trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Some secondary statistics from the results of LW Survey
by Nanashi — 2015-02-12T16:46:17.108Z

Global LW (N=643) vs USA LW (N=403) vs. Average US Household (Comparable Income)

Income Bracket
LW Mean Contributions
USA LW Mean Contribution
US Mean Contributions** [1]

LW Mean Income
USA LW Mean Income
US Mean*** Income [1]

LW Contributions /Income
USA LW Contributions/Income
US Contributions/Income [1]

$0 - $25000 (41% of LW)
$1,395.11
$935.47
$1,177.52

$11,241.14
$11,326.18
$15,109.85

12.41%
8.26%
7.79%

$25000-$50000 (17% of LW)
$438.25
$571.00
$1,748.08

$34,147.14
$32,758.06
$38,203.79

1.28%
1.74%
4.58%

$50000-$75000 (12% of LW)
$1,757.77
$1,638.59
$2,191.58

$60,387.69
$61,489.30
$62,342.05

2.91%
2.66%
3.52%

$75000-$100000 (9% of LW)
$1,883.36
$2,211.81
$2,624.81

$84,204.09
$83,049.54
$87,182.68

2.24%
2.66%
3.01%

$100000-$200000 (16% of LW)
$3,645.73
$3,372.84
$3,555.02

$123,581.28
$124,577.88
$137,397.03

2.95%
2.71%
2.59%

>$200000 (5% of LW)
$14,162.35
$15,970.67
$15,843.97

$296,884.63
$299,444.44
$569,447.35

4.77%
5.33%
2.78%

Total
$2,265.56
$2,669.85
$3,949.26

$62,285.72
$75,130.37
$133,734.60

3.64%
3.55%
2.95%

All < $200000
$1,689.36
$1,649.32
$2,515.29

$51,254.43
$58,306.81
$81,207.03

3.30%
2.83%
3.10%

Global LW (N=643) vs USA LW (N=403) vs. Average US Citizen (Comparable Age)

Age Bracket*
LW Median
US LW Median
US Median*** [2]

15-24
$17,000.00
$20,000.00
$26,999.13

25-34
$50,000.00
$60,504.00
$45,328.70

All <35
$40,000.00
$58,000.00
$40,889.57

Global LW (N=407) vs USA LW (N=243) vs. Average US Citizen (Comparable IQ)

Average LW**
US LW
US Between 125-155 IQ [3]

Median Income
$40,000.00
$58,000.00
$60,528.70

Mean Contributions
$2,265.56
$2,669.85
$2,016.00

Note: Three data points were removed from the sample due to my subjective opinion that they were fake. Any self-reported IQs of 0 were removed. Any self-reported income of 0 was removed.

*89% of the LW population is between the age of 15 and 34.

**88% of the LW population has an IQ between 125 and 155, with an average IQ of 138.

****Median numbers were adjusted down by a factor of 1.15 to account for the fact that the sour...
Meetup : Moscow meetup: The Toulmin model of argument, belief investigation exercise, psycholinguistics
by Slava Matyukhin — 2015-02-12T11:58:16.324Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow meetup: The Toulmin model of argument, belief investigation exercise, psycholinguistics

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

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

Here's our plan for this Sunday:

Pion will give a short talk about the Toulmin model of argument

we'll have our usual belief investigation practice after this, hopefully using Toulmin's ideas

Pavel will give a talk on the linguistic relativity and visual image categorization (which was canceled last time)

finally, L29Ah will mediate a L29Ah-style discussion on why people attend our meetups

Details are in the hackpad: https://lesswrong-ru.hackpad.com/-15-2015-CRsNho3Ld1v. Feel free to ask and comment on anything related to our meetups there.

