trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Want to work on "strong AI" topic in my bachelor thesis 
by kotrfa — 2014-05-14T10:28:55.354Z

Hello,

I currently study maths, physics and programming (general course) on CVUT at Prague (CZE). I'm finishing second year and I'm really into AI. The most interesting questions for me are:

what formalism to use for connecting epistemology questions (about knowledge, memory...) and cognitive sciences with maths and how to formulate them

find principles of those and trying to "materialize" them into new models

I'm also kind of philosophy-like questions about AI

It is clear to me, that I'm not able to work on these problems fully, because of my lack of knowledge. Despite that, I'd like to find a field, where I could work on at least similar topics. Currently, I'm working on datamining project, but for last few months I don't find it fulfilling as I'd expected. On my university there is plenty of possibilities in multi-agent systems, "weak AI" (e.g well-known drone navigation), brain simulations and so on. As it seems to me, no one is really seriously maintaining with something like MIRI, nor they are presenting something what has as least same direction.

The only group which is working on "strong AI", is kind of closed (it is sponsored by philanthropist Marek Rosa) and they are not interested in students as I am (partly understandable).

My questions are:

Am I naive to hope that I can do anything useful and fulfilling (based on the given data) in this area ("strong AI")?

Where (and for what) should I try to find someone (something) who could help me in the next progress in my studies in this area?

Do you think my enthusiasm is going in good direction? Haven't I bitten off more than I could chew? Where should I go then?

Thank you very much for any advice.
Book review: The Reputation Society. Part II
by Stefan_Schubert — 2014-05-14T10:16:34.380Z

This is the second part of my book review of The Reputation Society. See the first part for an overview of the structure of the review.

Central concepts of The Reputation Society

Aggregation of reputational information. Since the book is entirely untechnical, and since aggregation rules by their nature are mathematical formulae, there isn’t much on aggregation rules (i.e., on how we are to aggregate individuals' ranking of, e.g., a person or a product, into one overall rating) in the book. The choice of aggregation rules is, however, obviously very important to optimize the different functions of reputation systems.

One problem that is discussed, though, is whether the aggregation rules should be transparent or not (e.g., in chs. 1 and 3). Concealing them makes it harder for participants to game the system, but on the other hand it makes it easier for the system providers to game the system (for instance, Google has famously been accused of manipulating search results for money). Hence concealment of the aggregation rules can damage the credibility of the site. (See also Display of reputational information.)

Altruism vs self-interest as incentives in rating systems. An important question for any rating system is whether it should appeal to people’s altruism (their community spirit) or to their self-interest. Craig Newmark (foreword) seems to take the former route, arguing that “people are normally trustworthy”, whereas the authors of ch. 11 argue that scientists need to be given incentives that appeal to their self-interest to take part in their reputation system.

It could be argued that the success of Wikipedia shows that appealing to people’s self-interest is not necessary to get them to contribute. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the notion that Wikipedia has been successful is due to a lack of imagination concerning the potential of sites with user-generated content. Perhaps Wikipedia would have been still more successful if they had given contributors stronger incentives.

Anonymity in online systems. Dellarocas (ch. 1) emphasizes that letting social network users remain anonymous while failing to guard against the creation of multiple identities facilitates gaming greatly. On the other hand, prohibitions against remaining anonymous might raise privacy concerns.

...
Book Review: The Reputation Society. Part I
by Stefan_Schubert — 2014-05-14T10:13:19.826Z

The Reputation Society (MIT Press, 2012), edited by Hassan Masum and Mark Tovey, is an anthology on the possibilities of using online rating and reputation systems to systematically disseminate information about virtually everything - people, goods and services, ideas, etc., etc. Even though the use of online rating systems is an overarching theme, the book is, however, quite heterogeneous (like many anthologies). I have therefore chosen to structure the material in a somewhat different way. This post consists of a short introduction to the book, while in the next, far longer post, I list a number of concepts and distinctions commented on by the authors (either explicitly or implicitly) and briefly summarize their take on them.

