trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
A Weird Trick To Manage Your Identity
by Gleb_Tsipursky — 2016-09-19T19:13:38.935Z

I’ve always been uncomfortable being labeled “American.” Though I’m a citizen of the United States, the term feels restrictive and confining. It obliges me to identify with aspects of the United States with which I am not thrilled. I have similar feelings of limitation with respect to other labels I assume. Some of these labels don’t feel completely true to who I truly am, or impose certain perspectives on me that diverge from my own.

These concerns are why it's useful to keep one's identity small, use identity carefully, and be strategic in choosing your identity.

Yet these pieces speak more to System 1 than to System 2. I recently came up with a weird trick that has made me more comfortable identifying with groups or movements that resonate with me while creating a System 1 visceral identity management strategy. The trick is to simply put the word “weird” before any identity category I think about.

I’m not an “American,” but a “weird American.” Once I started thinking about myself as a “weird American,” I was able to think calmly through which aspects of being American I identified with and which I did not, setting the latter aside from my identity. For example, I used the term “weird American” to describe myself when meeting a group of foreigners, and we had great conversations about what I meant and why I used the term. This subtle change enables my desire to identify with the label “American,” but allows me to separate myself from any aspects of the label I don’t support.

Beyond nationality, I’ve started using the term “weird” in front of other identity categories. For example, I'm a professor at Ohio State. I used to become deeply frustrated when students didn’t prepare adequately for their classes with me. No matter how hard I tried, or whatever clever tactics I deployed, some students simply didn’t care. Instead of allowing that situation to keep bothering me, I started to think of myself as a “weird professor” - one who set up an environment that helped students succeed, but didn’t feel upset and frustrated by those who failed to make the most of it.

I’ve been applying the weird trick in my personal life, too. Thinking of...
Open thread, Sep. 19 - Sep. 25, 2016 
by DataPacRat — 2016-09-19T18:34:12.589Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

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

4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "Make this post available under..." before submitting.
Isomorphic agents with different preferences: any suggestions?
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-09-19T13:15:42.620Z

In order to better understand how AI might succeed and fail at learning knowledge, I'll be trying to construct models of limited agents (with bias, knowledge, and preferences) that display identical behaviour in a wide range of circumstance (but not all). This means their preferences cannot be deduced merely/easily from observations.

Does anyone have any suggestions for possible agent models to use in this project?
Article on IQ: The Inappropriately Excluded
by buybuydandavis — 2016-09-19T01:36:00.317Z

I saw an article on high IQ people being excluded from elite professions. Because the site seemed to have a particular agenda related to the article, I wanted to check here for other independent supporting evidence for the claim.

Their fundamental claim seems to be that P(elite profession|IQ) peaks at 133 and decreases thereafter, and goes do to 3% of peak at 150. If true, I'd find that pretty shocking.

They indicate this diminishing probability of "success" at the high tail of the IQ distribution as a known effect. Anyone got other studies on this?

The Inappropriately Excluded

By dividing the distribution function of the elite professions' IQ by that of the general population, we can calculate the relative probability that a person of any given IQ will enter and remain in an intellectually elite profession. We find that the probability increases to about 133 and then begins to fall. By 140 it has fallen by about 1/3 and by 150 it has fallen by about 97%. In other words, for some reason, the 140s are really tough on one's prospects for joining an intellectually elite profession. It seems that people with IQs over 140 are being systematically, and likely inappropriately, excluded.
Meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Group Debugging
by rocurley — 2016-09-18T21:13:19.759Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Francisco Meetup: Group Debugging

WHEN:
19 September 2016 06:15:10PM (-0700)

WHERE:
1597 Howard St. San Francisco, CA

We’ll be meeting to solve each other’s problems!

Here’s how it works: we’ll have everyone brainstorm silently for a few minutes, then go around and summarize what problems we might like to work on; then people can break up into smaller conversations according to problems they think they could be most helpful with. This format is now what I'd call "tried and true".

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: Group Debugging
CrowdAnki comprehensive JSON representation of Anki Decks to facilitate collaboration 
by Vlad Sitalo — 2016-09-18T10:59:08.849Z

Hi everyone :). I like Anki, find it quite useful and use it daily. There is one thing that constantly annoyed me about it, though - the state of shared decks and of infrastructure around them.

