trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Upgrading moral theories to include complex values
by Ghatanathoah — 2013-03-27T18:28:46.983Z

Like many members of this community, reading the sequences has opened my eyes to a heavily neglected aspect of morality. Before reading the sequences I focused mostly on how to best improve people's wellbeing in the present and the future. However, after reading the sequences, I realized that I had neglected a very important question: In the future we will be able to create creatures with virtually any utility function imaginable. What sort of values should we give the creatures of the future? What sort of desires should they have, from what should they gain wellbeing?

Anyone familiar with the sequences should be familiar with the answer. We should create creatures with the complex values that human beings possess (call them "humane values"). We should avoid creating creatures with simple values that only desire to maximize one thing, like paperclips or pleasure.

It is important that future theories of ethics formalize this insight. I think we all know what would happen if we programmed an AI with conventional utilitarianism: It would exterminate the human race and replace them with creatures whose preferences are easier to satisfy (if you program it with preference utilitarianism) or creatures whom it is easier to make happy (if you program it with hedonic utilitarianism). It is important to develop a theory of ethics that avoids this.

Lately I have been trying to develop a modified utilitarian theory that formalizes this insight. My focus has been on population ethics. I am essentially arguing that population ethics should not just focus on maximizing welfare, it should also focus on what sort of creatures it is best to create. According to this theory of ethics, it is possible for a population with a lower total level of welfare to be better than a population with a higher total level of welfare, if the lower population consists of creatures that have complex humane values, while the higher welfare population consists of paperclip or pleasure maximizers. (I wrote a previous post on this, but it was long and rambling, I am trying to make this one more accessible).

One of the key aspects of this theory is that it does not necessarily rate the welfare of creatures with simple values as unimportant. On the contrary, it considers it good for their welfare to be increased and bad fo...
Removing Bias From the Definition of Reductionism
by RogerS — 2013-03-27T18:06:36.244Z

The test for an unbiased definition of a philosophical position is (surely) that it is equally acceptable to critics and defenders of the position. I think the definition of reductionism in the wiki blatantly fails this test. The same bias is apparent in the old Sequence posting dealing with reductionism. (Some comments called it a “straw man” without spelling out why.)

Consider the definition:-

Reductionism is a disbelief that the higher levels of simplified multilevel models are out there in the territory, that concepts constructed by mind in themselves play a role in the behaviour of reality. This doesn't contradict the notion that the concepts used in simplified multilevel models refer to the actual clusters of configurations of reality.

The unavoidable implication is that critics of reductionism believe that the higher levels of simplified multilevel models are out there in the territory.

Certainly, nobody but the flimsiest of straw men could possibly believe this, since all parts of the models are by definition not part of the territory: they are part of the map. It might be possible to believe, by contrast, that the territory actually has built into it things that correspond in some sense to higher levels of a hierarchical map, whether simplified or no; or that whether there are or are not such things is not decidable or meaningful; or one could believe that there are definitely no such things, that hierarchical higher levels of organisation (clusters) are meaningful only as mental artefacts.

The second disbelief, that concepts constructed by mind in themselves play a role in the behaviour of reality, also appears to be unimpeachable. However, by attaching this claim to the first claim, it is implied (without examination of the implication) that this statement only applies to the higher levels of simplified models. Yet logically, it cannot be confined to the higher levels but equally applies to the lowest level of the map: it is not the pixels of even the best possible map that themselves play a role in the behaviour of reality, but only something in some way corresponding to them.

In the Sequence discussion of reductionism we read:

So is the 747 made of something other than quarks? No...

And bigjeff5 later comments

The territory is only quarks (or whatever quarks may be made of).

But baryons, which are part ...
Schelling Day: A Rationalist Holiday
by ModusPonies — 2013-03-27T13:18:16.710Z

The Big Idea

—Holidays are awesome.

—Getting to know people is awesome.

—Schelling Day is a holiday about getting to know people.

—The Boston group will celebrate Schelling day.

—Hopefully other cities will too.

Why Are We Doing This?

Getting to know people—really, truly getting to know people—is hard. You have to spend a huge amount of time with them, of course, but that’s the easy part. Spending time with people is fun! The challenging part is opening yourself up. Sharing your fondest hopes and deepest fears is a powerful way to make connections, but exposing your soul like that terrifying. Worse, it’s awkward. There’s no socially appropriate time to bring up stuff like that. I’ve talked to a bunch of people who wish there were more opportunities for that sort of sharing, but initiating it is risky. Even when everything works out beautifully, getting it started feels stressful and not-fun.

