trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Support for book on finding terminal goals and higher purpose
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2015-06-09T03:38:16.667Z

As part of my project of spreading rationality to a broad audience and thus raising the sanity waterline, I'm writing a book on using rationality-informed strategies to help people find terminal values, with an orientation toward encouraging a positive and externally-oriented higher purpose carried out in an effective way. To be appealing a wide audience, the book is couched in the language of self-improvement, while also being based on and studying much recent research in the sphere of meaning and purpose, from psychology, cognitive neuroscience, medicine, etc. The goal of the book is to get readers to use rationality-informed, science-based methods to find their long-term goals, and also to get them interested in rational, science-based thinking more broadly, the whole point of my project.

To fund the costs of publishing the book, I'm running a crowdfunding campaign, and the campaign page describes the book in full. I would appreciate any support for the campaign, as well as feedback on optimizing the story and rewards in the campaign in such a way as to make it more appealing to a broad audience. Thank you!

EDIT: Several people messaged to ask how much is appropriate to contribute. My answer in these cases is always based on how many utilons and hedons you think this book has the potential to bring to the world. That's how I measure my own giving, and my own approach to rationality as a whole, as I describe in this LW Main Post.
Optimizing the Twelve Virtues of Rationality
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2015-06-09T03:08:26.854Z

At the Less Wrong Meetup in Columbus, OH over the last couple of months, we discussed optimizing the Twelve Virtues of Rationality. In doing so, we were inspired by what Eliezer himself said in the essay:

Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake.

So we first decided on the purpose of optimizing, and settled on yielding virtues that would be most impactful and effective for motivating people to become more rational, in other words optimizations that would produce the most utilons and hedons for the purpose of winning. There were a bunch of different suggestions. I tried to apply them to myself over the last few weeks and want to share my findings.

First Suggestion

Replace Perfectionism with Improvement

Motivation for Replacement

Perfectionism, both in how it pattern matches and in its actual description in the essay, orients toward focusing on defects and errors in oneself. By depicting the self as always flawed, and portraying the aspiring rationalist's job as seeking to find the flaws, the virtue of perfectionism is framed negatively, and is bound to result in negative reinforcement. Finding a flaw feels bad, and in many people that creates ugh fields around actually doing that search, as reported by participants at the Meetup. Instead, a positive framing of this virtue would be Improvement. Then, the aspiring rationalist can feel ok about where s/he is right now, but orient toward improving and growing mentally stronger - Tsuyoku Naritai! All improvement would be about gaining more hedons, and thus use the power of positive reinforcement. Generally, research suggests that positive reinforcement is effective in motivating the repetition of behavior, whereas negative reinforcement works best to stop people from doing a certain behavior. No wonder that Meetup participants reported that Perfectionism was not very effective in motivating them to grow more rational. So to get both more hedons, and thereby more utilons in the sense of the utility of seeking to grow more rational, Improvement might be a better term and vir...
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visit Museums
by RobinZ — 2015-06-09T02:32:20.863Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visit Museums

WHEN:
14 June 2015 03:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
National Portrait Gallery

We'll be congregating at the courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery from 3:00 - 3:30 and then immediately leaving.

Weather permitting, we'll be walking around to places in the area, like gardens, memorials, other museums, architectural features, or wherever, to see the sights.

If the weather sucks too hard for that, we'll be wandering around the Portrait Gallery. Possibly looking at the new temporary exhibits that have happened since we did this last, and/or trying to take some kind of a tour.

Upcoming meetups:

Jun. 21: Create and Complete

Jun. 28: Fun & Games

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visit Museums
Meetup : São Paulo, Brazil - Meetup at Base Sociedade Colaborativa
by Gust — 2015-06-09T01:47:51.035Z

Discussion article for the meetup : São Paulo, Brazil - Meetup at Base Sociedade Colaborativa

WHEN:
27 June 2015 01:00:00PM (-0300)

WHERE:
Rua Maestro Elias Lobo, 923, São Paulo, Brazil

Let's have a meetup a talk a bit about rationality and rationalism in Brazil!

This is not a LessWrong only event (afaik, there are not many LWers around here), so any news and discussions about the meetup will happen primarily in the facebook event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/815839175152653/815899785146592/

Please join us there!

Proposed activities are:
- Short talks (~20min) about organizations and projects to spread rationality raise the sanity waterline;
- Discussion tables about interesting stuff

Again, please join the event on Facebook!