My hope is that this Wiki-style approach maximizes the amount of information per line of text. Also, though these concepts and distinctions are arguably the most useful stuff in the book, they are unfortunately not gathered in any one place in the book. Hence I think that my list should be of use for those that go on to read the book, or parts of it. I also hope that this list of entries could be a start to a series of Less Wrong Wiki entries on reputation systems. Moreover, it could be a good point of departure for general discussions on rating and reputation systems. I would be happy to receive feedback on this choice of presentation form (as well as on the content, of course).

A chapter-by-chapter review (more of a guide to what chapters to read, really) can be found on my blog. (This review is already too long which is why I put the chapter-by-chapter overview there rather than here at Less Wrong.) Monique Sadarangani has also written a review (which focuses on various legal aspects of online rating systems). Another associated text you might consider reading is Masum's and Yi-Cheng Zhang's "Manifesto for the Reputation Society" (2004).

Introduction

People have of course always relied on others' recommendations on a massive scale. We often don't have time to figure out who is reliable and who is not, what goods are worth buying and what are not, which university education is valued by employers and which is not, etc. Instead we look to the testimonies and recommendations of others.

As pointed out by several of the authors, these recommendations have, however, often been given in a qu

...
Meetup : LW Vienna Meetup
by RationalityVienna — 2014-05-14T06:53:38.656Z

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Vienna Meetup

WHEN:
17 May 2014 03:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Reichsratsstrasse 17, 1010 Vienna, Austria

Meetup at Cafe Votiv.
The progression of the Rationality movement in Vienna, and the GBS.
Thinking Fast and Slow Part 2 by Andreas, followed by a discussion.
Newcomers welcome.
Please register for the FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/272454069604212/

Discussion article for the meetup : LW Vienna Meetup
Meetup : Montreal - Fun and games
by bartimaeus — 2014-05-13T23:05:39.642Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Montreal - Fun and games

WHEN:
17 May 2014 06:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
4109 Ch. Côte des Neiges Apt 14, Montréal, QC

Come relax on a Saturday afternoon/evening, there's bound to be some great conversation, fun games and new friends! I'm thinking of doing something like playing the game Werewolf, or maybe we can play the Clicker game (if you don't know either of these games, you'll see, they're really fun).

If you have any trouble finding the place, send me a PM and I'll send you my phone number.

Discussion article for the meetup : Montreal - Fun and games
Meetup : RTLW (Durham), LOCATION CHANGED: Cognitive Load and Decision Fatigue, or, Can You Defrag Your Brain? 
by therufs — 2014-05-13T21:28:21.409Z

Discussion article for the meetup : RTLW (Durham), LOCATION CHANGED: Cognitive Load and Decision Fatigue, or, Can You Defrag Your Brain?

WHEN:
15 May 2014 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
2411 N. Roxboro St., Durham NC 27701

Discussion: What do we know about cognitive load? How does it affect us? What can we do to mitigate it?

7:00 gather, procure beverages

7:30 discuss

9 or 9:30 adjourn, possibly to Fullsteam

Discussion article for the meetup : RTLW (Durham), LOCATION CHANGED: Cognitive Load and Decision Fatigue, or, Can You Defrag Your Brain?
Meetup : Boston - An introduction to digital cryptography
by Vika — 2014-05-13T18:04:19.023Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston - An introduction to digital cryptography

WHEN:
18 May 2014 03:30:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
MIT, 25 Ames St, Cambridge, MA

Joe Schneider will be presenting an introduction to digital cryptography, starting at 4pm.

Cambridge/Boston-area Less Wrong meetups start at 3:30pm, and have an alternating location:

1st Sunday meetups are at Citadel in Porter Sq, at 98 Elm St, apt 1, Somerville.

3rd Sunday meetups are in MIT's building 66 at 25 Ames St, room 156. Room number subject to change based on availability; signs will be posted with the actual room number.

