trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
My Skepticism
by G0W51 — 2015-01-31T02:00:52.864Z

Standard methods of inferring knowledge about the world are based off premises that I don’t know the justifications for. Any justification (or a link to an article or book with one) for why these premises are true or should be assumed to be true would be appreciated.

Here are the premises:

“One has knowledge of one’s own percepts.” Percepts are often given epistemic privileges, meaning that they need no justification to be known, but I see no justification for giving them epistemic privileges. It seems like the dark side of epistemology to me.

“One’s reasoning is trustworthy.” If one’s reasoning is untrustworthy, then one’s evaluation of the trustworthiness of one’s reasoning can’t be trusted, so I don’t see how one could determine if one’s reasoning is correct. Why should one even consider one’s reasoning is correct to begin with? It seems like privileging the hypothesis, as there are many different ways one’s mind could work, and presumably only a very small proportion of possible minds would be remotely valid reasoners.

“One’s memories are true.” Though one’s memories of how the world works gives a consistent explanation of why one is perceiving one’s current percepts, a perhaps simpler explanation is that the percepts one are currently experiencing are the only percepts one has ever experienced, and one’s memories are false. This hypothesis is still simple, as one only needs to have a very small number of memories, as one can only think of a small number of memories at any one time, and the memory of having other memories could be false as well.

Edit: Why was this downvoted? Should it have been put in the weekly open thread instead?
New LW Meetup: Prague
by FrankAdamek — 2015-01-30T17:20:56.684Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on January 23rd. The following week's summary is here.

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

Czech's first Meetup Prague: 16 February 2015 06:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Dallas, TX: 25 January 2015 01:00PM
European Community Weekend 2015: 12 June 2015 12:00PM
SLC, UT — January Meetup: 24 January 2015 03:00PM
[Utrecht] Effective Altruism Netherlands, Utrecht - How to live on a low budget: 01 February 2015 02:00PM

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:

Austin, TX - Caffe Medici: 24 January 2026 01:30PM
Brussels February meetup: Words: 14 February 2015 01:00PM
Canberra: the Hedonic Treadmill: 23 January 2015 06:00PM
Durham, NC (RTLW) Discussion Meetup: 05 February 2026 07:00PM
Moscow LW lecture centre meetup: The New Foundation: 25 January 2015 02:00PM
Sydney Meetup - January: 28 January 2015 06:30PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - How bad statistics can ruin your life: 01 February 2015 04:00PM
Vienna: 24 January 2015 03:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Fermi Estimates: 25 January 2015 03:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Cambridge UK, Canberra, Columbus, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, Mountain View, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, Seattle, Sydney, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, 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 ...
Is there a rationalist skill tree yet?
by fowlertm — 2015-01-30T16:02:37.185Z

A while back I came across a delightful web developer skill tree, and I was wondering if technical rationality has gotten to the point where someone could make one of these for an aspiring rationalist.

I think seeing a clear progression from beginning skills to advanced ones laid out graphically helps those starting on the path conceptualize the process.
The Value Learning Problem
by So8res — 2015-01-29T18:23:09.445Z

I'm pleased to announce a new paper from MIRI about The Value Learning Problem.

Abstract:

A superintelligent machine would not automatically act as intended: it will act as programmed, but the fit between human intentions and formal specification could be poor. We discuss methods by which a system could be constructed to learn what to value. We highlight open problems specific to inductive value learning (from labeled training data), and raise a number of questions about the construction of systems which model the preferences of their operators and act accordingly.

This is the sixth of six papers supporting the MIRI technical agenda. It motivates the need for value learning, a bit, and gives some early thoughts on how the problem could be approached (while pointing to some early open problems in the field).

I'm pretty excited to have the technical agenda and all its supporting papers published. Next week I'll be posting an annotated bibliography that gives more reading for each subject. The introduction to the value learning paper has been reproduced below.

Consider a superintelligent system, in the sense of Bostrom (2014), tasked with curing cancer by discovering some process which eliminates cancerous cells from a human body without causing harm to the human (no easy task to specify in its own right). The resulting behavior may be quite unsatisfactory. Among the behaviors not ruled out by this goal specification are stealing resources, proliferating robotic laboratories at the expense of the biosphere, and kidnapping human test subjects.