There is a lot of topics that are of common interest for a large number of people, and there is usually some shared decks available for these topics. The problem with them is that as they are usually decks created by individuals for their own purposes and uploaded to ankiweb. So they are often incomplete/of mediocre quality/etc and they are rarely supported or updated.

And there is no way to collaborate on the creation or improvement of such decks, as there is no infrastructure for it and the format of the decks won't allow you to use common collaboration infrastructure (e.g. Github). So I've been recently working on a plugin for Anki that will allow you to make a full-feature Import/Export to/from JSON. What I mean by full-feature is that it exports not just cards converted to JSON, but Notes, Decks, Models, Media etc. So you can do export, modify result, or merge changes from someone else and on Import, those changes would be reflected on your existing cards/decks and no information/metadata/etc would be lost.

The point is to provide a format that will enable collaboration using mentioned common collaboration infrastructure. So using it you can easily work with multiple people to create a deck, collaborating for example, via Github, and then deck could be updated and improved by contributions from other people.

I'm looking for early adopters and for feedback :).

The ankiweb page for plugin (that's where you can get the plugin): https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1788670778

Github: https://github.com/Stvad/CrowdAnki

Some of my decks, on a Github (btw by using plugin, you can get decks directly from Github):

Git deck: https://github.com/Stvad/Software_Engineering__git

Regular expressions deck: https://github.com/Stvad/Software_Engineering__Regular_Expressions

Deck based on article Twenty rules of formulating knowledge by Piotr Wozniak:

https://github.com/Stvad/Learning__How-to-Formulate-Knowledge

You're welcome to use this decks and contribute back the improvements.
The Tower of Babble
by KatjaGrace — 2016-09-17T02:32:27.000Z

“If you come inside, I’ll show you my etchings”, she said. She looked at him slyly.

He didn’t want to see any etchings. But the well known implicit meaning is “if you come in, we can have sex”.

He didn’t want to have sex. But these days, talk of ‘sex’ in public places was usually understood to mean using an illicit iRotic machine together under the influence of hypercoke.

He didn’t want to go in the iRotic or use hypercoke. But since they had discussed this earlier, he knew that she knew that he knew that she didn’t either. Specifically, she had said that she was asexual, and that the most she was willing to do in that direction with anyone was smoke pot and cuddle. So she obviously meant to communicate something like, “if you come in, I will smoke pot and cuddle with you”

He didn’t want to smoke pot and cuddle. But he strongly suspected that she was the spy he was looking for, and so her invitation and the context sure made it look like once inside they might go somewhere very private and exchange important secrets.

He wasn’t in the mood for exchanging important secrets. But he knew that the spy he was looking for was a double agent, and that any apparent invitation to confidential discussion was really an invitation to get shot, inconveniently far from witnesses.

He didn’t want to be shot (though frankly this sounded better than going near an iRotic machine). However he had a concealed stunsword, and was confident that he could best her in combat.

He followed her inside carefully, hand on his weapon.

The etchings were of birds.

He turned around to smile at her, reeling from the depth of his misunderstanding.

She shot him.
Weekly LW Meetups
by FrankAdamek — 2016-09-16T15:51:20.464Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on September 16th. The following week's summary is here.

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup: 18 September 2016 07:00PM
Munich Meetup in September: 17 September 2016 04:00PM

The remaining meetups take place in cities with regular scheduling, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:

[Moscow] Role playing game based on HPMOR in Moscow: 17 September 2016 03:00PM
Moscow: keynote for the first Kocherga year, text analysis, rationality applications discussion: 18 September 2016 02:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Steelmanning: 18 September 2016 03:30PM
Vienna: 24 September 2016 03:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Canberra, Columbus, Denver, Kraków, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers and a Slack channel for daily discussion and online meetups on Sunday night US time.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, build community, and have fun!

In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview is posted on the front page every Friday. These are an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in upcoming weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts are moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: Atlanta, Cambridge UK, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Marin ...
Meetup : Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup
by iarwain1 — 2016-09-16T14:17:46.442Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup

WHEN:
18 September 2016 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
Performing Arts and Humanities Bldg Room 456, 1000 Hilltop Cir, Baltimore, MD 21250

Meeting is on 4th floor of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. Permit parking designations do not apply on weekends, so park pretty much wherever you want.