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 3-4 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.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow meetup: The Toulmin model of argument, belief investigation exercise, psycholinguistics
Meetup : Seattle Sequences group: Mysterious Answers 1
by SeekingEternity — 2015-02-12T09:15:14.895Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Seattle Sequences group: Mysterious Answers 1

WHEN:
16 February 2015 06:30:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
185 Stevens Way, Seattle, Washington 98195

Location is the Paul G. Allen center (CSE building) on UW campus, room 503.
Details on Facebook at (should be visible without signing in) https://www.facebook.com/events/1552575281693265/

This is a weekly meetup to discuss and work through the Sequences while getting to know other aspiring rationalists in the Seattle area. Each week's reading list is posted in the relevant Facebook event. As the name suggests, this meetup will go over the first part of the "Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions" sequence. We previously covered the "Map and territory" sequence.All are welcome to join, though, even if they've read all of the sequences already or haven't yet caught up to us.

Discussion article for the meetup : Seattle Sequences group: Mysterious Answers 1
The Truth About Mathematical Ability
by JonahS — 2015-02-12T01:29:53.220Z

There's widespread confusion about the nature of mathematical ability, for a variety of reasons:

Most people don't know what math is.

Most people don't know enough statistics to analyze the question properly.

Most mathematicians are not very metacognitive.

Very few people have more than a casual interest in the subject.

If the nature of mathematical ability were exclusively an object of intellectual interest, this would be relatively inconsequential. For example, many people are confused about Einstein’s theory of relativity, but this doesn’t have much of an impact on their lives. But in practice, people’s misconceptions about the nature of mathematical ability seriously interfere with their own ability to learn and do math, something that hurts them both professionally and emotionally.

I have a long standing interest in the subject, and I’ve found myself in the unusual position of being an expert. My experiences include:

Completing a PhD in pure math at University of Illinois.

Four years of teaching math at the high school and college levels (precalculus, calculus, multivariable calculus and linear algebra)

Personal encounters with some of the best mathematicians in the world, and a study of great mathematicians’ biographies.

A long history of working with mathematically gifted children: as a counselor at MathPath for three summers, through one-on-one tutoring, and as an instructor at Art of Problem Solving.

Studying the literature on IQ and papers from the Study of Exceptional Talent as a part of my work for Cognito Mentoring.

Training as a full-stack web developer at App Academy.

Doing a large scale data science project where I applied statistics and machine learning to make new discoveries in social psychology.

I’ve thought about writing about the nature of mathematical ability for a long time, but there was a missing element: I myself had never done genuinely original and high quality mathematical research. After completing much of my data science project, I realized that this had changed. The experience sharpened my understanding of the issues.

This is a the first of a sequence of posts where I try to clarify the situation. My main point in this post is:

There are several different dimensions to mathematical ability. Common measures rarely assess all of these dimensions, and can paint a very incomplete picture of w

...
Human Minds are Fragile
by diegocaleiro — 2015-02-11T18:40:17.275Z

We are familiar with the thesis that Value is Fragile. This is why we are researching how to impart values to an AGI.

Embedded Minds are Fragile

Besides values, it may be worth remembering that human minds too are very fragile.

A little magnetic tampering with your amygdalas, and suddenly you are a wannabe serial killer. A small dose of LSD can get you to believe you can fly, or that the world will end in 4 hours. Remove part of your Ventromedial PreFrontal Cortex, and suddenly you are so utilitarian even Joshua Greene would call you a psycho.

It requires very little material change to substantially modify a human being's behavior. Same holds for other animals with embedded brains, crafted by evolution and made of squishy matter modulated by glands and molecular gates.

A Problem for Paul-Boxing and CEV?

One assumption underlying Paul-Boxing and CEV is that:

It is easier to specify and simulate a human-like mind then to impart values to an AGI by means of teaching it values directly via code or human language.

Usually we assume that because, as we know, value is fragile. But so are embedded minds. Very little tampering is required to profoundly transform people's moral intuitions. A large fraction of the inmate population in the US has frontal lobe or amygdala malfunctions.

