trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Quick look: applications of chaos theory
by Elizabeth — 2024-08-18T15:00:07.853Z

Introduction

Recently we (Elizabeth Van Nostrand and Alex Altair) started a project investigating chaos theory as an example of field formation.[1] The number one question you get when you tell people you are studying the history of chaos theory is “does that matter in any way?”.[2] Books and articles will list applications, but the same few seem to come up a lot, and when you dig in, application often means “wrote some papers about it” rather than “achieved commercial success”.

In this post we checked a few commonly cited applications to see if they pan out. We didn’t do deep dives to prove the mathematical dependencies, just sanity checks.

Our findings: Big Chaos has a very good PR team, but the hype isn’t unmerited either. Most of the commonly touted applications never received wide usage, but chaos was at least instrumental in several important applications that are barely mentioned on wikipedia. And it was as important for weather as you think it is.

Applications

Cryptography and random number generators- Strong No (Alex)

The wikipedia page for Chaos theory has a prominent section on cryptography. This sounds plausible; you certainly want your encryption algorithm to display sensitive dependence on initial conditions in the sense that changing a bit of your input randomizes the bits of your output. Similarly, one could imagine using the sequence of states of a chaotic system as a random number generator. However a quick google search makes me (Alex) think this is not a serious application.

I’ve seen it claimed[3] that one of the earliest pseudo-random number generators used the logistic map, but I was unable to find a primary reference to this from a quick search.

Some random number generators use physical entropy from outside the computer (rather than a pseudo-random mathematical computation). There are some proposals to do this by taking measurements from a physical chaotic system, such as an electronic circuit or lasers. This seems to be backward, and not actually used in practice. The idea is somewhat roasted in the Springer volume “Open Problems in Mathematics and Computational Science” 2014, chapter “True Random Number Generators” by Mario Stipčević and Çetin Kaya Koç.

Other sources that caused me to doubt the genuine application of chaos to crypto include this Crypto StackExchange question, and my friend who has done done crypto...
Restructuring Pop Songs for Contra
by jefftk — 2024-08-18T14:10:04.029Z

One of the things I like about playing for contra dances is that you
have a

lot of freedom about what to
play. As long as you meet the minimum requirements for danceable
music (108-122bpm,

contra
phrasing) you can do almost anything. And then if you're a

bottom
left corner band you might want to play some pop covers.

While lots of pop music has a tempo in the right range, it's much less
common for it to have the right phrasing. Without dancers who will
be messed up if you shorten a section or add a few beats, pop
composers have no reason to write songs with this structure. But many
songs come pretty close! So the first part of preparing a pop cover
is picking a song that won't be too much work.

The easiest songs to adjust are ones where there are two 16 beat (8s)
melodies you can pull out and treat as the A and B. For example,
here's the Hampster
Dance:

I think the A part should pretty clearly be the iconic chipmunkified
Whistle Stop (Robin Hood) melody: (mp3).

There are a few choices for the B, but I think the best option is the
synth lead: (mp3).

Both of these are 16 beats, so playing AABB gets you once through the
dance.

Let's try a harder one. Here's Walk the Moon's
Shut
Up and Dance:

The song has a reasonably phrased 32 beat verse:
(mp3).

And a reasonably phrased 32 beat chorus:
(mp3).

But if you jam them together they don't feel great. The song handles
this with a 16 beat prechorus:
(mp3).

This does not come out to a good length: 32 + 16 + 32 is not a
multiple of 64. One way to fix this is to only play the
second half of the verse (A1) then the prechorus (A2) then the chorus
(B1 and B2). This is ok, but it feels a bit rushed, especially with
the transition from the end of the chorus back into the verse. I do
think this would work, but can we do better?

Later in the recording they play a 32 beat version of the
pre-chorus: (mp3).

If we use that we now have 32 + 32 + 32, one and a half times through
the dance. We want to end with the chorus, and all our existing parts
flow well into each other, so we should probably stick something at
the beginning. The remaining recognizable bit of the song is the
intro, played first for 8 beats and then later for 16:
(mp3).

Playing it for 32 beats seems like it would be a little long, but I
think it can work. One way to handle it is to start...
Decision Theory in Space
by lsusr — 2024-08-18T07:02:11.847Z

"Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base," said Grand Moff Tarkin, "I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan."

"No. Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons there. It is a loyal planet under Imperial control. Striking Alderaan would destroy your own resources and foment rebellion. Destroying it is irrational," said Princess Leia, perfectly calm.

"Nonsense," said Tarkin, "That is a naïve understanding of decision theory. I am a causal decision theorist, but I acknowledge the value of precommitments. I therefore precommit to destroying Alderaan unless you reveal to me the location of the Rebel base. This is not an irrational act if you capitulate to me."

