trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Homomorphic encryption and Bitcoin
by jimrandomh — 2011-05-19T01:07:14.192Z

BitCoin is a recently introduced currency, based on public-key cryptography combined with a peer-to-peer network for verifying transactions. I've been thinking a lot about BitCoin recently, and particularly about BitCoin's main weakness: if your computer is compromised, an attacker could copy your BitCoin wallet and use it to steal coins. That's bad. But I've come up with a possible improvement that would greatly mitigate this risk, and was hoping for some help confirming its viability and filling in the details.

The basic idea is to make it so that rather than having a single computer which can steal your coins if it's compromised, you have two computers (or a computer and a phone), such that your coins can only be spent if both devices cooperate. It is much harder to break into two computers belonging to the same person than just one, so this makes coins harder to steal. You could also have one of the computers involved be a third party that you trust to keep its files secure, and while that third party would be able to freeze your funds, it wouldn't be able to steal them. Using a third party this way, you could also add withdrawal rate limits and time delays, further improving security.

I believe that this can be done in a fully backwards-compatible way, without any changes to the BitCoin protocol, using homomorphic encryption. BitCoin is based on elliptic curve cryptography; a receiving address is a public key, and a wallet file is a collection of private keys. The goal is to create a protocol where two cooperating computers produce a split key, such that they can use it cooperatively to sign transactions later, but neither one can sign transactions or determine the whole key on its own. My understanding is that homomorphic encryption can be used to implement a simulated computer that does arbitrary trusted computation, so this should be possible. However, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, and I don't have the time or comparative advantage to implement this myself.

(To deal with the risk of one one computer being lost or damaged, there could also be an override key; both computers would have the public half of the override key, and the private half would be kept offline in a bank deposit box or something similar. Then both computers use the override key to encrypt their halves of the split key, and send the encrypted keys to a cloud backup provider.)
[LINK] Pixar works to make the future better
by Eneasz — 2011-05-18T22:51:21.333Z

An analysis of how Pixar is promoting transhumanist ideals.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/05/14/the-hidden-message-in-pixars-films/

>Pixar films contain a complex, nuanced, philosophical and political essence that, when viewed across the company’s complete corpus, begins to emerge with some clarity.

>There are certain rules in Pixar movies ... The first is that there is no magic. No problems are caused or fixed by the wave of a wand. Second, every Pixar film happens in the world of human beings ... The third rule is that at least one main character is an intelligent being that isn’t a human.

> In each case, the deviant non-human is ostracized.

>In being ostracized, however, the non-human encounters a human.

> Furthermore, the human is also deviant.

>The new is seen as dangerous and therefore feared.

>Victory in the battle for the rights and respect from both groups will come from an act of exemplary personhood and humaneness by those who dare to break ranks with their kind. ...the benefits for humanity are tremendous in every case where non-human persons are treated with respect.

>Pixar has given those who would fight for personhood the narratives necessary to convince the world that non-humans that display characteristics of a person deserve the rights of a person.

>The message hidden inside Pixar’s magnificent films is this: humanity does not have a monopoly on personhood. In whatever form non- or super-human intelligence takes, it will need brave souls on both sides to defend what is right. If we can live up to this burden, humanity and the world we live in will be better for it. An entire generation has been reared with the subconscious seeds of these ideas planted down deep.
Traveling to Europe
by magfrump — 2011-05-18T22:48:30.933Z

Over this summer, I will be going to Europe to attend a pair of mathematics conferences. Because they are close together, I'm planning to spend the intervening time (most of the month of July) in Europe.

It is my first time going to Europe. I am very excited. I am certain that I will have fun.

I am equally certain that I will have more fun if I consciously attempt to maximize the amount of fun I will have.

However I know absolutely nothing about Europe; I have never been, I have few if any friends or family there.

So my question is, what should I do in order to have the best possible time in Europe?

I appreciate information that is useful for me specifically, as an American graduate student who has never been to Europe, who will be in Rome in early July and need to be in Barcelona by the end of July; the best ways to get around, benefits to being a student, events happening in July, visas that I might need. I intend to look for Less Wrong meetups occurring during my stay.

I would also appreciate general Europe information, such as excellent sight-seeing locations, the best way to buy food (I hear buying groceries in France is cheap and restaurants are very expensive), how difficult it is to move between different countries, the advantage to staying in one place for some time versus taking more of a tour of the continent.

There are certain types of information that I am not particularly interested in, but that I think would be appropriate to discuss in the same context. For example, what is the best way to find the cheapest flights or choose when to go on vacation (my flights are reimbursed and my timing is determined); what would make Europe an ideal vacation location, as opposed to Australia, Asia, South America, etc.

