trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Solution to the two envelopes problem for moral weights
by MichaelStJules — 2024-02-19T00:15:53.031Z

Summary

When taking expected values, the results can differ radically based on which common units we fix across possibilities. If we normalize relative to the value of human welfare, then other animals will tend to be prioritized more than by normalizing by the value of animal welfare or by using other approaches to moral uncertainty.

For welfare comparisons and prioritization between different moral patients like humans, other animals, aliens and artificial systems, I argue that we should fix and normalize relative to the moral value of human welfare, because our understanding of the value of welfare is based on our own experiences of welfare, which we directly value. Uncertainty about animal moral weights is about the nature of our experiences and to what extent other animals have capacities similar to those that ground our value, and so empirical uncertainty, not moral uncertainty (

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).
I revise the account in light of the possibility of multiple different human reference points between which we don’t have fixed uncertainty-free comparisons of value, like pleasure vs belief-like preferences (cognitive desires) vs non-welfare moral reasons, or specific instances of these. If and because whatever moral reasons we apply to humans, (similar or other) moral reasons aren’t too unlikely to apply with a modest fraction of the same force to other animals, then the results would still be relatively animal-friendly (

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).

I outline why this condition plausibly holds across moral reasons and theories, so that it’s plausible we should be fairly animal-friendly (

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).

I describe and respond to some potential objections:

There could be inaccessible or unaccessed conscious subsystems in our brains that our direct experiences and intuitions do not (adequately) reflect, and these should be treated like additional moral patients (

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).
The approach could lead to unresolvable disagreements between moral agents, but this doesn't seem any more objectionable than any other disagreement about what matters (more).
Epistemic modesty about morality may push for also separately normalizing by the values of nonhumans or against these comparisons altogether, but this doesn't seem to particularly support the prioritization of humans (

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).

I consider whether similar arguments apply in cases of realism vs illusionism about phenomenal consciousness, moral realism vs moral antirealism,

...
Conspiracy Investigation Done Right
by ymeskhout — 2024-02-19T00:09:04.360Z

In 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded and crashed into the ocean off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board. After an extensive four-year investigation, the NTSB concluded the explosion was caused by a short circuit ignition within the center fuel tank. Or at least that’s the official story.

Now normally when you encounter a disclaiming phrase like that it tends to be a klaxon warning to strap in because you’re about to hear some crazy shit about what really happened. I’m not going to argue for some crazy shit though, instead I want to showcase a real-life illustration on how to properly investigate and litigate what otherwise would be dismissed and derided as some crazy shit.

Someone (thanks Jim!) brought to my attention this pending lawsuit that aims to challenge the TWA 800 official narrative.[1] The basic summary you need to know is that, in contrast to the official story, the “alternative” narrative claims the airplane was hit by an SM-2 surface-to-air missile launched by the United States government during a weapons testing exercise. You can read the 38-page lawsuit complaint yourself where they allege:

Defendants [Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, US Government, etc.] negligently, recklessly, or intentionally authorized and conducted the testing of missiles in commercial airspace. As a result of these tests, a missile downed TWA 800 and killed Plaintiffs’ decedents.

And humorously enough:

Defendants owed decedents and Plaintiffs a duty not to negligently test missiles in commercial airspace. Defendants breached that duty by negligently testing missiles in commercial airspace.

TO BE CLEAR: I find the overall claim to be extremely implausible based on Bayesian reasoning I’ll get to later, but the focus here is less about delving into the specific allegations[2] and more about showcasing how one should go about uncovering a criminal conspiracy that otherwise sounds kooky on its face.

As far as I can tell, the law firm involved has a reputation for serious lawyers doing serious work. The complaint they filed directly addresses many procedural issues that would normally be a hindrance for these types of claims. For example, the major hurdle would be the statute of limitations given that the explosion took place in 1996 but the lawyers cite the fraudulent concealment exception based on some FOIA foot-dragging:

Specifically, key evidence confirming

...
Scientific Method
by Andrij “Androniq” Ghorbunov — 2024-02-18T21:06:45.228Z

Here I will try to describe the scientific method in simple words — what it is, how it works, and how we can break it into a list of easily understandable singular ideas, in this article called 'points'.

