trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
How can total world index fund growth outpace money supply growth over the long term?
by pando — 2023-01-02T05:33:40.620Z

I don't understand how we can expect a basket of all publicly traded securities (something like the ticker VTWAX) to grow above the rate of global money supply growth over the long term.

Let's assume there is a fixed amount of money in the economy, and the money supply is not increasing. For the market cap of VTWAX to continue increasing, it seems like the money must be drawn away from other areas of the economy. Assuming something like 7% share price growth per year (roughly the historical average), eventually we will reach a point where the market cap of VTWAX is 100% of all money in circulation. Heck, eventually the share price goes to infinity and is greater than all money in circulation.

I hear a lot of people recommending buying global index funds, arguing that economic growth will continue into the future. However, if the money supply is fixed, it seems like we'd probably have technological improvement without corresponding increase in share price of the global index fund. E.g., all goods and food might become much cheaper and more efficient to make but the market cap of all publicly traded companies would hover around a fixed portion of the global economy.

One possible way that I can see share prices continuing to rise is increasing money velocity, but this seems to have limits as well.

It seems like the meteoric stock price increases we've seen over the last 100 years have been due largely to increasing consolidation by large, publicly traded multinational companies alongside with actual increases to the money supply, most of which has hung around in asset prices.

I'd love for someone to help me understand why I'm wrong and why passive investing in a global index fund is a good idea even assuming no money supply increases.
My first year in AI alignment
by Alex_Altair — 2023-01-02T01:28:03.470Z

2022 was a pretty surprising year for me. In the beginning, I had just finished going through the Recurse Center retreat, and was expecting to go back into software engineering. As it turned out, I spent almost all of it getting increasingly committed to working on technical AI alignment research full-time.

I think a lot of people are trying out this whole "independent alignment researcher" thing, or are considering it, and I think a lot of these people are encountering a lack of structure or information. So I figure it might be helpful if I just relay what my experience has been, to add to the available information. And of course, there's a ton of variance in people's experience, so this might be more of a data point about what the variance looks like than it is about what the average looks like.

Some personal background

I'm probably pretty unusual in that I've been involved in the rationalist community since 2010. I bought the arguments for AI x-risk virtually since I first read them in the sequences. I tried somewhat to do useful work back then, but I wasn't very productive.

I have a life-long attention problem, which has mostly prevented me from being intellectually productive. Because I couldn't really do research, I went into software engineering. (This was still a struggle but was sufficiently doable to be a stable living.) A lot of this year's transition was figuring out how to do alignment work despite the attention problem.

My technical background is that I majored in math and physics in college, took most of those required classes, and also dropped out (twice). I was well above average in school (but probably average for the rationalist community). I never really did math in the interim, but it always remained part of my identity, and I have always had a theory mindset.

Goals and plans

When I say I've been "working on AI alignment," what do I mean? What sort of goals or plans have I been following? This has evolved over the year as I got more information.

First, I went through AGI Safety Fundamentals course. In the beginning I was just happy to be catching up with how the field had developed. I was also curious to see what happened when I interacted with alignment content more intensely. It turned out that I enjoyed it a lot; I loved almost every reading, and dived way deeper into the optional content.

Next, I tried to see if I could figure out what optimi...
Sail Over Mountains of ICE...
by AnthonyRepetto — 2023-01-02T00:27:31.340Z

~ constant winds carry ships FAST on Arctic ice-highways, easily made! ~

TL;DR —

Ice Ships

are

frickin’ insane

. With a mast and sail, a wide flat body, and innumerable skates, these sailboats are able to haul tonnage across frozen lakes and glaciers at up to 85 miles per hour! They regularly attain 5x wind-speeds; an 8mph breeze across the North shores of Canada and Russia would propel huge fleets 40mph with NO FUEL. An Ice-HIGHWAY covering the beaches of the Arctic shores could replace much of international shipping! Get rid of that huge fuel-cost, AND go carbon-neutral. All while traveling more than TWICE the speed of normal container ships, along a route from Finland to just north of Japan in less than five days — a SHORTER distance than the Suez circuit! So, how do you pile all that ice onto the land? Enough ice to sail over the TOP of a mountain in Siberia? Easy:

