trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : Cincinnati: Financial optimisation
by RolfAndreassen — 2013-07-18T04:37:29.652Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Cincinnati: Financial optimisation

WHEN:
28 July 2013 04:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
354 Ludlow Ave

This month we will meet to discuss how to apply rationality skills to personal finance: What are our goals, what ought to be our goals, and how can we accomplish them. We will try to identify levels, including especially the levels above our own; however, a certain amount of mockery for the levels below our own may also occur, on the grounds that it will have an anti-akrasic effect.

Discussion article for the meetup : Cincinnati: Financial optimisation
Instrumental rationality/self help resources 
by gothgirl420666 — 2013-07-18T02:58:06.812Z

I took part in a recent discussion in the current Open Thread about how instrumental rationality is under-emphasized on this website. I've heard other people say similar things, and I am inclined to agree. Someone suggested that there should be a "Instrumental Rationality Books" thread, similar to the "best textbooks on every subject" thread. I thought this sounded like a good idea.

The title is "resources" because in addition to books, you can post self-help websites, online videos, whatever.

The decorum for this thread will be as follows:

One resource per comment

Place your comment in the appropriate category

Only post resources you've actually used. Write a short review of your resource and if possible, a short summary of the key points. Say whether or not you would recommend the resource.

Mention approximately how long it's been since you first used the resource and whether or not you have made external improvements in the subject area. On the other hand, keep in mind that there are a myriad of confounding factors that can be present when applying self-help resources to your life, and therefore it is perfectly acceptable to say "I would recommend this resource, but I have not improved" or "I do not recommend this resource, but I have improved".

I think depending on how this thread goes, in a few days I might make a meta post on this subject in an attempt to inspire discussion on how the LessWrong community can work together to attempt to reach some sort of a consensus on what the best instrumental rationality methods and resources might be. lukeprog has already done great work in his The Science of Winning at Life sequence, but his reviews are uber-conservative and only mention resources with lots of scientific and academic backing. I think this leaves out a lot of really good stuff, and I think that we should be able to draw distinctions between stuff that isn't necessarily drawing on science but is reasonable, rational, and helps a lot of people, and The Secret.

But I thought we should get the ball rolling a little before we have that conversation. In the meantime, if you have a meta comment, you can just go ahead and post it as a reply to the top-level post.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95
by palladias — 2013-07-18T02:23:10.204Z

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 95. The previous thread has passed 300 comments.

There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system.

Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.
Model Combination and Adjustment
by lukeprog — 2013-07-17T20:31:08.687Z

The debate on the proper use of inside and outside views has raged for some time now. I suggest a way forward, building on a family of methods commonly used in statistics and machine learning to address this issue — an approach I'll call "model combination and adjustment."

Inside and outside views: a quick review

1. There are two ways you might predict outcomes for a phenomenon. If you make your predictions using a detailed visualization of how something works, you're using an inside view. If instead you ignore the details of how something works, and instead make your predictions by assuming that a phenomenon will behave roughly like other similar phenomena, you're using an outside view (also called reference class forecasting).

Inside view examples:

"When I break the project into steps and visualize how long each step will take, it looks like the project will take 6 weeks"

"When I combine what I know of physics and computation, it looks like the serial speed formulation of Moore's Law will break down around 2005, because we haven't been able to scale down energy-use-per-computation as quickly as we've scaled up computations per second, which means the serial speed formulation of Moore's Law will run into roadblocks from energy consumption and heat dissipation somewhere around 2005."

Outside view examples:

"I'm going to ignore the details of this project, and instead compare my project to similar projects. Other projects like this have taken 3 months, so that's probably about how long my project will take."

"The serial speed formulation of Moore's Law has held up for several decades, through several different physical architectures, so it'll probably continue to hold through the next shift in physical architectures."

See also chapter 23 in Kahneman (2011); Planning Fallacy; Reference class forecasting. Note that, after several decades of past success, the serial speed formulation of Moore's Law did in fact break down in 2004 for the reasons described (Fuller & Millett 2011).

