trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
[SEQ RERUN] Not Taking Over the World
by MinibearRex — 2012-12-30T05:14:16.567Z

Today's post, Not Taking Over the World was originally published on 15 December 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

It's rather difficult to imagine a way in which you could create an AI, and not somehow either take over or destroy the world. How can you use unlimited power in such a way that you don't become a malevolent deity, in the Epicurean sense?

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 What I Think, If Not Why, 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.
Meetup : Fourth Buenos Aires Less Wrong meetup
by Pablo — 2012-12-29T22:47:23.224Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Fourth Buenos Aires Less Wrong meetup

WHEN:
05 January 2013 03:00:00PM (-0300)

WHERE:
GarageLab, Roseti 1380, Ciudad de Buenos Aires

This will be our fourth Buenos Aires LessWrong meetup.

On this occasion, we will be discussing Coherently Extrapolated Volition. For a brief introduction, see the corresponding LessWrong wiki entry. For more detailed discussion, see Eliezer Yudkowsky's essay.

Previous meetups were a success and attendance has been steadily increasing. If you read and like this blog and live in BA or just happen to be visiting the city, do join us. It will be a great opportunity to meet like-minded folks in the area.

Please note the change of venue: we will now meet at GarageLab (Roseti 1380, between Elcano and 14 de Julio), which should be more suitable than Starbucks.

The meeting will take place on Saturday, January 5th, 2013, at 3pm (Buenos Aires time)

Discussion article for the meetup : Fourth Buenos Aires Less Wrong meetup
Inferring Values from Imperfect Optimizers
by nigerweiss — 2012-12-29T22:22:14.209Z

One approach to constructing a Friendly artificial intelligence is to create a piece of software that looks at large amounts of evidence about humans, and attempts to infer their values. I've been doing some thinking about this problem, and I'm going to talk about some approaches and problems that have occurred to me.

In a naive approach, we might define the problem like this: take some unknown utility function, U, and plug it into a mathematically clean optimization process (like AIXI) O. Then, look at your data set and take the information about the inputs and outputs of humans, and find the simplest U that best explains human behavior.

Unfortunately, this won't work. The best possible match for U is one that models not just those elements of human utility we're interested in, but also all the details of our broken, contradictory optimization process. The U we derive through this process will optimize for confirmation bias, scope insensitivity, hindsight bias, the halo effect, our own limited intelligence and inefficient use of evidence, and just about everything else that's wrong with us. Not what we're looking for.

Okay, so let's try putting a bandaid on it - let's go back to our original problem setup. However, we'll take our original O, and use all of the science on cognitive biases at our disposal to handicap it. We'll limit its search space, saddle it with a laundry list of cognitive biases, cripple its ability to use evidence, and in general make it as human-like as we possibly can. We could even give it akrasia by implementing hyperbolic discounting of reward. Then we'll repeat the original process to produce U'.

If we plug U' into our AI, the result will be that it will optimize like a human who had suddenly been stripped of all the kinds of stupidity that we programmed into our modified O. This is good! Plugged into a solid CEV infrastructure, this might even be good enough to produce a future that's a nice place to live. However, it's not quite ideal. If we miss a cognitive bias, then it'll be incorporated into the learned utility functions, and we may never be rid of it. What would be nice would be if we could get the AI to learn about cognitive biases, exhaustively, and update in the future if it ever discovered a new one.

...
The ongoing transformation of quantum field theory
by Mitchell_Porter — 2012-12-29T09:45:55.580Z

Quantum field theory (QFT) is the basic framework of particle physics. Particles arise from the quantized energy levels of field oscillations; Feynman diagrams are the simple tool for approximating their interactions. The "standard model", the success of which is capped by the recent observation of a Higgs boson lookalike, is a quantum field theory.

But just like everything mathematical, quantum field theory has hidden depths. For the past decade, new pictures of the quantum scattering process (in which particles come together, interact, and then fly apart) have incrementally been developed, and they presage a transformation in the understanding of what a QFT describes.