What if we could set aside a time where sharing like that is not merely accepted, but expected? Historically, this doesn’t seem too hard to do. As soon as people are in a context where everyone agrees that sharing is normal (e.g. an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or a conversation with a therapist), the stigma and self-consciousness don’t hold people back nearly as much.

All we need is an arbitrary time when we agree to change the social rules, and we’re set! In other words, we need a Schelling point. April 14th, the birthday of Thomas Schelling, is as good a time as any.

I’m creating a ritual around this, for two reasons. First, an established structure makes it easier to do something that feels difficult or strange. Second, in my experience, adding ritual to powerful, true statements makes them even more powerful.

When Are We Doing This?

Schelling Day is April 14th, which is a Sunday this year. The Boston group will be holding our celebration at 2:30. The ritual will begin sharply at 2:45, so please be on time.

Please RSVP to the meetup if you’re coming. We’re allowed to have up to 20 people in the space, and we’ll be using the Meetup site to track this. It’s fine if you RSVP at 2:00 on the day of the event, so long as you don’t put us above the limit. If for some reason you don’t want your RSVP to be public, PM me and I’ll reserve

...
[LINK] On the unlikelihood of intelligent life
by NancyLebovitz — 2013-03-27T05:29:48.210Z

"The Planet-of-the-Apes Hypothesis" Revisited --Will Intelligence be a Constant in the Universe?

If intelligence is good for every environment, we would see a trend in the encephalization quotient among all organisms as a function of time. The data does not show that. The evidence on Earth points to exactly the opposite conclusion. Earth had independent experiments in evolution thanks to continental drift. New Zealand, Madagascar, India, South America... half a dozen experiments over 10, 20, 50, even 100 million years of independent evolution did not produce anything that was more human-like than when it started. So it's a silly idea to think that species will evolve toward us.
Solved Problems Repository
by Qiaochu_Yuan — 2013-03-27T04:51:54.419Z

Follow-up to: Boring Advice Repository

Many practical problems in instrumental rationality appear to be wide open. Two I've been annoyed by recently are "what should I eat?" and "how should I exercise?" However, some appear to be more or less solved. For example, various mnemonic techniques like memory palaces, along with spaced repetition, seem to more or less solve the problem of memorization.

I would like people to use this thread to post other examples of solved problems in instrumental rationality. I'm pretty sure you all collectively know good examples; there's a comment I can't find from a user who said something like "taking a flattering photograph of yourself is a solved problem," and it's likely that there are other useful examples like this that aren't common knowledge. Err on the side of posting solutions which may not be universal but are still likely to be helpful to many people.

(This thread is allowed to not be boring! Go wild!)
[SEQ RERUN] What Do We Mean By "Rationality"?
by MinibearRex — 2013-03-27T04:33:23.491Z

Today's post, What Do We Mean By "Rationality"? was originally published on 16 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

When we talk about rationality, we're generally talking about either epistemic rationality (systematic methods of finding out the truth) or instrumental rationality (systematic methods of making the world more like we would like it to be). We can discuss these in the forms of probability theory and decision theory, but this doesn't fully cover the difficulty of being rational as a human. There is a lot more to rationality than just the formal theories.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was 3 Levels of Rationality Verification, 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 here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
Meetup : Durham NC meetup
by therufs — 2013-03-27T04:28:20.605Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham NC meetup

WHEN:
28 March 2013 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
706 9th St., Durham NC 27705

Meet at Francesca's at 7 for:

rationality checklist revisitation and customization

discussion of ongoing projects

chai if you want!

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham NC meetup
A Difficulty in the Concept of CEV
by  — 2013-03-27T01:20:35.885Z

Prerequisite reading: Cognitive Neuroscience, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, and Coherent Extrapolated Volition.

Abstract: Arrow's impossibility theorem poses a challenge to viability of coherent extrapolated volition (CEV) as a model for safe-AI architecture: per the theorem, no algorithm for aggregating ordinal preferences can necessarily obey Arrow's four fairness criteria while simultaneously producing a transitive preference ordering. One approach to exempt CEV from these consequences is to claim that human preferences are cardinal rather than ordinal, and therefore Arrow's theorem does not apply. This approach is shown to ultimately fail and other options are briefly discussed.

A problem arises when examining CEV from the perspective of welfare economics: according to Arrow's impossibility theorem, no algorithm for the aggregation of preferences can necessarily meet four common-sense fairness criteria while simultaneously producing a transitive result. Luke has previously discussed this challenge. (See the post linked above.)