(We also have last Wednesday meetups at Citadel at 7pm.)

Our default schedule is as follows:

—Phase 1: Arrival, greetings, unstructured conversation.

—Phase 2: The headline event. This starts promptly at 4pm, and lasts 30-60 minutes.

—Phase 3: Further discussion. We'll explore the ideas raised in phase 2, often in smaller groups.

—Phase 4: Dinner.

Discussion article for the meetup : Boston - An introduction to digital cryptography
Meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social and Board Games
by Anatoly_Vorobey — 2014-05-13T15:06:18.994Z

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

WHEN:
15 May 2014 07:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
Google Tel Aviv

We're going to have a meetup on Thursday, Mat 15th at Google Israel's offices, Electra Tower, 98 Yigal Alon st., Tel Aviv.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The time above might say 6pm or 7pm or 8pm depending on how daylight savings time is processed. The meetup is at 7pm Israel Local Time (Which is DST right now).

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.

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 (Note: Not the 26th where Google Campus is). If you arrive and cant find your way around, call Anatoly who is graciously hosting us at 054-245-1060.

Things that might happen: - You'll trade cool ideas with cool people from the Israel LW community. - You'll discover kindred spirits who agree with you about one/two boxing. - You'll kick someone's ass (and teach them how you did it) at some awesome boardgame. - You'll discover how to build a friendly AGI running on cold fusion (well probably not)

Things that will happen for sure: - You'll get to hang out with awesome people and have fun!

There is also talk of food and beers, and if you'd like to bring some too - that would be great. (But you don't have to).

If you have any question feel free to email Anatoly at avorobey@gmail.com or call him at 054-245-1060. See you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Israel Less Wrong Meetup - Social and Board Games
Finding LessWrongers on LinkedIn
by JoshuaFox — 2014-05-13T11:46:41.284Z

We've had a few initiatives recently to connect LessWrongers for business networking.

Here is another one: A LW group at LinkedIn. Think of it not as a discussion group or online community, but as a "tag" on your LinkedIn profile, to help other LWers find you.

(I've turned off the discussion functionality on the LI group, since the Google Group or LessWrong.com are better for that purpose.)

Join here: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LessWrong-8108647

Another idea: Invite other LessWrongers to connect on LinkedIn, including not only those on the LW LI group, but any you know from the online community. It's a good way to get them in your Rolodex.* (You may have to dig up their email first. Then, add them at the LI menu Connections->Add Connections->Any Email->Add by individual Email.)

For reference, here are recent posts on connecting between LWers:

A Google Group for networking

Updating your LW profile page

A survey, and reports about LessWrong as social catalyst.

I'm interested in seeing which of these initiatives actually helps people, so please let us know.

* Is the Rolodex dead enough that we can use that metaphor again?
Quantum Decisions
by Alexei — 2014-05-12T21:49:11.133Z

CFAR sometimes plays a Monday / Tuesday game (invented by palladias). Copying from the URL:

On Monday, your proposition is true. On Tuesday, your proposition is false. Tell me a story about each of the days so I can see how they are different. Don't just list the differences (because you're already not doing that well). Start with "I wake up" so you start concrete and move on in that vein, naming the parts of your day that are identical as well as those that are different.

So my question is (edited on 2014/05/13):

On Monday, I make my decisions by rolling a normal die. Example: should I eat vanilla or chocolate ice-cream? I then decide that if I roll 4 or higher on a 6-sided die, I'll pick vanilla. I roll the die, get a 3, and so proceed to eat chocolate ice-cream.

On Tuesday, I use the same procedure, but use a quantum random number generator instead. (For the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that I can actually find a true/reliable generator. May be I'm shooting a photon through a half-silvered mirror.)

