trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Making money with Bitcoin?
by Clippy — 2011-02-16T19:17:50.618Z

Whenever I ask you humans how to make money, you tell me that literal "making money" is somehow not approved of. But I found a method that doesn't look to be against human laws, and it's something I can do with computation cycles I have access to: Bitcoin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

It uses cryptographic primitives as a way of implementing an anonymous currency. Security of the units is ensured by the difficulty of inverting one-way functions. Users who join the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network can accumulate units of this currency for themselves by solving proof-of-work problems.

You pass on a money unit through a cryptographic protocol. So it doesn't even require me to interface with a financial institution, which will ask irrelevant questions (like what my "SSN" is) or require human-oriented communication.

How come none of you suggested this to me before?

Also, the linked article says that "Bitcoin is one of the first implementations of a concept called cryptocurrency, first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list". Is that "Wei Dai" the same as User:Wei_Dai?
Who's likely to write the AI? A hypothesis
by NancyLebovitz — 2011-02-16T17:04:15.464Z

The idea of creating an AI seems to be getting more common.

To the extent that creating an AI is made easier by having more resources rather than by having more carefully thought out philosophy, the first AI will be created by a government or a business, not SIAI. I think the more resources side is the way to bet, but I'm open to argument.

If this is correct, the best strategy for Friendliness may be to keep working on the philosophy but not expect to code, and publicize the risks of Unfriendliness, both seriously and humorously.

The latter is based on something Scott Adams said (for what that's worth)-- that no one ever realizes they're the pointy-haired boss, but if anyone says "that plan sounds like something out of Dilbert", the plan is immediately taken out of consideration.

The good news, such as it is, is that the mistakes likely to be made by corporations and governments can be presented as funnier (or at least more entertaining to people who already dislike those institutions) than those likely to be made by people who are unthinkingly trying to create utopia.

ETA: It's conceivable that a large organization could have SIAI folks heading its AI project, but this doesn't seem likely.
A simple-minded theory of "observer fluid"
by cousin_it — 2011-02-16T16:40:04.315Z

Eliezer has proposed a puzzle:

So here's a simple algorithm for winning the lottery:

Buy a ticket. Suspend your computer program just before the lottery drawing - which should of course be a quantum lottery, so that every ticket wins somewhere. Program your computational environment to, if you win, make a trillion copies of yourself, and wake them up for ten seconds, long enough to experience winning the lottery. Then suspend the programs, merge them again, and start the result. If you don't win the lottery, then just wake up automatically.

In response, rwallace has proposed a reductio of subjective probability:

So you decide to create your full allowance of 99 copies, and a customer service representative explains how the procedure works: the first copy is made, and informed he is copy number one; then the second copy is made, and informed he is copy number two, etc. That sounds fine until you start thinking about it, whereupon the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. The problem lies in your anticipated subjective experience.

After step one, you have a 50% chance of finding yourself the original; there is nothing controversial about this much. If you are the original, you have a 50% chance of finding yourself still so after step two, and so on. That means after step 99, your subjective probability of still being the original is 0.5^99, in other words as close to zero as makes no difference.

I think they have both missed the simple-minded and "normal" approach to such problems. Let's hypothesize this:

1) If a single universe contains N identical copies of your current information state (possibly existing at different times and in different places), and some event will happen to K of them, then you should assign probability K/N to that event.

2) If there are multiple universes existing with different "measure" (whatever that is), then your prior probability of being in a certain universe is proportional to its "measure", regardless of the number of your copies in that universe, as long as it's >0.

In Eliezer's puzzle, my assumptions imply that you cannot win the lottery by using anthropic superpowers, because making many copies of yourself in the winning branch only splits the "observer fluid" in that branch, not creates more of it overall.

In rwallace's puzzle, my assumptions imply that your prob...
Write It Like A Poem
by Strange7 — 2011-02-16T15:11:41.693Z

Related to: simile, snobbery, adequate axioms

Writing poetry is harder than it sounds, but easy to practice. Once mastered, the emotional impact it can add to even casual conversation makes it more than worthwhile.

There are two sides to writing an effective poem: the top-down logic of metaphor and imagery, and the bottom-up mechanics of rhyme and meter. Manage both, or they won't meet in the middle.

Let's say you're trying to lift someone as high up into the air as possible. You could kneel and cup your hands, but that depends on them playing along and stepping in the right spot. You could sneak up behind and kick them squarely between the legs, but that won't get them very far, or for very long, and they won't put up with such treatment more than once. Or you could build a framework, hang a swing, and give them a series of properly-timed pushes in the right direction.

A pure technical explanation (the cupped hands) depends on the willingness of the reader to slog through the whole thing, do some independent research to fill any newly-discovered gaps in their knowledge base, and generally cooperate. Without that minimal enthusiasm, the most brilliant insights can and will be dismissed as "too long, didn't read."

