trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
The Unique Games Conjecture and FAI: A Troubling Obstacle
by 27chaos — 2015-01-20T21:46:33.410Z

I am not a computer scientist and do not know much about complexity theory. However, it's a field that interests me, so I occasionally browse some articles on the subject. I was brought to https://www.simonsfoundation.org/mathematics-and-physical-science/approximately-hard-the-unique-games-conjecture/ by a link on Scott Aaronson's blog, and read the article to reacquaint myself with the Unique Games Conjecture, which I had partially forgotten about. If you are not familiar with the UGC, that article will explain it to you better than I can.
One phrase in the article stuck out to me: "there is some number of colors k for which it is NP-hard (that is, effectively impossible) to distinguish between networks in which it is possible to satisfy at least 99% of the constraints and networks in which it is possible to satisfy at most 1% of the constraints". I think this sentence is concerning for those interested in the possibility of creating FAI.
It is impossible to perfectly satisfy human values, as matter and energy are limited, and so will be the capabilities of even an enormously powerful AI. Thus, in trying to maximize human happiness, we are dealing with a problem that's essentially isomorphic to the UGC's coloring problem. Additionally, our values themselves are ill-formed. Human values are numerous, ambiguous, even contradictory. Given the complexities of human value systems, I think it's safe to say we're dealing with a particularly nasty variation of the problem, worse than what computer scientists studying it have dealt with.

Not all specific instances of complex optimization problems are subject to the UGC and thus NP hard, of course. So this does not in itself mean that building an FAI is impossible. Also, even if maximizing human values is NP hard (or maximizing the probability of maximizing human values, or maximizing the probability of maximizing the probability of human values) we can still assess a machine's code and actions heuristically. However, even the best heuristics are limited, as the UGC itself demonstrates. At bottom, all heuristics must rely on inflexible assumptions of some sort.
Minor edits.
Superintelligence 19: Post-transition formation of a singleton
by KatjaGrace — 2015-01-20T02:00:27.460Z

This is part of a weekly reading group on Nick Bostrom's book, Superintelligence. For more information about the group, and an index of posts so far see the announcement post. For the schedule of future topics, see MIRI's reading guide.

Welcome. This week we discuss the nineteenth section in the reading guide: post-transition formation of a singleton. This corresponds to the last part of Chapter 11.

This post summarizes the section, and offers a few relevant notes, and ideas for further investigation. Some of my own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.

There is no need to proceed in order through this post, or to look at everything. Feel free to jump straight to the discussion. Where applicable and I remember, page numbers indicate the rough part of the chapter that is most related (not necessarily that the chapter is being cited for the specific claim).

Reading: : “Post-transition formation of a singleton?” from Chapter 11

Summary

Even if the world remains multipolar through a transition to machine intelligence, a singleton might emerge later, for instance during a transition to a more extreme technology. (p176-7)

If everything is faster after the first transition, a second transition may be more or less likely to produce a singleton. (p177)

Emulations may give rise to 'superorganisms': clans of emulations who care wholly about their group. These would have an advantage because they could avoid agency problems, and make various uses of the ability to delete members. (p178-80)

Improvements in surveillance resulting from machine intelligence might allow better coordination, however machine intelligence will also make concealment easier, and it is unclear which force will be stronger. (p180-1)

Machine minds may be able to make clearer precommitments than humans, changing the nature of bargaining somewhat. Maybe this would produce a singleton. (p183-4)

Another view

Many of the ideas around superorganisms come from Carl Shulman's paper, Whole Brain Emulation and the Evolution of Superorganisms. Robin Hanson critiques it:

...It seems to me that Shulman actually offers two somewhat different arguments, 1) an abstract argument that future evolution generically leads to superorganisms, because their costs are generally less than their benefits, and 2) a more concrete argument, that emulatio

...
An Introduction to Control Theory
by Vaniver — 2015-01-19T20:50:02.624Z

Behavior: The Control of Perception by William Powers applies control theory to psychology to develop a model of human intelligence that seems relevant to two of LW's primary interests: effective living for humans and value-preserving designs for artificial intelligence. It's been discussed on LW previously here, here, and here, as well as mentioned in Yvain's roundup of 5 years (and a week) of LW. I've found previous discussions unpersuasive for two reasons: first, they typically only have a short introduction to control theory and the mechanics of control systems, making it not quite obvious what specific modeling techniques they have in mind, and second, they often fail to communicate the differences between this model and competing models of intelligence. Even if you're not interested in its application to psychology, control theory is a widely applicable mathematical toolkit whose basics are simple and well worth knowing.

Because of the length of the material, I'll split it into three posts. In this post, I'll first give an introduction to that subject that's hopefully broadly accessible. The next post will explain the model Powers introduces in his book. In the last post, I'll provide commentary on the model and what I see as its implications, for both LW and AI.