2. An outside view works best when using a reference class with a similar causal structure to the thing you're trying to predict. An inside view works best when a phenomenon's causal structure is well-understood, and when (to your knowledge) there are very few phenomena with a similar causal structure that you can use to predict things about the phenomenon you're ...
See Eliezer talk with PZ Myers and David Brin (and me) about immortality this Sunday
by Eneasz — 2013-07-17T15:56:48.895Z

FTBCon (Free Thought Blogs) is an all-online convention, a chance for a lot of people to get together and hangout while listening to people talk about atheist and skeptic issues. I proposed a panel on whether human immortality is a good thing or a bad idea in principle when Myers first asked for submissions, and a few hours later I had managed to fall into this. :) I’ll be speaking with David Brin, PZ Myers, and Eliezer Yudkowsky, which is amazing as they’re all on a level significantly above mine. I guess there’s some advantages to moving quickly and organizing things. Anyone who’s seen any of these people speak before knows that this is going to be extremely cool, and very thought-provoking.

The panel will taking place over Google+ on Sunday, July 21st, at 12:00noon Pacific Time (GMT -7). To watch, go to PZ’s page here, it’ll start streaming at the appointed time. You can chat with other people (and submit questions to the moderators) right here. Afterwards the recording will be put on YouTube, I’ll post a link when it becomes available.

The full schedule of all FTBCon sessions is here.

ETA: direct link to the live feed - https://plus.google.com/events/cpqd03p20njfchsnumae3dehi2s
Three Approaches to "Friendliness"
by Wei Dai — 2013-07-17T07:46:07.504Z

I put "Friendliness" in quotes in the title, because I think what we really want, and what MIRI seems to be working towards, is closer to "optimality": create an AI that minimizes the expected amount of astronomical waste. In what follows I will continue to use "Friendly AI" to denote such an AI since that's the established convention.

I've often stated my objections MIRI's plan to build an FAI directly (instead of after human intelligence has been substantially enhanced). But it's not because, as some have suggested while criticizing MIRI's FAI work, that we can't foresee what problems need to be solved. I think it's because we can largely foresee what kinds of problems need to be solved to build an FAI, but they all look superhumanly difficult, either due to their inherent difficulty, or the lack of opportunity for "trial and error", or both.

When people say they don't know what problems need to be solved, they may be mostly talking about "AI safety" rather than "Friendly AI". If you think in terms of "AI safety" (i.e., making sure some particular AI doesn't cause a disaster) then that does looks like a problem that depends on what kind of AI people will build. "Friendly AI" on the other hand is really a very different problem, where we're trying to figure out what kind of AI to build in order to minimize astronomical waste. I suspect this may explain the apparent disagreement, but I'm not sure. I'm hoping that explaining my own position more clearly will help figure out whether there is a real disagreement, and what's causing it.

The basic issue I see is that there is a large number of serious philosophical problems facing an AI that is meant to take over the universe in order to minimize astronomical waste. The AI needs a full solution to moral philosophy to know which configurations of particles/fields (or perhaps which dynamical processes) are most valuable and which are not. Moral philosophy in turn seems to have dependencies on the philosophy of mind, consciousness, metaphysics, aesthetics, and other areas. The FAI also needs solutions to many problems in decision theory, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics, in order to not be stuck with making wrong or suboptimal decisions for eternity. These essentially cover all the major areas of philosophy.

For an FAI builder, there are three ways to deal with the presence of these open philosophical pro...
Meetup : Durham NC/Triangle Area: Rationality Checklist Workshop
by therufs — 2013-07-17T05:41:01.926Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham NC/Triangle Area: Rationality Checklist Workshop

WHEN:
18 July 2013 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
420 E. Geer St., Durham NC 27701

At this Thursday's meetup, we'll be getting our hands dirty tinkering with the Rationality Habits Checklist. Tweaks, personalization, clarification, troubleshooting, and discussion will ensue.

If you have one, bring a device that will enable you to use your preferred text editing method (e.g. a laptop or notebook.)

7:00 order beverages, chat, jockey for electrical outlets

7:30 get things done!

9:00 or 9:30 celebrate done things with further beverages (possibly beer.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Durham NC/Triangle Area: Rationality Checklist Workshop
Meetup : West LA Meetup - The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number
by Scott Garrabrant — 2013-07-17T01:06:09.154Z

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup - The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number

WHEN: 17 July 2013 07:00:00PM (-0700)

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

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, July 17th.

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.