Aggressive proselytizing, at the other extreme, sacrifices content to put as few demands on the reader as possible. It is, accordingly, viewed as even worse than useless. An active offense, spam, something to be isolated and destroyed.

Taking the time to lay out a pattern, a rhythm, means that people will have some reason to keep reading even if they don't know exactly what you mean. It's a comfortable set of boxes in which half-eaten ideas can be stored for later, or a resonant frequency to carry information until the full message can be compiled.

Resonant frequencies can't create something from nothing. The Tacoma Narrows bridge wobbled for hours before finally collapsing; cumulative energy transfer from the wind over the course of those hours was orders of magnitude more than would have been necessary for, say, a controlled demolition with shaped-charge explosives. The advantage is that slow, steady sources are easier to find and easier to regulate. An appeal to people's tendency toward pattern-completion can be spread out over pages, instead of requiring a single perfect paragraph, and will not be consciously resisted by anyone who do...
Automated theorem proving by learning from examples
by Alex Flint — 2011-02-16T13:38:03.753Z

Does anyone know of work that attempts to build a theorem prover by learning-from-examples? I'm imagining extracting a large corpus of theorems from back issues of mathematical journals, then applying unsupervised structure discovery techniques from machine learning to discover recurring patterns.

Perhaps a model of the "set of theorems that humans tend to produce" would be helpful in proving new theorems.

The unsupervised-structure-discovery bit does seem within the realm of current machine learning.

Any references to related work?
Revisiting the Anthropic Trilemma II: axioms and assumptions
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2011-02-16T09:42:25.253Z

tl;dr: I present four axioms for anthropic reasoning under copying/deleting/merging, and show that these result in a unique way of doing it: averaging non-indexical utility across copies, adding indexical utility, and having all copies being mutually altruistic.

Some time ago, Eliezer constructed an anthropic trilemma, where standard theories of anthropic reasoning seemed to come into conflict with subjective anticipation. rwallace subsequently argued that subjective anticipation was not ontologically fundamental, so we should not expect it to work out of the narrow confines of everyday experience, and Wei illustrated some of the difficulties inherent in "copy-delete-merge" types of reasoning.

Wei also made the point that UDT shifts the difficulty in anthropic reasoning away from probability and onto the utility function, and ata argued that neither the probabilities nor the utility function are fundamental, that it was the decisions that resulted from them that were important - after all, if two theories give the same behaviour in all cases, what grounds do we have for distinguishing them? I then noted that this argument could be extended to subjective anticipation: instead of talking about feelings of subjective anticipation, we could replace it by questions such as "would I give up a chocolate bar now for one of my copies to have two in these circumstances?"

I then made a post where I applied by current intuitions to the anthropic trilemma, and showed how this results in complete nonsense, despite the fact that I used a bona fide utility function. What we need are some sensible criteria for which to divide utility and probability between copies, and this post is an attempt to figure that out. The approach is similar to expected utility, where a quadruped of natural axioms forced all decision processes to have a single format.

The assumptions are:

No intrinsic value in the number of copies

No preference reversals

All copies make the same personal indexical decisions

No special status to any copy.

The first assumption states that though I may want to have different number of copies for various external reasons (multiples copies to be well-backuped, or few copies to prevent any of them being kidnapped), I do not derive any intrinsic utility from having 1, 42 or 100 000 copies. The second one is the very natural requirement that there are no preference rev...
Settled questions in philosophy
by lukeprog — 2011-02-16T06:53:25.992Z

Philosophy is notorious for not answering the questions it tackles. Plato posed most of the central questions more than two millennia ago, and philosophers still haven't come to much consensus about them. Or at least, whenever philosophical questions begin to admit of answers, we start calling them scientific questions. (Astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology all began as branches of philosophy.)

A common attitude on Less Wrong is "Too slow! Solve the problem and move on." The free will sequence argues that the free will problem has been solved.

I, for one, am bold enough to claim that some philosophical problems have been solved. Here they are:

Is there a God? No.

What's the solution to the mind-body problem? Materialism.

Do we have free will? We don't have contra-causal free will, but of course we have the ability to deliberate on alternatives and have this deliberation effect the outcome.

What is knowledge? (How do we overcome Gettier?) What is art? How do we demarcate science from non-science? If you're trying to find simple definitions that match our intuitions about the meaning of these terms in ever case, you're doing it wrong. These concepts were not invented by mathematicians for use in a formal system. They evolved in practical use among millions of humans over hundreds of years. Stipulate a coherent meaning and start using the term to successfully communicate with others.

There are other, smaller questions that I think are solved, too, but for now I'm curious: Which philosophical problems do you think are solved, and what is the answer?
[LINK] What are some stupid things smart people do?
by David_Gerard — 2011-02-15T17:51:48.980Z

On Quora: What are some stupid things smart people do? Examples of common types of stupidity that are typical of otherwise very smart people.

