trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Needed: A large database of statements for true/false exercises
by Academian — 2012-04-13T02:26:44.047Z

Does anybody know where to find a large database of statements that are roughly 50% likely to be true or false? These would be used for confidence calibration / Bayesian updating exercises for CMR/HRP.

One way to make such a database would be to buy a bunch of trivia games with True/False questions, and type each statement and its negation into a computer. A problem with this might be that trivia questions are selected to have surprising/counterintuitive truth values; I'm not sure if that's true. I'd be happy to acquire an already-made database of this form, but ideally I'd like statements that are "more neutral" in terms of how counterintuitive they are.

Any thoughts on where we might find a database like this to use/buy?

Thanks for any help!

Revision: We actually want a database of two-choice answer questions. This way, the player won't get trained on a base rate of 50% of statements in the world being true... they'll just get trained that when there are two possible answers, one is always true. In the end, the database should look something like this (warning: I made up the "correct" answers):

Question: "Which is diagnosed more often in America (2011)?";
Answers: (a) "the cold", (b) allergies";
Correct Answer: (a);
Tags: {medical}

Question: "Which city has a higher average altitude?";
Answers: (a) "Chicago", (b) "Las Vegas";
Correct Answer: (a)
Tags: {geography}

Question: "Who sold more albums while living"?;
Answers: (a) "Michael Jackson", (b) "Elvis Presley";
Correct Answer: (b)
Tags: {history, pop-culture, music}

Question: "Was the price of IBM stock higher or lower at the start of the month after the Berlin wall fell, compared with the start of the previous month?";
Answers: (a) "higher", (b) "lower";
Correct Answer: (a)
Tags: {history, finance}
Newcomblike problem: Counterfactual Informant
by Clippy — 2012-04-12T20:25:33.723Z

I want to propose a variant of the Counterfactual Mugging problem discussed here. BE CAREFUL how you answer, as it has important implications, which I will not reveal until the known dumb humans are on record.

Here is the problem:

Clipmega is considering whether to reveal to humans information that will amplify their paperclip production efficiency. It will only do so if it expects that, as a result of revealing to humans this information, it will receive at least 1,000,000 paperclips within one year.

Clipmega is highly accurate in predicting how humans will respond to receiving this information.

The smart humans' indifference curve covers both their current condition and the one in which Clipmega reveals the idea and steals 1e24 paperclips. (In other words, smart humans would be willing to pay a lot to learn this if they had to, and there is an enormous "consumer surplus".)

Without Clipmega's information, some human will independently discover this information in ten years, and the above magnitude of the preference for learning now vs later exists with this expectation in mind. (That is, humans place a high premium on learning it how, even though they will eventually learn it either way.)

The human Alphas (i.e., dominant members of the human social hierarchy), in recognition of how Clipmega acts, and wanting to properly align incentives, are considering a policy: anyone who implements this idea in making paperclips must give Clipmega 100 paperclips within a year, and anyone found using the idea but not having donated to Clipmega is fined 10,000 paperclips, most of which are given to Clipmega. It is expected that this will result in more than 1,000,000 paperclips being given to Clipmega.

Do you support the Alphas' policy?

Problem variant: All of the above remains true, but there also exist numerous "clipmicros" that unconditionally (i.e. irrespective of their anticipation of behavior on the part of other agents) reveal other, orthogonal paperclip production ideas. Does your answer change?

Optional variant: Replace "paperclip production" with something that current humans more typically want (as a result of being too stupid to correctly value paperclips.)
Reframing the Problem of AI Progress
by Wei Dai — 2012-04-12T19:31:04.829Z

"Fascinating! You should definitely look into this. Fortunately, my own research has no chance of producing a super intelligent AGI, so I'll continue. Good luck son! The government should give you more money."

Stuart Armstrong paraphrasing a typical AI researcher

I forgot to mention in my last post why "AI risk" might be a bad phrase even to denote the problem of UFAI. It brings to mind analogies like physics catastrophes or astronomical disasters, and lets AI researchers think that their work is ok as long as they have little chance of immediately destroying Earth. But the real problem we face is how to build or become a superintelligence that shares our values, and given that this seems very difficult, any progress that doesn't contribute to the solution but brings forward the date by which we must solve it (or be stuck with something very suboptimal even if it doesn't kill us), is bad. The word "risk" connotes a small chance of something bad suddenly happening, but slow steady progress towards losing the future is just as worrisome.

