trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Consciousness affecting the world
by DavidPlumpton — 2013-12-06T19:37:27.685Z

In Zombies! Zombies? Eliezer mentions that one aspect of consciousness is that it can causally affect the real world, e.g. cause you to say "I feel conscious right now", or result in me typing out these words.

Even if a generally accepted mechanism of consciousness has not been found yet are there any tentative explanations for this "can change world" property? Googling around I was unable to find anything (although Zombies are certainly popular).

I had an idea of how this might work, but just wanted to see if it was worth the effort of writing.
Philadelphia Meetup: Sunday 12/6, Postrel's _The Power of Glamour_--  Winfrey/Moore video link added
by NancyLebovitz — 2013-12-06T17:42:51.971Z

1:00 PM, December 6, Nam Phuong (Vietnamese restaurant), 1100 Washington Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (west side of street, just south of Washington)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/09/the-persistence-of-glamour.html

The topic is Postrel's The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion-- a category of visual images which sometimes cause people to change their lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPd77roTra4

This is a video about Oprah having been inspired by Mary Tyler Moore. Oprah was inspired by the Mary Tyler Moore show, and eventually had a video made of herself in the opening bit for the Mary Tyler Moore Show and had Mary Tyler Moore on her own show.
New LW Meetup: Newcastle-upon-Tyne
by FrankAdamek — 2013-12-06T17:41:46.365Z

This summary was posted to LW main on November 29th. The following week's summary is here.

New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:

Mumbai Meetup: 15 December 2013 03:00PM
Newcastle-upon-Tyne meetup, December: 07 December 2013 01:00PM

Other irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Boston / Cambridge - The future of life: a cosmic perspective (Max Tegmark), Dec 1: 01 December 2013 02:00PM
Berlin: 01 January 2019 01:30PM
Helsinki Meetup: 15 December 2013 03:00PM
Munich Meetup: 07 December 2013 02:00PM
San Francisco / App Academy meetup: 07 December 2014 07:00PM

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

Brussels monthly meetup: time!: 14 December 2013 01:00PM
London Social Meetup, 01/12/2013: 01 December 2013 02:00PM
West LA—A Conversation About Conversations: 04 December 2013 07:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Brussels, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge UK, Columbus, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Mountain View, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, Waterloo, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers.

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 is posted on the front page every Friday. These are an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in upcoming weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts are 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, C...
Meetup : December Meetup 
by Nova_Division — 2013-12-06T17:33:00.969Z

Discussion article for the meetup : December Meetup

WHEN:
14 December 2013 07:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
491 Lindbergh Place NE Apt 618 Atlanta, GA 30324

Come join us! We'll be celebrating the Solstice while doing our normal eclectic mix of self-improvement brainstorming, educational mini-presentations, structured discussion, unstructured discussion, and social fun and games times! Check out ATLesswrong's facebook group, if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Atlanta.Lesswrong/ where you can connect with Atlanta Lesswrongers, suggest a topics for discussion at this meetup, and join our book club or study group!

Discussion article for the meetup : December Meetup
Meetup : Washington DC Fermi Estimates Meetup
by rocurley — 2013-12-06T15:27:57.730Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Fermi Estimates Meetup

WHEN:
08 December 2013 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC 20001, USA

By the power of the meetup topics list, we'll be meeting to do fermi estimates. I'll bring some numbers for us.

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington DC Fermi Estimates Meetup
Kurzban et al. on opportunity cost models of mental fatigue and resource-based models of willpower
by Kaj_Sotala — 2013-12-06T09:54:33.170Z

An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance (h/t lukeprog) is a very interesting paper on why we accumulate mental fatigue: Kurzban et al. suggest an opportunity cost model, where intense focus on a single task means that we become less capable of using our mental resources for anything else, and accumulating mental fatigue is part of a cost-benefit calculation that encourages us to shift our attention instead of monomaniacally concentrating on just one task which may not be the most rewarding possible. Correspondingly, the amount of boredom or mental fatigue we experience with a task should correspond with the perceived rewards from other tasks available at the moment. A task will feel more boring/effortful if there's something more rewarding that you could be doing instead (i.e. if the opportunity costs for pursuing your current task are higher), and if it requires exclusive use of cognitive resources that could also be used for something else.

This seems to make an amount of intuitive/introspective sense - I had a much easier time doing stuff without getting bored as a kid, when there simply wasn't much else that I could be doing instead. And it does roughly feel like I would get more quickly bored with things in situations where more engaging pursuits were available. I'm also reminded of the thing I noticed as a kid where, if I borrowed a single book from the library, I would likely get quickly engrossed in it, whereas if I had several alternatives it would be more likely that I'd end up looking at each for a bit but never really get around reading any of them.