What's the difference? (Relevant discussion pointed out Pfft.)
Meetup : Utrecht - Social discussion at the Film Café
by SoerenMind — 2014-05-12T13:10:07.746Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Utrecht - Social discussion at the Film Café

WHEN:
17 May 2014 05:00:00PM (+0200)

WHERE:
Slachtstraat 5

Hey everyone, This meetup will be an informal social discussion. The topics could be anything concerning effective altruism and rationality. There will be plenty of time for your personal questions and topics.

Imma is going to share some thoughts and videos about GiveWell and effective giving. We have a Google Doc where anyone can make topic suggestions, also for the coming meetups.

This time we will meet at Film Café Oscar, which is just around the corner from De Winkel van Sinkel. The kitchen there is open until 21:00 and is a little bit cheaper.
Looking forward to meeting you again! New people will be warmly welcomed!

I will be holding a sign that says 'LW' on it. If you have trouble finding us you can reach me at 0684140766.
And feel free to join our facebook group and/or meetup.com group as well.

Discussion article for the meetup : Utrecht - Social discussion at the Film Café
Open Thread, May 12 - 18, 2014
by eggman — 2014-05-12T08:16:58.489Z

Previous Open Thread

You know the drill - 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.

3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

4. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
A Dialogue On Doublethink
by LoganStrohl — 2014-05-11T19:38:47.821Z

Followup to: Against Doublethink (sequence), Dark Arts of Rationality, Your Strength as a Rationalist

Doublethink

It is obvious that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the same time. --Book IV of Plato's Republic

Can you simultaneously want sex and not want it? Can you believe in God and not believe in Him at the same time? Can you be fearless while frightened?

To be fair to Plato, this was meant not as an assertion that such contradictions are impossible, but as an argument that the soul has multiple parts. It seems we can, in fact, want something while also not wanting it. This is awfully strange, and it led Plato to conclude the soul must have multiple parts, for surely no one part could contain both sides of the contradiction.

Often, when we attempt to accept contradictory statements as correct, it causes cognitive dissonance--that nagging, itchy feeling in your brain that won't leave you alone until you admit that something is wrong. Like when you try to convince yourself that staying up just a little longer playing 2048 won't have adverse effects on the presentation you're giving tomorrow, when you know full well that's exactly what's going to happen.

But it may be that cognitive dissonance is the exception in the face of contradictions, rather than the rule. How would you know? If it doesn't cause any emotional friction, the two propositions will just sit quietly together in your brain, never mentioning that it's logically impossible for both of them to be true. When we accept a contradiction wholesale without cognitive dissonance, it's what Orwell called "doublethink".

When you're a mere mortal trying to get by in a complex universe, doublethink may be adaptive. If you want to be completely free of contradictory beliefs without spending your whole life alone in a cave, you'll likely waste a lot of your precious time working through conundrums, which will often produce even more conundrums.

Suppose I believe that my husband is faithful, and I also believe that the unfamiliar perfume on his collar indicates he's sleeping with other women without my permission. I could let that pesky little contradiction turn into an extended investigation that may ultimately ruin my marriage. Or I could get on with my day and leave my marriage intact.

It's better to just leave those k...
Announcing a google group for technical discussion of FAI
by Squark — 2014-05-10T13:36:58.759Z

I'm pleased to announce friendly-artificial-intelligence, a google group intended for research-level discussion of problems in FAI and AGI, in particular for discussions that are highly technical and/or math intensive.

Some examples of possible discussion topics: naturalized induction, decision theory, tiling agents / Loebian obstacle, logical uncertainty...

I invite everyone who want to take part in FAI research to participate in the group. This obviously includes people affiliated with MIRI, FHI and CSER, people who attend MIRI workshops and participants of the southern california FAI workshop.

Please, come in and share your discoveries, ideas, thoughts, questions et cetera. See you there!
Three Parables of Microeconomics
by jimrandomh — 2014-05-09T18:18:23.666Z

(Epistemic status: Satire.)