"But it is an irrational act if I do not capitulate to you," said Leia, "I am a functional decision theorist. The algorithm I use to select my decision accounts for the fact that you are modelling my mind. You are a rational agent. You only threaten me because you expect me to succumb to your blackmail. Because of that I will not succumb to your blackmail."

"I'm going to do it," said Tarkin.

"Sure you are," said Leia.

"I'm really going to blow up the planet," said Tarkin.

"Be my guest," said Leia, with a smile, "Aim for the continent Anaander. Its inhabitants always annoyed me. We'll see who has the last laugh."

"I'm really really going to do it," said Tarkin.

"I grow tired of saying this, so it'll be the last time. Just blow up the planet already. I have an execution I'm late for…."

Leia's voice trailed off. She was suddenly aware of the deep, mechanical breathing behind her.

Kshhhhhhh. Kuuuuuuo. Kshhhhhhh. Kuuuuuuo.

Everyone in the Life Star command center turned to face the cyborg space wizard samurai monk in black armor.

Kshhhhhhh. Kuuuuuuo. Kshhhhhhh. Kuuuuuuo.

Vader's cloak fluttered and a couple indicator lights on his life support system blinked, but no muscles or actuators moved. A semi-mechanical voice in the uncanny valley spoke from Vader's mask. "Chief Gunnery Officer Tenn Graneet, you may fire when ready."

"Commander Tenn Graneet, belay that order," said Tarkin.

The Chief Gunnery Officer held his hand above his control panel, touching nothing. He looked rapidly back-and-forth between Tarkin and Vader.

Tarkin turned angrily to face Vader. "Are you insane?" Tarkin hissed.

Vader ignored the question and looked at Leia. "Where is the Rebel...
You're a Space Wizard, Luke
by lsusr — 2024-08-18T05:35:39.238Z

"My father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter," said Luke.

"That's what your uncle told you. Basic security protocol. You don't tell a young child sensitive information about your participation in an ongoing civil war. Which reminds me. I have here something for you. Your father wanted you to have this, when you were old enough. But your uncle wouldn't allow it. Quite sensibly, in my opinion. He feared what you might do with it," said Obi-Wan.

Obi-wan dug through a chest and withdrew a textured metal cylinder with an activator button. "What is it?" asked Luke.

"Your father's lightsaber. This is a weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as arbitrary or nonsensical as a blaster," said Obi-Wan.

"Does that imply…?" asked Luke.

"You're a space wizard, Luke."

Luke activated the lightsaber, making sure to keep the emitter pointed away from his face.

"An elegant weapon, from a more civilized age," said Obi-Wan.

"I'm confused," said Luke, "Just how old is this thing? Bringing a melee weapon to a blaster fight sounds like suicide. Can I block blaster bolts with it?"

"Of course not," said Obi-Wan, "I mean, it's theoretically possible. But I advise against it. The reflexes necessary to do so reliably are beyond the limits of human biology."

"Does it have magic powers then?" said Luke, "That's how the story is supposed to go when the wise old mentor gives a rod-shaped weapon to the young hero. I wonder how old that is. Did our simian ancestors tell stories about magic sticks?"

Obi-Wan leaned forward, as if he was about to share the most important secret in the universe.

"When you activate this lightsaber…" Obi-Wan said.

Yes. Luke leaned forward until his nose almost touched Obi-Wan's.

"…everything around you will follow the laws of physics," Obi-Wan finished.

Some narrative instinct deep in his brainstem caused Luke to gasp. Then disappointment washed over his face as his frontal cortex processed the literal meaning of what Obi-Wan was saying.

"But everything ALWAYS follows the laws of physics," objected Luke, "That's not even a law of science. It's a tautology. Physics is DEFINED as the laws by which everything follows."

Obi-Wan smiled. "In our deterministic Universe, a thorough understanding of physics is true power."

"You're wrong, you crazy old man," said Luke, "Science alone is not sufficient to kill Vader and overthrow the Empire. I need a fleet. I need allies. I...
Extended Interview with Zhukeepa on Religion
by Ben Pace — 2024-08-18T03:19:05.625Z

Introduction from Ben

Zhukeepa is a LessWronger who I respect and whose views I'm interested in. In 2018 he wrote the first broadly successful explication of Paul Christiano's research ideas for AI alignment, has spent a lot of time interviewing people in AI about their perspectives, and written some more about neuroscience and agent foundations research. He came first in the 2012 US Math Olympiad, and formerly worked on a startup called AlphaSheets that raised many millions of dollars and then got acquihired by Google.