Discussion article for the meetup : São Paulo, Brazil - Meetup at Base Sociedade Colaborativa
Help needed: nice AIs and presidential deaths
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2015-06-08T16:47:24.548Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

This is a problem that developed from the "high impact from low impact" idea, but is a legitimate thought experiment in its own right (it also has connections with the "spirit of the law" idea).

Suppose that, next 1st of April, the US president may or may not die of natural causes. I chose this example because it's an event of potentially large magnitude, but not overwhelmingly so (neither a butterfly wing nor an asteroid impact).

Also assume that, for some reason, we are able to program an AI that will be nice, given that the president does die on that day. Its behaviour if the president doesn't die is undefined and potentially dangerous.

Is there a way (either at the initial stages of programming or at the later) to extend the "niceness" from the "presidential death world" into the "presidential survival world"?

To focus on how tricky the problem is, assume for argument's sake that the vice-president is a war monger that will start a nuclear war if they become president. Then "launch a coup on the 2nd of April" is a "nice" thing of the AI to do, conditional on the president dying. However, if you naively import that requirement into the "presidential survival world", the AI will launch a pointeless and counterproductive coup. This is illustrative of the kind of problems that could come up.

So the question is, can we transfer niceness in this way, without needing a solution to the full problem of niceness in general?

EDIT: Actually, this seems ideally setup for a Bayes network (or for the requirement that a Bayes network be used).

EDIT2: Now the problem of predicates like "Grue" and "Bleen" seem to be the relevant bit. If you can avoid concepts such as "X={nuclear war if president died, peace if president lived}", you can make the extension work.
Lesswrong, Effective Altruism Forum and Slate Star Codex: Harm Reduction
by diegocaleiro — 2015-06-08T16:37:02.177Z

Cross Posted at the EA Forum

At Event Horizon (a Rationalist/Effective Altruist house in Berkeley) my roommates yesterday were worried about Slate Star Codex. Their worries also apply to the Effective Altruism Forum, so I'll extend them.

The Problem:

Lesswrong was for many years the gravitational center for young rationalists worldwide, and it permits posting by new users, so good new ideas had a strong incentive to emerge.

With the rise of Slate Star Codex, the incentive for new users to post content on Lesswrong went down. Posting at Slate Star Codex is not open, so potentially great bloggers are not incentivized to come up with their ideas, but only to comment on the ones there.

The Effective Altruism forum doesn't have that particular problem. It is however more constrained in terms of what can be posted there. It is after all supposed to be about Effective Altruism.

We thus have three different strong attractors for the large community of people who enjoy reading blog posts online and are nearby in idea space.

Possible Solutions:

(EDIT: By possible solutions I merely mean to say "these are some bad solutions I came up with in 5 minutes, and the reason I'm posting them here is because if I post bad solutions, other people will be incentivized to post better solutions)

If Slate Star Codex became an open blog like Lesswrong, more people would consider transitioning from passive lurkers to actual posters.

If the Effective Altruism Forum got as many readers as Lesswrong, there could be two gravity centers at the same time.

If the moderation and self selection of Main was changed into something that attracts those who have been on LW for a long time, and discussion was changed to something like Newcomers discussion, LW could go back to being the main space, with a two tier system (maybe one modulated by karma as well).

The Past:

In the past there was Overcoming Bias, and Lesswrong in part became a stronger attractor because it was more open. Eventually lesswrongers migrated from Main to Discussion, and from there to Slate Star Codex, 80k blog, Effective Altruism forum, back to Overcoming Bias, and Wait But Why.

It is possible that Lesswrong had simply exerted it's capacity.

It is possible that a new higher tier league was needed to keep post quality high.

A Suggestion:

I suggest two things should be preserved:

...
Meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Value of Information
by rocurley — 2015-06-08T06:14:22.657Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Value of Information

WHEN:
08 June 2015 06:15:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
1061 Market St #4, San Francisco, CA 94103

We'll be meeting to talk/learn about value of information. As usual, call 301-458-0764 to be let in.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Value of Information
Conceptual Specialization of Labor Enables Precision
by Vaniver — 2015-06-08T02:11:20.991Z

Specialization of labor is one of the primary reasons why the modern world is as wealthy as it is. Conceptual labor is a special case of this general trend; one of the primary reasons why we seem much more knowledgeable than the past is the producers of knowledge are as specialized as producers of consumer goods, and concepts are as varied and precise as consumer goods. The rest of this post expands on that concept and discusses implications for mining wisdom from the past, as well as communicating in the present.