First of all, the scientific method is not carved on tablets, like the commandments of Moses; it can change and update itself. This article compiles the points of the scientific method that are more or less recognized by the global consensus at the time of writing (or the last update). At the same time, this method is the best we have so far for constructing both abstract concepts of the world and, ultimately, working and useful technologies.

There is no ultimate goal in science. A goal is bad; more precisely, one universal goal is bad. If you set out to make everyone happy, one of the methods to achieve this goal would be to kill all the unhappy people. Therefore, science does not fix a goal in order to choose a method for it — it fixes a method, and the goal it leads to or with which it is applied may change in the process.

The scientific method can update itself — discard outdated points, add new ones, or reformulate existing ones; it is similar to a computer program that can rewrite its own code. Yes, this means that we do not know if this program will hang, start going in circles, or delete itself someday; but we have enough examples of successful application of the scientific method and failed attempts to abandon it, that we, despite everything, stick to it.

To a large extent, the scientific method tells us what not to do — it is not an action algorithm (if you are looking for an algorithm, you need Solomonoff's theory), but rather a filter through which we pass any algorithms, research, conclusions, and so on, and what remains after all sieves, we call it science. In each of the points, I will try to give an example of what this point can filter out (declare as non-science).

The scientific method allows us to construct hypotheses — that is, individual statements (assumptions) about our reality; as well as theories or research programmes — large systems of such statements. Note that we do not use words like "fact" — because any statement can be doubted. A hypothesis that is currently considered closest to the truth (among all hypotheses surrounding one problem) is called a working hy...
Weighing reputational and moral consequences of leaving Russia or staying
by spza — 2024-02-18T19:36:40.676Z

I've been thinking a lot about whether I should consider emigrating to another country (currently I'm in Russia). I'm not involved in politics or the military action, but I can't help but feel implicated by my government's actions as a citizen here. Specifically, the increasing authoritarianism and human rights issues worry me. On the other hand, I have family and (very few) friends in Russia, plus clearer studying opportunities, and I'm not sure if I want to leave that behind; also, Russia is my home - I'm unsure whether this might be important.

I'm a software engineer in my 20s living in Moscow, with self-employment and quite stable income. I'm interested in building global startups, so I'm worried about the reputation of my future company(ies) in the context of remaining in Russia for so long. Meanwhile, I'd prefer to continue cooperating with my (small) Russian social circle. But I'm unsure they have my better interests in mind (so I'd also like advice on how to determine that, if possible).

I'm looking for perspectives from this community on the moral and other considerations and responsibilities I have as an individual. Mainly I worry about global reputation of myself and my (future) companies. Should I continue my life here as usual? Should I keep contacts and cooperation with acquaintances/friends (some of whom might be potential business partners) who remain? (Btw, I somewhat worry that I could absorb some of their differing beliefs which could make me less effective.) Is there anything constructive I can do if I stay? Or is leaving the country and minimizing contacts the only ethical choice?

Curious to hear thoughts. I'm especially interested in advice on how to weigh all this from those with more experience in similar situations.

I don't have strong opinions yet, so please share a variety of perspectives. Mostly looking for help in thinking this through in a thoughtful way during a confusing time.
Things I've Grieved
by Raemon — 2024-02-18T19:32:47.169Z

I think grieving is a fundamental rationality skill. Often, the difference between the Winning Move, and your Current Path, is that there is something really beautiful and good about your current path. Or there was something actually horrifying about reality that makes the Winning Move necessary.

There is a skill to engaging with, but eventually letting go, of things that are beautiful and good but which you can't have right now.

There is a skill to facing horror.

I think these are a general skill, of looking at the parts of reality you don't want to accept, and... accepting them.

When you are good at the skill, you can (often) do it quickly. But, I definitely recommend taking your time with cultivating that skill. My experience is that even when I thought I had grieved major things I would turn out to be wrong and have more processing to do.