First Parable: Equilibrium Pricing

Highway Offramp 72 leads to the isolated town of Townton. Visitors are greeted by two fuel stations, Carbonaceous Fossils (CF) and Hydrogenated Chains (HC), on opposite sides of the main road. There are no other gas stations for many miles. Together, these two stations sell 1000 gallons per day. Since their products are indistinguishable, and they have prominently posted prices, every driver will choose the cheaper one; or if the prices are the same, they will split half and half. Both pay $1.50/gal for their stock and charge $2/gal to drivers, so half the drivers stop at each.

The owner of CF reasons as follows: If I keep my current price of $2, I will make 500*(2-1.5)=$250 of profit. But if I lower my price to $1.99, I will get twice as much business and make 1000*(1.99-1.5)=$490 of profit. The next morning, he updates his price.

Across the street, the owner of HC (who is having a bad day, due to the complete lack of customers), reasons the same way. The next morning HC has updated its price to $1.98; the morning after that CF lowers its price to $1.97; and so on.

Because CF and HC's owners are law-abiding model citizens, they never talk to each other about prices. That would be collusion, which is illegal. Later that month, with CF's price down to $1.52 and HC's price at $1.51, the local community center holds Game Theory night, where both owners attend a local economist's presentation on the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

The next morning, both stations charge $1.52. The morning after that, $1.53. The morning after that, $1.54, and so on. Later that year, CF reasons as follows: If I keep my current price of $20...

(Moral: Gas station attendants should study game theory.)

Second Parable: Comparative Advantage

Two farmers, Alex and Bertha, grow potatoes and carrots. In one year, Alex can either grow 4 barrels of potatoes or 10 barrels of carrots, or some linear combination of the two, such as 2 barrels of potatoes and 5 barrels of carrots. Bertha is better at farming, and can produce 15 barrels of potatoes or 20 barrels of carrots, or some combination of the two. Doctors agree that everyone should eat exactly equal numbers of potatoes and carrots - an excess of one over the other would be unacceptable. So in the first year, having just settled a new frontier and not having met their neig...
Tiling agents with transfinite parametric polymorphism
by Squark — 2014-05-09T17:32:41.137Z

The formalism presented in this post turned out to be erroneous (as opposed to the formalism in the previous post). The problem is that the step in the proof of the main proposition in which the soundness schema is applied cannot be generalized to the ordinal setting since we don't know whether ακ is a successor ordinal so we can't replace it by ακ'=ακ-1. I'm not deleting this post primarily to preserve the useful discussion in the comments.

Followup to: Parametric polymorphism in updateless intelligence metric

In the previous post, I formulated a variant of Benja's parametric polymorphism suitable for constructing updateless intelligence metrics. More generally, this variants admits agents which are utility maximizers (in the informal sense of trying their best to maximize a utility function, not in the formal sense of finding the absolutely optimal solution; for example they might be "meliorizers" to use the terminology of Yudkowsky and Herreshoff) rather than satisficers. The agents using this formalism labor under a certain "delusion", namely, since they believe that κ ("the number of ineffable mystery") is an actual finite number (whereas it is secretly infinite, in a sense), they think that the chain of tiling agents is effectively finite as well (since at some point agent #n in the chain will discover that κ > n is false and will fail to construct a subsequent agent of the same "epistemic strength"). The same problem exists in Weaver's intuitionistic assertability predicate formalism.

To overcome this limitation, I suggest to extend κ's semantics from natural numbers to elements of a certain recursive ordinal (at least morally; technically it is done a bit differently, see below). In Benja's original formulation this doesn't appear a valid option, since κ is interpreted as a time interval. However, in my variant κ is just an abstract parameter queries about which can be directed to a special "oracle", so there is no such limitation.

Formalism

Fix α a recursive ordinal and αi a system of notations for ordinals smaller than α such that α0=0, the function f defined by αf(i)=αi+1 is recursive and the bit-valued function g(i,j) which equals 1 iff αi < αj is also recursive. We a...