The usual way of stating the problem also invites lots of debate that are largely beside the point (as far as determining how serious the problem is), like whether intelligence explosion is possible, or whether a superintelligence can have arbitrary goals, or how sure we are that a non-Friendly superintelligence will destroy human civilization. If someone wants to question the importance of facing this problem, they really instead need to argue that a superintelligence isn't possible (not even a modest one), or that the future will turn out to be close to the best possible just by everyone pushing forward their own research without any concern for the big picture, or perhaps that we really don't care very much about the far future and distant strangers and should pursue AI progress just for the immediate benefits.

(This is an expanded version of a previous comment.)
"Drinking Alcohol May Significantly Enhance Problem Solving Skills" 
by duckduckMOO — 2012-04-12T17:24:52.156Z

saw this on reddit. Thought people here would be interested.

http://medicaldaily.com/news/20120411/9496/alcohol-solving-skills-analytical-thinking-creativity-study.htm

edit: from a comment in the reddit thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/s50la/drinking_alcohol_may_significantly_enhance/

"The article is here for those who are interested. Going through the article, the measure they chose was the Remote Associates Test. In this test you are given 3 words like ARM, TAR, and PEACH and supposed to guess the associated word. (PIT in this case) (more here if you want to give it a shot). The three words flash on the screen and you are given 1 minute. When you 'know' the answer you press a key and write in your answer. The time to press the key and whether the answer was right are recorded. Afterward you are told to say how you came to the answer on a scale of 1-7 (1 being strategy 7 being a flash of insight). Drunk (.7 .07 (thanks Erobre) BAC) people answered slightly faster and came to 20% more solutions. (they also said their answers were based more on insight than strategy)"

The "here" links to http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810012000037
Meetup : Melbourne social meetup
by shokwave — 2012-04-12T16:06:01.262Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup

WHEN:
20 April 2012 07:00:00PM (+1000)

WHERE:
55 Walsh St, West Melbourne, 3003

EDIT - The meet up has been moved to the Trike Apps office - 55 Walsh St, West Melbourne, 3003. Ben has requested this due to being ill. The time is unchanged.

Melbourne's next social meetup is on Friday, 20th April. We are meeting at the Trike Apps office, 55 Walsh St, West Melbourne. Alternatively, I can give you the address - you can call me at 0432 862 932, or email me at shokwave.sf@gmail.com, or inbox me by clicking on my name. Some form of take-away will be organised for dinner and there will be snacks available. BYO drinks. General catching up and chatting, followed by Resistance and Mafia. We all look forward to seeing you there!

Discussion article for the meetup : Melbourne social meetup
Meetup : Weekly Chicago Meetups
by Unnamed — 2012-04-12T06:14:54.526Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Weekly Chicago Meetups

WHEN:
14 April 2012 01:00:00PM (-0500)

WHERE:
360 N Michigan Ave, Chicago IL

The Chicago LW meetup group is now meeting every week, Saturdays at 1pm, at the Corner Bakery on the corner of Michigan & Wacker.

Topic for this week's discussion: What have you changed your mind about? Think of some examples of things you have changed your mind about (recently or long ago), and be ready to discuss them. Discussion can flow from there to topics that are raised & the process of changing one's mind.

We're trying to transition from unstructured discussions to more focused meetups. Join the mailing list and share ideas on the google doc to help plan future meetups.

Discussion article for the meetup : Weekly Chicago Meetups
[SEQ RERUN] Three Dialogues on Identity
by MinibearRex — 2012-04-12T01:41:30.209Z

Today's post, Three Dialogues on Identity was originally published on 21 April 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Given that there's no such thing as "the same atom", whether you are "the same person" from one time to another can't possibly depend on whether you're made out of the same atoms.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Zombies: The Movie, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
How does long-term use of caffeine affect productivity?
by quartz — 2012-04-11T23:09:56.035Z

I am trying to figure out whether caffeine helps productivity in the long run. Looking back 10 years from now, how much more/less productive will I have been if I were to drink coffee every day, or every second day?

Reviewing what has been written on the topic by our community so far:

Justin summarizes effects of caffeine: impairment of long-term memory, narrowed focus, increased short-term memory and recall, increased attentional control, increased memory retention and retrieval. From this, he tentatively concludes in favor of use for tasks that benefit from these effects. However, does this conclusion still hold for regular use? We need to take into account reduced stimulation due to increase in tolerance and potentially impairment during withdrawal.

In a comment on Justin's article, simplyeric writes: "There are studies (that I read years ago, and have no link to) that show that consistency is better... that consistent low-level caffeine drinkers are more alert than their non-caffeine colleagues, but less jittery than high-caffeine people (optimum seemed to be 2-3 cups per day)." This is the kind of evidence I am interested in. Does anyone recall such studies?