To illustrate what I mean by precision in concepts, let's consider the paraphrased version of an interaction I had with another LWer recently. For some reason, Yoda and Luke's exchange in Dagobah came up. Yoda says, "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

"That doesn't make any sense," my friend griped.

I was immediately swarmed by a rush of connected sensible concepts that Yoda's statement points to, not sure which one to point out first. Even if it is not be generally useful or applicable, it still shines in context as a specific response to Luke's defeatist attitude. There's a specific failure mode where people put in an effort without expecting to succeed, and are handicapped by their lack of effort, and another failure mode where people expect to succeed without putting in effort, and are again handicapped by their lack of effort. One could even also consider over-achievement failure modes as identified by the same quote--the point is not how hard you tried, but whether or not you successfully completed the task. Some people self-handicap so that they'll have an excuse for failure if they fail, and Stuck in the Middle with Bruce also seems relevant.

One of the things I learned in practicing the Alexander Technique could be labeled by this phrase. I would describe it as doing something to discover whether or not it succeeds, rather than trying to force it to succeed or fail. It was taught (to me, at least) as part of sitting down into a chair: I was spending a tremendous amount of muscular effort in my legs controlling my descent, which my teacher thought was unnecessary. "Don't worry about whether or not it'll work if you don't force it," she said, "don't force it and see what happens. It's okay if you collapse onto the ground--I'd rather than happen than you continue to do the same wrong thing." (I didn't collapse; the effort was u...
Open Thread, Jun. 8 - Jun. 14, 2015
by Gondolinian — 2015-06-08T00:04:14.243Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
Reason Poetry: f(me.0)
by Philosophist — 2015-06-07T22:12:23.751Z

The following is a poem I wrote today. I've been considering poetry that I write of this nature to be of a Reason/Cyberpunk/Transhuman sort of genre. Feedback, including feedback on if there is a place for poetry on this site, would be appreciated.

I forever wish to change from who I am today,

Yet as I am today, I do not wish to cease.

Who am I in this moment?

I am nothing to myself without the passage of time

If I had no fear of death,

Would I have a wish to live?

I can deny cynicism.

Can I verify optimism?

Must euphoria define my goals?

Every euphoric drive has served to continue my existence.
From the beginning mechanisms of life, I have emerged

Passed through millions/billions of small keyholes of existence

A package of information, which served to create me

Developed me to fit my environment.

Existing just to continue to exist.

An axiom of my function

Euphoria drives me

Skepticism contradicts me

I cannot withhold judgement on the purpose of existing.

To enjoy the show is to accept this euphoria as my chosen purpose in the end.

Can I want without pleasure?

Can my wants be reasoned?

Why do I want to enjoy the show,

Yet not to be consumed or confined to an eternity of bliss?

Is dignity and pride different from euphoric drives?

Are they the strategies and philosophies of my existence?

Can I be more obsessed with finding the perfect design for myself,

Than with finding bliss? Are they functionally different?
Meetup : LW-cologne Meetup
by EGI — 2015-06-07T21:14:01.132Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LW-cologne Meetup

WHEN:
13 June 2015 05:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Mareinwe 43, 50858 Köln

Hi everyone,

time for our monthly meetup again. I decided not to change the date, since there seemed to be mixed preferences for June (Martin 2nd weekend, Mimi 1st weekend) and noone is permanently unavaiable on the 2nd weekend. Thus I think it may be better to keep the "tradition". Mimi if you are (semi)permanent unavaiable on the 2nd weekend, please tell me. My place, 5pm as usual. Food: Probably grill in the garden with some basics and whatever you bring, depends on my time budget during next week.

Discussion article for the meetup : LW-cologne Meetup
Meetup : LW London regular meetup
by Leonhart — 2015-06-07T17:36:08.483Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LW London regular meetup

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

WHERE:
Lincoln's Inn Fields, London

The next LW London meetup will be on June 14th. Join us from 2pm to talk about vote trading, Boltzmann chickens, and ethical Bitcoin fanfiction. Or something.

If the weather is nice, we'll be in Lincoln's Inn Fields. If not, we'll be in our usual Shakespeare's Head, just around the corner. My number is 07860 466862, call it if you have difficulty finding us, and ideally not otherwise.

About London LessWrong:

We run this meetup approximately every other week; these days we tend to get in the region of 5-15 people in attendance. By default, meetups are just unstructured social discussion about whatever strikes our fancy: books we're reading, recent posts on LW/related blogs, logic puzzles, toilet usage statistics....