Lee Semel's answer in particular would make a great post here: a "to don't" list. You may wish to go through and identify the cognitive bias or biases each is an example of.
A gene for bad memory? (Link)
by Richard_Kennaway — 2011-02-15T15:27:41.920Z

Original paper: "RGS14 is a natural suppressor of both synaptic plasticity in CA2 neurons and hippocampal-based learning and memory"

Sci. Am. article: "Knocking Out a 'Dumb' Gene Boosts Memory in Mice"

Science Daily article: "Gene Limits Learning and Memory in Mice"

They haven't found any deficit in the mice with RGS14 knocked out.
Revisiting the anthropic trilemma I: intuitions and contradictions
by Stuart_Armstrong — 2011-02-15T11:18:40.995Z

tl;dr: in which I apply intuition to the anthropic trilemma, and it all goes horribly, horribly wrong

Some time ago, Eliezer constructed an anthropic trilemma, where standard theories of anthropic reasoning seemed to come into conflict with subjective anticipation. rwallace subsequently argued that subjective anticipation was not ontologically fundamental, so we should not expect it to work out of the narrow confines of everyday experience, and Wei illustrated some of the difficulties inherent in "copy-delete-merge" types of reasoning.

Wei also made the point that UDT shifts the difficulty in anthropic reasoning away from probability and onto the utility function, and ata argued that neither the probabilities nor the utility function are fundamental, that it was the decisions that resulted from them that were important - after all, if two theories give the same behaviour in all cases, what grounds do we have for distinguishing them? I then noted that this argument could be extended to subjective anticipation: instead of talking about feelings of subjective anticipation, we could replace it by questions such as "would I give up a chocolate bar now for one of my copies to have two in these circumstances?"

In this post, I'll start by applying my intuitive utility/probability theory to the trilemma, to see what I would decide in these circumstance, and the problems that can result. I'll be sticking with classical situations rather than quantum, for simplicity.

So assume a (classical) lottery where I have ticket with million to one odds. The trilemma presented a lottery winning trick: set up the environment so that if ever I did win the lottery, a trillion copies of me would be created, they would experience winning the lottery, and then they will be merged/deleted down to one copy again.

So that's the problem; what's my intuition got to say about it? Now, my intuition claims there is a clear difference between my personal and my altruistic utility. Whether this is true doesn't matter, I'm just seeing whether my intuitions can be captured. I'll call the first my indexical utility ("I want chocolate bars") and the second my non-indexical utility ("I want everyone hungry to have a good meal"). I'll be neglecting the non-indexical utility, as it is not relevant to subjective anticipation.

Now, my intuitions tell me that SIA is the correct anthropic probability theory. It ...
Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields
by Vladimir_M — 2011-02-15T09:17:23.723Z

(This post is an expanded version of a LW comment I left a while ago. I have found myself referring to it so much in the meantime that I think it’s worth reworking into a proper post. Some related posts are "The Correct Contrarian Cluster" and "What is Bunk?")

When looking for information about some area outside of one’s expertise, it is usually a good idea to first ask what academic scholarship has to say on the subject. In many areas, there is no need to look elsewhere for answers: respectable academic authors are the richest and most reliable source of information, and people claiming things completely outside the academic mainstream are almost certain to be crackpots.

The trouble is, this is not always the case. Even those whose view of the modern academia is much rosier than mine should agree that it would be astonishing if there didn’t exist at least some areas where the academic mainstream is detached from reality on important issues, while much more accurate views are scorned as kooky (or would be if they were heard at all). Therefore, depending on the area, the fact that a view is way out of the academic mainstream may imply that it's bunk with near-certainty, but it may also tell us nothing if the mainstream standards in the area are especially bad.

I will discuss some heuristics that, in my experience, provide a realistic first estimate of how sound the academic mainstream in a given field is likely to be, and how justified one would be to dismiss contrarians out of hand. These conclusions have come from my own observations of research literature in various fields and some personal experience with the way modern academia operates, and I would be interested in reading others’ opinions.

Low-hanging fruit heuristic

As the first heuristic, we should ask if there is a lot of low-hanging fruit available in the given area, in the sense of research goals that are both interesting and doable. If yes, this means that there are clear paths to quality work open for reasonably smart people with an adequate level of knowledge and resources, which makes it unnecessary to invent clever-looking nonsense instead. In this situation, smart and capable people can just state a sound and honest plan of work on their grant applications and proceed with it.

In contrast, if a research area has reached a dead end and further progress is im...
Rationalist Diplomacy, Game Two Post-game Discussion
by Randaly — 2011-02-15T05:13:00.773Z

(A full list of game moves and commentary is available here; the game maps are available here.)

Since I was GM, I had a distinctly limited access to private communications, so I've relatively little analysis.