Finding out the simplest description of a human brain that when simulated continues to act as that human brain would act in the real world may turn out to be as fragile, or even more fragile, than concept learning for AGI's.
A rational approach to the issue of permanent death-prevention
by Nanashi — 2015-02-11T12:22:34.165Z

Edit: Removed intro because it adds no value to the post. Left in for posterity. The vast majority of all ethical and logistical problems revolve around a single inconvenient fact: human beings die unwillingly. "Should we sacrifice one person to save ten?" or "Is it ethical to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?" become irrelevant questions if no one has to die unless they want to. Similarly, almost all altruistic goals have, at their core, the goal of stopping death in some way shape or form.

The question, "How can we permanently prevent death?" is of paramount importance, and not just to Rationalists. So, it should be a surprise to no one that mystics, crackpots, spiritualists and pseudo-scientists of all walks of life have co-opted this quest as their own. The loftiness of the goal, combined with the cosmic implications of its success, combined with the sheer number of irrational people also seeking to achieve the same goal may make it tempting to apply the non-central fallacy and say, "I'm not interested in stopping death; that's something crazy people do."

But it's a fallacy for a reason: there is a rational way to approach the problem. Let's start with a pair of general statements:

X is the cause of the perception of consciousness. (Current hypothesis: X="human brain").

Recreation of X with >Y% fidelity results in a the perception of a consciousness functionally indistinguishable from the original to an outside observer. original text: "results in the continuation of the perception of consciousness".

These two statements border on tautological, and so they aren't that helpful by themselves. It doesn't sound nearly as impressive to say "Something causes something else," nor does it sound impressive to say, "If you copy all properties of X, all properties of X are duplicated."

But it's important because it lays down the basic framework for which an extremely complex question can begin to be solved. In this case, the solution can be broken down into at least two major sub-problems: The Collection Problem ("How do we 'collect' enough information on X in order to be able to recreate it with Y% fidelity") and The Creation Problem ("Once we have that information, how do we create a physical representation of it?").

Neither of these problems are trivial, quite the opposite. They are ridiculousl

...
An implementation of modal UDT
by Benya_Fallenstein — 2015-02-11T06:02:22.000Z

One of the great advantages of working with Gödel-Löb provability logic is that it's possible to implement an evaluator which efficiently checks whether a sentence in the language of GL is true. Mihaly and Marcello used this to write a program that checks whether two modal agents cooperate or defect against each other. Today, Nate and I extended this with an implementation of modal UDT, which allows us to check what UDT does on different decision problems---see Program.hs in the Github repository. No guarantees for correctness, since this was written rather quickly; if anybody is able to take the time to check the code, that would be very much appreciated!

The implementation of UDT is rather pleasing, I think. Here's the informal definition of modal UDT, using PA + ℓ:

For every possible outcome j, from best to worst:

For every possible action i, in order:

If it's provable in PA + ℓ that "UDT takes action i" implies "the universe returns outcome j", then take action i.

If you're still here, return a default action.

Here is the corresponding Haskell code:

udt :: (Enum a,Ord b,Show b,Enum b)
=> Int -> ModalProgram b a -> b -> ModalProgram b b
udt level univ dflt = modalProgram dflt $
mFor $ \a ->
mFor $ \b ->
mIf (boxk level (Var b %> univ a)) (mReturn b)

Being able to write modal UDT like this makes it very easy to implement and try small variations on the code.

We used this code to check what modal UDT would do in a version of Newcomb's problem where Omega uses proofs in PA (rather than simulations) to decide whether to put the money in the box; that is, it will put a million dollars in the first box if and only if it can prove that you will one-box. If our code is correct, it turns out that in this case, modal UDT will do whatever its default action was.

