as hyperbolic discounting, mental maps, and future-oriented thinking, in a strategic way. The target audience is college-age youth and young adults. Any suggestions for what works well, and what can be improved would be welcomed! The blog draft itself is below the line.

P.S. For context, the blog is part of a broader project, Intentional Insights, aimed at promoting rationality to a broad audience, as I described in this LW discussion post. To do so, we couch rationality in the language of self-improvement and present it in a narrative style.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Coming Out of the Mental Health Closet

My hand jerked back, as if the computer mouse had turned into a real mouse. I just couldn’t do it. Would they think I am crazy? Would they whisper behind my back? Would they never trust me again? These are the kinds of anxious thoughts that ran through my head as I was about to post on my Facebook profile revealing my mental illness to my Facebook friends, about 6 months after my condition began.

I really wanted to share much earlier about my mental illness, a mood disorder characterized by high anxiety, sudden and extreme fatigue, and panic attacks. It would have felt great to be genuinely authentic with people in my life, and not hide who I am. Plus, I would have been proud to contribute to overcoming the stigma against mental illness in our society, especially since this stigma impacts me on such a personal level.

Ironically, the very stigma against mental illness, combined with my own excessive anxiety response, made it very hard for me to share. I was really anxious about whether friends and acquaintances would turn away from me. I was also very concerned about the impact on my professional career of sharing publicly, due to the stigma in academia against me

...
Rationality Reading Group: Fake Beliefs (p43-77)
by  — 2015-05-07T09:07:33.333Z

This is part of a semi-monthly reading group on Eliezer Yudkowsky's ebook, Rationality: From AI to Zombies. For more information about the group, see the announcement post.

Welcome to the Rationality reading group. This week we discuss the sequence Fake Beliefs which introduces the concept of belief in belief and demonstrates the phenomenon in a number of contexts, most notably as it relates to religion. This sequence also foreshadows the mind-killing effects of tribalism and politics, introducing some of the language (e.g. Green vs. Blue) which will be used later.
This post summarizes each article of the sequence, linking to the original LessWrong posting where available, and offers a few relevant notes, thoughts, and ideas for further investigation. My own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.
Reading: Sequence B: Fake Beliefs (p43-77)

B. Fake Beliefs

11. Making beliefs pay rent (in anticipated experiences). Beliefs networks which have no connection to anticipated experience we call “floating” beliefs. Floating beliefs provide no benefit as they do not constrain predictions in any way. Ask about a belief what you expect to see, if the belief is true. Or better yet what you expect not to see: what evidence would falsify the belief. Every belief should flow to a specific guess of anticipation, and should continue to pay rent in future anticipations. If a belief turns deadbeat, evict it. (p45-48)

12. A fable of science and politics. Cautions, though a narrative story, the dangers of that come from feeling attachment to beliefs. Introduces the Greens vs Blues, a fictional debate illustrating the biases which emerge from the tribalism of group politics. (p49-53)

13. Belief in belief. Through the story of someone who claims a dragon lives in their garage, a invisible, inaudible, impermeable dragon which defies all attempts at detection, we are introduced to the concept of belief in belief. The dragon claimant believes that there is a fire-breathing flying animal in his garage, but simultaneously expects to make no observations that would confirm that belief. The belief in belief turns into a form of mental jujutsu where mental models are transfigured in the face of experiment so as to predict whatever would be expected if the belief were not, in fact, true. (p54-58)

14. Bayesian judo. A humorous story illustrating the inconsist...
Meetup : Bangalore LW Meetup
by AshwinV — 2015-05-07T03:48:45.329Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Bangalore LW Meetup

WHEN:
09 May 2015 09:18:03AM (+0530)

WHERE:
Bangalore

Just another LW Bangalore meetup at Cafe Coffee Day, Bangalore Central

Discussion article for the meetup : Bangalore LW Meetup
Meetup : Ann Arbor, MI Discussion Meetup 6/13
by Zubon — 2015-05-06T22:24:13.786Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor, MI Discussion Meetup 6/13

WHEN:
13 June 2015 01:30:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
343 South Fifth Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104

We will be resuming bi-monthly meetups, moving to Ann Arbor. We have a meeting room reserved at the Ann Arbor District Library. Please bring your discussion topics, or post them here if you prefer to have the facilitator introduce them for you.