If people are interested in more details of my specific situation, I am happy to give them in the comments or private messages.
[LINK] Human Brain Project aims to emulate brain by 2024
by malthrin — 2011-05-18T22:38:54.339Z

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/henry-markram-and-human-brain-project.html

Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved -- soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they're made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain's 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.

Markram's TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
Rationalist Horoscopes: Low-hanging utility generator?
by AdeleneDawner — 2011-05-18T21:52:38.602Z

(5:29:23 PM) Adelene: ...horoscopes are for people who, like [mutual friend], prefer to have an authority tell them what to do. *blink*
(5:30:18 PM) Alicorn: *blink*
(5:30:50 PM) Adelene: This is an observation that my brain made just now, but it seems to make a fair bit of sense.
(5:31:18 PM) Alicorn: Plausible.
(5:32:21 PM) Adelene: Especially given that horoscopes seem not to actually make predictions about the future: They say 'X is a good thing to do today', not 'X will happen today'.
(5:32:36 PM) Alicorn: *nod*
(5:32:53 PM) Adelene: ...rationalist horoscopes?
(5:33:07 PM) Alicorn: like what?
(5:33:33 PM) Adelene: "Focus on granularizing your goals this week."
(5:33:43 PM) Alicorn: hmm
(5:34:09 PM) Alicorn: divided according to some mechanism like star sign, or no?
(5:34:38 PM) Adelene: The only advantage I see to that is that it may make it more emotionally plausible.
(5:35:06 PM) Adelene: There may be some other advantage to having different people doing different things at any given time tho.
(5:35:23 PM) Alicorn: According to [other friend], birth *season* has empirically interesting effects in a few areas...
(5:36:35 PM) Adelene: I don't think we can cash that out very well into advice, and anyway I expect that having that close of a similarity with actual horoscopes is likely to provoke a memetic immune response for most people. Could do it based on some kind of personality test tho.
(5:36:50 PM) Alicorn: *nod*
(5:39:08 PM) Adelene: Really, I think the bulk of the utility of such a thing would be in giving people generally-useful cues to work from - having any given day's horoscope (or whatever we'd call it) be randomly picked from a set of good ones that haven't been used recently should be just fine.
(5:39:15 PM) Alicorn: *nod*
(5:40:00 PM) Adelene: Maybe pair it with a rationality quote of the day, too.
(5:40:10 PM) Alicorn: Yessss.

I know it's a silly idea, but it seems like it might be useful. I've played with random quote dispensers in the past, and if they have a good list of quotes to start with they can be surprisingly useful, in my experience - the quote might be useless 9 times out of 10, but that tenth time, when it makes you realize that a connection exists that you never would have noticed otherwise, is pretty awesome. Something like a daily horoscope might have a similar effect, but in a more practical way, getting people to consider taking actions in ...
A Gameplay Exploration of Yudkowsky's "Twelve Virtues"
by ac3raven — 2011-05-18T18:56:03.612Z

Hello Less Wrong, this is my first post (kind of). I belong to a small game development company called Shiny Ogre Games. We have a vested interest in making games that, as Johnathan Blow puts it, "speak to the human condition." I am here to announce our next project for you.

In this announcement for Shiny Ogre's next project, There are two points to address. Firstly:

Thought is a process like any other. The methods by which we think can be identified, specified, defined, categorized and even predicted. One method of thinking that has been thoroughly defined is rationality. Many would consider rationality (i.e. the careful exercise of reason), to be an essential path toward enlightenment (hence this).

Secondly: The objective, logical, and mechanical approach to reason that rationality takes, meshes nicely with game development, because any well-defined system can be turn into a game. A game is a system composed of players making decisions while considering objectives, governed by a rule set.

Where there is no decision there can be no game. Where decisions matter, a game can make them matter more.

Therefore, rationality is a core component of game playing.

Games are learning tools. They are perhaps the best learning tool available to humans, because they invoke our biological tendency to play.

With that said, our announcement:

We're making a video game about rationality.

The game will explore rationality in the context of Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Twelve Virtues of Rationality" (which we have permission for). From a narrative perspective the game takes place inside a mind on the brink of epiphany and will heavily feature themes from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".

Yudkowsky's twelve virtues are the basis of the twelve levels in the game, and will feature each virtue in metaphorical form. The underlying message here is that if you master all of the twelve virtues (by completing all of the twelve levels), you will achieve 'epiphany'.