I originally wrote this list without commentary, as sort of elegant, poetic appendix to my previous post on Deliberate Grieving. But I was afraid people would misinterpret it – that they would think I endorsed simply letting things go and getting over them and moving on. That is an important end result, but trying to rush to that will tie yourself up in knots and leave you subtly broken.

Each of the following included lots of listening to myself, and listening to reality, forming a best guess as to whether I actually did need to grieve the thing or if there were clever Third Options that allowed me to Have All The Things.

Things I have grieved

Relationships with particular people.

The idea that I will ever get a satisfying closure on some of those relationships.

The idea that I will get Justice in particular circumstances where I think I was wronged, but the effort to figure that out and get social consensus on the wrongness wasn't really worth anyone's time.

Getting to have a free weekend that one particular time, where it became clear that, actually, the right thing for me to do that-particular weekend was to book last minute tickets for EA Global and fly to London.

The idea that a rationalist community could work, in Berkeley in particular, in the way I imagined in 2017.

The idea that it's necessarily the right strategy, to solve coordination problems with in-depth nuance, allowing persnickety rationalists to get along, and allowing companies to scale with a richness of humanity and complex goals....

...instead o...
Senses of "knowing" a person
by dkl9 — 2024-02-18T19:13:05.448Z
Link: https://dkl9.net/essays/person_knowledge.html

Saying that you "know" someone is imprecise. What do you know about them?

Here's a slightly arbitrary heptachotomy of information that could count as knowledge of a person:

trivially-recorded data, like their name, age, or location
their interests, hobbies, or occupation
their values, principles, or goals
their relations to other people
experience-based patterns in their speech or behaviour
their backstory
their skills and thinking style

If you meet and befriend someone in person, you'll likely learn about them in all those ways. But you could easily neglect to learn any one of those dimensions for a long time, except the fifth.

Other ways of meeting people (or "meeting" people) are less balanced.

Method	Information types
Reading a website they made, like mine	2, 3, 7
Long-running pseudonymous chats (as on IRC)	2, 4, 5, 7
Stalking	1, 2, 4, sometimes 5, 6
Wikipedia	1, 2, 6, sometimes 3, 4
Reviewing their uni application	1, 2, 3, 6, 7
Watching their technical lectures	2, 5, 7

You may assume that knowing someone in one sense suggests similar knowledge of the same person in other senses. This is only usually true for those associating in person. Modern technology completely breaks that intuitive correlation.
The Jolly Green Giant Chronicles [ChatGPT] 
by Bill Benzon — 2024-02-18T17:28:46.847Z

Cross-posted from New Savanna.

At the end of December, on the 30th, I gave ChatGPT the following prompt:

What happened when the Jolly Green Giant had a colorless green idea after eating a stew laced with ergot?

To which it replied in that deadpan pedantic way it has:

It seems like you're describing a playful and imaginative scenario involving the Jolly Green Giant, a fictional character associated with Green Giant vegetables, and the concept of a "colorless green idea," which might be a play on words or a paradoxical notion.

However, it's important to note that the Jolly Green Giant and the idea of a colorless green idea are not typically associated with real-world events or substances like ergot, which is a fungus that can grow on certain grains and has been historically linked to hallucinogenic effects.

In reality, the Jolly Green Giant is a mascot used in advertising for Green Giant vegetables, and ergot is a fungus that can produce alkaloids with psychoactive properties when consumed in sufficient quantities. Connecting these elements in a narrative would be a creative and fictional scenario, as there's no established story or connection between the Jolly Green Giant, colorless green ideas, and ergot in any official or widely recognized context.

If you have a specific context or scenario in mind, feel free to provide more details, and I'll do my best to respond accordingly!

I can’t for the life me understand why it didn’t go straight to the story, but it has its ever cautious and insistently helpful ways and there’s no way around it. So I gave it a scenario, to which it responded, followed that with another prompt, and another, for a total of six prompts that day. Now that ChatGPT allows you to invoke contexts from previous sessions, I decided to come back later and keep things going for awhile, just to see what would happen, which I did.