Earlier, we thought we had proved a different result on the whiteboard, but after the code disagreed with us, we went over it again and found a bug in our proof. After fixing that bug, we now have a manual proof that UDT will end up taking its default action in this scenario (which I'll write about some other time). So looks like this can be a useful tool for figuring out this sort of thing!
Meetup : Paris Meetup
by Emile — 2015-02-10T09:39:39.109Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Paris Meetup

WHEN:
14 February 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Café des Arts et Métiers, 51 Rue de Turbigo, 75003 Paris France

A bit of last minute organization, we had talked about it on our mailing list but hadn't settled on a date. Better late than never!

Discussion article for the meetup : Paris Meetup
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Book Swap
by RobinZ — 2015-02-10T06:12:55.418Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Book Swap

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

WHERE:
Reynolds Center

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 lend, borrow, and discuss books brought by attendees. As usual, we will congregate between 3:00 and 3:30 and begin at 3:30; when everyone is done talking books, the meetup will revert to unstructured discussion.

As before, a couple notes:

There is no obligation to lend, borrow, or return books at book swap meetups. You are not required to bring any given book, or any books at all; you are not required to lend the books that you do bring; if you wish to lend out a given book, you are not required to lend it out to the first person to ask (or to the next person to ask, or to anyone at all); you are not required to borrow a book that is offered to you; and if you have already borrowed a book, you are not required to return it at this meetup. This is a Schelling point for book swaps, nothing more.

Books belong to their owners - keep any book you borrow in good condition, and return it in a timely fashion when you finish reading it or when the owner asks for it back.

In the past, the owners of some books have given permission for borrowers to lend them directly to anyone at the meetup who is interested. If you do not have permission from the owner of the book, do not do this.

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

Major track work is scheduled on the Blue Line, with buses replacing trains between King St-Old Town, and Van Dorn St stations; Red Line trains passing through Gallery Place will be running at 20-minute intervals. No other rail advisories have been announced as of February 9th. The Verizon Center schedule for February 15 has a Disney On Ice production booked, with shows starting at 12:30 and 4:30; doors open an hour beforehand for each.

Upcoming meetups:

Feb. 22: What-If Scenario (discuss one or more interesting hypotheticals)

Mar. 1: Fun & Games (w/Nomic) (bring games, play games, converse, socialize, or any combination thereof)

Mar. 8: Mini Talks (short lectures on ra

...
Is LessWrong dying?
by Davidmanheim — 2015-02-10T05:05:59.070Z

An old joke;

"What bar should we go to?"

"Oh, I like Bar X"

"No-one goes there anymore, it's too crowded"

I suspect that LessWrong is getting too crowded for many people to come here. We're well above Dunbar's number, and most of us can't get to know the other active users without a large investment of time. Other than Eliezer, and maybe a couple of other very frequent past contributors (Yvain, Luke, Anna) the site seems fractured - there are too many people to keep track of socially, and the local groups are kind of doing their own thing. The early heavy users are largely gone (as noted by inferential, http://lesswrong.com/lw/le5/welcome_to_less_wrong_7th_thread_december_2014/bsyj) and the site has split; MIRI, CFAR, and related work seem to have (usefully) siphoned off much of the energy that used to go into the site. The influx of HPMOR readers continues, and I suspect will spike again after it finishes, but Lesswrong is beginning to seem more useful as an archive for the sequences, and an extended chat group, than a source of new and useful ideas.

I think there is a simple reason: either you're very in the know, or you can't participate much. The bar for participating has gotten higher as the community has evolved and become well versed in the basics; now there is less to say that's accessible without a heavy background, and many of those things are technical, deep, or uninteresting to casual readers. Adding to this, it seems that if you're very in the know, the utility of the site goes down significantly (or other options open up,) so you eventually leave - to better things, probably. I'm not suggesting that this is an unmitigated bad thing, but I'd like to hear what others think about the idea that LessWrong as a community has largely outgrown this forum - it's useful as a touchstone for meetups and reference to older material, but not nearly as useful as a living site.