The intended goal, hopefully, was to cure cancer without doing any of those things, but computer systems do not automatically act as intended. Even a system smart enough to figure out what was intended is not compelled to act accordingly: human beings, upon learning that natural selection ``intended" sex to be pleasurable only for purposes of reproduction, do not thereby conclude that contraceptives are abhorrent. While one should not anthropomorphize natural selection, humans are capable of understanding the process which created them while being unmotivated to alter their preferences accordingly. For similar reasons, when constructing an artificially intelligent system, it is not sufficient to construct a system intelligent enough to understand human intentions; the system must also be purposefully constructed to pursue ...
Meetup : Regular Moscow meetup: self-esteem in CBT, psycholinguistics, philosophy of mind
by Slava Matyukhin — 2015-01-29T11:20:41.554Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Regular Moscow meetup: self-esteem in CBT, psycholinguistics, philosophy of mind

WHEN:
01 February 2015 02:00:00PM (+0300)

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

What we have planned for Sunday:

Talk about the identity and self-esteem by Max, based on the ideas from Paul Graham, Albert Ellis and lesswrong.

Pavel's talk on the linguistic relativity and visual image categorization.

Pion will explain Davidson's view on the mind-body problem, and then debate it with Slava (me).

I'll summarize the results of our new habit installation group, and we'll figure out together how to continue with it.

Details in the hackpad: https://lesswrong-ru.hackpad.com/-1-2015-8OnqRJny4ZR

Info for newcomers:

We gather in the Yandex office, first revolving door is on the right from the archway, entrance 8.1. Here is a guide how to get to Yandex: http://company.yandex.ru/contacts/redrose/.
If you're late, send me an SMS at +7(926)313-96-42; you'll have to wait until I'm free to go down and meet you (which might take a while, I'm often busy with coordinating other stuff at the meetup).
Expected time length is 4-5 hours.

If you're not the member of our Moscow community yet, you might want to check out https://lesswrong-ru.hackpad.com/, there's a lot of content about what's been going on for the last two years.

PS: This is our traditional bi-weekly LW meetup, which is different from the LW lecture centre which started last week. The margin of this announcement is too narrow to contain the explanation on how and why this happened, but you may find some clues in the hackpad which I linked above.

Discussion article for the meetup : Regular Moscow meetup: self-esteem in CBT, psycholinguistics, philosophy of mind
[LINK] The P + epsilon Attack (Precommitment in cryptoeconomics)
by DanielVarga — 2015-01-29T02:02:16.615Z

Vitalik Buterin has a new post about an interesting theoretical attack against Bitcoin. The idea relies on the assumption that the attacker can credibly commit to something quite crazy. The crazy thing is this: paying out 25.01 BTC to all the people who help him in his attack to steal 25 BTC from everyone, but only if the attack fails. This leads to a weird payoff matrix where the dominant strategy is to help him in the attack. The attack succeeds, and no payoff is made.

Of course, smart contracts make such crazy commitments perfectly possible, so this is a bit less theoretical than it sounds. But even as an abstract though experiment about decision theories, it looks pretty interesting.

By the way, Vitalik Buterin is really on a roll. Just a week ago he had a thought-provoking blog post about how Decentralized Autonomous Organizations could possibly utilize a concept often discussed here: decision theory in a setup where agents can inspect each others' source code. It was shared on LW Discussion, but earned less exposure than I think it deserved.

EDIT 1: One smart commenter of the original post spotted that an isomorphic, extremely cool game was already proposed by billionaire Warren Buffett. Does this thing already have a name in game theory maybe?

EDIT 2: I wrote the game up in detail for some old-school game theorist friends:

The attacker orchestrates a game with 99 players. The attacker himself does not participate in the game.

Rules:

Each of the players can either defect or cooperate, in the usual game theoretic setup where they do announce their decisions simultaneously, without side channels. We call "aggregate outcome" the decision that was made by the majority of the players. If the aggregate outcome is defection, we say that the attack succeeds. A player's payoff consists of two components:

1. If her decision coincides with the aggregate outcome, the player gets 10 utilons.

and simultaneously:

2. if the attack succeeds, the attacker gets 1 utilons from each of the 99 players, regardless of their own decision.

| Cooperate | Defect

Attack fails | 10 | 0

Attack succeeds | -1 | 9

There are two equilibria, but the second payoff component breaks the symmetry, and everyone will cooperate.

