trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Meetup : SF Meetup: Fun and Games
by maia — 2016-07-28T04:18:37.589Z

Discussion article for the meetup : SF Meetup: Fun and Games

WHEN:
01 August 2016 06:15:18PM (-0700)

WHERE:
1597 Howard St, SF

We’ll be meeting to play board (and other) games!

I will bring Set, and standard playing cards; there is a small stock of other board games at the meetup venue. Please feel free to bring games you’d like to play.

For help getting into the building, please call: three zero one, three five six, five four two four.

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 : SF Meetup: Fun and Games
Meetup : Less Wrong NH Meetup
by Tuk — 2016-07-27T23:02:59.560Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meetup

WHEN:
09 August 2016 07:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
269 Pearl St Manchester NH 03104

The Less Wrong NH meetup is Tuesday, 8/9, in Manchester, NH at 7 pm at a private residence. Light refreshments will be provided.

Have you read Rationality: from AI to Zombies, or any of the Sequences on Less Wrong? Maybe you're just a fan of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Come hang out with us and discuss optimization of whatever it is you want to optimize.

Agenda: See Facebook

You may want to bring a notebook.

http://www.meetup.com/Less-Wrong-NH-Meetup/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LessWrongNH/

Discussion article for the meetup : Less Wrong NH Meetup
Learning (meta-)preferences
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-07-27T14:43:42.000Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

There are various methods, such as Cooperative Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL), that aim to have an AI deduce human preferences in some fashion.

The problem is that humans are not rational - citation certainly not needed. But, worse than that, they are not rational in ways that seriously complicate the task of fitting a reward or utility function to them. I presented one problem this entails in a previous post. That talked about the problems that emerged when an AI could influence a human's preference through the ways it presented the issues.

But there are other irrationalities which challenge a value learner. Here are some that can't easily be modelled as "true preferences + noise".

#. Humans procrastinate even though they'd generally prefer to proceed with their tasks.
#. Most people who fail a suicide attempt never try again.
#. People can be prejudiced while not desiring to be so (and, often, while not realising they are so).
#. Many rationalists wish to be consistent, and fail at this.
#. The young don't want to have the old-age preferences they should expect to have.
#. People generally take on the preferences of the social group they belong to.
#. Addicts may have stated or revealed preferences to continue to be addicts. However, if they'd never gotten addicted in the first place, they may have stated or revealed preferences to never do so.
#. The whole tension between stated and revealed preferences in the first place.
#. People desiring to have certain beliefs, or at least to not lost them (eg religious beliefs).
#. etc.
#. A lot more "etc"'s.

The preference inference problem

The problem with those preferences is not that they can't be resolved (even though philosophers continue to disagree on many of them). It's that it's really hard to resolve them in a principled way, from observation of base level human behaviour.

Look for example at the tension between revealed and stated preferences. CIRL models the human as knowing the true reward function and wanting to maximise it. Given that this is not the case, the AI could legitimately conclude that the revealed preferences are the true ones, OR that the stated preferences are true. There's nothing in the design, as far as I can tell, which would privilege one or the other. It all depends on the AI's model of human rationality -- a model which cannot be

...
What does an imperfect agent want?
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2016-07-27T14:03:55.000Z

A putative new idea for AI control; index here.

I'll roughly divide ways of establishing human preferences into four categories:

#. Assume true
#. Best fit
#. Proxy measures
#. Modelled irrationality

In some cases, these are more differences of emphasis than sharp technical differences.

For instance Cooperative Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL) assumes that humans have access to their true reward function, and act along with the AI to jointly maximise that. This is a "assume true" model: it assumes humans have a real reward function and knowledge of that, and now it attempts to deduce what this is.

My extremely abstract model of human preferences is a "proxy measure": it uses the imperfect agent's answer to questions as a way to define preferences.

Both of these methods fail in opposite ways. The big advantage of an "assume true" approach is that the AI is setting out to discover a reward function, not to define or manipulate one, hence it (initially) has no incentive to manipulate the human. The big problem is that humans don't actually have access to their true reward function (unless the AI overdoses on "revealed preferences" and assumes everything humans do as being a rational expression of a complicated reward function). This can cause a lot of problems depending on how the AI interprets what human irrationality is; indeed, for some interpretations, the AI's incentive to manipulate is still present.