Discussion: This week we will talk about utilitarianism. We will start by exploring why it is useful to think about preferences in terms of utility functions in the first place by stating the Von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Theorem. Then we will discuss how to combine individual utility functions to come up with a choice for the society which gives "the greatest good for the greatest number." Many of the simplest methods do not work well because they are not invariant under affine transformations of utility functions. We will also discuss the problems in getting people to honestly report their utility functions, and figuring out your own utility function or if you even have a well defined utility function. Finally, we will discuss the difference between average utilitarianism and total utilitarianism, and some of the disadvantages of each.

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!

There will be a probably whiteboard with Bayes' Theorem written on it.

Discussion article for the meetup : West LA Meetup - The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number
One issue: teach 10 or sway 200?
by JDM — 2013-07-16T21:33:24.852Z

This is my first discussion topic, and I expect there is a reasonable chance I am doing something wrong and will be blasted for it, but shit happens. I fully intend to stay out of the discussion and try to understand other's insights before I add my own.

My question is this:

If you have one issue that you have decided is most important, is it better to teach 10 people to think about the issue the correct way or sway 200 to vote correctly, using some of your knowledge of their biases?

To answer this, I would suggest the following assumptions:

1. There is no third option to teach them to be rational in all things, however, your rational teachings may have some small effect on their rationality in all things.

2. Either group may spread your influence to others. There may be differences between the success rate of those who think rationally about it and those who don't, as well as some possibility of their mind being changed back.

3. There may be some risk that thinking in a way to sway the larger group has some "poisoning effect" on your own biases.

4. You may consider any other effects (guilt?) on yourself and your emotional state as a result of what you decide.

5. You are nearly certain that your side is correct. It is unlikely that there is much new information yet to become available to you.

6. The issue is of moderate importance. "Winning" will result in a noticeable positive impact, but losing is not catastrophic.

7. You may make any other reasonable assumptions, or disagree with the assumptions provided, if you can support them.

I am not considering this question for any practical purposes. It is merely an interesting question that crossed my mind, and I would like to hear some rationalist opinions on it.
An unusual counterargument
by KatjaGrace — 2013-07-16T21:14:26.000Z

Oftentimes, the correct response to an argument is ‘your argument appears after cursory investigation to make sense, however the fact that many smart people have never mentioned this to me suggests that there are good counterarguments, so I remain unconvinced’.

I basically never hear this response, which suggests that there are good counterarguments. Or alternatively that it is unappealing to respond accurately in such cases. The latter seems very plausible, because it suggests one cannot assess any argument at the drop of a hat.

If so, what do people actually say instead? My guess is the first argument they can think of that points in the direction that seems right. This seems unfortunate, as the ensuing discussion of that counterargument that nobody believes can’t possibly resolve the debate, nor is of much interest to anyone.
HIKE: A Group Dynamics Case Study
by iconreforged — 2013-07-16T19:14:20.721Z

I belong to a group at my university that organizes a backpacking trip for incoming freshmen in the two weeks before orientation week. This organization, which I will refer to as HIKE (not the real name), is particularly interesting in terms of group design. Why? It is approximately 30 years old, is run entirely by current students, and brings together a very large group of people and knits them into a largish community. Pretty much everyone involved agrees that HIKE works very well. During my involvement (I was a participating freshman, and I have since become staff) I have continually wondered, why is this group so much more fun than any other group I've been a part of?

It's also particularly effective. Leading ~80 incoming freshmen, who have no current friends, and who know no one, and who don't generally have any backpacking experience, into the woods for two weeks, is no easy task. HIKE manages its own logistics, staff training, and organization, entirely with student volunteers who staff the trip, with little to no university interaction. (We get them to advertise our trip, and they generally permit us to continue to exist.) It takes some dedication to keep this rolling, and I have seen other campus groups completely fail to find that kind of dedication from their membership.

While it's not a rationalist group, it seems to have stumbled upon a cocktail of instrumentally rational practices.

HIKE uses an interesting process of network homogenization. When staff members (who have generally been on several trips before) are assigned crews, staff members fill out "Who Do You Know?" forms, on which you rank how well you know other staff on a scale from 1 to 5. The people in charge of making groups, usually Project Directors, then group staffers based on how well you don't know other staff. You usually staff a trip with people that you haven't gotten to know very well, and then get to know them. Because of this process of strengthening the weakest bonds, HIKE is able to function as a relatively large social group, even across graduation classes and around existing cliques.