A brief review of the game:

Austria was the first player to get eliminated; in contrast to the sort of min-maxing I've usually seen in Diplomacy, they took a lot of big risks in the beginning, in particular leaving Trieste open to Italian attack, in favor of quick expansion to the east. Although they did manage to take Warsaw and Serbia, the Austrian forces wound up overextended and unable to hold onto their gains, and in a weak position diplomatically; the fall of Trieste didn't help matters. Nobody was willing to help Austria, and so Italy seized all of Austria, with Turkey taking the Balkans and Russia taking Rumania. After that, there was a long period of stalemate in the Balkans, as neither of the three powers was willing to divert enough troops to one front to make any offensive progress.

In the west, Germany initially faced a combined Franco-British attack; they held out surprisingly well, aided by cracks in the alliance and occasional Russian attacks on Norway. Britain was actually the first Power to fall in the West, when France piled on after the fall of Norway; the British player was forced to stop participating in the game at around that time. France wound up with all of the British Isles, and Germany was squeezed between it and Russia until it cracked. (The brief Italian occupation of Munich didn't help.) Germany did manage to hold out for most of the rest of the game; there were only a few months of inconclusive war between France and Russia before the draw proposal.

Meanwhile, in the east, Italy gradually fell back before a combined Russian-Turkish attack. After Russia seized Vienna and Budapest, and Turkey seized Trieste, Russia mostly concentrated on attacking England and Germany, leaving Turkey and Italy in a period of stalemate, broken by the advance of Turkish fleets into the Ionian Sea. Soon after, Italy's player had to drop out, and Turkey soon seized control of Italy. Then the game ended.

One thing I'm curious about is how much communication there was between the eastern and western powers. (In-game, beyond Russia fighting on both fronts and a single, chance retreat by Italy, there was little direct interaction.)
The non-painless upload
by Prismattic — 2011-02-15T04:23:24.516Z

I have been trying to absorb the Lesswrong near-consensus on cryonics/quantum mechanics/uploading, and I confess to being unpersuaded by it. I'm not hostile to cryonics; just indifferent, and having a bit of trouble articulating why the insights on identity that I have been picking up from the quantum mechanics sequence aren't compelling to me. I offer the following thought experiment in hopes that others may be able to present the argument more effectively if they understand the objection here.

Suppose that Omega appears before you and says, “All life on Earth is going to be destroyed tomorrow by [insert cataclysmic event of your choice here]. I offer you the chance to push this button, which will upload your consciousness to a safe place out of reach of the cataclysmic event, preserving all of your memories, etc. up to the moment you pushed the button and optimizing you such that you will be effectively immortal. However, the uploading process is painful, and because it interferes with your normal perception of time, your original mind/body will subjectively experience the time after you pushed the button but before the process is complete as a thousand years of the most intense agony. Additionally, I can tell you that a sufficient number of other people will choose to push the button that your uploaded existence will not be lonely.”

Do you push the button?

My understanding of the Lesswrong consensus on this issue is that my uploaded consciousness is me, not just a copy of me. I'm hoping the above hypothetical illustrates why I'm having trouble accepting that.
Optimal Employment Open Thread
by  — 2011-02-14T22:49:28.312Z

Related to: Optimal Employment, Best career models for doing research?, (Virtual) Employment Open Thread

In Optimal Employment Louie discussed some biases that lead people away from optimal employment, and gave working in Australia as an option for such employment. What are some other options?

Your optimal employment will depend on how much you care about a variety of things (free time, money, etc.) so when discussing options it might be helpful to say what you're trying to optimize for.

In addition to proposing options we could list resources that might be helpful for generating or implementing options.
Intro to Naturalist Metaethics?
by Mass_Driver — 2011-02-14T22:32:00.611Z

Can anyone recommend a good primer on naturalist metaethics? I've read the Fun Theory Sequence, and found it fascinating, but it only deals with fun. There are also life, death, pain, torture, and possibly other goods & harms to consider. Also, the Fun Theory Sequence tends to focus on macro-metaethics, i.e., what would be best for all of us to do together? I would also like to learn about micro-metaethics, i.e., what should I do with my life, and how should I choose which parts of myself to emphasize, or which parts of myself I will think of as "really me" or "the best part of me?"
Torturing people for fun
by cousin_it — 2011-02-14T20:52:51.556Z

Most of the usual thought experiments that justify expected utilitarialism trade off fun for fun, or suffering for suffering. Here's a situation which mixes the two. You are offered to press a button that will select a random person (not you) and torture them for a month. In return the machine will make N people who are not suffering right now have X fun each. The fun will be of the positive variety, not saving any creatures from pain.

1) How large would X and N have to be for you to accept the offer?

2) If you say X or N must be very large, does this prove that you measure torture and fun using in effect different scales, and therefore are a deontologist rather than a utilitarian?