An opportunity cost model also makes more sense than resource models of willpower which, as Kurzban quite persuasively argued in his earlier book, don't really fit together with the fact that the brain is an information-processing system. My computer doesn't need to use any more electricity in situations where it "decides" to do something as opposed to not doing something, but resource models of willpower have tried to postulate that we would need more of e.g. glucose in order to maintain willpower. (Rather, it makes more sense to presume that a low level of blood sugar would shift the cost-benefit calculations in a way that led to e.g. conservation of resources.)

This isn't just Kurzban et al's opinion - the paper was published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, which inv...
Personal examples of semantic stopsigns
by Alexei — 2013-12-06T02:12:01.708Z

I think most of us are familiar with the common semantic stopsigns like "God", "just because", and "it's a tradition." However, I've recently been noticing more interesting ones that I haven't really seen discussed on LW. (Or it's also likely that I missed those discussion.)

The first one is "humans are stupid." I notice this one very often, in particular in LW and other rationalist communities. The obvious problem here is that humans are not that stupid. Often what might seem like sheer stupidity was caused by a rather reasonable chain of actions and events. And even if a person or a group of people is being stupid, it's very interesting to chase down the cause. That's how you end up discovering biases from scratch or finding a great opportunity.

The second semantic stopsign is "should." Hat tip to Michael Vassar for bringing this one up. If you and I have a discussing about how I eat too much chocolate, and I say, "You are right, I should eat less chocolate," the conversation will basically end there. But 99 times out of a 100 nothing will actually come out of it. I try to taboo the word "should" from my vocabulary, so instead I will say something like, "You are right, I will not purchase any chocolate this month." This is a concrete actionable statement.

What other semantic stopsigns have you noticed in yourself and others?
Meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games
by Manfred — 2013-12-06T01:46:51.570Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games

WHEN:
07 December 2013 02:00:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
412 W. Elm St., Urbana, IL, 61801

Come drop by my house for board games, food, and word-talky-stuff.

Discussion article for the meetup : Urbana-Champaign fun and games
Meetup : Moscow, The First Winter One
by Yuu — 2013-12-05T17:09:53.604Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, The First Winter One

WHEN:
08 December 2013 04:00:00PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Russia, Moscow, ulitsa L'va Tolstogo 16

We will have a report about psychedelic drugs and a discussion session.

We will also have Prediction Market and Scavenger Hunt. You can follow the corresponding links to the discussions on the Russian forum.

We may move to another location from Yandex office, so please do not be late.

If you are going for the first time:
We gather in the Yandex office, you need the second revolving door with the sign “Яндекс”, here is the photo of the entrance you need. You need to pass the first entrance and the bicycle parking on you way. Here is additional guide how to get there: link.
You can fill this one minute form (in Russian), to share your contact information.

We start at 16:00 and sometimes finish at night.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow, The First Winter One
Meetup : The Return of the Rationalists!
by Ratcourse — 2013-12-05T17:08:34.812Z

Discussion article for the meetup : The Return of the Rationalists!

WHEN:
14 December 2013 03:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Wien

Meetup at the Cafe Votiv!
An introduction to Bayesian Reasoning by Viliam!

Discussion article for the meetup : The Return of the Rationalists!
Snowdenizing UFAI
by JoshuaFox — 2013-12-05T14:42:12.946Z

Here is a suggestion for slowing down future secretive and unsafe UFAI projects.

Take the American defense and intelligence community as a case in point. They are a top candidate for the creation of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): They can get the massive funding, and they can get some top (or near-top) brains on the job. The AGI will be unfriendly, unless friendliness is a primary goal from the start.

The American defense and intelligence community created the Manhattan Project, which is the canonical example for a giant, secret, leading-edge science-technology project with existential-risk implications.

David Chalmers (2010): "When I discussed [AI existential risk] with cadets and sta ff at the West Point Military Academy, the question arose as to whether the US military or other branches of the government might attempt to prevent the creation of AI or AI+, due to the risks of an intelligence explosion. The consensus was that they would not, as such prevention would only increase the chances that AI or AI+ would ﬁrst be created by a foreign power."

Edward Snowden broke the intelligence community's norms by reporting what he saw to be tremendous ethical and legal violations. This requires an exceptionally well-developed personal sense of ethics (even if you disagree with those ethics). His actions have drawn a lot of support by those who share his values. Many who condemn him a traitor are still criticizing government intrusions in the basis of his revelations.

When the government AGI project starts rolling, will it have Snowdens who can warn internally about Unfriendly AI (UFAI) risks? They will probably be ignored and suppressed--that's how it goes in hierarchical bureaucratic organizations. Will these future Snowdens have the courage to keep fighting internally, and eventually to report the risks to the public or to their allies in the Friendly AI (FAI) research community

Naturally, the Snowden scenario is not limited to the US government. We can seek ethical dissidents, truthtellers, and whistleblowers in any large and powerful organization that does unsafe research, whether a government or a corporation.

