trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Trio Walks, Duo Talks
by Zvi — 2017-03-11T11:40:35.000Z

Epistemic Status: Exploration

Related: The Engineer and the Diplomat

Having a great conversation is hard, but valuable. The structure a conversation is built around determines how it will go. How should we engineer more valuable conversations?

At the retreat, it was suggested that we go on Trio Walks. The idea was that three is the ideal number of people for a conversation about important things. With only two, it is easy to encounter blind spots, make mistakes or lose your way. Having a third keeps things grounded.

The walking part was partly that we had nature all around us, partly that at some point we needed to get some exercise, but mostly to get the trio away from everyone else.

I only got the opportunity to go on one trio walk. Once we were clear of other people we did not do much walking, but we did stay a trio. I found it to be an excellent use of time, including the chance to meet two new people. Last week I arranged a trio walk with two people I wanted to connect, and that seemed to go better than it would have with a different number of people.

World of Two

This conflicts with my previous model, which said the right number of people is two. I thought the trade-off was quality against efficiency; with each additional person, things get a lot harder. The way large conversations happen at all, under this model, is most of the people are mostly observers.

With two people, the conversation can stay on track. Pauses to think are more practical. When one needs time, it is often obvious, and if it isn’t, one can ask. You can craft a multi-part argument. You can leave threads hanging to come back to later. If things get off track, it is relatively easy to steer things back on track.

With two people you can retain control of the conversation without the worry it will be hijacked, or you will cease to be participating.

Only one person needs to understand any given thing being said, so explanations can be tailored to that person. Different explanations work for different people. You can know that person’s background knowledge, available reference points and shared metaphors. If they are not sure they understand, they can say it back in their own words so you can determine if they have it right, and often when they do not, what they do say is also interesting. If the explanation does not work, it is relatively cheap for that person to say so, and you can tr...
Inbox zero - A guide - v2 (Instrumental behaviour)
by Elo — 2017-03-11T09:34:08.735Z

This post is modified from the original.

Original post: Instrumental behaviour: Inbox zero - A guide

This version was first posted at: http://bearlamp.com.au/instrumental-behaviour-inbox-zero-a-guide-v2/

This will be brief.

Inbox zero is a valuable thing to maintain. Roughly promoted around the web as having an empty inbox.

An email inbox collects a few things:

junk

automatic mail sent to you

personal mail sent to you

work sent to you

(maybe - work you send to yourself because that's the best way to store information for now)

An inbox is a way to keep track of "how much I have to do yet". But that's not really what it is. Somewhere along the lines from "I will send via courier a hand scribed letter to yonder", became newsletters, essays, spam, and many more things mixed together. Because of this; iit'st's pretty hard to tell how much work is really in an inbox. Is it 5 minutes to read this one, or do I have to write an essay back? It's pretty important to be in understanding of what volume of work awaits you. The trick to doing this is doing the incredibly valuable task of getting to inbox zero.

The basic philosophy is that a full inbox and unread emails are not a good place to be keeping at bay the unknowns of "how much work I have to do". Instead; other lists, folders, or organisation systems are better at that. And if you don't already do it; have ONE list (or like, this advice is complicated, there are different types of lists, but if you have more than one of the same type of lists, you are bound to confuddle up your process and end up doing the other ones that you didn't need to do instead of the ones that you did need to do).

This guide is for anyone with bajillions of emails in their inbox, some read; some not. If you have an email system in place; don't change it. if not - get one. (maybe not this one - but do it).

0. decide that this is a good idea (this can be done after) but mostly I want to say - don't half-arse this, you might end up in a no-mans-land between the old and the new.

1. A program.

I recommend Thunderbird because it's free. I used to work in a webmail system but the speed of webmail is a joke in comparison to local mail. also offline-powers are handy from time to time. (Disadvantage - not always having...
HCH as a measure of manipulation
by orthonormal — 2017-03-11T03:02:53.000Z

A half-baked idea that came out of a conversation with Jessica, Ryan, and Tsvi:

We'd like to have a straightforward way to define "manipulation", so that we could instruct an AI not to manipulate its developers, or construct a low-impact measure that takes manipulation as a particularly important impact.