What say you? Am I wrong? Are there things we can or should do as a community to change this, or should we try to continue to transition to more meetups, and to MIRI/CFAR-oriented endeavors?
Quotes Repository
by Dorikka — 2015-02-10T04:36:19.814Z

Quotes are a unique enough medium of expression that I'm interested in viewing quotes that people have found collectable, emotionally impactful, useful, memorable, or otherwise noteworthy - perhaps others are similarly interested. To clarify, these need not be even remotely related to rationality. I'm hijacking the mandates traditionally used for the Rationality Quotes thread, with a few modifications:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)

Do not quote yourself.

Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson.

Do not repeat quotes found in a Rationality Quotes thread.

If possible, try to post sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Note that this can be helpful, but is not mandatory - I would much prefer a quote with only a name to no quote at all.

Please post any meta discussion in the top-level comment named "Meta".
Superintelligence 22: Emulation modulation and institutional design
by KatjaGrace — 2015-02-10T02:06:01.155Z

This is part of a weekly reading group on Nick Bostrom's book, Superintelligence. For more information about the group, and an index of posts so far see the announcement post. For the schedule of future topics, see MIRI's reading guide.

Welcome. This week we discuss the twenty-second section in the reading guide: Emulation modulation and institutional design.

This post summarizes the section, and offers a few relevant notes, and ideas for further investigation. Some of my own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.

There is no need to proceed in order through this post, or to look at everything. Feel free to jump straight to the discussion. Where applicable and I remember, page numbers indicate the rough part of the chapter that is most related (not necessarily that the chapter is being cited for the specific claim).

Reading: “Emulation modulation” through “Synopsis” from Chapter 12.

Summary

Emulation modulation: starting with brain emulations with approximately normal human motivations (the 'augmentation' method of motivation selection discussed on p142), and potentially modifying their motivations using drugs or digital drug analogs.

Modifying minds would be much easier with digital minds than biological ones

Such modification might involve new ethical complications

Institution design (as a value-loading method): design the interaction protocols of a large number of agents such that the resulting behavior is intelligent and aligned with our values.

Groups of agents can pursue goals that are not held by any of their constituents, because of how they are organized. Thus organizations might be intentionally designed to pursue desirable goals in spite of the motives of their members.

Example: a ladder of increasingly intelligent brain emulations, who police those directly above them, with equipment to advantage the less intelligent policing ems in these interactions.

The chapter synopsis includes a good summary of all of the value-loading techniques, which I'll remind you of here instead of re-summarizing too much:

Another view

Robin Hanson also favors institution design as a method of making the future nice, though as an alternative to worrying about values:

On Tuesday I asked my law & econ undergrads what sort of future robots (AIs computers etc.) they

...
4 Common Prediction Failures and How to Fix Them [LINK]
by Peter_McIntyre — 2015-02-10T01:34:41.176Z

A post I wrote on CFAR's blog about the errors we make in hedonic prospecting, based on Gilbert and Wilson's 2007 review article of the topic. Let me know what you think! Reposting from the discussion in case anyone missed it. :)

Link.
Meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social and Board Games
by Anatoly_Vorobey — 2015-02-09T21:57:05.884Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social and Board Games

WHEN:
10 February 2015 07:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Google Tel Aviv

We're going to have a meetup on Tuesday, December 9th at Google Israel's offices, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon st., Tel Aviv.

This time we're going to have a social meetup! We'll be socializing and playing games.

Specifically, we look forward to playing any cool board or card game anyone will bring. By all means bring your favorite game(s) with you and teach others or find people who already like that game. But it's also fine to come empty-handed. We always end up with enough games for everyone.

We'll start the meetup at 19:00, and we'll go on as much as we like to. Feel free to come a little bit later, as there is no agenda. (We've decided to start slightly earlier this time to give us more time and accommodate people with different schedules).

We'll meet at the 29th floor of the building. If you arrive and cant find your way around, call Anatoly, who is graciously hosting us, at 054-245-1060. Email at avorobey@gmail.com also works. See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social and Board Games