Reflect the sunlight of summer with thin Mylar tarps to bake limestone, and add a little water to that lime powder in the winter (infinitely re-useable ‘quicklime’!), to power spray-nozzles held high on aluminum frames. A single square yard of Mylar, in one summer, can power enough pumping and spray to lay Hundreds of TONS of ice, EACH winter. In less than a decade, a few tens of thousands crewmembers could build and operate transit from northern Norway and Finland across all of Russia, inland to Yakutsk, down the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk toward Japan, as well as across the Bering Strait to Alaska and then down the side of Hudson Bay to connect with the Great Lakes/Mississippi canal systems. Europe, Asia, and North America, with their Gigatons of shipping per year, would only need an ice-highway a few miles wide, a couple years to build at each site. That’s the bulk of international shipping, which is a BIG slice of the Carbon-Pie. And speeding-up those routes increases their value, while allowing the same number of ships and crew to deliver MORE goods, making more money and offering lower shipping rates, which help everyone. Details, next…

Ice Sailing

Ice Boats began popping-up in the Great Lakes more than a century ago; at the time, they were the fastest vehicles on earth. Huge ships were built, to haul tonnage between the major ports of the northern States and Canada, efficient to operate and able to carry heavier loads in proportion to their structural demands — the load is carried by th...
Fun math facts about 2023
by Adam Scherlis — 2023-01-01T23:38:22.165Z

2023=7×172

Maybe that's not fun enough? Try this:

2023=211−52

Or better yet:

20233=31176029+245568392384321573

We can scientifically quantify how fun a math fact is, so we can rest assured that this is the funnest fact about 2023 ever discovered.

But if it's not to your liking:

2023=21034−141

2023=5511+2417

2023=3647+2717

2023=24792−3672=(22797)2−(337)2

Happy New Year!
The Thingness of Things

by TsviBT — 2023-01-01T22:19:08.026Z

[Metadata: crossposted from https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-thingness-of-things.html. I'm fairly likely to not respond to comments promptly. If you're especially interested in chatting, my gmail address is: tsvibtcontact ]

What's a thing, in general? Minds deal with things, so this question comes up in trying to understand minds. Minds think about things, speak of things, manipulate things, care about things, create things, and maybe are made of things.

Things

Examples of things: table, elephant, carbon atom. France, Martin Luther King. Insertion sort. Chess. Unicorn. Learning. Seven. Towel, strand, wing, crystal, finger, space, diffraction. The laws of electromagnetism. The first World War.

Non-things

What about non-things? It might be hard to list non-things because what we have words for, tend to be things. Redness seems like sort of a thing, but less so. Laws of physics also. Also ghosts. One might say "the ideal gas law is totally a thing" or "ghosts aren't a thing", though I think ghosts are a thing. Events can be things; WWI seems like a thing to me. But a minute ago I picked up my bottle of water and drank from it; that's clearly an event, a real one, but it doesn't feel that much like a thing. The abstract [drinking from a water bottle] feels like a thing though.

(There are some usual critiques of thingness. Yes, there's no sharp dividing line between a wave and a trough, but clearly waves are a thing. Yes, seven is not a physical object you'll ever bump into, but it's clearly a thing. The ideal gas law isn't localized in space or time, but it's a thing. Unicorns aren't real, in that you'll bump into people speaking about them but you won't bump into unicorns themselves and won't be constrained by unicorns in the way you're constrained by seven, but they're things. The world of Ender's Game isn't real, though it's a remote possibility, and it's a thing.)

Features of things

Coherence. A thing usually has properties, parts, aspects that are coherent with each other. Some things are big, some things are small; but usually there's nothing like a table that's both big and small.

Prediction, homogeneity, constancy, constraint. A thing usually has some predictive meaning; its presence implies constraints on other things or the future, and it implies some constancy in some features.

Expression. Related to prediction, a name that names a thing or an i

...
Thoughts On Expanding the AI Safety Community: Benefits and Challenges of Outreach to Non-Technical Professionals
by Yashvardhan Sharma — 2023-01-01T19:21:33.010Z

Epistemic Status: Low-Medium (I’ve spent 25-30hrs thinking and discussing this idea as a non-expert in AI Safety)

Disclaimer: This claim could be biased to my work in the Bay Area this summer, but it seems to me that most individuals who are interested in AI safety or reducing existential risks from AGI are interested in and leaning towards doing technical AI research. Most AI safety community builders (in my limited knowledge) appear to engage in this: let’s find the best mathematicians and programmers for technical research in AI Alignment. While I do believe that there is tremendous value for those, I do think that there is also value for individuals without a technical background to also contribute to this field which has so far mostly been inaccessible for them. Thus, I want to outline reasons why I think this can be valuable, what the intersection of different mainstream academic fields and AI Safety might look like, how we could do this outreach and the potential pitfalls for this.