Arrow's impossibility theorem assumes that human preferences are ordinal but (as Luke pointed out) recent neuroscientific findings suggest that human preferences are cardinally encoded. This fact implies that human preferences - and subsequently CEV - are not bound by the consequences of the theorem.

However, Arrow's impossibility theorem extends to cardinal utilities with the addition of a continuity axiom. This result - termed Samuelson's conjecture - was proven by Ehud Kalai and David Schmeidler in their 1977 paper "Aggregation Procedure for Cardinal Preferences." If an AI attempts to model human preferences using a utility theory that relies on the continuity axiom, then the consequences of Arrow's theorem will still apply. For example, this includes an AI using the von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem.

The proof of Samuelson's conjecture limits the solution space for what kind of CEV aggregation procedures are viable. In order to escape the consequences of Arrow's impossibility theorem, a CEV algorithm must accurately model human preferences without using a continuity axiom. It may be the case that we are living in a second-best world where such models are impossible. This scenario would mean we must make a trade-off between employing a fair aggregation procedu...
Want to be on TV?
by calcsam — 2013-03-26T23:00:56.142Z

We received the following email, so figured I'd pass it along here. You can say you heard about it from Sam Bhagwat at Blueseed.

Could be free publicity (alert startupers!), but I make no claims as to quality or anything else.

-----

Subject: Improving the Portrayal of Nerds on TV

I came across your website while searching for math/science/tech-related groups and wanted to reach out to you. I'm currently casting a TV series about "the real life of nerds" for a major network. The network's initial casting idea was to find awkward+intelligent people with no social lives and to do the typical "reality TV thing" by engineering drama and conflict between them. My company ended up with the casting contract, so I'm trying to find a solid cast of real people to change the network's idea of making a project that feels like Jersey Shore (<-my words, not the network's).

I thought you might be willing to point me in the direction of one or two people in your network who would be interested in taking part in the pilot and, potentially, the full series (if the project gets a full greenlight). I think that there is potential here to create positive portrayals of "nerds" that are far different than their typical depictions in media.
If you have someone who meets most or all of the criteria below, please feel free to contact me, or to pass along my contact details to them.
Basics:
-18-26 years old, male or female
-Involved in the hard sciences (research or applications) or IT field
-Passionate about science, math, technology, research, or a related pursuit
The next few bullets are not requirements, but would be awesome to find:
-Anybody involved in hackerspaces/hardware hackers
-Aerospace/aeronautics background
-PhD or Masters research at a university
-Programmer involved at a small startup
-Security/IT fields (penetration testers, etc.)
Thanks very much for taking the time to read this email. Let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss this further. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Stuart Inman
Executive Producer
No Title Entertainment
209.747.0688 c
Stuart@NoTitleEntertainment.com
Soylent Orange - Whole food open source soylent
by RomeoStevens — 2013-03-26T21:20:40.981Z

Update: John Maxwell and I have a startup making nutritionally complete food, MealSquares (which is likely better for weightloss see below)

This came up at a meetup a while back. Several people, myself included, expressed frustration with the time, cost, stress, of preparing reasonably healthy and tasty meals. I suspect this frustration is widespread among people who do work that requires a lot of focus. Leaving flow because your body needs maintenance is annoying. So I'm sharing a strategy that has helped me.

I was encouraged by the success of Soylent. I had been playing around with ingredients for post workout shakes for months. But reading the Soylent blog posts inspired me to do a full micronutrient breakdown of what I had been drinking and optimize in a more rigorous fashion. Why not copy the soylent recipe?

1. I'm not realistically going to source all of those ingredients

2. He risks (and has already had problems with) misdosing himself to deleterious effect, this problem doesn't exist with whole foods

3. The absorption of powders vs whole foods is contentious

4. I don't agree with his criteria for inclusion

In comparison, my recipe is extremely easy and cheap to source, due to the small number of ingredients.

There is an immediate problem with meal replacement shakes in that liquid calories tend to have a significantly smaller satiety effect than solid foods. So this will probably not be a good solution for you if have difficulties keeping your overall caloric intake down.

[EDIT: Removed the link to the recipe, John and I are planning to commercialize this in addition to MealSquares at some point. Get in touch with me if you really need the recipe and won't spread it around.]