Now the attacker spices thing

...
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, January 2015, chapter 103
by b_sen — 2015-01-29T01:44:54.482Z

New chapter, and the end is now in sight!

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 103.

There is a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.
(misleading title removed)
by The_Jaded_One — 2015-01-28T23:00:58.639Z

An article by AAAI president Tom Dietterich and Director of Microsoft Research Eric Horvitz has recently got some media attention (BBC, etc) downplaying AI existential risks. You can go read it yourself, but the key paragraph is this:

A third set of risks echo the tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Suppose we tell a self-driving car to “get us to the airport as quickly as possible!” Would the autonomous driving system put the pedal to the metal and drive at 300 mph while running over pedestrians? Troubling scenarios of this form have appeared recently in the press. Other fears center on the prospect of out-of-control superintelligences that threaten the survival of humanity. All of these examples refer to cases where humans have failed to correctly instruct the AI algorithm in how it should behave.

This is not a new problem. An important aspect of any AI system that interacts with people is that it must reason about what people intend rather than carrying out commands in a literal manner. An AI system should not only act on a set of rules that it is instructed to obey — it must also analyze and understand whether the behavior that a human is requesting is likely to be judged as “normal” or “reasonable” by most people. It should also be continuously monitoring itself to detect abnormal internal behaviors, which might signal bugs, cyberattacks, or failures in its understanding of its actions. In addition to relying on internal mechanisms to ensure proper behavior, AI systems need to have the capability — and responsibility — of working with people to obtain feedback and guidance. They must know when to stop and “ask for directions” — and always be open for feedback.

Some of the most exciting opportunities ahead for AI bring together the complementary talents of people and computing systems. AI-enabled devices are ... (examples follow) ...

In reality, creating real-time control systems where control needs to shift rapidly and fluidly between people and AI algorithms is difficult. Some airline accidents occurred when pilots took over from the autopilots. The problem is that unless the human operator has been paying very close attention, he or she will lack a detailed understanding of the current situation.

AI doomsday scenarios belong more in the realm of science fic

...
Meetup : Meet Up: West LA - BayesCon
by AvivaLasVegas — 2015-01-28T21:07:03.268Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Meet Up: West LA - BayesCon

WHEN:
28 January 2015 07:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
11066 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

How to Find Us: Go into this Del Taco. We will be in the back room if possible.

Parking is free in the lot out front or on the street nearby.

Discussion: We are going to be spending at least part of our meet up today on BayesCon (formerly called Rat Day), the formal planning and finishing up on the details. Anyone is free to attend this meetup, however, if you are unfamiliar with this event there might be some confusion.

BayesCon: a one-day event devoted to lectures, discussions, debates and games related to Bayesian rationality and life optimization. No participation is necessary in attending the event, however, everyone is encouraged to take part.

No prior exposure to Less Wrong is required; this will be generally accessible.

Discussion article for the meetup : Meet Up: West LA - BayesCon
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Performance of Masculinity
by RobinZ — 2015-01-28T16:39:50.628Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Performance of Masculinity

WHEN:
01 February 2015 03:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

We will be meeting in the Kogod Courtyard of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (8th and F Sts or 8th and G Sts NW, go straight past the information desk from either entrance) to discuss a pair of articles about how men are taught to behave in the U.S. As usual, we will congregate between 3:00 and 3:30 and begin at 3:30.

The two articles are "The Performance of Masculinity" and "Picking and Choosing from the 'Act Like a Man Box'" by Charlie Glickman. They describe, first, a set of stereotypes that men in the United States are taught to conform to; second, some of the effects of their attempts to fit the image; and third, some ways to move beyond the "Act Like A Man" construct into patterns of behavior that are more healthy.

As always, anyone not interested in the official topic is allowed and encouraged to start side conversations.

There are no weekend service adjustments scheduled for Sunday on WMATA. The Verizon Center schedule for February 1 has a Capitals game versus the St. Louis Blues, scheduled to start at 1 p.m. - according to the Internet, a typical ice hockey game takes 3 to 3-1/2 hours.

Note: we are tentatively planning to have the Feb. 8 Fun & Games meetup at an Arlington location to facilitate electronic entertainments. Details will accompany next week's announcement.