The big advantage with proxy measures is that they refer to a real thing in the real world: the human's answers to AI questions are genuine pieces of data that don't assume anything impossible. The big problem is that since its a proxy and not a genuine measure, the AI is directly incentivised to manipulate the outcome, and will find it much easier to do.

Best fit and Modelled irrationality

In a sense, all approaches are "best fit" approaches. Unless we had a perfect ideal model of human preferences, some process is needed to fill in the gaps. But I categorise approaches as "best fit" if the purpose is specifically to fit a reward/value/utility function to humans, without assuming that humans know this function or that it comes from proxies.

An example is my vague idea, mentioned here, of specifying the complexity of human values and requiring that the value function found be of the same level of complexity -- and then choosing the best fit at that level.

Final

...
Meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visiting Museums
by RobinZ — 2016-07-26T18:14:15.685Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visiting Museums

WHEN:
31 July 2016 03:30:00PM (-0400)

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

This week, we will be meeting in the courtyard to walk together to a museum.

As always, side conversations are allowed and encouraged.

Upcoming meetups:

Aug. 7: TED Talks

Aug. 14: Outdoors Fun & Games

Aug. 21: Mini Talks

Discussion article for the meetup : Washington, D.C.: Visiting Museums
The Problem (TM) - Analyse a conversation
by Elo — 2016-07-26T11:03:29.853Z

Originally published here: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-tm-analyse-a-conversation/
Part 2: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/nt8/the_problem_tm_part_2/
Part 2: http://bearlamp.com.au/the-problem-analyse-a-conversation-part-2/

I had a chat with a person who admitted to having many problems themselves. I offered my services as a problem solving amateur, willing to try to get to the bottom of this. Presented is the conversation (With details changed for privacy).

I had my first shot at analysing the person's problems and drilling down to the bottom. I am interested in what other people have to say is the problem. Here we study the meta-strategy of how to solve the problem, which I find much more interesting than the object level analysis of the problem and how to solve it.

I don't think I got to the bottom of the problem, and I don't think I conducted myself in a top-notch capacity but needless to say I wonder if you have any comments about what IS TheProblem(tm), how did you come to that conclusion and what can be done about it (for the benefit of this person and anyone with a similar problem).

Zebra
Hey

ELiot
Where would you like to start?
Do you want to share about your history?

Zebra
I was previously very depressed, and then recovered for a few years. While I'm glad I was able to have those couple years, I don't think they were worth suffering through the depression, and I didn't at the time, when I didn't think it would return.

Zebra
(Though it hasn't returned as bad as it was.)

ELiot
So you are currently feeling depressed

Zebra
Yes. Possibly as a symptom of bipolar disorder (I've recently started having manic episodes), or possibly not--I've never been diagnosed with that, and until recently had never had issues with mania.

ELiot
How much are you sleeping? One Indication of bipolar swings is total sleep

Zebra
The last couple days I've slept okay, but when I had more manic symptoms sleep was very intermittent. A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose; at that point, I'd not slept in two days.

ELiot
Sounds like a bad event.

Zebra
I guess immediately I feel quite isolated, very stressed, and don't know how to proceed forward.

ELiot
Is there a specific stress?

Zebra
I guess; loneliness, numerous tensions with my girlfriend, some financial issues (to a large extent a symptom of t...
How The West Was Won
by Scott Alexander — 2016-07-26T03:05:17.000Z

I.

Someone recently linked me to Bryan Caplan’s post A Hardy Weed: How Traditionalists Underestimate Western Civ. He argues that “western civilization”‘s supposed defenders don’t give it enough credit. They’re always worrying about it being threatened by Islam or China or Degeneracy or whatever, but in fact western civilization can not only hold its own against these threats but actively outcompetes them:

The fragility thesis is flat wrong. There is absolutely no reason to think that Western civilization is more fragile than Asian civilization, Islamic civilization, or any other prominent rivals. At minimum, Western civilization can and does perpetuate itself the standard way: sheer conformity and status quo bias.

But saying that Western civilization is no more fragile than other cultures is a gross understatement. The truth is that Western civilization is taking over the globe. In virtually any fair fight, it steadily triumphs. Why? Because, as fans of Western civ ought to know, Western civ is better. Given a choice, young people choose Western consumerism, gender norms, and entertainment. Anti-Western governments from Beijing to Tehran know this this to be true: Without draconian censorship and social regulation, “Westoxification” will win.