As far as actual interaction, HIKE involves a lot of face time with your crew of 10 freshmen and your co-staffers. There aren't really any breaks (with the exception of solos, see below) and you are hiking, eating, and chatting together for approximately 225 hours (15 waking hours i...
Comparative and absolute advantage in AI
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2013-07-16T09:52:46.519Z

The theory of comparative advantage says that you should trade with people, even if they are worse than you at everything (ie even if you have an absolute advantage). Some have seen this idea as a reason to trust powerful AIs.

For instance, suppose you can make a hamburger by using 10 000 joules of energy. You can also make a cat video for the same cost. The AI, on the other hand, can make hamburgers for 5 joules each and cat videos for 20.

Then you both can gain from trade. Instead of making a hamburger, make a cat video instead, and trade it for two hamburgers. You've got two hamburgers for 10 000 joules of your own effort (instead of 20 000), and the AI has got a cat video for 10 joules of its own effort (instead of 20). So you both want to trade, and everything is fine and beautiful and many cat videos and hamburgers will be made.

Except... though the AI would prefer to trade with you rather than not trade with you, it would much, much prefer to dispossess you of your resources and use them itself. With the energy you wasted on a single cat video, it could have produced 500 of them! If it values these videos, then it is desperate to take over your stuff. Its absolute advantage makes this too tempting.

Only if its motivation is properly structured, or if it expected to lose more, over the course of history, by trying to grab your stuff, would it desist. Assuming you could make a hundred cat videos a day, and the whole history of the universe would only run for that one day, the AI would try and grab your stuff even if it thought it would only have one chance in fifty thousand of succeeding. As the history of the universe lengthens, or the AI becomes more efficient, then it would be willing to rebel at even more ridiculous odds.

So if you already have guarantees in place to protect yourself, then comparative advantage will make the AI trade with you. But if you don't, comparative advantage and trade don't provide any extra security. The resources you waste are just too valuable to the AI.

EDIT: For those who wonder how this compares to trade between nations: it's extremely rare for any nation to have absolute advantages everywhere (especially this extreme). If you invade another nation, most of their value is in their infrastructure and their population: it takes time and effort to rebuild and co-opt these. Most nations don't/can't think long term (it could argu...
An Attempt at Preference Uncertainty Using VNM
by  — 2013-07-16T05:20:39.693Z

(This is a (possibly perpetual) draft of some work that we (I) did at the Vancouver meetup. Thanks to my meetup buddies for letting me use their brains as supplementary computational substrate. Sorry about how ugly the LaTeX is; is there a way to make this all look a bit nicer?)

(Large swaths of this are obsolete. Thanks for the input, LW!)

The Problem of Decision Under Preference Uncertainty

Suppose you are uncertain whether it is good to eat meat or not. It could be OK, or it could be very bad, but having not done the thinking, you are uncertain. And yet you have to decide what to eat now; is it going to be the tasty hamburger or the morally pure vegetarian salad?

You have multiple theories about your preferences that contradict in their assessment, and you want to make the best decision. How would you decide, even in principle, when you have such uncertainty? This is the problem of Preference Uncertainty.

Preference Uncertainty is a daily fact of life for humans; we simply don't have introspective access to our raw preferences in many cases, but we still want to make the best decisions we can. Just going with our intuitions about what seems most awesome is usually sufficient, but on higher-stakes decisions and theoretical reasoning, we want formal methods with more transparent reasoning processes. We especially like transparent formal methods if we want to create a Friendly AI.

There is unfortunately very little formal analysis of the preference uncertainty problem, and what has been done is incomplete and more philosophical than formal. Nonetheless, there has been some good work in the last few years. I'll refer you to Crouch's thesis if you're interested in that.

Using VNM

I'm going to assume VNM. That is, that rational preferences imply a utility function, and we decide between lotteries, choosing the one with highest expected utility.

The implications here are that the possible moral theories () each have an associated utility function () that represents their preferences. Also by VNM, our solution to preference uncertainty is a utility function .

We are uncertain between moral theories, so we have a probability distribution over moral theories .

To make decisions, we need a way to compute the expected value of some lottery . Each lottery is essentially a probability distribution over the set of possible outcomes .

Since we have uncertainty over multiple thin...