Upcoming meetups:

Feb. 8: Fun & Games (bring games, play games, converse, socialize, or any combination thereof)

Feb. 15: Book Swap (lend books, borrow books, talk about books)

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Performance of Masculinity
[Link] - Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions
by plex — 2015-01-28T15:29:07.226Z

From a paper by Center for Technology and National Security Policy & National Defense University:

"Strong AI: Strong AI has been the holy grail of artificial intelligence research for decades. Strong AI seeks to build a machine which can simulate the full range of human cognition, and potentially include such traits as consciousness, sentience, sapience, and self-awareness. No AI system has so far come close to these capabilities; however, many now believe that strong AI may be achieved sometime in the 2020s. Several technological advances are fostering this optimism; for example, computer processors will likely reach the computational power of the human brain sometime in the 2020s (the so-called “singularity”). Other fundamental advances are in development, including exotic/dynamic processor architectures, full brain simulations, neuro-synaptic computers, and general knowledge representation systems such as IBM Watson. It is difficult to fully predict what such profound improvements in artificial cognition could imply; however, some credible thinkers have already posited a variety of potential risks related to loss of control of aspects of the physical world by human beings. For example, a 2013 report commissioned by the United Nations has called for a worldwide moratorium on the development and use of autonomous robotic weapons systems until international rules can be developed for their use.

National Security Implications: Over the next 10 to 20 years, robotics and AI will continue to make significant improvements across a broad range of technology applications of relevance to the U.S. military. Unmanned vehicles will continue to increase in sophistication and numbers, both on the battlefield and in supporting missions. Robotic systems can also play a wider range of roles in automating routine tasks, for example in logistics and administrative work. Telemedicine, robotic assisted surgery, and expert systems can improve military health care and lower costs. The built infrastructure, for example, can be managed more effectively with embedded systems, saving energy and other resources. Increasingly sophisticated weak AI tools can offload much of the routine cognitive or decisionmaking tasks that currently require human operators. Assuming current systems move closer to strong AI capabilities, they could also play a larger and more significant r...
Meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna
by AnnaLeptikon — 2015-01-28T13:59:42.577Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna

WHEN:
21 February 2015 03:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Kaisermühlenstraße 24/2, 1220 Vienna

Since we don't have an agenda yet it might be another open mic session, where we collect topics in the beginning and then decide what we want to hear

For more informations: https://www.facebook.com/events/687327848053547/

Discussion article for the meetup : Rationality Meetup Vienna
[link] Speed is the New Intelligence
by Gunnar_Zarncke — 2015-01-28T11:11:56.860Z

From Scott Adams Blog

The article really is about speeding up government, but the key point is speed as a component of smart:

A smart friend told me recently that speed is the new intelligence, at least for some types of technology jobs. If you are hiring an interface designer, for example, the one that can generate and test several designs gets you further than the “genius” who takes months to produce the first design to test. When you can easily test alternatives, the ability to quickly generate new things to test is a substitute for intelligence.

This shifts the focus from the ability to grasp and think through very complex topics (includes good working memory and memory recall in general) to the ability new topics quickly (includes quick learning and unlearning, creativity).

Smart people in the technology world no long believe they can think their way to success. Now the smart folks try whatever plan looks promising, test it, tweak it, and reiterate. In that environment, speed matters more than intelligence because no one has the psychic ability to pick a winner in advance. All you can do is try things that make sense and see what happens. Obviously this is easier to do when your product is software based.

This also changes the type of grit needed. The grit to push through a long topic versus the grit try lots of new things and to learn from failures.
Does the Utility Function Halt?
by OrphanWilde — 2015-01-28T04:08:46.047Z

Suppose, for a moment, that somebody has written the Utility Function. It takes, as its input, some Universe State, runs it through a Morality Modeling Language, and outputs a number indicating the desirability of that state relative to some baseline, and more importantly, other Universe States which we might care to compare it to.

Can I feed the Utility Function the state of my computer right now, as it is executing a program I have written? And is a universe in which my program halts superior to one in which my program wastes energy executing an endless loop?

If you're inclined to argue that's not what the Utility Function is supposed to be evaluating, I have to ask what, exactly, it -is- supposed to be evaluating? We can reframe the question in terms of the series of keys I press as I write the program, if that is an easier problem to solve than what my computer is going to do.