We could initially define manipulation in terms of a human's expected actions, or more robustly, in terms of effects on a human's policy distribution across a wide array of plausible environments. However, we'd like to have our AI still be able to tell us information (in a non-manipulative manner) instead of hiding from us in an effort to avoid all influence!

The title of course spoils the next idea: if the AI can reason about some suitable model of HCH, then we can define the notion of "action a has very low influence on a human, as compared to the null action, apart from conveying information x": that over a distribution of questions q,

HCH(q)|a≈HCH(x,q)|null

where HCH is defined relative to that human; we're conditioning the distribution on whether the AI takes action a or the null action; and x,q is the input consisting of statement x followed by question q.

This of course does not exclude the use of manipulative statements x, but it at least could allow us to reduce forms of manipulation to those that would happen with the text input to HCH.

I'd prefer to have the AI reason about HCH rather than just (e.g.) the human's actions in a one-hour simulation, because HCH can in principle capture a human's long-term and extrapolated preferences, and these are the ones I most want to ensure don't get manipulated.

Is there an obvious failure of this approach, an obvious improvement to it, or something simpler that it reduces to?
Meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Board Games
by rocurley — 2017-03-10T19:57:29.714Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Board Games

WHEN:
13 March 2017 06:15:00PM (-0800)

WHERE:
1769 15th St, San Francisco, CA

The meetup is at 6:15 PM, PDT. The LW time picker does surprising things here, and I'm worried it will change from under me.

We’ll be meeting to play board (and other) games!
I have Dominion, Suburbia, and standard playing cards. Please feel free to bring other games you’d like to play.
For help getting into the building, please call (or text, with a likely-somewhat-slower response rate): 301-458-0764.
Format:
We meet and start hanging out at 6:15, but don’t officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:45-7 to accommodate stragglers. Usually there is a food order that goes out before we start the meetup topic.
About these meetups:
The mission of the SF LessWrong meetup is to provide a fun, low-key social space with some structured interaction, where new and non-new community members can mingle and have interesting conversations. Everyone is welcome.
We explicitly encourage people to split off from the main conversation or diverge from the topic if that would be more fun for them (moving side conversations into a separate part of the space if appropriate). Meetup topics are here as a tool to facilitate fun interaction, and we certainly don’t want them to inhibit it.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Board Games
[stub] 100-Word Unpolished Insights Thread (3/10-???)
by Bound_up — 2017-03-10T14:12:12.627Z

Ever had a minor insight, but didn't feel confident or interested enough to write a top-quality LW post? Personally, the high standards of LW and my own uncertainty have kept me from ever bothering to present a number of ideas.

Here, you can post quick little (preferably under 100 words) insights, with the explicit understanding that the idea is unpolished and unvetted, and hey, maybe nobody will be interested, but it's worth a shot.

Voters and commenters are invited to be especially charitable, given that we already know that these ideas are less-than-perfect in concept or presentation or ______, and we want people to be able to present their ideas quickly so that they can be understood, rather than having to craft them to be defensible.

If a crucial flaw is found in an insight, or if the idea is unoriginal, please point it out.

Alternatively, if enough interest is shown, the idea can be expanded on in a Discussion post, and you are invited to include in your post a disclaimer that, even if this idea is not of interest to everybody, some people have shown interest over in the Unpolished Insights Thread, and this post is targeted towards interested people like them.

Hopefully, this format lets us get the best of both worlds, easily filtering out unneeded content without anybody feeling punished, and calling the best ideas out into the light, without scaring anybody off with high standards.