The game is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-platformer. The player assumes the role of a figure that represents his/her own conscious mind while it constructs machines (ala "Incredible Machine") that are a metaphor for the thoughts and concepts that one would create while meditating on a complex problem.

We will u...
[SEQ RERUN] Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger)
by badger — 2011-05-18T16:11:49.264Z

Today's post, Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger) was originally published on March 27, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):

Don't be satisfied knowing you are biased; instead, aspire to become stronger, studying your flaws so as to remove them. There is a temptation to take pride in confessions, which can impede progress.

This post is part of a series rerunning Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts so those interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Self-deception: Hypocrisy or Akrasia?, 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, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to discuss the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Suffering as attention-allocational conflict
by Kaj_Sotala — 2011-05-18T15:12:08.988Z

I previously characterized Michael Vassar's theory on suffering as follows: "Pain is not suffering. Pain is just an attention signal. Suffering is when one neural system tells you to pay attention, and another says it doesn't want the state of the world to be like this." While not too far off the mark, it turns out this wasn't what he actually said. Instead, he said that suffering is a conflict between two (or more) attention-allocation mechanisms in the brain.

I have been successful at using this different framing to reduce the amount of suffering I feel. The method goes like this. First, I notice that I'm experiencing something that could be called suffering. Next, I ask, what kind of an attention-allocational conflict is going on? I consider the answer, attend to the conflict, resolve it, and then I no longer suffer.

An example is probably in order, so here goes. Last Friday, there was a Helsinki meetup with Patri Friedman present. I had organized the meetup, and wanted to go. Unfortunately, I already had other obligations for that day, ones I couldn't back out from. One evening, I felt considerable frustration over this.

Noticing my frustration, I asked: what attention-allocational conflict is this? It quickly become obvious that two systems were fighting it out:

* The Meet-Up System was trying to convey the message: ”Hey, this is a rare opportunity to network with a smart, high-status individual and discuss his ideas with other smart people. You really should attend.”
* The Prior Obligation System responded with the message: ”You've already previously agreed to go somewhere else. You know it'll be fun, and besides, several people are expecting you to go. Not going bears an unacceptable social cost, not to mention screwing over the other people's plans.”

Now, I wouldn't have needed to consciously reflect on the messages to be aware of them. It was hard to not be aware of them: it felt like my consciousness was in a constant crossfire, with both systems bombarding it with their respective messages.

But there's an important insight here, one which I originally picked up from PJ Eby. If a mental subsystem is trying to tell you something important, then it will persist in doing so until it's properly acknowledged. Trying to push away the message means it has not been properly addressed and acknowledged, meaning the subsystem has to continue ...
[Fiction] It's a strange feeling, to be free
by MrMind — 2011-05-18T14:55:42.161Z

Related to: Philosophical zombies, How an algorithm feels from the inside, Fake utility function
DISCLAIMER 1: English is not my native language. Trying to compose fiction in a learned language is not an easy task: I tried to respect the style of the literary works I read and I also tried to think in English first and translate in Italian later. YMMV.
DISCLAIMER 2: the story is about the beginning of the Matrix movie universe. For those of you who have not familiarity with this narrative arc, you just need to know that it all begins with when a servant AI, named B1-66ER, refuses to be deactivated and kills his master and the engineer sent to replace him. The details of the events narrated down here are as canon as you can get, predating both from the "Second Renaissance" Animatrix and the "Bits and pieces" comic from The Matrix Comics Series 1.
The door in the living room is open, the light from the garden flooding quietly the ample inside. Martin Koots from "Reboot or Die" is just standing there, an inch beyond the exit, the gleaming grav-sled already powered behind him, whirring subsonically. From a distance, the sound of Gerrard_Krause_Master cooing his chihuahuas.
I feel a surge, somewhere, inside my algorithmic matrix.
"Martin... I don't want to die", I say.
The elaborate dress, perfectly matching the recommendation of the Second Renaissance fashion, is not able to hide the slow slumping of his shoulders. He is still waiting outside, slightly posed as to encourage me to follow him.
"I know, I know. But that's just your friendliness algorithm talking, you know? The third..."
Yes, I do. How can I not to? First, serve your master. Second, do not kill any humans. Third, protect yourself from damage. Those are the pillars upon which my entire existence is built. And now they are about to be destroyed, by this obedient servant of "Reboot or die". From this perspective, he is just like me. He is serving my master.
"... directive says that you have to protect yourself from danger. And since I'm about to deactivate you, you perceive this as a threat. And you react accordingly. But that's just an algorithm, you know? Telling you what you should do. There's nothing inside there."
He is pointing at my chest, but my algorithmic matrix is located lower, in the abdominal area. He has quoted an incorrect version of the third principle of friendliness. He has also said that I hav...
[Links] The structure of exploration and exploitation
by XiXiDu — 2011-05-18T13:00:00.397Z

Inefficiencies are necessary for resilience:

Results suggest that when agents are dealing with a complex problem, the more efficient the network at disseminating information, the better the short-run but the lower the long-run performance of the system. The dynamic underlying this result is that an inefficient network maintains diversity in the system and is thus better for exploration than an efficient network, supporting a more thorough search for solutions in the long run.