Control theory is a central tool of modern engineering. Briefly, most interesting things can be modeled as dynamical systems, having both states and rules on how those states change with time. Consider the 3D position and velocity of a ball in a bowl (with friction); six numbers tell you where the ball is, its speed, and its direction of movement, and a formula tells you how you can predict what those six numbers will be in the next instant given where they are now. Those systems can be characterized by their attractors, states that are stable and are the endpoint for nearby states. The ball sitting motionless in the bottom of the bowl is an attractor- if it's already there, it will stay there, and if it's nearby (releasing from a centimeter away, for example), it will eventually end up there. The point of control theory is that adding a control to a dynamical system allows you to edit the total system dynamics so that the points you want to be stable attractors are stable attractors.

Let's flesh out that sketch with an example. Suppose you want to keep a house within a specific temperatur...
Meetup : Effective Altruism Netherlands, Utrecht - How to live on a low budget
by immasix — 2015-01-19T19:08:47.768Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Effective Altruism Netherlands, Utrecht - How to live on a low budget

WHEN:
01 February 2015 02:00:00PM (+0100)

WHERE:
Utrecht, La Place, Rijnkade 5

Every two weeks we have a meetup about effective altruism. For more information, see meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com/LWEANL/events/219938710/), which is supposed to be up-to-date.

Discussion article for the meetup : Effective Altruism Netherlands, Utrecht - How to live on a low budget
Meetup : SLC, UT — January Meetup
by hamnox — 2015-01-19T04:29:47.055Z

Discussion article for the meetup : SLC, UT — January Meetup

WHEN:
24 January 2015 03:00:51PM (-0700)

WHERE:
Kafeneios Coffeehouse, 258 West 3300 South South Salt Lake, UT

Inform yourself of how your own brain approaches problems as we delve deeper into Khaneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and try out some skills based off of the work of the Center for Applied Rationality.

What our meetup does in general:
* Give specific feedback and positive reinforcement on valuable habits of good thinking and success.
* Empathize and assist with akrasia troubles and struggles of intellectual integrity.. and celebrate every achievement along the way!
* Spread general awesomeness to all.

If that's the sort of group you want, all you have to do is show up. To get the best experience, bring your observations on what you've been up to since last meetup, and leave behind your politics, or other ideas built directly into your identity or emotional wellbeing, at the door.

If you have any questions or if there is anything at all bothering you, please don't hesitate to message me here, or at mheisey.nox@gmail.com
Please err on the side of asking; it costs little to address your concerns if they're trivial and costs a lot to ignore them if they aren't.

Discussion article for the meetup : SLC, UT — January Meetup
Optimal eating (or rather, a step in the right direction)
by c_edwards — 2015-01-19T01:35:27.501Z

Over the past few months I've been working to optimize my life. In this post I describe my attempt to optimize my day-to-day cooking and eating - my goal with this post is to get input and to offer a potential template for people who aren't happy with their current cooking/eating patterns. I'm a) still pretty new to LW, and b) not a nutritionist; I am not claiming that this is optimal, only that it is a step in the right direction for me. I'd love suggestions/advice/feedback.

Goal:

How do I quantify a successful cooking/eating plan?

Healthy

"Healthy" is a broad term. I'm not interested in making food a complicated or stressful component of my life - quite the opposite. Healthy means that I feel good, and that I'm providing my body with a good mix of building blocks (carbs, proteins, fats) and nutrients. This means I want most/all meals to include some form of complex carbs, protein, and either fruits or veggies or both. As I'm currently implementing an exercise plan based on the LW advice for optimal exercising, I'm aiming to get ~120 grams of protein per day (.64g/lb bodyweight/day). There seems to be a general consensus that absorption of nutrients from whole foods is a) higher, and b) less dangerous, so when possible I'm trying to make foods from basic components instead of buying pre-processed stuff.

I have a health condition called hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) that makes me cranky/shaky/weak/impatient/foolish/tired when I am hungry, and can be triggered by eating simple sugars. So, for me personally, a healthy diet includes rarely feeling hungry and rarely eating simple sugars (especially on their own - if eaten with other food the effect is much less severe). This also means trying to focus on forms of fruit and complex carbs that have low glycemic indexes (yams are better than baked potatoes, for example). I would guess that these attributes would be valuable for anyone, but for me they are a very high priority.

I'm taking some advice from the "Exos" (formerly Core Performance) fitness program, as described in the book Core performance essentials. One of the suggestions from this that I'm trying to use here (aside from the above complex carb+protein+fruit/veg meal structure) is to "eat the rainbow every day" - that is, mix up the fruits and veggies you eat, ideally getting as many color...
Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015
by Gondolinian — 2015-01-19T00:04:25.527Z

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Previous Open Thread

Next Open Thread

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 be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
[Link] An argument on colds 
by  — 2015-01-18T19:16:52.019Z

Source.