A big part of the West’s strength, I hasten to add, is its openness to awesomeness. When it encounters competing cultures, it gleefully identifies competitors’ best traits – then adopts them as its own. By the time Western culture commands the globe, it will have appropriated the best features of Asian and Islamic culture. Even its nominal detractors will be Westernized in all but name. Picture how contemporary Christian fundamentalists’ consumerism and gender roles would have horrified Luther or Calvin. Western civ is a good winner. It doesn’t demand total surrender. It doesn’t make fans of competing cultures formally recant their errors. It just tempts them in a hundred different ways until they tacitly convert.

Traditionalists’ laments for Western civilization deeply puzzle me. Yes, it’s easy to dwell on setbacks. In a world of seven billion people, you can’t expect Western culture to win everywhere everyday. But do traditionalists seriously believe that freshman Western civ classes are the wall stan

...
Open thread, Jul. 25 - Jul. 31, 2016
by MrMind — 2016-07-25T07:07:13.254Z

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.
A rational unfalsifyable believe 
by Arielgenesis — 2016-07-25T02:15:07.807Z

A rational unfalsifyable believe

I'm trying to argue that it is possible for someone rational to hold on to a believe that is unfalsifyable and remain rational.

There are three people in a room. Adam, Cain, and Able. Able was murdered. Adam and Cain was taken into police custody. The investigation was thorough but it remains inconclusive. The technology was not advanced enough to produce conclusive evidence. The arguments are basically you did it, no, you did it.

Adam has a wife, her name is Eve. Eve believed that Adam is innocent. She believed so because she has known Adam very well and the Adam that she knew, wouldn't commit murder. She uses Adam's character and her personal relationship with him as evidence.

Cain, trying to defend himself, asked Eve. "What does it take for her to change her believe". She replied, "show me the video recording, then I would believe". But there was no video recording. Then she said, "show me any other evidence that is as strong as a video recording". But there was no such evidence as well.

Cain pointed out, "the evidence that you use for your believe is personal relationship and his character. Then if there are evidence against his character, would you change your mind?"

After some thinking and reflection, she finally said. "Yes, if it could be proven that I have been deceived all these years, then I will believe otherwise."

All of Adam's artifact were gathered, collected and analysed. The search was so thorough, there could never be any new evidence about what Adam had did before the custody that could be presented in the future. All points to Adam good character.

Eve was happy. Cain was not. Then he took one step further. He proposed, "Eve, people could change. If Adam change in the future into man of bad character, would you be convinced that he could have been the murderer?"

"Yes, if Adam changed, then I would believe that it is possible for Adam to be the murderer." Eve said.

Unfortunately, Adam died the next day. Cain said to Eve, "how do you propose that your belief about Adam's innocence be falsified now?"

"It cannot be falsified now." Eve replied.

"Then you must be irrational."

Is Eve irrational?

Can believing an unfalsifyable believe be rational?

Can this argument be extended to believe in God?
Meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VI)
by steven0461 — 2016-07-25T02:11:44.237Z

Discussion article for the meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VI)

WHEN:
31 July 2016 03:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
438 Coleman Ave, San Jose, CA 95110

You're invited to bring whatever you'd like to see at Park Day - balls, frisbees, food, etc. (Also, consider taking measures against the sun.) We'll carry a green blanket so you can recognize us. The idea is to gather outside near the listed address at the park entrance first, but probably walk elsewhere soon. If you can't find us or there's something else, please call me (Steven) at 510-6844565.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Jose Meetup: Park Day (VI)
Reverse lotteries with friends
by KatjaGrace — 2016-07-25T02:00:28.000Z

A reverse lottery pays out a little bit each time you pay but sometimes lead to horrific disaster. For instance, going without a seatbelt. You enjoy a momentary convenience every time you drive, but occasionally you die. Relatedly, wearing your seatbelt can be seen as a lottery: you pay a tiny inconvenience each time for an occasional huge win.

Like all lotteries, whether it is good to play depends on the payoffs, and one might reasonably decide to play some lotteries and reverse lotteries and not others. However, as Scott points out, it can be tempting to play reverse lotteries too much. I think this happens in particular from learning what is good by experience. If you play a reverse lottery once, probably you get a reward, and want to do it again. So you do, and get another reward, and it starts to seem like a pretty good idea. You get a lot of visceral feedback about the good aspect, and none about the bad. At least for a while. This seems like a real problem, and a neat way of thinking about it.