(Post your ideas separately, so that they can be voted for or commented on separately)
Meetup : Ann Arbor Area Amalgam of Rationalist-Adjacent Anthropoids: March 11
by Sniffnoy — 2017-03-10T00:41:02.064Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor Area Amalgam of Rationalist-Adjacent Anthropoids: March 11

WHEN:
11 March 2017 04:30:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
1147 Freesia Court, Ann Arbor, MI 48105

(Copied with permission from mailing list, originally written by Whit F)

Hi all. You are hereby informed of the following:

Andrew and I will be hosting a gathering of all who wish to attend at our condo this Saturday, 11 March 2017, at 4:30pm until everyone leaves. Address is

1147 Freesia Court
Ann Arbor MI 48105

There is plenty of parking in the parking structure across Maiden Lane from us which is free on weekends. [Contact stuff excised, not sure if I have permission to share that; you can reply here.] I hope to see many of you Saturday.

Discussion article for the meetup : Ann Arbor Area Amalgam of Rationalist-Adjacent Anthropoids: March 11
Against Belief-Labels
by I_D_Sparse — 2017-03-09T20:01:11.277Z

EDIT: Lumifer says:

"...when you are talking to someone, presumably you want to communicate some meaning and saying "I'm a rationalist" communicates very little."

This is true. Belief-labels are useful socially; as long as you don't come to internalize them, you should be fine. I would dissuade anyone from actually identifying with a belief-label, but YMMV.

*

George is a Perfect Bayesian Rationalist, and has recently come to the conclusion that everything Albert Camus says is correct with a probability of greater than 0.99999. Since his realization, George has called himself an absurdist. Why shouldn’t he, after all? He agrees with all that the absurdists say.

I will henceforth refer to words such as “absurdism”, “nihilism”, and “theism” as belief-labels, for obvious reasons. (Hopefully, this extensional definition should suffice.) I will discuss why I am more-or-less opposed to their usage, and why I don’t think rationalists should use them to describe themselves.

In George’s universe, absurdism is Perfectly Rational (as an example; let’s not debate absurdism in the comments). Because of this, if somebody is a (perfect) rationalist, then they agree with the tenants of absurdism. However, if someone is an absurdist, then they are not necessarily a rationalist – they may have adopted absurdism because it appealed to them, or because of social pressure, etc. Therefore, if George must choose between just describing himself as a rationalist, or just describing himself as an absurdist, he would do better to choose the former; it communicates more information, as the relationship between rationalism and absurdism is (in our example) that of implication, not equivalence. “I am a rationalist” implies “I believe the tenets of absurdism”; so does “I am an absurdist”, but the latter does not imply “I am a rationalist,” which the former obviously does.

You might say, “it is a false dichotomy.” And you would be right to do so, as George can, without expending significantly more effort, say: “I am a rationalist and an absurdist.” However, why would he say such a redundant thing? If one implies the other, then the other can be dropped.

Now, from the per...
How AI/AGI/Consciousness works - my layman theory
by rayalez — 2017-03-09T09:17:50.338Z

This is just my layman theory. Maybe it’s obvious to experts, probably has flaws. But it seems to make sense to me, perhaps will give you some ideas. I would love to hear your thoughts/feedback!

Consume input

The data you need from the world(like video), and useful metrics we want to optimize for, like number of paperclips in the world.

Make predictions and take action

Like deep learning does.

How do human brains convert their structure into action?

Maybe like:

- Take the current picture of the world as an input.

- Come up with random action.

- “Imagine” what will happen.

Take the current world + action, and run it through the ANN. Predict the outcome of the action applied to the world.

- Does the output increase the metrics we want? If yes — send out the signals to take action. If no — come up with another random action and repeat.

Update beliefs

Look at the outcome of the action. Does the picture of the world correspond to the picture we’ve imagined? Did this action increase the good metrics? Did the number of paperclips in the world increase? If it did — positive reinforcement. Backpropagation, and reinforce the weights.

Repeat

Take current picture of the world=> Imagine applying an action to it => Take action => Positive/Negative reinforcement to improve our model => Repeat until the metrics we want equal to the goal we have set.

Consciousness

Consciousness is neurons observing/recognizing patterns of other neurons.