It's illegal to work around food when showing symptoms of contagious diseases. Why not the same for everyone else? Each person who gets a cold infects one other person on average. We could probably cut infection rates and the frequency of colds in half if sick people didn't come in to work.

And if we want better biosecurity, why not also require people to be able to reschedule flights if a doctor certifies they have a contagious disease?

Due to the 'externalities', the case seems very compelling.

Moving my commentary to a separate comment, so as to disambiguate votes on my commentary and the original argument.
Meetup : Australia Mega-meetup planning meeting
by Elo — 2015-01-18T05:47:33.429Z

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia Mega-meetup planning meeting

WHEN:
22 January 2015 07:00:00PM (+1100)

WHERE:
Australia, sydney

I am leading the planning of the Australia-wide mega-meetup for 2015. If you are interested to help with planning (because you have skills; because you want to get skills in planning; or just cuz - join us)

https://www.facebook.com/events/621859147940371

A link to the google hangout will be posted to that public facebook event a few minutes beforehand. All are welcome.

Discussion article for the meetup : Australia Mega-meetup planning meeting
Respond to what they probably meant
by Adam Zerner — 2015-01-17T23:37:38.135Z

Edit: I didn't realize this before writing the post, but what I'm referring to is The Principle of Charity.

Story

I was confused about Node Modules, so I did a bunch of research to figure out how they work. Explaining things helps me to understand them, and I figured that others might benefit from my explanation, so I wrote a blog post about them. However, I'm inexperienced and still unsure of exactly what's going on, so I started the blog post off with a disclaimer:

Disclaimer

I'm a bit of a noob. I just graduated from a coding bootcamp and am still trying to wrap my head around this stuff myself (that's actually why I'm writing this article). I tried to do my research, but I can't guarantee that everything is correct. Input from more knowledgeable people is very welcome.

My friend said that it's a bad idea to do that. He said:

You're literally discrediting yourself in the first sentence of the article. Stand by what you've written!

I interpreted what he said literally and basically responded by saying:

Why should I "stand by what I've written"? What I mean to communicate to the readers is that, "I'm x% sure of what I'm about to say." To "stand by what I've written" is to assign a higher confidence to the things I've written than what my true confidence is. It wouldn't even be a stretch to interpret "stand by what you've written" as meaning "claim that you're 100% sure of what you've written". Why would I do that?

This was stupid of me. He didn't mean "claim that you're 100% sure of what you've written". He didn't mean "pretend that you're way more confident in what you've written than what you really are". He meant, "I think that it comes across as you being less confident than you actually are. And so I think you should reword it to better communicate your confidence."

I shouldn't have interpreted what he said so literally. I should have thought about and responded to what I thought he meant to say. (Although, he also should have been more precise...)

Thesis

People often interpret and respond to statements literally. Instead of doing this, it's often useful to think about and respond to what the other person probably meant.

For example, "If I interpret what you said literally, then A. But you probably meant X, so B. If you meant Y, then C."

Depending on how confident you are in your interpretation, you should probably respond to a variety of possibiliti...
LINK: Diseases not sufficiently researched
by polymathwannabe — 2015-01-17T16:03:57.849Z

This Chart Shows The Worst Diseases That Don't Get Enough Research Money

We have already covered this topic several times on LW, but what prompted me to link this was this remark:

Of course, where research dollars flow isn't —and shouldn't be— dictated simply in terms of which diseases lay claim to the most years, but also by, perhaps most importantly, where researchers see the most potential for a breakthrough.

[Edit: a former, dumber version of me had asked, "I wonder what criterion the author would prefer," before the correct syntax of the sentence was pointed out to me.]

Opinions?
... And Everyone Loses Their Minds
by Ritalin — 2015-01-16T23:38:35.755Z

Chris Nolan's Joker is a very clever guy, almost Monroesque in his ability to identify hypocrisy and inconsistency. One of his most interesting scenes in the film has him point out how people estimate horrible things differently depending on whether they're part of what's "normal", what's "expected", rather than on how inherently horrifying they are, or how many people are involved.

Soon people extrapolated this observation to other such apparent inconsistencies in human judgment, where a behaviour that once was acceptable, with a simple tweak or change in context, becomes the subject of a much more serious reaction.

I think there's rationalist merit in giving these inconsistencies a serious look. I intuit that there's some sort of underlying pattern to them, something that makes psychological sense, in the roundabout way that most irrational things do. I think that much good could come out of figuring out what that root cause is, and how to predict this effect and manage it.