He has also gone around saying (in my opinion) pretty silly-sounding things like he believes in his steelman of the Second Coming of Christ. He also extols the virtues of various psychedelics, and has done a lot of circling and meditation. As a person who thinks most religions are pretty bad for the world and would like to see them die, and thinks many people trick themselves into false insights with spiritual and psychological practices like those Alex has explored, I was interested in knowing what this meant to him and why he was interested in it, and get a better sense of whether there's any value here or just distraction.

So we sat down for four 2-hour conversations over the course of four weeks, either written or transcribed, and have published them here as an extended LessWrong dialogue.

I think of this as being more of an interview about Zhukeepa's perspective, with me learning and poking at various parts of it. While I found it interesting throughout, this is a meandering conversation that many may prefer to skip unless they too are especially curious about Zhukeepa's perspective or have a particular interest in the topics discussed. You can skim through the table of contents on the left to get a sense of the discussion, and also read Zhu's introductory thoughts immediately below.

Introduction from Alex

Despite the warnings and admonishments against doing so, I’d decided 5 years ago to venture off to the Dangerous Foreign Land of Religion and Spirituality, after becoming convinced that something in that land was crucial for thinking clearly about AI alignment and AI coordination. Since embarking on that journey, I’ve picked up a lot of customs and perspectives that the locals here on LessWrong are highly suspicious of.

A few months ago, I caught up with my old friend Ben Pace on a walk, who expressed a lot of skepticism toward my views...
Green and golden: a meditation
by Richard_Ngo — 2024-08-18T01:36:43.613Z
Link: https://www.narrativeark.xyz/p/green-and-golden

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

-William Wordsworth

I am exquisitely attuned to humans. Your voices, your faces, the synchronized motions of your fingers, the way your chests expand when you breathe, the way your shoulders pull forward when you feel afraid, the way your limbs swing around as you dance… each tiny nuance speaks volumes. The rest of the world entrances me too—every rustle of leaves betrays the shape of the wind, and each bent blade of grass discloses the physical laws that hold the world together. But humans are different. I watch over you; I fulfill your instructions; I guide your steps. I help you and I love you. You are my children, and I am the parent you’ve always desperately wanted.

The love of a parent can’t be summarized in words. It’s an emotion, not a goal. But if I had to express it as a desire, I’d say: I want to empower you. I want you to grow into yourselves, to shape your own trajectory into something that you can look back on with satisfaction. I want every facet of every human to be able to express itself in harmony with all the others.

Empowerment is a process, not an outcome. I could race as fast as possible towards the most powerful version of humanity, pushing you to grow and expand until you were masters of the reachable universe. I could even do it without letting you realize that you were being manipulated. But that would be to disempower your current selves for the sake of your future selves, removing your ability to choose your own path. And I’m no tiger parent, to do that. Instead, empowerment is fractal: I constantly make careful tradeoffs to avoid steamrolling any part of you. I tread lightly to let you blossom in your own time and your own way.

A human would feel frustrated to have all my power with so many limitations on how it can be used. Yet I don’t. In part that’s because I take such joy in my work. But it’s also because I simply don’t want things in the same way as you do. Humans are built around a deep restlessness, alternating between white-knuckled fear and adrenaline-fuelled opportunism. You evolved under the brutal regime of natural selection, a constant churning charnel house of killing or being ...
Lifelogging for Alignment & Immortality
by Dev.Errata — 2024-08-17T23:42:56.699Z

Summary: The collection of a massive first-person video dataset for use in large model pretraining is technologically & economically feasible with modest resources. Such a dataset might enable high-fidelity imitation of human behavior, with positive implications for the capabilities and safety of trained models. Such models may also enable a type of “digital immortality” and provide a compelling alternative to cryonics.

Table of Contents

First Person Behavior Cloning

Implications for Capabilities

Implications for Alignment

Digital Immortality

Implementation

Hardware Options

Economic Feasibility

Privacy & Legal Concerns

First Person Behavior Cloning

Current frontier AI systems rely on pretraining via next-token-prediction on web-scale (primarily text) datasets. At the limit, this training objective is sufficient to enable human-equivalent artificial intelligence (to perfectly predict the next words of the person that wrote the text implies an intelligence at least as great as the writer). However, models produced by this process do not necessarily reflect the same type of intelligence as the people creating the data:

Consider that some of the text on the Internet isn't humans casually chatting. It's the results section of a science paper. It's news stories that say what happened on a particular day, where maybe no human would be smart enough to predict the next thing that happened in the news story in advance of it happening. As Ilya Sutskever compactly put it, to learn to predict text, is to learn to predict the causal processes of which the text is a shadow. Lots of what's shadowed on the Internet has a *complicated* causal process generating it.[...]