At the center of this evolution is "N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory", the maximally supersymmetric QFT in four dimensions. I want to emphasize that from a standard QFT perspective, this theory contains nothing but scalar particles (like the Higgs), spin-1/2 fermions (like electrons or quarks), and spin-1 "gauge fields" (like photons and gluons). The ingredients aren't something alien to real physics. What distinguishes an N=4 theory is that the particle spectrum and the interactions are arranged so as to produce a highly extended form of supersymmetry, in which particles have multiple partners (so many LWers should be comfortable with the notion).

In 1997, Juan Maldacena discovered that the N=4 theory is equivalent to a type of string theory in a particular higher-dimensional space. In 2003, Edward Witten discovered that it is also equivalent to a different type of string theory in a supersymmetric version of Roger Penrose's twistor space. Those insights didn't come from nowhere, they explained algebraic facts that had been known for many years; and they have led to a still-accumulating stockpile of discoveries about the properties of N=4 field theory.

What we can say is that the physical processes appearing in the theory can be understood as taking place in either of two dual space-time descriptions. Each space-time has its own version of a particular large symmetry, "superconformal symmetry", and the superconformal symmetry of one space-time is invisible in the other. And now it is becoming apparent that there is a third description, which does not involve space-time at all, in which both superconformal symmetries are manifest, but in which space-time locality and quantum unitarity are not "visible...
[SEQ RERUN] What I Think, If Not Why
by MinibearRex — 2012-12-29T06:01:12.877Z

Today's post, What I Think, If Not Why was originally published on 11 December 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Yudkowsky's attempt to summarize what he thinks on the subject of Friendly AI, without providing any of the justifications for what he believes.

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 What Core Argument?, 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.
Meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 24-26
by evand — 2012-12-28T23:40:42.616Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 24-26

WHEN:
29 December 2012 11:00:00AM (-0500)

WHERE:
2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, NC 27707

HPMoR discussion meetup. We'll be talking about chapters 24-26; come join us!

Please feel free to join in, even if you haven't read the chapters in question yet.

Depending on interest, there may well be Zendo afterwards.

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham HPMoR Discussion, chapters 24-26
Is ruthlessness in business executives ever useful?
by Desrtopa — 2012-12-28T19:46:02.819Z

We have a tradition of treating ruthlessness in businesspeople as something of a virtue. Certainly, ruthlessness can help one get ahead in the business world, and companies often benefit from executives who're willing to put aside scruples while devising means of turning a profit. So ruthlessness in business executives can certainly be useful for businesses.

From a societal perspective though, businesses are only valuable to the extent that they increase the wealth and quality of life of society as a whole. Businesses are allowed (indeed, required, in the case of publicly traded companies) to attempt to maximize profits, on the presumption that in doing so, they'll enrich the broader society in which they operate. But there are plenty of ways in which businesses can increase their own profits without becoming more wealth productive, such as cooperating with competitors or establishing monopolies in order to keep prices artificially elevated, use of advertising to promote a product or service relative to equal or superior competitors, lobbying with politicians to slant the legal playing field in their own favor, and so forth.

I have reasons to expect myself to be somewhat biased on this issue, so I'm not sure how telling it is that I personally come up short of any examples of ruthlessness in business executives being useful from a societal perspective, when compared to business executives who're highly competitive, but compassionate, with restrictive senses of fair play. So does anyone else have examples of ruthlessness in businesspeople as a social virtue?
A cure for akrasia
by  — 2012-12-28T19:11:42.733Z

Some of you guys have been a little down on philosophy articles lately. This article by Roy Sorensen appeared in Mind in 1997, and it is awesome, therefore all philosophy papers are awesome.

Published in Mind 106/424 (October 1997) 743

A CURE FOR INCONTINENCE!

Tired of being weak-willed? Do you want to end procrastination and back-sliding? Are you envious of those paragons of self-control who always do what they consider best?

Thanks to a breakthrough in therapeutic philosophy, you too can now close the gap between what you think you ought to do and what you actually do. Just send $1000 to the address below and you will never again succumb to temptation. This is a MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. The first time you do something that you know to be irrational, your money will be refunded, no questions asked. Of course, you might nevertheless have some questions. How can you act incontinently when you know that the "irrational" act will earn you a $1000 refund? Well, that's what's revolutionary in this new cure for incontinence.