Gwern's review of nootropics lists a number of potential negative effects, including effects on memory, performance (in high doses), sleep, and mood. In justifying its use despite these effects, he states that "[his] problems tend to be more about akrasia and energy and not getting things done, so even if a stimulant comes with a little cost to long-term memory, it's still useful for [him]". Is there conclusive evidence that in the long run, caffeine increases energy and helps with akrasia?

Skatche's review of psychoactive drugs presents anecdotal evidence in favor: "Taken on a fairly regular daily schedule, caffeine seems to improve my attention, motivation and energy level." To what extent do such anecdotes reflect true improvement? If regular use of caffeine were to result in decreased baseline performance and if the effect of caffeine were limited to restoring baseline, this could feel similar from the inside.

Edit: Studies pointed out by siodine suggest that caffeine has few or no beneficial long-term effects:

Rogers et al, 2010:

If caffeine was consumed, the adverse effects of lowered alertness and headache were avoided, but even after 100+150&thinsp

...
against "AI risk"
by Wei Dai — 2012-04-11T22:46:10.533Z

Why does SI/LW focus so much on AI-FOOM disaster, with apparently much less concern for things like

bio/nano-tech disaster

Malthusian upload scenario

highly destructive war

bad memes/philosophies spreading among humans or posthumans and overriding our values

upload singleton ossifying into a suboptimal form compared to the kind of superintelligence that our universe could support

Why, for example, is lukeprog's strategy sequence titled "AI Risk and Opportunity", instead of "The Singularity, Risks and Opportunities"? Doesn't it seem strange to assume that both the risks and opportunities must be AI related, before the analysis even begins? Given our current state of knowledge, I don't see how we can make such conclusions with any confidence even after a thorough analysis.

SI/LW sometimes gives the impression of being a doomsday cult, and it would help if we didn't concentrate so much on a particular doomsday scenario. (Are there any doomsday cults that say "doom is probably coming, we're not sure how but here are some likely possibilities"?)
Cracked wrote an Article about Life-Extension
by Joshua Hobbes — 2012-04-11T18:43:11.637Z

7 Random Things You Won't Believe Are Shortening Your Life

TL;DR

1. Starting School Early

2. Being the Eldest Child

3. Having a Small Ass

4. Flying Often

5. Living Closer to Sea-Level

6. Not Going to Church.

7. Retiring Early.

I'm glad a high-traffic site such like Cracked is giving some exposure to the issue. Can anyone here comment on the reliability of their sources?
Help me teach Bayes'
by tomme — 2012-04-11T17:56:12.712Z

Next Monday I am supposed to introduce a bunch of middle school students to Bayes' theorem.

I've scoured the Internet for basic examples where Bayes' theorem is applied. Alas, all explanations I've come cross are, I believe, difficult to grasp for the average middle school student.

So what I am looking for is a straightforward explanation of Bayes' theorem that uses the least amount of Mathematics and words possible. (Also, my presentation has to be under 3 minutes.)

I think that it would be efficient in terms of learning for me to use coins or cards, something tangible to illustrate what I'm talking about.

What do you think? How should I teach 'em Bayes' ways?

PS: I myself am new to Bayesian probability.
How does remote Joule heating of carbon nanotubes advance singularity timelines?
by keefe — 2012-04-11T16:15:06.466Z

Carbon nanotubes: The weird world of 'remote Joule heating'

Minimizing Joule heating remains an important goal in the design of electronic devices1, 2. The prevailing model of Joule heating relies on a simple semiclassical picture in which electrons collide with the atoms of a conductor, generating heat locally and only in regions of non-zero current density, and this model has been supported by most experiments. Recently, however, it has been predicted that electric currents in graphene and carbon nanotubes can couple to the vibrational modes of a neighbouring material3, 4, heating it remotely5. Here, we use in situ electron thermal microscopy to detect the remote Joule heating of a silicon nitride substrate by a single multiwalled carbon nanotube. At least 84%of the electrical power supplied to the nanotube is dissipated directly into the substrate, rather than in the nanotube itself. Although it has different physical origins, this phenomenon is reminiscent of induction heating or microwave dielectric heating. Such an ability to dissipate waste energy remotely could lead to improved thermal management in electronic devices6."

These experiments seem extremely important in constructing AI singularity timelines, what does lesswrong think?

What is the impact on life extension research?

