trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
1689: Uncovering the World New Institutionalism Created
by Davis Kedrosky — 2022-06-17T19:32:32.500Z
Link: https://daviskedrosky.substack.com/p/1689

The Glorious Revolution is a celebrated event in English history. The bloodless overthrow of the autocratic James II by a grand coalition of civic-minded nobles has inspired the prose of three centuries of writers, all marveling at this great effusion of freedom, justice, and democracy. Edmund Burke captured the historical mood in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790): “The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty.” He and Thomas Babington Macaulay forged the “Whig interpretation” of 1688 as the dramatic coalescence of a public will in favor of England’s timeless institutions—Parliament and the common law. The Bill of Rights ensured that England, and soon Britain, would be a monarchy circumscribed by its elected legislature.

Exactly three centuries later, economic historians were swept up by the mythic tide. Writing in the December 1989 edition of The Journal of Economic History, Douglass North and Barry Weingast argued that the toppling of James and the accession of William of Orange constituted an assertion of Parliamentary supremacy over the arbitrary monarchy. This body was—if not fully representative—diverse and stocked with “wealth holders”: merchants, industrialists, landowners, and bankers, all united by a desire to protect private property. Moreover, Parliament’s control over the public purse would ensure that the Crown could not unilaterally breach contracts, encouraging investors to place their funds in the government and thereby deepening the country’s fabled markets for impersonal credit. As evidence, North and Weingast showed that Britain had subsequently gained access to unprecedented levels of loan finance: the national debt rose from £1 million in 1688 to £16.7 million a decade later, and then to £78 million by 1750. Yet throughout this period, the market rate charged on government bonds fell dramatically, from 14 percent in 1693 to just 3 percent (with the advent of the Consols) in 1739. North and Weingast took the lower credit risk assigned to the regime as a sign of credible commitment to maintaining contracts.

The authors argued that the spillovers would extend far beyond public finance. The same forces ungirding credible commitment to bondholders would also provide for secure property rights. The mona...
Is there an unified way to make sense of ai failure modes?
by walking_mushroom — 2022-06-17T18:00:58.908Z

Status: I'm new to ai alignment, went through AGI fundamentals curriculum, currently reading MIRI's embedded agents series and I feel confused. I'm not familiar with decision theory.

So far the cases discussed in the series (and ai failure modes in general) felt solid in themselves (if follow its reasoning, with some proofs that I half understand etc) but I don't yet see the connection between different cases or any low-complexity structure behind them.

For example: there are many kinds of bridges and many ways bridges can crash (failure modes), but they all boil down to the principles of structural mechanics and the structural integrity of bridges can be determined by a few physical measurements agnostic to detailed bridge designs.

Can we boil down decision-theoretic failure modes mentioned in the embedded agent series (and ai failure modes in general) to a more universal picture of predictive principles, as in the case of bridges and structural mechanics?

If there exist such a state of understanding what should I learn first to gain such understanding? Specific reading recommendation is most appreciated!
If not (or this isn't a good question to ask), why is that so?
Clearly I'm ignorant, but am I ignorant in a specific/common way with specific/common path to get out of it?

Thank you all.

edit: formatting & slight wording, ask for specific recommendations
In defense of flailing, with foreword by Bill Burr
by lc — 2022-06-17T16:40:32.152Z

I don't give a [expletive] who you are, if the world is ending, and you're getting chased by zombies, you're not running around saying "oh golly gee. Oh heck... Aw jimmety cricket!"...You know?... It's the end of the world with zombies. From the beginning, once they discover the zombies, to the end of that movie where they hopefully solve the problem, should be a bunch of people - no wait - 85% of the people going "[array of sorted expletives] WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO OH MY GOD" and then the other 15% should be grabbing them by the shoulders going "FOR CHRISTS' SAKE GET A [expletive] HOLD OF YOURSELF!"... That should be most of the dialogue in that movie.

- Comedy man on existential risk

CFAR has a notion of "flailing". Alone on a desert island, if you injure yourself, you'll probably think fast about how to solve the problem. Whereas injuring yourself around friends, you're more likely to "flail": you'll lean into things that demonstrate your pain/trouble to others.

Flailing can in fact be counterproductive. I will admit that if you're a MIRI engineer, and you start to flail in front of the other MIRI engineers, that is probably in poor taste. Everyone at MIRI already knows you are in trouble and is doing their best. Many of them are as scared as you are, and are trying to suppress their own instinct to flail.

But, just like crying on the floor, flailing does in fact serve legitimate personal and social purposes. People evolved shared abilities to signal distress for a reason. Before March of this year, on the rare occasion I saw the Utterly Horrifying Situation explicitly acknowledged, the guy on my laptop screen devoting his life to the problem would always follow by saying: "Don't Panic. Do not alert the other people next to you that you might be panicking if you are. Don't honestly convey how worried you are about the problem. Deliver your argument in reasoned, unemotional tones, like you are considering a hypothetical, not like you are explaining an asteroid is headed towards earth. If you must break down, do it quietly and in a separate room, because otherwise people might not think you're Rational and by extension your community is not Rational."