Old approaches focus on punishing the weak willed. This follows the antiquated behaviorist principle that negative reinforcement extinguishes bad behavior. The new humanitarian approach rewards incontinence -- and lavishly at that. The key is to make the reward so strongly motivating that an otherwise irrational act becomes rational.

Some may seek a refund on the grounds that the reward for incontinence played no role in their (apparently) incontinent act; although aware of the reward, they would have performed the act anyway. These folks should distinguish between actual and hypothetical incontinence. If you act in accordance with your judgement as to what is best overall, then you did nothing irrational.

True, the hypothetical incontinent act is a sign that you have a weak will. But the presence of this disposition gives you all the more reason to block its manifestation -- by sending $1000. Granted, there are people who cannot be swayed from temptation by a mere $1000. These recalcitrant individuals are advised to send in more than $1000. Give until it hurts.

Rush your cheque to:

Dr. Roy Sorensen

Department of Philosophy

New Y...
Meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality
by matt — 2012-12-28T17:08:46.814Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality

WHEN:
04 January 2013 07:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
55 Walsh St West Melbourne 3003

Practical rationality. This meetup repeats on the 1st Friday of each month and is distinct from our social meetup on the 3rd Friday of each month.

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

All welcome from 6:30pm. Call the phone number on the door and I'll let you in.

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne, practical rationality
Weekly LW Meetups: Cleveland, Moscow
by FrankAdamek — 2012-12-28T17:00:55.407Z

This summary was posted to LW main on Dec 21st. The following week's summary is here.

There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:

Moscow: Applied Rationality: 22 December 2012 04:00PM
Montpellier: Tentative first meetup: 03 January 2013 03:00PM
Brussels meetup: 05 January 2013 01:00PM
Washington, DC Meetup with Special Guest: 06 January 2013 03:00PM
First Purdue Meetup: 11 January 2013 06:50PM

The following meetups take place in cities with regularly scheduled meetups, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

Cleveland Ohio Meetup: 23 December 2012 02:52PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge UK, Madison WI, Melbourne, Mountain View, New York, Ohio, Oxford, Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Toronto, Waterloo, 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, build community, 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: Atlanta, Berlin, Chicago, Helsinki, London, Marin CA, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Vancouver, Washington, DC.

Whether or not there's currently a meetup in your area, you can sign up to be notified automatically of any future meetups. And if you're not interested in notifications you can still enter your approximate location, which will let meetup-starting heroes know that there's an int...
Ritual 2012: A Moment of Darkness
by Raemon — 2012-12-28T09:09:16.161Z

This is the second post of the 2012 Ritual Sequence. The Introduction post is here.

This is... the extended version, I suppose, of a speech I gave at the Solstice.

The NYC Solstice Weekprior celebration begins bright and loud, and gradually becomes somber and poignant. Our opening songs are about the end of the world, but in a funny, boisterous manner that gets people excited and ready to sing. We gradually wind down, dimming lights, extinguishing flames. We turn to songs that aren’t sad but are more quiet and pretty.
And then things get grim. We read Beyond the Reach of God. We sing songs about a world where we are alone, where there is nothing protecting us, and where we somehow need to survive and thrive, even when it looks like the light is failing.
We extinguish all but a single candle, and read an abridged version of the Gift We Give to Tomorrow, which ends like this:

Once upon a time,
far away and long ago,
there were intelligent beings who were not themselves intelligently designed.
Once upon a time,
there were lovers, created by something that did not love.
Once upon a time,
when all of civilization was a single galaxy,
A single star.
A single planet.
A place called Earth.
Once upon a time.

And then we extinguish that candle, and sit for a moment in the darkness.
This year, I took that time to tell a story.
It’s included in the 2012 Ritual Book. I was going to post it at the end of the sequence. But I realized that it’s actually pretty important to the “What Exactly is the Point of Ritual?” discussion. So I’m writing a more fleshed out version now, both for easy reference and for people who don’t feel like hunting through a large pdf to find it.
It’s a bit longer, in this version - it’s what I might have said, if time wasn’t a constraint during the ceremony.