TL;DR: It seems important to involve non-technical experts in AI safety research and governance in order to benefit from their unique knowledge and skills, and to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration that can lead to innovative ideas and insights. Non-technical experts from fields such as economics, politics, and public policy can all contribute valuable perspectives and expertise to the field of AI safety. For example, economists can provide an understanding of incentives and the potential impacts of AI on the economy, and political scientists and public policy professionals can help to develop policies and governance frameworks for the development and use of AI.

Why should we do outreach to non-technical academics and/or non-technical professionals?

Non-technical academics and professionals can bring diverse perspectives and expertise to the field of AI safety: It is important to involve people from a variety of backgrounds in order to benefit from the unique knowledge and skills that they bring. For example, a philosopher may bring insights into ethical considerations, while a sociologist may offer insights into how AI could impact society. By including people from diverse fields, we can more effectively address the complex and multifaceted challenges of AI safety.
Interdisciplinary collaboration can lead to innovative ideas and insights:

...
Would it be good or bad for the US military to get involved in AI risk?
by Grant Demaree — 2023-01-01T19:02:30.892Z

Meant as a neutral question. I'm not sure whether this would be good or bad on net:

Suppose key elements of the US military took x-risk from misaligned strong AI very seriously. Specifically, I mean:

Key scientists at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. They have a giant budget (~$3B/year) and are literally responsible for x-risks. Current portfolio is focused on nuclear risks with some biosecurity
Influential policy folks at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Think dignified career civil servants, 2 levels below the most senior political appointees
Commander's Initiative Group at USSTRATCOM. Folks who have the commander's ear, tend to be well-respected, and have a huge effect on which ideas are taken seriously

Why this would be good:

The military has far more discretionary budget than anyone else in the world. You could multiply the resources dedicated to AI safety research tenfold overnight
The military is a huge source of AI risk (in the sense that advancing AI capabilities faster obviously helps the US in competition with China). If key influencers took the risk seriously, they might be more judicious about their capabilities research
A key policy goal is preventing the sharing of AI capabilities research. The military is very good at keeping things secret and has policy levers to make private companies do the same
The military is a huge source of legitimacy with the general public. And it seems easier than other routes to legitimacy. I think less than 10 key people actually need to be persuaded on the merits, and everyone else will follow suit
If the right person agrees, it's literally possible to get one of the best researchers from this community appointed to lead AI safety research for a major government agency, in the same sense that Wernher von Braun led the space program. You just have to be really familiar with the civil service's intricate rules for hiring

Why this would be bad:

If someone presents the ideas badly, it's possible to poison the well for later. You could build permanent resistance in the civil service to AI safety ideas. And it's really easy to make that mistake: presentations that work in these agencies are VERY different from what works in the tech community
Even if the agency is persuaded, they could make a noisy and expensive but ultimately useless effort
A big government project (with lots of middle managers) adds a mo

...
Better New Year's Goals through Aligning the Elephant and the Rider
by moridinamael — 2023-01-01T17:54:48.386Z
Link: https://guildoftherose.org/articles/aligning-the-elephant-and-rider

Meta: This content is unlikely to be new to veteran LWers, but rather represents a collection of what I have found to be the most actionable and useful tools and techniques for quickly bolstering a goal or resolution and increasing my odds of success. I have been making and tracking my progress in New Year's Goals for ten years and feel confident in all of the following techniques and heuristics.

In my personal experience, what we call "akrasia" is most often caused by misalignment between your Elephant (your emotional, intuitive, and often unconscious self) and your Rider (your reflective, analytical, and strategic self).

Think of the Elephant and Rider as two parts of a team. The Elephant has its own intelligence and desires, but isn't great at communicating them. The Elephant can be short-sighted and prone to getting stuck without the Rider's broader perspective. In contrast, the cerebral Rider relies on the Elephant to get anywhere, and can be dangerously insensitive to the needs of emotion and the body.

A goal that is likely to be achieved is one that appeals to both the Elephant and the Rider. If the Rider wants a goal but the Elephant doesn't find it appealing, the Elephant will lack the motivation to pursue it, leading to akrasia. On the other hand, if the Elephant wants to pursue a goal but the Rider doesn't agree, it may feel like a compulsion or self-destructive behavior.