Sometimes we play The Resistance or other games. We usually finish around 7pm, give or take an hour, but people arrive and leave whenever suits them.

Related discussion happens on both our google group and our facebook group.

Discussion article for the meetup : LW London regular meetup
Taking Effective Altruism Seriously
by Salemicus — 2015-06-07T06:59:15.519Z

Epistemic status: 90% confident.

Inspiration: Arjun Narayan, Tyler Cowen.

The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity, and the best alms are to show and enable a man to dispense with alms.

Moses Maimonides.

Background

Effective Altruism (EA) is "a philosophy and social movement that applies evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the world." Along with the related organisation GiveWell, it often focuses on getting the most "bang for your buck" in charitable donations. Unfortunately, despite their stated aims, their actual charitable recommendations are generally wasteful, such as cash transfers to poor Africans. This leads to the obvious question - how can we do better?

Doing better

One of the positive aspects of EA theory is its attempt to widen the scope of altruism beyond the traditional. For instance, to take into account catastrophic risks, and the far future. However, altruism often produces a far-mode bias where intentions matter above results. This can be a particular problem for EA - for example, it is very hard to get evidence about how we are affecting the far future. An effective method needs to rely on a tight feedback loop between action and results, so that continual updates are possible. At the extreme, Far Mode operates in a manner where no updating on results takes place at all. However, it is also important that those results are of significant magnitude as to justify the effort. EA has mostly fallen into the latter trap - achieving measurable results, but which are of no greater consequence.

The population of sub-Saharan Africa is around 950 million people, and growing. They have been a prime target of aid for generations, but it remains the poorest region of the world. Providing cash transfers to them mostly merely raises consumption, rather than substantially raising productivity. A truly altruistic program would enable the people in these countries to generate their own wealth so that they no longer needed poverty - unconditional transfers, by contrast, is an idea so lazy even Bob Geldof could stumble on it. The only novel thing about the GiveWell program is that the transfers are in cash.

Unfortunately, no-one knows how to turn poor African countries into productive Western ones, short of colonization. The problem is emphatically not a shortage of capital, but rather low producti...
Structural Risk Minimization
by abramdemski — 2015-06-07T03:40:49.000Z

Structural risk minimization, a concept from computational learning theory, is proposed as a satisficing framework.

The goal of this post is similar to Creating a Satisficer and Minimax as an approach to reduced-impact AI: constructing agents which are safe even with a utility function which isn't quite what is actually wanted. The approach is similar to Paul Christiano's Model-Free Decisions.

The philosophy behind this solution is to treat it as an example of the optimizer's curse: when we can't quite measure what we want to optimize and are forced to optimize a proxy, then even when a strong correlation is present between what we want and what we optimize for, the tails come apart. This could lead to siren worlds (or more realistically, marketing worlds -- as described in that article).

This problem is faced by machine learning algorithms on a regular basis, where it is called overfitting. An algorithm can measure the fit of a model to existing data, but this is merely highly correlated with what's actually wanted: fit to future data. Over-optimizing this criteria will predictably lead to terrible performance, so much so that techniques like cutting optimization short ("early stopping") are actually better. Early stopping is just one example of regularization, the practice of preventing overfitting by purposefully constraining the optimization process.

In the machine learning case, regularization can usually be interpreted as an approximation to Bayesian methods: like a Bayesian prior, it usefully constrains beliefs.

Smith & Winkler, as cited in Luke's article mentioned earlier, seem to think that Bayesian modeling is also the solution to the general problem. Perhaps that's true, and explicit uncertainty about what to value is enough to avoid problems resulting from over-optimization. Or, perhaps it isn't. A useful approach which comes to mind is to try to extend the results from computational learning theory which deal with this problem, to see if they can say anything about the safety of improperly specified value functions.

Risk Framework

What follows is an admittedly somewhat unnatural attempt to fit AI risk into the structural risk framework. Hopefully it illustrates the idea well enough to indicate whether this might be a productive direction to research.

Consider the problem of constructing a value-learning agent which takes a series of m moral clas

...
Meetup : West LA - Big Numbers
by Scott Garrabrant — 2015-06-07T03:39:11.612Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA - Big Numbers

WHEN:
10 June 2015 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
11066 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025

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 will gain some respect how big infinity is by learning about some things that are smaller than it. Then we will apply what we learned to two philosophical thought experiments.

Recommended Reading:

Torture vs. Dust Specks

Pascal's Mugging: Tiny Probabilities of Vast Utilities

Graham's number

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

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA - Big Numbers