Phenomena that come to mind, are, for instance, from an Effective Altruism point of view, the expenses incurred in counter-terrorism (including some wars that were very expensive in treasure and lives), and the number of lives said expenses save, compared with the number of lives that could be saved by spending that same amount into improving road safety, increasing public helathcare expense where it would do the most good, building better lightning rods (in the USA you're four times more likely to be struck by thunder than by terrorists), or legalizing drugs.

What do y'all think? Why do people have their priorities all jumbled-up? How can we predict these effects? How can we work around them?
New LW Meetup: Dallas
by FrankAdamek — 2015-01-16T17:11:53.030Z

This summary was posted to LW Main on January 9th. The following week's summary is here.

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

Dallas, TX: 10 January 2015 01:00PM
Paris LW Meetup - LHC Exhibit: 17 January 2015 02:00PM
San Francisco Meetup: 12 January 2015 06:00PM

Irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups are taking place in:

Bangalore Meetup: 10 January 2015 11:02AM
European Community Weekend 2015: 12 June 2015 12:00PM
[Frankfurt] New Year meetup Frankfurt: 11 January 2015 02:00PM
[Munich] January Meetup in Munich: 17 January 2015 03:00PM
Warsaw January Meetup: 13 January 2015 06:00PM

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:

Austin, TX - Caffe Medici: 10 January 2026 01:30PM
Brussels - Mindfulness and mental habits: 10 January 2015 01:00PM
Moscow LW lecture centre meetup: The New Foundation: 25 January 2015 02:00PM
Sydney Meetup - January: 28 January 2015 06:30PM
Sydney Rationality Dojo - How bad statistics can ruin your life: 01 February 2015 04:00PM
Vienna: 24 January 2015 03:00PM
Washington, D.C.: Meta Meetup: 11 January 2015 03:00PM

Locations with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Cambridge UK, Canberra, Columbus, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Moscow, Mountain View, New York, Philadelphia, Research Triangle NC, Seattle, Sydney, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, and West Los Angeles. There's also a 24/7 online study hall for coworking LWers.

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

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

Please note that for your meetup to appear ...
LINK: Guinea worm disease close to eradication
by polymathwannabe — 2015-01-16T16:08:19.223Z

The disease, that is, maybe not the worm itself. Anyway, Team Human scores its second point against Team Disease:

http://www.sciencealert.com/guys-we-re-really-close-to-eradicating-the-second-disease-ever-from-the-planet
Slides online from "The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges"
by Paul Crowley — 2015-01-16T11:17:23.647Z

In the first weekend of this year, the Future of Life institute hosted a landmark conference in Puerto Rico: "The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges". The conference was unusual in that it was not made public until it was over, and the discussions were under Chatham House rules. The slides from the conference are now available. The list of attenders includes a great many famous names as well as lots of names familiar to those of us on Less Wrong: Elon Musk, Sam Harris, Margaret Boden, Thomas Dietterich, all three DeepMind founders, and many more.

This is shaping up to be another extraordinary year for AI risk concerns going mainstream!
Learn Three Things Every Day
by helltank — 2015-01-16T09:36:33.983Z

In the Game of Thrones series, there is an ongoing side plot in which a character is trained by a secretive organization to become an assassin. As part of her training, one of the senior assassins demands that she report to him three new things she has learnt every day. by making a natural inference from the title of the article, you might infer or assume that I am going to suggest that you do the same. I am, but with a crucial difference.

You see, my standards are higher than the Faceless Men. Instead of filling up your list of learnt things with only marginally useful things like gossip or other insignificant things, I am going to take it up a notch and demand that you learn three USEFUL things a day. This is, of course, an entirely self-enforced challenge, and I'll let you decide on the definition of useful. Personally, I use the condition of [>50% probability that X will enrich my life in a significant way], but if you want, you can make up your own criteria for "useful".

This may seem trite or useless, or even obvious(if you're an eager and fast learner, like most LWers). Now stop and think hard. For the entire of the past 30 days, have you ever had a day or two where you just slacked off and didn't learn much? Maybe it was New Year's Day, or your birthday, and instead of learning you decided to spend the whole day partying. Perhaps it was just a lazy Sunday and you couldn't be bothered to learn something and instead just spent the day playing video games or mountain skiing(although there are useful things to be learnt from those, too) or whatever you like to do in your spare time.

I haven't taken an official survey, but my belief(and do correct me if I am very wrong about this) is that on average there's at least one day in thirty in which you did not learn thirty new, useful things. I would consider that day as pretty much wasted from a truth-seeker's point of view. You did not move forward in your quest for knowledge, you did not sharpen your rationality skills(and they always need sharpening, no matter how good you are) and you did not become stronger mentally. That's 12 days in a year, which is more than enough for the average LWer to pick up at least one new skill: say, learning about game theory, to pick a random example. In that year, you have had a chance to gain the knowledge of game theory, and you threw it away.

The point of this exercise is ...