Should we start preparing budding AGI researchers to think this way? We can do this by encouraging people to take consequentialist ethics seriously, which by itself can lead to Snowden-like results. and LessWrong is certainly working on that. But ...
Meetup : Saint Petersburg, Russia. On discussions and some social skills
by efim — 2013-12-05T10:42:07.430Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Saint Petersburg, Russia. On discussions and some social skills

WHEN:
08 December 2013 04:00:19PM (+0400)

WHERE:
Санкт-Петербург, м. Технологический Институт, ул.1-я Красноармейская, дом 15

Please look for event details in russian in our newsletter or vk group:
newsletter or
http://vk.com/lw_spb

Discussion article for the meetup : Saint Petersburg, Russia. On discussions and some social skills
The Logician And The God-Emperor
by Scott Alexander — 2013-12-05T01:54:07.000Z

Once upon a time a logician accomplished a great deed, and the God-Emperor offered him a choice of rewards. “You may,” said the God-Emperor “have the hand of my eldest daughter, who is the heir to the throne, yet plain to look upon. Or you may take my youngest daughter, who is beautiful beyond words, but without inheritance.”

The next day, the God-Emperor caught the logician in bed with both his daughters. Enraged, he hurled threats and abuse at the scholar, who responded with a grin: “Guess someone never learned the difference between ‘or’ and ‘xor’.”

The God-Emperor ordered the logician brought to the throne room in chains, and told him “You have offended me and betrayed my generosity, so you will be subjected to trial by ordeal. I have placed in front of you seven chests. Six of the chests contain skulls. One of the chests contains the key to your chains. I have asked the most devious minds in my kingdom to prepare a logic puzzle giving hints as to which chest is which. You may open a single chest. If you do not find the chest with the key on your first try, you will be slathered in barbecue sauce and thrown to the wolves.”

The logician approached the chests, and upon each was written a clue in complicated logical notation. He examined all seven, and then stood a while, deep in thought. Finally, he opened the third chest. Inside was a golden key.

“Very impressive!” said the God-Emperor. Then he yelled “Guards! Slather this man in barbecue sauce and throw him to the wolves!”

“But…but!” babbled the terrified logician “…but you said…!”

The God-Emperor grinned. “Guess someone never learned the difference between ‘if’ and ‘iff’.”
International cooperation vs. AI arms race
by Brian_Tomasik — 2013-12-05T01:09:33.431Z

Summary

I think there's a decent chance that governments will be the first to build artificial general intelligence (AI). International hostility, especially an AI arms race, could exacerbate risk-taking, hostile motivations, and errors of judgment when creating AI. If so, then international cooperation could be an important factor to consider when evaluating the flow-through effects of charities. That said, we may not want to popularize the arms-race consideration too openly lest we accelerate the race.

Will governments build AI first?

AI poses a national-security threat, and unless the militaries of powerful countries are very naive, it seems to me unlikely they'd allow AI research to proceed in private indefinitely. At some point the US military would confiscate the project from Google or Goldman Sachs, if the US military isn't already ahead of them in secret by that point. (DARPA already funds a lot of public AI research.)

There are some scenarios in which private AI research wouldn't be nationalized:

An unexpected AI foom before anyone realizes what was coming.

The private developers stay underground for long enough not to be caught. This becomes less likely the more government surveillance improves (see "Arms Control and Intelligence Explosions").

AI developers move to a "safe haven" country where they can't be taken over. (It seems like the international community might prevent this, however, in the same way it now seeks to suppress terrorism in other countries.)

Each of these scenarios could happen, but it seems most likely to me that governments would ultimately control AI development.

AI arms races

Government AI development could go wrong in several ways. Probably most on LW feel the prevailing scenario is that governments would botch the process by not realizing the risks at hand. It's also possible that governments would use the AI for malevolent, totalitarian purposes.

It seems that both of these bad scenarios would be exacerbated by international conflict. Greater hostility means countries are more inclined to use AI as a weapon. Indeed, whoever builds the first AI can take over the world, which makes building AI the ultimate arms race. A USA-China race is one reasonable possibility.