We are not on a desert island. A large fraction of the basic coordination problem stems from the complete absence of public and institutional understanding of how serious the situation has gotten. It clearly wo...
An Approach to Land Value Taxation
by harsimony — 2022-06-17T15:53:30.158Z
Link: https://harsimony.wordpress.com/2021/09/25/an-approach-to-land-value-taxation/

1. Introduction

Land value taxes (LVT’s) are an attractive approach to public finance. The basic idea is that owners of land should be taxed on the value of the unamended land (i.e. the value of the empty lot) since this value is driven primarily by the economic activity nearby and not by the owner themselves [1].

LVT’s are one of the few taxes which are generally believed to increase efficiency rather than harm it. On top of this, they can fund a large fraction of government spending, replacing less efficient taxes. Because of their nice properties, LVT’s are the only tax that I know of which comes with its own economic ideology.

So, why haven’t we implemented them [2]? There are two major issues. First, it’s hard to determine exactly how much a piece of land is worth without its amendments. Second, existing homeowners strongly oppose higher property taxes and have significant political clout.

2. Proposal

Here, I want to offer a simple approach to help catalyze the transition to a land value tax.

The key insight comes from trying to solve the valuation problem to the exclusion of everything else. If we only cared about proper land valuations, what would we do?

In this extreme case, we could require people to tear down their house before selling the land. More specifically, we could require that people remove all amendments (buildings, trees, crops and so on) before putting their land on the market. That way, the price the it sells for is determined solely by the value of the empty lot.

Of course, doing this would be extremely inefficient. Destroying property each time a piece of land is sold would be wasteful and greatly increase transaction costs.

However, the kernel of the idea can be salvaged. Rather than requiring that people actually sell an empty lot, why not require that they sell the land separately from the amendments? For example, the law could require that all land be publicly auctioned separate from the house itself. Once the land is sold, the owner can sell the amendments separately. Now, the buyer is only taxed on the value they paid for the land itself, not the amendments.

3. Problems

There are a couple potential issues with this approach.

First, buyers and sellers might collude to lower the apparent auction prices for a piece of land. However, other bidders can thwart this by offering a slightly higher amount.

Second, bidders have an incentive to un...
Value extrapolation vs Wireheading
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2022-06-17T15:02:46.274Z

Talk given by Rebecca Gorman and Stuart Armstrong at the CHAI 2022 Asilomar Conference. We present an example of AI wireheading (an AI taking over its own reward channel), and show how value extrapolation can be used to combat it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REUanSy0SgU
#SAT with Tensor Networks
by Adam Jermyn — 2022-06-17T13:20:37.235Z

(Thanks to Mark Xu for comments on these notes.)

These are some notes on tensor networks, the mapping from boolean circuits to tensor networks, and how #SAT can be written as a tensor network contraction.

Definitions and Notation

What is a tensor?

A rank-d tensor is an array of numbers with d integer indices, e.g. Tijk is a rank-3 tensor. The range of each index is called its bond dimension. So for instance the Kronecker delta tensor used in physics is given by

δij=⎡⎢⎣100010001⎤⎥⎦

and is a tensor with two indices, each of bond dimension 3. Meanwhile the Levi-Civita symbol

εijk=⎧⎨⎩1 if (i,j,k) is an even permutation−1 if (i,j,k) is an odd permutation0 if i==j or j==k or i==k

is a tensor with three indices each of dimension 3.

What is a tensor contraction?

A contraction is a specification of dot products to perform between tensors. For instance

Qikl=∑jAijkBjl

says to form the tensor Q by contracting A with B along the second index of A and the first index of B.

A tensor can also be contracted with itself, forming a trace. For instance

Ai=∑jBijj

says that we trace over the second and third indices of B to form A.

Often times the summation is written just with indices and no ∑ symbol using Einstein summation notation. In this notation, indices are summed over if they appear in an expression exactly twice. This notation is unambiguous because contraction is only defined over pairs of indices.

What is a tensor network?

A tensor network is a specification of which contractions are desired between one or more tensors. They are often drawn diagrammatically in penrose notation as

Here A has three indices, ijk, two of which are free (meaning they are not involved in any contraction) and one of which is linked to an index of B, which itself has a further free index l.

Representing Boolean Circuits

A boolean circuit with inputs i1...in can be written as a tensor network as follows. For further references see here.