ROTFLMAO!

I decided to make it a running feature here at New Savanna. I’d post new episodes every few days, or whenever I generated them. For some reason, though, I didn’t do it. Then yesterday, February 17, I entered a simple two-word prompt, wondering how ChatGPT would respond. Would it pick up the reference? I didn’t know.

I did, and its reponse had me howling with laughter. I decided I just had to post Chronicles of the Jolly Green Giant. But did I really want to force people to read 8000 thousand words before they got to that...
Intuition for 1 + 2 + 3 + … = -1/12
by Shankar Sivarajan — 2024-02-18T16:46:42.687Z

You might have been led to believe the only way to make sense of the equation 1+2+3+…=−112 is with "zeta function regularization," involving analytic continuation or similar high-tech tools, and that there is no way to develop intuition for this.

You were probably was told this by mathematicians, to whom "intuition" means something very different than it does to me.

So here follows what I consider an intuitive explanation for this result. Prerequisites include an intuition for the arithmetic of positive integers (most readers will have this), and a willingness to stfu about rigor.

The "Counting" Function C

For historical reasons, involving "counting" the number of individual objects (sheep, stones, sticks, whatever) in a collection, there exists a function C that acts on ordered tuples of positive integers and outputs a single positive integer. For example,

(1,1)C→2 [1]

(1,1,1)C→3

Now, this function has several nice[2] properties (which have names like "commutativity" and "associativity"), which means that things like the following is also true:

(2,1)C→3.

I shall be dropping the superscript over the arrow for the rest of this.

Fractions, Negative numbers, Zero

Now, playing with this function, we might ask questions like,

Is there a number x such that (2,x)→1?

Or Is there a number y such that (y,y)→1?

Now, obviously, the answer is "No, of course not. The output of the 'counting' function is greater than every number in the input, and there is no number smaller than 1."

However, we're going to make them up in such a way that all the nice properties of the function C hold; this is a silly exercise with no real-world meaning, but mathematicians like doing things like this, and they turn out to have surprising real-world applications, in fields like physics (something, something "unreasonable effectiveness"). These new "numbers" are called negative numbers and fractions.

(2,−1)→1, and (12,12)→1.

Now, playing with these new "numbers," we find that to preserve the nice properties of C, we need to introduce something called a "zero" or "0" such that (1,−1)→0.

With me so far?

Infinitely Large Tuples and Pattern Consistency

What happens if we apply our function C to a tuple with infinitely many elements? The obvious answer is "That doesn't make any sense! You ca...
No Clickbait - Misalignment Database
by Kabir Kumar — 2024-02-18T05:35:44.078Z

This is a database of cases of Misalignment - classified by Type of Misalignment, Type of AI, etc.
Link to add more:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfE7ZeSV6W_YmKYrgy7BaiFKj90dBJ2qDUaYXzbpi_ILEs9sQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
Link to the DB: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uXzWavy1mS0X-uQ21UPWHlAHjXFJoWWlN62EyKAoUmA/edit?usp=sharing
Made it last week.
Currently there are 115 entries - 62 of which are from the Specification Gaming db made by DeepMind https://deepmindsafetyresearch.medium.com/specification-gaming-the-flip-side-of-ai-ingenuity-c85bdb0deeb4
For some reason, as far as I know, this is the first public database like this.
The closest that I know of are the Specification Gaming database and the https://incidentdatabase.ai/
For a community that's supposed to be science fans, I'm pretty baffled at the lack of something as basic as this existing- among many, many other things.
If you know of any cases, please add them.
Edits:
Added link to the DB: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uXzWavy1mS0X-uQ21UPWHlAHjXFJoWWlN62EyKAoUmA/edit?usp=sharing
Made more clear what's DB, what's form.
Idea: NV⁻ Centers for Brain Interpretability
by James Camacho — 2024-02-18T05:28:27.291Z

Introduction

Human brains are now interpretable, at a rudimentary level. For example, fMRI scans can be reconstructed into images[1] or text[2], and EEGs can be used to play pong[3]. However, these sensors do not have the resolution for fine-grained interpretation. Quantum magnetometers, such as NV− centers, seem like a viable alternative.