Arms races encourage risk-taking -- being willing to skimp on safety measures to improve your odds of winning ("Racing to the Precipice"). In addition, the weaponiz...
Ethics of Brain Emulation
by summerstay — 2013-12-04T19:19:37.048Z

I felt like this draft paper by Anders Sandberg was a well-thought-out essay on the morality of experiments on brain emulations. Is there anything you disagree with here, or think he should handle differently?

http://www.aleph.se/papers/Ethics%20of%20brain%20emulations%20draft.pdf
Questions and comments about Eliezer's Dec. 2 2013 Oxford speech
by NancyLebovitz — 2013-12-04T17:50:58.246Z

Notes I took while listening to the speech:

Eliezer Yudkowsky on Friendly AI

If the human race is down to 1000 people, what are the odds that it will continue and do well? I realize this is a nitpick-- the argument would be the same if the human race were reduced to a million or ten million.

Suppose that a blind person in a first world country wants help paying for a guide dog and/or wants guide dogs for other blind people in first world countries, but has heard of effective altruism. What honest arguments could the blind person use?

If I were designing an intelligence, I'm not sure how much control I would give it over its own brain. People are already able to damage themselves pretty badly, even with the crude tools they've got. I would experiment with intelligent species to see how they'd behave with more control over their brains. What would you do?

Sidenote: Birds show some possibilities of making brains more efficient per weight.

TED talk about neurons and brains. This is not a great TED talk, but it's got somewhat about comparisons between brains in different species, in particular that neuron size and density varies between species. Comparisons of brain size tells you less than people assume.

Brains and competition aren't just about sexual selection: Females (especially) compete for resources to feed and care for themselves and their children. In some species, males also compete for resources for their children. Reproductive selection isn't just about mating selection. See Mother Nature by Sarah Hrdy. Interview about humans as cooperative breeders

Do we need to think about hardware, software, and firmware (at least) for brains, rather than just hardware and software?

[Sound cuts off at 38:00. comes back at 39:10]

How much of organisms consist of traits which aren't being selected for?

The sound quality deteriorates enough at about an hour that I'm giving up.
Meetup : Boston/Cambridge - The Attention Economy
by Vika — 2013-12-04T03:06:38.970Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston/Cambridge - The Attention Economy

WHEN:
08 December 2013 02:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Citadel, 98 Elm St, apt 1, Somerville, MA

Robin Gane-McCalla will be presenting on "The Attention Economy: how our focus determines the future".

Cambridge/Boston-area Less Wrong meetups are every Sunday at 2pm at Citadel (98 Elm St Apt 1 Somerville, near Porter Square).

Our default schedule is as follows:

—Phase 1: Arrival, greetings, unstructured conversation.

—Phase 2: The headline event. This starts promptly at 3pm, and lasts 30-60 minutes.

—Phase 3: Further discussion. We'll explore the ideas raised in phase 2, often in smaller groups.

—Phase 4: Dinner.

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston/Cambridge - The Attention Economy
Meetup : Frankfurt meetup:
by Kendra — 2013-12-03T20:25:27.846Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Frankfurt meetup:

WHEN:
08 December 2013 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Frankfurt, Ginnheimer Landstraße

Same location as usual. If you are new, contact me here or write me to my phone: 017634095*760
(Sorry, the date was wrong originally. The meetup will be on Sunday.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Frankfurt meetup:
December Monthly Bragging Thread
by Kaj_Sotala — 2013-12-03T14:46:23.986Z

As in Joshua Blaine's original description (below), but may be used to brag about things you've accomplished either this month (December) or the previous one (November), assuming that you haven't brought it up in any earlier Monthly Bragging Thread.

In an attempt to encourage more people to actually do awesome things (a la instrumental rationality), I am proposing a new monthly thread (can be changed to bi-weekly, should that be demanded). Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining the most awesome thing you've done this month. You may be as blatantly proud of you self as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself the coolest freaking person ever because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.

Remember, however, that this isn't any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread.This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesomest thing they've done all month. not will do. not are working on.have already done. This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.

So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?
Meetup : Bay Area Solstice
by Ben_LandauTaylor — 2013-12-03T02:19:57.212Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay Area Solstice

WHEN: 07 December 2013 06:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE: San Francisco

The Bay Area community is holding a Solstice celebration, and you’re invited! Join us for a night of group singing, ritual, light, warmth, and companionship, plus the first-ever performance of the rationalist choir, as we celebrate human progress and potential at the darkest time of the year.

The Bay Area Solstice will be held on Saturday, December 7, from 6:00 PM until 10:00 PM. We’ll provide a shuttle to and from the Civic Center BART station. Space is limited, so please fill out the RSVP form. I hope to see you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay Area Solstice
Meetup : Lesswrong Boulder CO
by yakurbe0112 — 2013-12-02T22:48:14.923Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Lesswrong Boulder CO

WHEN:
05 December 2013 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
2690 Baseline Rd, Boulder, CO 80305

No topic in particular. Just come and hang out with us and have some pizza. (its really good pizza)

Discussion article for the meetup : Lesswrong Boulder CO