I am considering scheduling Lansing meetups in the off-month, if there is interest a little further north. That might wait until MSU is back in session, depending on our local population.

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor, MI Discussion Meetup 6/13
Guidelines for Upvoting and Downvoting?
by Sable — 2015-05-06T11:51:29.837Z

I've only recently joined the LessWrong community, and I've been having a blast reading through posts and making the occasional comment. So far, I've received a few karma points, and I’m pretty sure I’m more proud of them than of all the work I did in high school put together.

My question is simple, and aimed a little more towards the veterans of LessWrong:

What are the guidelines for upvoting and downvoting? What makes a comment good, and what makes one bad? Is there somewhere I can go to find this out (I've looked, but there doesn't seem to be a guide on LessWrong already up. On the other hand, I lose my glasses while wearing them, so…)

Additionally, why do I sometimes see discussion posts with many comments but few upvotes, and others with many upvotes but few comments? If a post is worth commenting on, isn't it worth upvoting? I feel as though my map is missing a few pages here.

Not only would having a clear discussion of this help me review the comments of others better, it would also help me understand what I’m being reinforced for on each of my comments, so I can alter my behaviors accordingly.

I want to help keep this a well-kept garden, but I’m struggling to figure out how to trim the hedges.
Meetup : Oslo LessWrong Meetup
by FourFire — 2015-05-06T05:39:31.162Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Oslo LessWrong Meetup

WHEN:
22 May 2015 05:15:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Vilhelm Bjerknes Hus, 0851 Oslo

Welcome to the first annual Oslo meetup.
We will be meeting up quarter past five on Friday, inside the University of Oslo's STEM library, which is open until 21:55.
A second meetup will take place on the following Saturday at this location: http://map.what3words.com/softest.desire.hurry
Here is the timetable: http://doodle.com/4t9z7zs3braz6fdp
I'm looking forward to seeing some of you lurkers there ;)

EDIT: in light of this comment: http://lesswrong.com/lw/bc2/setting_up_lw_meetups_in_unlikely_places_positive/671o

I will be making at least one sign so people need not worry about finding their way :)

Discussion article for the meetup : Oslo LessWrong Meetup
Is there a list of cognitive illusions?
by  — 2015-05-06T04:25:36.774Z

After I posted my great idea that "Determinism Is Just A Special Case Of Randomness" because "if not I don't see how there could be free will in a deterministic universe" I was positively guided by the LW community to read the Free Will Sequence so I am learning more about our biases and how we build illusions like free will and randomness in our minds.

But I don't see a list on LW or Wikipedia of a list of cognitive illusions and I think it would be great to have one of those just as it is useful for many people to visit the List Of Cognitive Biases page as a study reference or even to use in day to day life.

I think these are some cognitive illusions that are normally discussed as such:

- Free will

- Randomness/probability

- Time

- Money

There must be many more, but I don't find a list with summaries and that would great (to help me avoid writing posts like my "great idea" above!).

EDIT: The majority of comments below are about questioning if they are illusions or not and if they should be called cognitive illusions.

I guess there is no list of cognitive illusions because there is no academic agreement about these issues like in cognitive biases which are generally accepted as such!

Thx for the comments!
Meetup : Pittsburgh Less Wrong › Meetup
by Kenoubi — 2015-05-06T02:30:07.884Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Pittsburgh Less Wrong › Meetup

WHEN:
07 May 2015 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
4909 Frew St, Pittsburgh, PA

Joseph Swernofsky says:

Same time and place as last week. We'll probably follow up on the body language talk from [4/30] somehow.

Where: Osher room, basement of Hunt Library at CMU
When: Thu 5/7 at 7:00 pm
Who: If you need to contact me, my phone number is 650.793.7923

(I'm cross-posting this for him from the lw-pgh Google Group).