So presumably normal lotteries should be the opposite. You play them a few times, and it is a bit bad each time. So you quickly give up and never see the glorious reward. This doesn’t seem true of the literal lotteries in which people gamble for fun. At least plenty of people are not put off for a very long time, in spite of never winning. But maybe those are a weird instance of the abstract lottery class—for instance, because the prospect of winning a lot of money is made very salient. You might imagine that the negative lotteries would be very off putting in the analogous case: if every time you don’t wear your seatbelt, you hear about another person dying from that very choice, you wouldn’t be so tempted by the no-seatbelt reverse lottery.

I’m still confused about how individuals feel about lotteries, because I’m failing at thinking of clear examples where I know how people behave and they don’t have a really salient message about how the thing might go well. Possibly this is just because nobody does things that go badly almost all the time. Which is as good a segue as any into the thing I actually wanted to think about.

How do groups feel about lotteries and reverse lotteries?

Groups often learn whether a thing is good by one person trying it, and telling their friends, who then try it if the message was favorable, and so on. O...
Meetup : Welcome Scott Aaronson to Texas
by Vaniver — 2016-07-25T01:27:43.908Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Welcome Scott Aaronson to Texas

WHEN:
13 August 2016 06:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
4212 Hookbilled Kite Dr Austin, TX 78738

We're having another all-Texas party in Austin. We'll be welcoming Scott Aaronson, who's moved here to teach at UT Austin.

(Previously, we were worried that the time might work, but now it's been confirmed.)

Discussion article for the meetup : Welcome Scott Aaronson to Texas
Street Epistemology - letting people name their thinking errors
by Bound_up — 2016-07-24T19:43:43.439Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exmjlc4PfEQ

Anthony Magnabosco does what he calls Street Epistemology, usually applying it to supernatural (usually religious) beliefs.

The great thing about his method (and his manner, guy's super personable) is that he avoids the social structure of a debate, of two people arguing, of a zero-sum one game where person wins at the other's loss.

I've struggled with trying to figure out how to let people save face in disputes (when they're making big, awful mistakes), even considering including minor errors (that don't affect the main point) in my arguments so that they could point them out and we could both admit we were wrong (in their case, about things which do affect the main point) and move on.

But this guy's technique manages to invite people to correct their own errors (people are SOOOO much more rational when they're not defensive) and they DO it. No awkwardness, no discomfort, and people pointing out the flaws in their own arguments, and then THANKING him for the talk afterwards and referring him to their friends to talk. Even though they just admitted that their cherished beliefs might not deserve the certainty they've been giving them.

This is applied to religion in this video, but this seems to me to be a generally useful method when you confront someone making an error in their thinking. Are you forcing people to swallow their pride a little (over and over) when they talk with you? Get that out, and watch how much more open people can be.
Weekly LW Meetups
by FrankAdamek — 2016-07-22T16:00:00.194Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on July 22nd. The following week's summary is here.

New meetups (or meetups with a hiatus of more than a year) are happening in:

Bay City Meetup: 19 August 2016 01:25PM
Boise, ID Meetup: 24 July 2016 02:30PM
Greenville, NC meetup: 23 July 2016 04:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Baltimore Weekly Meetup: 24 July 2016 08:00PM
European Community Weekend: 02 September 2016 03:35PM
[Gen Con/Indianapolis] Gen Con: Applied Game Theory: 06 August 2016 02:00PM
San Antonio Meetup: 24 July 2016 02:00PM

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] Games in Kocherga club: FallacyMania, Tower of Chaos, Training game : 27 July 2016 07:40PM
SF Meetup: Very Short Talks: 25 July 2016 06:15PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - August 2016: 07 August 2016 04:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - September 2016: 04 September 2016 04:00PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - October 2016: 02 October 2016 04:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Fun & Games: 24 July 2016 03:30PM

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 meet...
Meetup : Baltimore Weekly Meetup
by iarwain1 — 2016-07-22T11:16:06.060Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore Weekly Meetup

WHEN:
24 July 2016 08:00:00PM (-0400)

WHERE:
1726 reisterstown road pikesville maryland 21208

Pikesville DoubleTree - Hilton, at the restaurant / bar or at one of the tables outside.

Discussion article for the meetup : Baltimore Weekly Meetup