Carbon nanotubes in biology and medicine: In vitro and in vivo detection, imaging and drug delivery

Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering: From Discovery to Applications

I don't see a line of inference free of holes, but one can imagine the sort of uses a scifi author would come up with.
Meetup : Small Berkeley meetup
by Nisan — 2012-04-11T10:20:56.322Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Small Berkeley meetup

WHEN:
11 April 2012 07:00:00PM (-0700)

WHERE:
2128 oxford st;, berkeley, ca

Hey all, sorry for the late notice. There will be a meetup in Berkeley today as usual! Those of us who choose to attend the MPHD seminar beforehand may have stories to tell about rejection therapy! If 5-10 people show up to the meetup we can play The Resistance if we want to! Everyone wants to play The Resistance.

We'll meet at 7pm, Wednesday, in the Starbucks at 2128 Oxford St., and then we'll decide where to go from there.

Discussion article for the meetup : Small Berkeley meetup
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84
by FAWS — 2012-04-11T03:39:38.702Z

The next discussion thread is here.

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.

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

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

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

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

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.
Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation
by kalla724 — 2012-04-11T00:48:04.567Z

I’ve just been reading Luke’s “Crash Course in the Neuroscience of Human Motivation.” It is a useful text, although there are a few technical errors and a few bits of outdated information (see [1], updated information about one particular quibble in [2] and [3]).

There is one significant missing piece, however, which is of critical importance for our subject matter here on LW: the effect of attention on plasticity, including the plasticity of motivation. Since I don’t see any other texts addressing it directly (certainly not from a neuroscientific perspective), let’s cover the main idea here.

Summary for impatient readers: focus of attention physically determines which synapses in your brain get stronger, and which areas of your cortex physically grow in size. The implications of this provide direct guidance for alteration of behaviors and motivational patterns. This is used for this purpose extensively: for instance, many benefits of the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy approach rely on this mechanism.

I – Attention and plasticity

To illustrate this properly, we need to define two terms. I’m guessing these are very familiar to most readers here, but let’s cover them briefly just in case.

First thing to keep in mind is the plasticity of cortical maps. In essence, particular functional areas of our brain can expand or shrink based on how often (and how intensely) they are used. A small amount of this growth is physical, as new axons grow, expanding the white matter; most of it happens by repurposing any less-used circuitry in the vicinity of the active area. For example, our sense of sight is processed by our visual cortex, which turns signals from our eyes into lines, shapes, colors and movement. In blind people, however, this part of the brain becomes invaded by other senses, and begins to process sensations like touch and hearing, such that they become significantly more sensitive than in sighted people. Similarly, in deaf people, auditory cortex (part of the brain that processes sounds) becomes adapted to process visual information and gather language cl

...
School essay: outsourcing some brain work
by Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)  — 2012-04-10T20:14:01.427Z

I'm currently writing an essay for one of my classes, 'Theoretical Foundations of Nursing.' I'm about the most 'gong-si' class I've ever taken. (That is a Chinese term for 'shit talking,' which is my boyfriend's favourite term for any field that gets into arguments over definitions, has concepts that don't correspond to any empirical phenomena, is based on ideology, etc.)

The essay involves analyzing a clinical situation (in this case a 55-year-old recently divorced, recently unemployed man, admitted to the psychiatric ward with major depression and suicidal ideation) using a theory (in this case, Roy's Adaptation Model). Done. The next step involves finding criticisms with the model...and despite the fact that I've been complaining about this class and its non-empirical nature all semester, I seem unable to come up with specific criticisms of what this nursing theory is missing.

Which is what I need your help for, because LessWrong is the best community ever when it comes to specific criticisms.

Here is a very brief overview of Roy's Adaptation Theory:

Defines 'health' as 'state or process of becoming integrated with the environment, in the domains of survival, growth, reproduction, mastery, and personal/environmental transformation.'

Defines a 'person' as an 'adaptive system with coping processes.' Goes on to subdivide this a bit: there are 'regulator mechanisms' (i.e. innate, not consciously controlled) and 'cognitive mechanisms' of adaptation within four different modes: physiological, role function, interdependence, and self-concept.

Defines environment as 'all conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the development and behavior of individuals and groups.' Further subdivides environmental stimuli into focal (which demand the person to immediately adapt), contextual (which affect how they adapt), and residual (i.e. attitudes, beliefs).

The nurse's goal is to manipulate stimuli to improve the person's level of adaptation, as well as teaching more effective coping methods.

The steps in the process of creating a care plan are: assessment of behavior, assessment of stimuli, choosing a nursing diagnosis from this huge lookup table, setting a goal, choosing an intervention, and evaluation the results.

Now my question is, what is a specific criticism I can make of this particular theory in general...not "yo...