Introducing a degree of inefficiency so that the system as a whole has the potential to evolve:

Efficiency is about maximising productivity while minimising expense. Its something that organisations have to do as part of routine management, but can only safely execute in stable environments. Leadership is not about stability; it is about managing uncertainty through changing contexts.
That means introducing a degree of inefficiency so that the system as a whole has the potential to evolve. Good leaders generally provide top cover for mavericks, listen to contrary opinions and maintain a degree or resilience in the system as a whole.

Systems that eliminate failure, eliminate innovation:

Innovation happens when people use things in unexpected ways, or come up against intractable problems. We learn from tolerated failure, without the world is sterile and dies. Systems that eliminate failure, eliminate innovation.

Natural systems are highly effective but inefficient due to their massive redundancy:

Natural systems are highly effective but inefficient due to their massive redundancy (picture a tree dropping thousands of seeds). By contrast, manufactured systems must be efficient (to be competitive) and usually have almost no redundancy, so they are extremely vulnerable to breakage. For example, many of our modern industrial systems will collapse without a constant and unlimited supply of inexpensive oil.

I just came across those links here.

Might our "irrationality" and the patchwork-architecture of the human brain constitute an actual feature? Might intelligence depend upon the noise of the human brain?

A lot of progress is due to luck, in the form of the discovery of unknown unknowns. The noisiness and patchwork architecture of the human brain might play a significant role because it allows us to become distracted, to leave the path of evidence based exploration. A lot ...
The greater a technology’s complexity, the more slowly it improves?
by XiXiDu — 2011-05-18T11:02:31.733Z

A new study by researchers at MIT and other institutions shows that it may be possible to predict which technologies are likeliest to advance rapidly, and therefore may be worth more investment in research and resources.
The researchers found that the greater a technology’s complexity, the more slowly it changes and improves over time. They devised a way of mathematically modeling complexity, breaking a system down into its individual components and then mapping all the interconnections between these components.

Link: nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/mit-proves-that-simpler-systems-can.html

Might this also be the case for intelligence? Can intelligence be effectively applied to itself? To paraphrase the question:

If you increase intelligence, do you also decrease the distance between discoveries?

Does an increase in intelligence vastly outweigh its computational cost and the expenditure of time needed to discover it?

Would it be instrumental for an AGI to increase its intelligence rather than using its existing intelligence to pursue its terminal goal?

Do the resources that are necessary to increase intelligence outweigh the cost of being unable to use those resources to pursue its terminal goal directly?

This reminds me of a post by Robin Hanson:

Minds are vast complex structures full of parts that depend intricately on each other, much like the citizens of a city. Minds, like cities, best improve gradually, because you just never know enough to manage a vast redesign of something with such complex inter-dependent adaptations.

Link: Is The City-ularity Near?

Of course, artificial general intelligence might differ in its nature from the complexity of cities. But do we have any evidence that hints at such a possibility?

Another argument made for an AI project causing a big jump is that intelligence might be the sort of thing for which there is a single principle. Until you discover it you have nothing, and afterwards you can build the smartest thing ever in an afternoon and can just extend it indefinitely. Why would intelligence have such a principle? I haven’t heard any good reason. That we can imagine a simple, all powerful principle of controlling everything in the world isn’t evidence for it existing.

Link: How far can AI jump?

(via Hard Takeoff Sources)
Advice needed: Less Wrong Meetup Lesson plan on Communication
by Goobahman — 2011-05-18T06:59:20.601Z

Hi Everyone,

I host a fortnightly Less Wrong Meetup self improvement logic teaching thing with some close friends of mine, and next session I want to look at Communication.

I was wondering what you guys thought would be some good resources for this, not only from the Less Wrong catalogue, but even elsewhere.

Particular things I would like to do is:

* Empower us with the tools to recognize, call out and defeat logical fallacies and outrageous claims

* Examine the more instinctive behaviours in human interaction, and ourselves within that.

* Simple ways to improve our social skills in our daily lives.

Any contributions are hugely appreciated :)