First, each input is mapped from False/True to a vector which is either vF=(1,0) or vT=(0,1). These vectors can be contracted with tensors representing the various boolean gates. For instance

TORijk={1 if (i=1 or j=1) and k=10 otherwise

This has the property that

vFivTjTORijk=vTk

That is, TOR implements an OR ...
Announcing the Clearer Thinking Regrants program
by spencerg — 2022-06-17T13:14:26.999Z

Do you have an idea for a project, or run an existing project, startup, or organization that could one day have a big positive impact on the future of the world? Apply now to our brand new Clearer Thinking Regrants program!

We plan to award grants to around 20 selected altruistic projects (depending on the quality and relevance of submissions we receive).

Grants will be a minimum of $10,000 per project, up to a conceivable maximum of $500,000. These projects don’t have to relate to Clearer Thinking’s mission, they just have to be aimed at improving the future!

We have designed the first round of the application to be completed in a single sitting of just 20 minutes.

If you know of any projects, non-profits, or startups that aim to improve the future of the world, regardless of which stage they’re in, please share the application form with them.

We want to hear about as many great projects as we can! Applications are now open! Apply by 11:59pm Eastern Time July 15th, 2022.

Apply now for funding (it only takes 20 minutes!)

More info:

You can apply as an individual, on behalf of a team, on behalf of a not-for-profit organization, or on behalf of a for-profit startup. In order for us to consider regranting funding to you, the only absolute requirements are that your project has to...

Be an altruistic effort aiming to substantially improve the future of the world, and
Be unlikely to have a risk of substantially harming the world.

We are unlikely to fund your project if...

It is designed to be local or small in scope, or
There is not a sufficiently plausible mechanism by which your project might one day greatly benefit the future of humanity.

If the above applies to your idea or project, we encourage you to

apply now

!
As inspiration, here are some project areas that we'd be excited to give grants in (but we're potentially interested in ideas that are totally unlike these as well):

Projects for preventing future pandemics or reducing the chance of bioterrorism
Projects that aim to reduce risks and dangers from or raise awareness about advancing A.I. technology
Projects that could plausibly have a large positive impact on climate change
Projects aimed at reducing the chance of civilization collapse or improving humanity's ability to recover from collapses
Other projects that could help guide humanity or move the world toward a better future!
Is civilizational alignment on the table?
by Aleksi Liimatainen — 2022-06-17T08:27:54.633Z

It seems to have become apparent that existing social systems are functionally unaligned: organizational and market dynamics are oft cited as an important factor exacerbating AI danger. It seems to me that progress in civilizational alignment would be instrumental for increasing the chances of succesfully navigating the AI alignment challenge and has significant theoretical overlap as both are in the class of agent alignment.
Are there people or groups actively looking into civilizational alignment and is there cross-pollination with AI alignment work?
Apply to the Machine Learning For Good bootcamp in France
by Alexandre Variengien — 2022-06-17T07:32:40.601Z

EffiSciences, an EA-adjacent org created to promote impactful research, is organizing a bootcamp to develop machine learning skills to get started in AI Safety. The bootcamp will be held in France and is intended for French speakers. The place and date are not defined yet, we'll choose them according to the participants' availability. The bootcamp is free for all participants.

This bootcamp is heavily inspired by the MLAB organized by Redwood Research and the content covered will be similar.

If you're interested, you can find more information here, and apply by July 2 [deadline extended] June 25 using this form.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments or by email to effisciences.pro@gmail.com.
What's it like to have sex with Duncan?
by Duncan Sabien (Inactive) — 2022-06-17T02:32:36.210Z

Content warning: the title. While this essay is neither explicit nor vulgar, it talks frankly about the topic at hand in a PG-13 sort of way, and may be NSFW for many instances of W. I secured approval from LW leadership before posting.

What on Earth is this essay?

Well, I started wondering about the above question, and I decided to ask some people. I know a lot about what I want sex with me to be like—what sort of person I want to be in the bedroom, what sort of impact I hope to have on the people I’m intimate with. And of course I get substantial feedback through people’s nonverbals and little bits of pillow talk and so forth.

But I’d never really actually just asked, directly. So I did! I sent a broad, open-ended request for info to thirteen of the twenty-four people I’ve ever had sex with, and got back responses from twelve of them (and a polite “no thanks” from the thirteenth). I left out the ex from my longest relationship (who spent several years after breaking up with me being really quite vicious at unpredictable intervals), and there were a number of people (including a bunch of one-offs) that I had no way of getting in touch with. But represented among the respondents were:

4 AMAB men, 4 AFAB trans/nonbinary folk, and 4 AFAB women
3 partners with 8+ encounters (a person I’ve been having sex with for 20 years, a person I’ve been having sex with for 10 years, and my current fiancé) and 9 partners with 1-7 encounters each
At least five people I hope/expect to sleep with again
More people than you might naively expect for whom I was something like their first sexual partner, or their first male partner, or their first partner since Something Bad in their past (whether recent or distant)

Why this post?