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore Area / UMBC Weekly Meetup
Zero Agents and Plastic Men
by Jacob Falkovich — 2016-09-16T07:51:51.000Z

[Note: this post is mainly anecdata and speculation, so don’t expect academic citations and regression models. My epistemic status on this is, accordingly, speculative. I’m sure that many people discussed similar themes, but I arrived at these conclusions independently. Also, since the anecdotes are personal, the names and identifying details of all people in this post have been changed. ]

There's two kinds of people in this world, son. There's the ingroup and there's the outgroup.

— Jacob Falkovich (@yashkaf) April 21, 2016

This post is about sociology. I never actually studied sociology.

The closest I got was a sociology book I once received as a birthday gift from Maya, my Israeli ex-girlfriend who majored in sociology. She told me the book was about patience. I read the first three pages: the book turned out to be about gift-giving. Coincidentally, the two words are spelled the same in Hebrew (המתנה). Maya admitted that she never actually read it, but it was recommended by her sociology professor. And besides, she hinted, I could use to learn about patience anyway. I wasn’t sure how to learn patience from a book about gifts, so I never opened it again.

As for Maya, after we broke up I introduced her to a very patient friend of mine. They recently got married after eight years of patient dating.

So what do I know of sociology? All I know comes mainly from three sources. The first is the video of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on authority and obedience. The second is Scott’s post about the outgroup. And the third is Scott’s post about the ingroup.

The ingroup post is titled “The Ideology Is not the Movement”. It explains that extant tribes of people rarely stay concerned for long with the official reason for the tribe’s formation. Whatever else Sunni and Shia Muslims are killing each other over in 2016, the choice of rightful caliph to succeed Muhammad in 632 AD ain’t it. “Gamergate” isn’t the movement of people who think that “Depression Quest” is a crappy game that got unfairly positive reviews. Ali Ibn Abi Talib and Depression Quest were just rallying flags, the nuclei around which people with preexisting similarities coalesced. Once a tribe is established, the ideological rallying flag can be discarded or even controverted. Did you know that the US

...
Meetup : Moscow: keynote for the first Kocherga year, text analysis, rationality applications discussion
by Slava Matyukhin — 2016-09-15T16:49:53.639Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: keynote for the first Kocherga year, text analysis, rationality applications discussion

WHEN:
18 September 2016 02:00:00PM (+0300)

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

Note: most our members join meetups via other channels. Still, the correlation between "found out about Moscow meetups via lesswrong.com" and "is a great fit for our community" is very high. So we're posting just a short link to the hackpad document with the schedule here instead of the full translation of the announcement into English.

Pad with the details about 18.09.2016 meetup.

We're meeting at the "Kocherga" anticafe, as usual.

Discussion article for the meetup : Moscow: keynote for the first Kocherga year, text analysis, rationality applications discussion
The map of the methods of optimisation (types of intelligence)
by turchin — 2016-09-15T15:04:31.478Z

Optimisation process is an ability to quickly search space of possible solution based on some criteria.

We live in the Universe full of different optimisation processes, but we take many of them for granted. The map is aimed to show full spectrum of all known and possible optimisation processes. It may be useful in our attempts to create AI.

The interesting thing about different optimisation processes if that they come to similar solution (bird and plane) using completely different paths. The main consequences of it is that dialog between different optimisation processes is not possible. They could interact but they could not understand each other.

The one thing which is clear from the map is that we don’t live in the empty world where only one type intelligence is slowly evolving. We live in the world which resulted from complex interaction of many optimisation processes. It also lowers chances of intelligence explosion, as it will have to compete with many different and very strong optimisation processes or results of their work.

But most of optimisation processes are evolving in synergy from the beginning of the universe and in general it looks like that many of them are experiencing hyperbolic acceleration with fixed date of singularity around 2030-2040. (See my post and also ideas of J.Smart and Schmidhuber)

While both model are centred around creation of AI and assume radical changes resulting from it in short time frame, the nature of them is different. In first case it is one-time phase transition starting in one point, and in second it is evolution of distributed net.

I add in red hypothetical optimisation processes which doesn’t exist or proved, but may be interesting to consider. I mark in green my ideas.

The pdf of the map is here:
Stratified learning and action
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-09-15T08:59:29.000Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

It seems that stratification is more flexible than I initially thought.