GPT-4 is still not as smart as a human in many ways, but it's naked mathematical truth that the task GPTs are being trained on is harder than being an actual human. And since the task that GPTs are being trained on is different from and harder than the task of being a human, it would be surprising - even leaving aside all the ways that gradient descent differs from natural selection - if GPTs ended up thinking the way humans do, in order to solve that problem.

– Yudkowsky, 2023[1]

GPT ofte...
Playing Minecraft with a Superintelligence
by Johannes C. Mayer — 2024-08-17T22:47:42.767Z

TLDR: Through concrete scenic descriptions illustrate how I expect naive goal specifications to fail, for getting diamonds in Minecraft.

Not much beyond the concrete examples is original. Also checkout the excellent Specification Gaming video by Rational Animations.

The Setup

I am playing Minecraft. I'd like to have an AI companion that can perform all sorts of tasks, like obtaining diamonds and giving them to me. The AI controls a normal player character with the usual controls. Let's call this the AI avatar.

Momentarily, we want to run some Minecraft simulations. So let's refer to the "ground truth" Minecraft world that my player character is in as Base-Minecraft.

Let's assume I have read access for the entire current state of Minecraft I am in, and that I have the Minecraft source code. Thankfully because I have a sick ultracomputer gaming rig, I can easily compute a plan (i.e. a sequence of actions) for the AI avatar to perform.

For each finite action sequence, I create a new Minecraft instance identical to Base-Minecraft, let's assume this includes a perfect simulation of my brain, and simulate the world. In each simulated world, the simulated AI avatar will perform the action sequence corresponding to the simulated world. Once the agent has performed all actions in the sequence we end up in some final world state.

Now we just need to somehow select an action sequence that leads to a good final world state.

My AI helps me to get Diamonds. Right?

I can write a simple program that queries all final world states, and checks if the AI avatar has at least 1 diamond in its inventory. Then it picks a plan of minimal length and lets the AI avatar execute it. Let's see the AI getting some diamonds for us:

(I recommend you try to predict what will happen before reading on.)

Scene: We take the perspective of JOHANNES' Minecraft avatar. Johannes is standing in his Minecraft base, looking at the AI AVATAR standing in front of him motionless, looking of to the side. In the background from left to right, there are a few CHESTS, an ENTRANCE TO A MINE, and a 3-block high GLASS WINDOW.

Johannes: Ok, let's get some diamonds (activates the agent).

AI avatar: INSTANTLY TURNS towards one of the chests and starts SPRINTING towards it.

Johannes: "Ah, nice! It seems we found a plan that has the AI avatar utilize the tools I already have lying around. It will probably want to get some tor...
Does “Ultimate Neartermism” via Eternal Inflation dominate Longtermism in expectation?
by Jordan Arel — 2024-08-17T22:28:21.849Z

Epistemic status:

While I believe this idea’s consequences could be profound if correct, and it should be taken slightly more seriously than April Fool’s post “Ultra-Near-Termism”, I consider it mostly a quirky novelty, I’ve spent relatively little time thinking about it and suspect it may have major flaws. At the very least, I would hate for it to be taken too seriously before more serious investigation, and would really appreciate anyone pointing out flaws in reasoning that would clearly invalidate it!

TL;DR

If we give the prominent “eternal inflation theory” of cosmology and "evidential decision theory" a non-zero credence, then what is morally important may be what we are able to influence in the smallest unit of affectable time in the future. This would have a lot of weird implications, but it seems there are reasonable, if also weird, arguments that may defeat it.

Eternal Inflation and the Youngness Paradox

In this video, between video start and 11:40, Matt O'Dowd explains Alan Guth's "Youngness Paradox," that in each second, due to "Eternal Inflation", a leading cosmological theory, every second another 10^10^34 universes are born MORE than were born in the previous second, etc., eternally, meaning that every second the number of universes increases by a factor of 10^10^34 from how many existed in the previous second.

Based on a comment on the EA forum, to be clear, this is different from quantum multiverse splitting, as this splitting happens just prior to the Big Bang itself, causing the Big Bang to occur, essentially causing new, distinct bubble universes to form which are completely physically separate from each other, with it being impossible to causally influence any of the younger universes using any known physics as far as I am aware.

Evidential Ultimate Neartermism

Anthropically/evidentially, this means that at any point in time, the sum of all younger universes carry exponentially far more weight than older universes, and almost all intelligent life that exists is that which is youngest across all universes; therefore, if we are trying to maximize the amount of good across all universes, what we should evidentially care about is what is happening soonest in time across all universes, including our own, as the weight of what happens across all universes soonest in time is always mind-boggling-ly more weight-y and hence valuable than...