When you see the word “cat”— photons from the page come to your retina and are converted to neural signal. A network of cells recognizes the shape of letters C, A, and T. And then a higher level, more abstract network recognizes that these letters together form the concept of a cat.

You can also recognize signals coming from the nerve cells within your body, like feeling a pain when stabbing a toe.

The same way, neurons in the brain recognize the signals coming from the other neurons within the brain. So the brain “observes/feels/experiences” itself. Builds a model of itself, just like it builds a map of the world around, “mirrors” itself(GEB).

Sentient and self-improving

So the structure of the network itself is fed as one of it’s inputs, along with the video and metrics we want to optimize for. It can see ...
Meetup : Chicago Rationality Reading Group
by mingyuan — 2017-03-09T03:29:54.866Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Rationality Reading Group

WHEN:
12 March 2017 12:00:00PM (-0600)

WHERE:
Harper Memorial Library Room 148, 1116 E 59th St, Chicago, IL 60637

The Chicago Rationality Reading Group meets every Sunday from 1-3 PM in Room 148 of Harper Memorial Library. Though we meet on the University of Chicago campus, anyone is welcome to attend.

This week's readings are as follows:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2w/are_you_a_solar_deity/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/34/the_spot_the_fakes_test/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jad/attempted_telekinesis/

Please note that after this week there will be no meetings for the next two weeks (March 19th and 26th) because the university will be closed for spring break.

Discussion article for the meetup : Chicago Rationality Reading Group
Index of some decision theory posts
by TsviBT — 2017-03-08T22:30:05.000Z

author:

'Tsvi Benson-Tilsen'
title: Index of some decision theory posts
...

What this is

Index

Index of some decision theory
posts

Notation for induction and decision
theory

Desiderata for decision
theory

An inductive setting for decision
theory

Training a universal Garrabrant inductor to predict
counterfactuals

Open problem: very thin logical
priors

What this is

Edit: this is now a general index for agent-foundations-related decision
theory research. It is most-recent-first. I'll add summaries for other posts if anyone wants.

Index

Modal Combat for games other than the prisoner's dilemma

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1304

Generalizing Foundations of Decision Theory

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1302

Prediction Based Robust Cooperation

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1295

Entangled Equilibria and the Twin Prisoners' Dilemma

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1279

On motivations for MIRI's highly reliable agent design research

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1220

Open problem: very thin logical priors

An open problem relevant to decision theory and to understanding bounded
reasoning: is there a very easily computable prior over logical facts
that, when updated on the results of computations, performs well in some
sense?

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1206

postCDT: Decision Theory using post-selected Bayes nets

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1077

Updatelessness and Son of X

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1073

A failed attempt at Updatelessness using Universal Inductors

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1071

Training Garrabrant inductors to predict counterfactuals

A proposal for training UGIs to predict action- and
policy-counterfactuals by learning from the consequences of actions
taken by similar (“logically previous”) agents.

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1054

Github pdf:
https://github.com/tsvibt/public-pdfs/blob/master/decision-theory/training-counterfactuals/main.pdf

Desiderata for decision theory

A list of desiderata for a theory of optimal decision-making for bounded
rational agents in general environments.

Forum post: https://agentfoundations.org/item?id=1053

Github pdf:
https://github.com/tsvibt/public-pdfs/blob/master/decision-theory/desiderata/main.pdf

Transitive negotiati

...
Meetup : Goal factoring
by pepe_prime — 2017-03-08T21:39:55.885Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Goal factoring

WHEN:
24 March 2017 05:45:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Lindstedtsvägen 3, room 1537, SE-114 28 Stockholm, Sverige

Goal factoring is a technique for introspection to help identify and achieve your goals. It helps choose day-to-day activities that efficiently achieve short and long term purposes. We'll focus on "bottom-up" goal factoring. Here, you look at activities you already do regularly, like check your email and play board games on Saturdays. You ask yourself what purposes these fulfill, like being reachable by colleagues and relaxing after the week. You brainstorm alternatives that achieve the same purpose. Finally, you see if you can get the same outcomes more efficiently.