A few reasons. First, I often think by writing, and I wanted to digest and distill and … collate? … the various responses I’d received, and make them all make sense together, and an essay felt like a pretty natural way to do that.

Second, I really liked the idea of there being something for potential future partners to look at, that was rooted in the direct, first-person data of past partners rather than wholly filtered through my own self-report. It seems like good information to have available, for people who are wondering if they would like being physically intimate with me! And I am fond of...
wrapper-minds are the enemy
by nostalgebraist — 2022-06-17T01:58:04.919Z

This post is a follow-up to "why assume AGIs will optimize for fixed goals?". I'll assume you've read that one first.

I ended the earlier post by saying:

[A]gents with the "wrapper structure" are inevitably hard to align, in ways that agents without it might not be. An AGI "like me" might be morally uncertain like I am, persuadable through dialogue like I am, etc.

It's very important to know what kind of AIs would or would not have the wrapper structure, because this makes the difference between "inevitable world-ending nightmare" and "we're not the dominant species anymore." The latter would be pretty bad for us too, but there's a difference!

In other words, we should try very hard to avoid creating new superintelligent agents that have the "wrapper structure."

What about superintelligent agents that don't have the "wrapper structure"? Should we try not to create any of those, either? Well, maybe.

But the ones with the wrapper structure are worse. Way, way worse.

This seems intuitive enough to me that I didn't spell it out in detail, in the earlier post. Indeed, the passage quoted above wasn't even in the original version of the post -- I edited it in shortly after publication.

But this point is important, whether or not it's obvious. So it deserves some elaboration.

This post will be more poetic than argumentative. My intent is only to show you a way of viewing the situation, and an implied way of feeling about it.

For MIRI and people who think like MIRI does, the big question is: "how do we align an superintelligence [which is assumed to have the wrapper structure]?"

For me, though, the big question is "can we avoid creating a superintelligence with the wrapper structure -- in the first place?"

Let's call these things "wrapper-minds," for now.

Though I really want to call them by some other, more colorful name. "The Bad Guys"? "Demons"? "World-enders"? "Literally the worst things imaginable"?

Wrapper-minds are bad. They are nightmares. The birth of a wrapper-mind is the death knell of a universe.

(Or a light cone, anyway. But then, who knows what methods of FTL transit the wrapper-mind may eventually devise in pursuit of its mad, empty goal.)

They are -- I think literally? -- some of the worst physical objects it is possible to imagine.

They have competition, in this regard, fr...
A Litany Missing from the Canon
by benwr — 2022-06-17T01:39:22.086Z
Link: https://www.benwr.net/2022/06/16/the_missing_litany.html

I wish to take whatever action will best bring about what I value.
I wish to become whatever person will most manifest what I value.

There is no virtue in clinging to yesterday’s expectations,
and no vice in hunting what matters.

I can make the best possible choice - and I can do nothing better!
May I seek what is worthy - and nothing else.
A transparency and interpretability tech tree
by evhub — 2022-06-16T23:44:14.961Z

Thanks to Chris Olah, Neel Nanda, Kate Woolverton, Richard Ngo, Buck Shlegeris, Daniel Kokotajlo, Kyle McDonell, Laria Reynolds, Eliezer Yudkowksy, Mark Xu, and James Lucassen for useful comments, conversations, and feedback that informed this post.

The more I have thought about AI safety over the years, the more I have gotten to the point where the only worlds I can imagine myself actually feeling good about humanity’s chances are ones in which we have powerful transparency and interpretability tools that lend us insight into what our models are doing as we are training them.[1] Fundamentally, that’s because if we don’t have the feedback loop of being able to directly observe how the internal structure of our models changes based on how we train them, we have to essentially get that structure right on the first try—and I’m very skeptical of humanity’s ability to get almost anything right on the first try, if only just because there are bound to be unknown unknowns that are very difficult to predict in advance.

Certainly, there are other things that I think are likely to be necessary for humanity to succeed as well—e.g. convincing leading actors to actually use such transparency techniques, having a clear training goal that we can use our transparency tools to enforce, etc.—but I currently feel that transparency is the least replaceable necessary condition and yet the one least likely to be solved by default.

Nevertheless, I do think that it is a tractable problem to get to the point where transparency and interpretability is reliably able to give us the sort of insight into our models that I think is necessary for humanity to be in a good spot. I think many people who encounter transparency and interpretability, however, have a hard time envisioning what it might look like to actually get from where we are right now to where we need to be. Having such a vision is important both for enabling us to better figure out how to make that vision into reality and also for helping us tell how far along we are at any point—and thus enabling us to identify at what point we’ve reached a level of transparency and interpretability that we can trust it to reliably solve different sorts of alignment problems.

The goal of this post, therefore, is to attempt to lay out such a vision by providing a “tech tree” of transparency and interpretability problems, with each successive pro...