First, an overview of current sensors. The main advantages an EEG (electroencephalogram) has is it's cheap and fast. You can buy one for a few hundred dollars, and sample data every few milliseconds. However, the data is pretty bad. Connective tissue (such as the skull) surrounds the brain and distorts the electric field, so the spatial resolution is in the centimeter range.

Magnetic fields are not distorted as much, so an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imager) has better resolution. However, they only track blood flow to the brain after the neurons fire, which means you can only get a useful image as fast as this response time—once every few seconds. They also weigh several tons and cost several hundred thousand dollars, which makes it expensive to generate a large dataset.

Another group of sensors, MEGs (magnetoencephalograms) solve the resolution problem with quantum sensors, getting to the millimeter and millisecond range. Currently SQUIDs (superconducting quantum interference devices) are most popular, as they can detect magnetic perturbations to ∼10−14T/√Hz. In comparison, a neuron spikes[4] at ∼10−13T. However, unless we get better superconductors, they have to be cooled to around 80K, so they end up costing several million dollars and again, weigh tons.

There has been some experimentation with SERFs[5] (spin exchange relaxation free magnetometers) which work at room temperature, but they can't work in external magnetic fields—including the Earth's intrinsic one—so they require a room with magnetic shielding.

(Precision Magnetometers for Aerospace Applications: A Review, Fig 8)

On the figure's left are NV− sensors[6], short for nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. They operate at room temperature, do not need magnetic shielding, and can potentially get to around 2.5⋅10−13T/√Hz[7] sensitivity, though current results are closer to 10−10T/√Hz.

Thus, a single NV− sensor could pick up on several hundred neurons firing in sync, and an array could do even better. I think we should build MEGs with NV− sensors, and apply them...
Celiacs don't need to live in fear
by Jarrah — 2024-02-18T02:30:28.084Z

TL;DR: Less sensitive celiacs can probably have trace amounts of gluten cross contamination with low risk of health problems, since celiacs who deliberately eat non-trivial amounts of gluten are mostly ok.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition where your immune system becomes triggered by gluten. This leads to a variety of strange effects on your body. Gastrointestinal distress symptoms (diarrhea, flatulence, irritable bowels) are the most obviously connected, but a large proportion (my guess is 30-50%[1]) of celiac sufferers don't get these. Other common symptoms are weight loss, iron deficiency, weak bones (density loss), psoriasis (itchy skin patches) and damage to your small intestine (villous atrophy). 1-2% of people globally have celiac, though most are not diagnosed.

The universal treatment ordered is a strict gluten free diet. This makes sense, and for me personally was relatively easy to do given the range of options these days.

The killer is that to do it strictly you must avoid cross contamination at all costs. While cooking this is not too hard as long as you use separate utensils. But it means you practically cannot eat out, since you don't control the preparation.

It's difficult to classify restaurants as 'safe' or not, which severely restricts your ability to eat out. Many restaurants that are actually very careful will still tell you they can't guarantee it's gluten free. How do you know whether they are saying that because they throw spaghetti at each other, or if they just understand how hard it is to clean all contamination traces and don't want to be sued?

On the other hand, many restaurants insist they are safe, but do not know the implications of catering for celiacs. So they fry the fries in oil that has fried glutenful things, which transfers a surprising amount of gluten.

The personal cost of this is high. Eating out is important for convenience options and for social inclusion. One paper notes that "GFD is very restrictive, resulting as a burden on social life and quality of life". More plainly: it sucks. I did it for two months but the cost was too high to accept as a rule without question - I wanted more evidence to weigh up the benefits.

But the blanket rule of "celiacs strictly avoid gluten" was black and white. There was no preformulated risk model for me to plug my parameters in - information on gluten thresholds and health impac...