That's because the default action or policy ∅, which I was envisioning as a null action (or maybe the AI turning itself off) can actually be more than that. For instance, ∅ could be an obsessive learning policy, for learning human values, for instance - and these human values can form the core of the AI's value function W.

Then, stratification means that the AI will act to maximise human values, while estimating those values in accordance with what it would have calculated, had it been a pure value-estimator. This avoids the tension between value-learning and value maximising that bedevils most value-learners.
(C)IRL is not solely a learning process
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-09-15T08:35:13.000Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

I feel Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) and Cooperative Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL) are very good ideas, and will likely be essential for safe AI if we can't come up with some sort of sustainable low impact, modular, or Oracle design. But IRL and CIRL have a weakness. In a nutshell:

#. The models (C)IRL uses for humans are underspecified.
#. This should cause CIRL to have motivated and manipulative learning.
#. Even without that, (C)IRL can end up fitting a terrible model to humans.
#. To solve those issues, (C)IRL will need to make creative modelling decisions that go beyond (standard) learning.

In a nutshell within the nutshell, (C)IRL doesn't avoid the main problems that other learning approaches have. Let's look at each of these points in turn.

The models (C)IRL uses for humans are underspecified

This shouldn't be in doubt. CIRL doesn't have a proper model of a human, beyond an agent H that "knows the reward function" (R). Standard IRL has even less: an expert policy, or a set of sampled trajectories (examples of human performance). There have been efforts to add noise to the model of human behaviour, but only in a very simplistic way, that doesn't model the full range of human irrationality (see some examples here).

Of course, given a diverse enough prior, a correct model of human irrationality will be included, but the human remains underspecified.

This should cause CIRL to have motivated and manipulative learning

The CIRL is not immune to the usual pressures towards manipulative learning of any agent whose goal is specified in terms of what the agent learns.

To illustrate with an example: suppose first that the CIRL models the human as being perfectly rational, free of error or bias. Then, assuming the CIRL can also predict and manipulate human behaviour, it can force the human to confirm (through action or speech) that some particularly-easy-to-maximise R is the correct one.

But the CIRL agent is unlikely to have only this "rationality model". It may have a large variety of models, and maybe some explicit meta-preferences. But the same pressure applies: the agent will attempt to manipulate the update of the models similarly, all to force R towards something particularly easy to maximise.

Partially defining terms like bias and bounded rationality don't help here; since the agent is corrupting (f

...
The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) seeks a media engagement volunteer/intern
by crmflynn — 2016-09-14T16:42:43.740Z

Volunteer/Intern Position: Media Engagement on Global Catastrophic Risk

http://gcrinstitute.org/volunteerintern-position-media-engagement-on-global-catastrophic-risk/

The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI) seeks a volunteer/intern to contribute on the topic of media engagement on global catastrophic risk, which is the risk of events that could harm or destroy global human civilization. The work would include two parts: (1) analysis of existing media coverage of global catastrophic risk and (2) formulation of strategy for media engagement by GCRI and our colleagues. The intern may also have opportunities to get involved in other aspects of GCRI.

All aspects of global catastrophic risk would be covered. Emphasis would be placed on GCRI’s areas of focus, including nuclear war and artificial intelligence. Additional emphasis could be placed on topics of personal interest to the intern, potentially including (but not limited to) climate change, other global environmental threats, pandemics, biotechnology risks, asteroid collision, etc.

The ideal candidate is a student or early-career professional seeking a career at the intersection of global catastrophic risk and the media. Career directions could include journalism, public relations, advertising, or academic research in related social science disciplines. Candidates seeking other career directions would also be considered, especially if they see value in media experience. However, we have a strong preference for candidates intending a career on global catastrophic risk.

The position is unpaid. The intern would receive opportunities for professional development, networking, and publication. GCRI is keen to see the intern benefit professionally from this position and will work with the intern to ensure that this happens. This is not a menial labor activity, but instead is one that offers many opportunities for enrichment.

A commitment of at least 10 hours per month is expected. Preference will be given to candidates able to make a larger time commitment. The position will begin during August-September 2016. The position will run for three months and may be extended pending satisfactory performance.

The position has no geographic constraint. The intern can work from anywhere in the world. GCRI has some preference for candidates from American time zones, but we regularly work with people from around the...