A year ago, I started planning for tonight. In particular, for this moment, after the last candle is snuffed out and we’re left alone in the dark with the knowledge that our world is unfair and that we have nobody to help us but each other.
I wanted to talk about death.
My grandmother died two years ago. The years leading up to her death were painful. She slowly lost her mobility, until all she could do was sit in her living room and hope her family would come by to visit and talk to her.
Then she started losing her memory, so she had a ...
[SEQ RERUN] What Core Argument?
by MinibearRex — 2012-12-28T06:11:09.844Z

Today's post, What Core Argument? was originally published on December 10, 2008. A summary:

The argument in favor of a strong foom just isn't well supported enough to suggest that such a dramatic process is likely.

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 The Mechanics of Disagreement, 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.
Meetup : Vancouver New Year!
by  — 2012-12-28T04:20:06.445Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver New Year!

WHEN:
30 December 2012 01:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
Benny's Bagels 2505 w broadway, vancouver

Hello vancouver lesswrongers,

Goddam Christmas is done creating chaos and now it's time to start a new year (judging the new year by the sun...) of Vancouver LW meetups!

Come on out to Benny's Bagels in Kitsilano to meet up with like-minded aspiring rationalists, talk about all sorts of stuff, and generally have fun. 13:00 on Sunday the 30th.

If you are looking for an excuse to start coming out, the new year seems as good as any.

See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Vancouver New Year!
The Relation Projection Fallacy and the purpose of life
by Academian — 2012-12-28T04:14:38.006Z

I bet most people here have realized this explicitly or implicitly, but this comment has inspired me to write a short, linkable summary of this error pattern, with a name:

The Relation Projection Fallacy: a denotational error whereby one confuses an n-ary relation for an m-ary relation, where usually m<n.

Example instance: "Life has no purpose."

This is a troublesome phrase. Why? If you look at unobjectionable uses of the concept <purpose> --- also referenced by synonyms like "having a point" --- it is in fact a ternary relation.

Example non-instance: "The purpose of a doorstop is to stop doors."

Here, one can query "to whom?" and be returned the context "to the person who made it" or "to the person who's using it", etc. That is, the full denotation of "purpose" is always of the form "The purpose of X to Y is Z," where Y is often implicit or can take a wide range of values.

This has nothing to do with connotation... it's just how the concept <purpose> typically works as people use it. But to flog a dead horse, the purpose of a doorstop to a cat may be to make an amusing sound as it glides across the floor after the cat hits it. The value of Y always matters. There is no "true purpose" stored anywhere inside the doorstop, or even in the combination of the doorstop and the door it is stopping. To think otherwise is literally projecting, in the mathematical sense, a ternary relation, i.e., a subset of a product of three sets (objects)x(agents)x(verbs), into a product of two sets, (objects)x(verbs). But people often do this projection incorrectly, by either searching for a purpose that is intrinsic to the Doorstop or to Life, or by searching for a canonical value of "Y" like "The Great Arbiter of Purpose", both of which are not to be found, at least to their satisfaction when they utter the phrase "Life has no purpose."

Likewise, the relation "has a purpose" is typically a binary relation, because again, we can always ask "to whom?". "<That doorstop> has a purpose to <me>."

In some form, this realization is of course the cause of many schools of thought taking the name "relativist" on many different issues. But I find that people over-use the phrase "It's all relative" to connote "It's all meaningless" or "there is no answer". Which is ironic, because meaning itself is a te...
Meetup : Bielefeld Meetup, January 2nd
by Just_existing — 2012-12-27T20:28:01.171Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Bielefeld Meetup, January 2nd

WHEN:
02 January 2013 07:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Grill/Bar Verve, Klosterplatz 13, Bielefeld

Another meetup of this group. We are meeting once every two weeks. The location switches between Bielefeld and Paderborn.

The topics of this evening will be the current series "Highly Advanced Epistemology 101 for Beginners", bioethics and the discussion of plans on how to start a Youtube-channel for rationality.

Everybody is welcome!

Discussion article for the meetup : Bielefeld Meetup, January 2nd