Discussion article for the meetup : Pittsburgh Less Wrong › Meetup
Private Firm vs. Public Firm Earnings
by Zvi — 2015-05-05T18:53:28.000Z

Robin Hanson asks:

Interesting that private firms have 67% of employees yet only 20% of profits. Is this mostly because owners take “profits” off the books to avoid taxes, or because owners attend more to growing firm value than to paying current earnings?

That is a very large discrepancy, and neither the article nor its comments make a serious attempt to explain this very large difference. Here I will brainstorm a few explanations to see which ones make sense.

In his post, Robin presents strong evidence that suggests public firm managers lack the incentive to make long-term investments. An example given is:

As is common in factories, [public firm] Standard [Motor Products] invests only in machinery that will earn back its cost within two years. (The Atlantic, Jan 2012, p.66)

This is likely to be an important piece of the puzzle, and should be kept in mind.

Hypothesis 1: Selection, Entry and Exit

Any private firm of sufficient size can choose to go public. When do such firms choose to do so? The owners would do so when they prefer the price they can get on the public markets to the profits they can earn keeping the company private. Similarly, any public firm can be taken private, given sufficient funds and the willingness to pay a premium over the share price. Again, you would take a firm private when you feel you can create value by doing so. Many have suggested that a lot of what private equity does is to default on implicit contracts and understandings, but whether that is true or not firms should still be taken private when they are cheap and opportunities other than such defaults tend to be high, although highly variable profit from defaults could add variance and thus decrease this correlation.

Public firm value greatly increases as current profits increase, and decreases as current profit decreases, out of proportion to the amounts involved. A lot of this effect is the signaling effect, as failing to meet earnings goals that everyone will punish you for not meeting is a very bad sign that you were unable to meet them rather than strategically choosing not to (I hope to expand on how toxic that type of logic is in another post, and explore possible ways to escape or contain it). It has also been observed that in the past, buying “cheap” stocks and selling “expensive” stocks, across a variety of fundamental metrics, has been a profit...
Saying "Everyone Is Biased" May Create Bias
by JQuinton — 2015-05-05T15:31:49.408Z

It looks like telling people "everyone is biased" might make people not want to change their behavior to overcome their biases:

In initial experiments, participants were simply asked to rate a particular group, such as women, on a series of stereotypical characteristics, which for women were: warm, family-oriented and (less) career-focused. Beforehand, half of the participants were told that "the vast majority of people have stereotypical preconceptions." Compared to those given no messages, these participants produced more stereotypical ratings, whether about women, older people or the obese.

Another experiment used a richer measure of stereotyping – the amount of clichés used by participants in their written account of an older person’s typical day. This time, those participants warned before writing that “Everyone Stereotypes” were more biased in their writings than those given no message; in contrast, those told that stereotyping was very rare were the least clichéd of all. Another experiment even showed that hearing the “Everyone Stereotypes” message led men to negotiate more aggressively with women, resulting in poorer outcomes for the women.

The authors suggest that telling participants that everyone is biased makes being biased seem like not much of a big deal. If everyone is doing it, then it's not wrong for me to do it as well. However, it looks like the solution to the problem presented here is to give a little white lie that will prompt people to overcome their biases:

A further experiment suggests a possible solution. In line with the other studies, men given the "Everyone Stereotypes" message were less likely to hire a hypothetical female job candidate who was assertive in arguing for higher compensation. But other men told that everyone tries to overcome their stereotypes were fairer than those who received no information at all. The participants were adjusting their behaviour to fit the group norms, but this time in a virtuous direction.
Meetup : Tel Aviv Meetup: Social & Board Games
by DanArmak — 2015-05-05T10:07:51.037Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Tel Aviv Meetup: Social & Board Games

WHEN:
12 May 2015 07:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
Google, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon Street, Tel Aviv

This time we're going to have a social meetup! It's going to be a game night full of people talking about physics, friendly AI, and how to effectively save the world. Please bring any games you'd like to play.