We'll practice this as a group to see how it works, then split into pairs and practice more. Bring your constraint satisfiability solving programs. Just kidding, just bring yourself :)
Check out a template -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BCoE9PoqOuUjl70S63764iZgqfpo94gPhjpS5EWNnMw/edit

Format:
We meet and start hanging out at 5:45, but don't officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:00 to accomodate stragglers. We often go out for dinner after the meetup.

How to find us:
The meetup is at a KTH academic building and the room is on the 5th floor, two stairs up.

Influence future meetups:
Times - http://www.when2meet.com/?5723551-cJBhD
Topics - https://druthe.rs/dockets/-KcCvpn97vUhg3tQRrKn

Discussion article for the meetup : Goal factoring
Meetup : Moscow: regular meetups
by Slava Matyukhin — 2017-03-08T18:37:07.872Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: regular meetups

WHEN:
01 January 2020 02:00:00PM (+0300)

WHERE:
Москва, ул. Большая Дорогомиловская, д.5к2

This is a shared announcement for regular Moscow LessWrong meetups.

Moscow rationalist community is centered around Kocherga anticafe, with several events every week.

Our current approximate schedule is:

reading club on Mondays

rationality dojos on Fridays

general community meetups every 3 weeks on Sundays

paid CFAR-style weekend workshops every few months

Check out the list of events in Facebook or VKontakte for a full list of scheduled events.

The Schelling point for online discussions is LessWrong.ru slack chat, especially the #moscow_meetups channel.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: regular meetups
why people romantice magic over most science.
by higurashimerlin — 2017-03-08T18:29:05.936Z

Back in 2008 Eliezer wrote the following post http://lesswrong.com/lw/ou/if_you_demand_magic_magic_wont_help/ In it he said the following

"Born into a world of science, they did not become scientists. What makes them think that, in a world of magic, they would act any differently?" However, he seems to misunderstand. I do not believe that people seek magic or other fantasies for being different and on the other side of the fence. But rather, because it fills a need that most sciences don't give people.

In fantasy when people imagine the kind of things they want, I tend to see the following things

flying under you own power vs airplanes

powerful melee weapons vs guns,

supernatural strength and speed vs tools and vehicles,

magic vs tools.

What these share in common is they are your own power vs a outside power. People feel a stronger connection to their actions when they are doing it with their hands or with a tool that uses their own strength. Hitting a light switch to turn on a light doesn't feel like something you did. Inventing the light bulb makes you feel what you did something, but the result still doesn't feel like a part of yourself. Likewise, a sword feels like a part of you in a way a gun doesn't. Cars do better than other vehicles because you become attached to them mentally.

Magic fulfills this need to have your ability be your own on a emotional level. A light spell is your own light and I think people would feel the same way if they had a biological ability to emit light, if you could fly on your own, with your own wings then people might stop thinking about broomsticks. Being a cyborg gives similar benefits. The machinery is a part of you so you feel like your actually strong. Like you actually can create fireballs, leaps 10 stories or walk through a fire unharmed while giving one liners.

I am not sure how to make people feel the same way when it comes to current science and technology. We can make people feel better in life in general if we started to promote blue collar work again, but that is leaves the matter that people aren't pursuing science as much as I wish. I would like to bring this into discussion before trying to propose a solution as any solution I can comeup up with now is "in the future" what can we do right now to handle this without cyborgs.

Please discuss.
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Pi Day
by RobinZ — 2017-03-08T16:47:33.210Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Pi Day

WHEN:
12 March 2017 02:30:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

Note: Daylight Saving Time begins on March 12. 3:30 p.m. EDT corresponds to 2:30 p.m. EST.

We will be meeting in the courtyard for an early celebration of Pi Day. There will be pie. And probably conversations about pie.

Upcoming meetups:

Mar. 19: Fun & Games

Mar. 26: Mini Talks

Apr. 2: Great Filter

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Pi Day