To set effective goals, consider the following guidelines:

Understand the Elephant

Elephants tend to want the same things: survival, social connection, self-esteem, mastery, pleasure, meaning, growth, and power. Authentically frame your goal in terms of these basic drives to make it more appealing to the Elephant.

Involve Others

Around half of the common Elephant drives involve social connection, so consider how you can make your goal more social. If it's already social (e.g. "Learn salsa dancing"), then emphasize that. If it's not (e.g. "Write a novel"), then schedule regular updates with friends or a cohort to discuss your progress.

Make It Robust

Make your goal robust to disruptions and distractions. The Premortem or Murphyjutsu technique can be helpful for this. It can also be helpful to remain aware of new priorities that might derail your focus. Remember that each new goal or obligation takes up more of your finite resources of time and motivation.

Repot Early On

Consider repotting you...
A Löbian argument pattern for implicit reasoning in natural language: Löbian party invitations
by Andrew_Critch — 2023-01-01T17:39:59.643Z

Related to: Löb's Lemma: an easier approach to Löb's Theorem.

Natural language models are really taking off, and it turns out there's an analogue of Löb's Theorem that occurs entirely in natural language — no math needed. This post will walk you through the details in a simple example: a very implicit party invitation.

Important Caveat: Arguments in natural language are basically never "theorems". The main reason is that human thinking isn't perfectly rational in virtually any precisely defined sense, so sometimes the hypotheses of an argument can hold while its conclusion remains unconvincing. Thus, the Löbian argument pattern of this post does not constitute a "theorem" about real-world humans: even when the hypotheses of the argument hold, the argument will not always play out like clockwork in the minds of real people. Nonetheless, Löb's-Theorem-like arguments can play out relatively simply in the English language, and this post shows what would look like.

Motivation

(Skip this if you just want to see the argument.)

Understanding the structure here may be helpful for anticipating whether Löbian phenomena can, will, or should arise amongst language-based AI systems. For instance, Löb's Theorem has implications for the emergence of cooperation and defection in groups of formally defined agents (LaVictoire et al, 2014; Critch, Dennis, Russell, 2022). The natural language version of Löb could play a similar role amongst agents that use language, which is something I plan to explore in a future post. Aside from being fun, I'm hoping this post will make clear that the phenomenon underlying Löb's Theorem isn't just a feature of formal logic or arithmetic, but of any language that can talk about reasoning and deduction in that language, including English. And as Ben Pace points out here, invitations are often self-referential, such as when people say "You are hereby invited to the party": hereby means "by this utterance" (google search). So invitations a natural place to explore the kind of self-reference happening in Löb's Theorem.

This post isn't really intended as an "explanation" of Löb's Theorem in its classical form, which is about arithmetic. Rather, the arguments here stand entirely on their own, are written in natural language, and are about natural language phenomena. That said, t...
woke offline, anti-woke online
by Yair Halberstadt — 2023-01-01T08:24:39.748Z

Like most people , I live in many different spheres which only barely interact. My community is very different from my workplace, is very different from the people I hang out with on the internet, is very different from my family.

Whilst my viewpoints don't change depending on who I'm interacting with, the direction my viewpoints point in often flips sign depending on what the other side believes.

For example I was bought up in an ultra orthodox Jewish community, and now live in a more modern, but still mostly orthodox Jewish community.

Growing up I had to fight hard just to convince my friends and family that gay people aren't evil, deserve to be able to publicly admit they're gay, and that conversion therapy is probably a bad idea. I now live in a community where that's not necessary, but I still often have to argue that you should respect people's chosen pronouns as a matter of basic respect, even if you might personally disagree with transgender politics.

Meanwhile when interact with people online I often find myself arguing that it's still ok to be friends with someone even if they personally don't support gay rights, and that it's worth considering the costs and benefits of gender reassignment surgery on an individual basis, rather than jumping into extremely serious surgery blindly.

From the perspective of my friends growing up I'm a bleeding heart liberal. From the perspective of some of my more extreme friends online I'm a cold hearted bigot.

This also applies to many other controversies. In some circles I need to persuade people that "no we shouldn't litter the environment", in others, that replacing plastic items with paper alternatives doesn't actually do much, if anything, to help the environment, and imposes quite a large cost in the process.

I don't really know if I have any major point here, other than suggesting that all debates are bravery debates and that we should target our arguments according to the circles we find ourselves in, rather than spreading the same message to everyone we meet.