The Israeli LessWrong community meets every two weeks, alternating between lectures and social/gaming nights.

Meet at the 29th floor (not the Google Campus floor). We'll then move to a room.

Contact: If you can't find us, call Anatoly, who is graciously hosting us, at 054-245-1060; or Joshua at 054-569-1165.

Discussion article for the meetup : Tel Aviv Meetup: Social & Board Games
Meetup : BYU-I
by Bound_up — 2015-05-05T07:29:46.734Z

Discussion article for the meetup : BYU-I

WHEN:
08 May 2015 05:30:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
Rexburg, ID: BYU-I, McKay Library

Come to the McKay Library Commons

Discussion article for the meetup : BYU-I
Communal Composition
by Bound_up — 2015-05-05T07:26:09.789Z

I've considered in the past setting up an app of some kind to allow communal composition of music. It just now occurred to me to try a weaker version of the same idea here.

This is an unfinished, unpolished poem that I nonetheless feel has some good parts.

I submit it for criticism, or better yet, to be cut, altered, added to, or used as fuel or parts for another work.

Or if you want to go meta, do you have any ideas for more effectively pulling off something like communal composition?

And passing the sacred store by

Their good-luck charms I do not buy.

But if you care so much, you may surely try.

Freedom for you and for me will survive.

Call me names, they well may stick

But they’ll only last if I stay quick

And if I die, what do I care

Oh, to die, well I do care.

But who to turn to, where to look

I’ve purchased every holy book

Their costly knowledge cost me time

Which with my will is all that’s mine.

And if you feel so calmly sure,

I know others as much and more,

They gave their lives as you’d give yours

But what did they give theirs for? (blow themselves up for?)

Despite the blight of ignorance

Shall I praise the courageous dance?

But honestly I don’t.

And to die for you, is just a drop,

An endless ocean you just bought.

But proud were I if you would sell

For another your ticket out of hell.

And otherwise, what of it, then?

You ducked your praise for a rich stipend

Of so much more farther down the road
Debunking Fallacies in the Theory of AI Motivation
by  — 2015-05-05T02:46:34.480Z

... or The Maverick Nanny with a Dopamine Drip

Richard Loosemore

Abstract

My goal in this essay is to analyze some widely discussed scenarios that predict dire and almost unavoidable negative behavior from future artificial general intelligences, even if they are programmed to be friendly to humans. I conclude that these doomsday scenarios involve AGIs that are logically incoherent at such a fundamental level that they can be dismissed as extremely implausible. In addition, I suggest that the most likely outcome of attempts to build AGI systems of this sort would be that the AGI would detect the offending incoherence in its design, and spontaneously self-modify to make itself less unstable, and (probably) safer.

Introduction

AI systems at the present time do not even remotely approach the human level of intelligence, and the consensus seems to be that genuine artificial general intelligence (AGI) systems—those that can learn new concepts without help, interact with physical objects, and behave with coherent purpose in the chaos of the real world—are not on the immediate horizon.

But in spite of this there are some researchers and commentators who have made categorical statements about how future AGI systems will behave. Here is one example, in which Steve Omohundro (2008) expresses a sentiment that is echoed by many:

"Without special precautions, [the AGI] will resist being turned off, will try to break into other machines and make copies of itself, and will try to acquire resources without regard for anyone else’s safety. These potentially harmful behaviors will occur not because they were programmed in at the start, but because of the intrinsic nature of goal driven systems." (Omohundro, 2008)

Omohundro’s description of a psychopathic machine that gobbles everything in the universe, and his conviction that every AI, no matter how well it is designed, will turn into a gobbling psychopath is just one of many doomsday predictions being popularized in certain sections of the AI community. These nightmare scenarios are now saturating the popular press, and luminaries such as Stephen Hawking have -- apparently in response -- expressed their concern that AI might "kill us all."

I will start by describing a group of three hypothetical doomsday scenarios that include Omohundro’s ...