This is a work in progress and I am looking for further ideas for improvement. Subjectively I can say I find this recipe delicious, and hugely prefer it post-workout to even the best junk food (pizza, etc.). The combination of milk, vanilla, banana, and orange juice tastes kind of like an orange julius. It has also been a major stress relief and time saver. I don't worry so much about nutrient deficiencies anymore as this shake in addition to a meat or egg based meal has me pretty well covered.

I am due for another blood panel and will report any anomalies as I've been drinking a similar concoction for around 6-8 mo...
Meetup : Mountain View: Invoking Curiosity
by fiddlemath — 2013-03-26T08:54:44.095Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Mountain View: Invoking Curiosity

WHEN:
26 March 2013 07:30:00AM (-0700)

WHERE:
278 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

Get Curious is an explicit injunction to practice becoming curious whenever it's useful. Or pleasant, I suppose. I've just started, in the very most tiny way, to think and play with this, and I have a couple more ideas about how we could try to practice this skill. I want to bounce these ideas off of people and see if they work for anyone else. I really want to know if anyone has alternate suggestions for inducing curiosity that work for them.

In any case, Let's Try It, and see what comes of it.

Moreover, invoking curiosity seems like a skill that could be fruitfully practiced for something like 5 minutes a day. I'm very interesting in putting together some social mechanism to practice this and similar skills; I'd quite like to set one up at the meetup.

(Standard mailing list plug)

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, consider joining the Bay Area Less Wrong mailing list
Regular meetups in Mountain View and Berkeley are announced and discussed there, as are other events in the local community.

Discussion article for the meetup : Mountain View: Invoking Curiosity
The cup-holder paradox
by PhilGoetz — 2013-03-26T04:47:38.411Z

I'm shopping for a car, and I've spent many hours this past month reading user reviews of cars. There are seven things American car buyers have cared and complained about consistently for at least the past ten years. In roughly decreasing importance:

Performance

Gas mileage

Frequency and expense of repairs

Smoothness of ride

Exterior and interior styling

Cup-holders

Cargo space

Six of these things are complicated design trade-offs. For a good design, increasing any one of them makes most of the other five take a hit.

Cup-holders are not a complicated design trade-off. This should be a solved problem: Put two large, sturdy cup-holders somewhere accessible from the driver's seat. There is nothing to be gained from saving a few centimeters on cup-holder space that could be worth the millions of buyers who will walk away from a $50,000 car because they don't like its cup-holders.

Seriously, build the cup-holders first and design the rest of the interior around them. They're that important.

In the 1970s, no one had cup-holders or knew that they needed them. Things began changing in the 1980s, perhaps due to the expansion of Starbucks, perhaps due to the sudden increase in commute lengths. Today I like to have at least two and preferably three drinks with me for my 1-hour morning commute: A hot coffee to wake up, cold water for when I burn myself with the coffee, and a soda or tea for variety.

But car manufacturers were glacially slow to respond. I've been looking at used Jaguar XJs. These cars originally cost about $100,000 in today's money. Their owners complained continually about the cheap tiny plastic folding cup-holders that couldn't hold cups. They posted do-it-yourself fixes in online forums. Jaguar didn't even begin to address this until 2004, at least fifteen years into the cup-holder crisis, when they made the cup-holders slightly (but not much) less-crappy, and large enough to hold a small coffee (but not a medium).

Most new cars today finally have two cup-holders up front, and the collapsible cup-holders that enraged drivers for years by (predictably) collapsing are finally gone, but many cup-holders still aren't large enough to hold a Starbucks venti.

What the cup-holder paradox implies is that there are many multi-billion dollar care companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on product development every year without ever assigning a sin...
Meetup : West LA Meetup - Probabilistic Graphical Models
by  — 2013-03-26T04:44:17.916Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup - Probabilistic Graphical Models

WHEN:
27 March 2013 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
10850 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, March 27th.

Where: The Westside Tavern in the upstairs Wine Bar (all ages welcome), located inside the Westside Pavillion on the second floor, right by the movie theaters. The entrance sign says "Lounge".

Parking is free for 3 hours.

Lecture/Discussion: Graphs can make understanding causality very intuitive and easy. They are also a powerful tool for doing more complicated modeling. I will introduce PGMs as a concept, and show a few examples where they can be useful.

No prior knowledge of or exposure to Less Wrong is necessary; this will be generally accessible and useful to everyone who values thinking for themselves. There will be open general conversation until 7:30, and that's always a lot of good, fun, intelligent discussion!

I will bring a whiteboard with Bayes' Theorem written on it.

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup - Probabilistic Graphical Models