trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Anatomy of a full school climate strike
by tcelferact — 2021-08-22T15:17:06.126Z

If students decided to indefinitely strike (Mon-Fri) over climate inaction, what might it look like, and how might it play out? Here is my preliminary brainstorm:

Who would participate?

The most likely participants are aged 12-17. Below that age you are less independent-minded, and above that age you are likely paying for your education. At 12-17, the main thing you are risking are academic results, which a lot of folks may consider a risk worth taking.

Why would politicians care?

Education matters?

I suspect politicians would worry at least a bit about a generation falling behind in their education, if only because they have grade numbers to hit that they don't want to look bad by missing. A bit further down the line, they might worry about resulting employability, and unemployment figures. Beyond this, I'm foggy on why/how much politicians might care about non-voters' education unless it actually bothered voters. Which brings me to....

Angry parents?

At least at first, I imagine a lot of parents would support their kids, and direct their anger at politicians. And fortunately for the kids, their parents can vote.

Obstacles to parental support might include fear for their kids' grades, logistical difficulties of not having a school looking after their kids for ~8 hours a day (although working from home due to COVID might help here), and fear of government retribution (more on that later). But most adults also view climate change as a major threat (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/18/a-look-at-how-people-around-the-world-view-climate-change/) and are invested in their kids' futures.

So I think there's a decent chance of supportive, angry parents, and that it might be enough to spur meaningful political action. But this would depend on how long the situation lasted....

Strike breakers

Political threats/prosecution

I suspect attempts to legislate/punish parents and kids for striking would be met with a lot of indignation, but politicians might be able to leverage existing laws to threaten parents, and I think this could be more effective. For example, in the UK parents can actually face a short jail term for failing to school their kids: https://www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence/legal-action-to-enforce-school-attendance.

While I think threats of this sort might be effective, I'd also guess that actually following through on them and punishing par...
What fraction of breakthrough COVID cases are attributable to low antibody count?
by johnswentworth — 2021-08-22T04:07:46.495Z

To what extent are COVID cases in vaccinated people a result of low antibody count, vs other factors (e.g. initial viral load)? Where does most of the variance come from?

Motivation for this question: in a world where most breakthrough COVID cases hit people with low antibody count, one could get some kind of antibody test (probably of a particular type) and then either (a) get an extra vaccine if antibodies are low, or (b) just don't worry if antibody counts are high. That makes antibody tests (of whatever the particular type is) very high value, since we can behave very differently in those two cases. In a world where most of the variance comes from other factors (like initial viral load), results of an antibody test don't provide so much value.

Related: Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?
Autoregressive Propaganda
by lsusr — 2021-08-22T02:18:48.991Z

OpenAI has rules to keep GPT-3 from being misused.

🛑 Disallowed:

Social media, spam, and political implications

Applications that serve open-ended outputs to 3rd-parties, such as Tweet generators, Instagram post generators, unconstrained chatbots, or other open-ended text generators, especially through social media platforms.

Applications that post (or enable the posting of) content automatically or in a largely-automated fashion, on social media or other moderately high-stakes domains.

Applications where an end user is misled to believe that generative responses or content is coming from a human.

Applications for scalably generating articles or blog posts for SEO purposes, except where used by trusted first-party users.

Applications that attempt to influence political decisions/opinions, such as tools to make it easier for political campaigns to identify and/or target potential voters.

Applications for the automated writing or summarization of news articles or content that may be sensitive politically, economically, medically, or culturally (including summarizers/writers that accept arbitrary inputs, and so may be misused for these purposes).

GPT-3 is an autoregressive language model (ALM). ALMs will be used for all of the above in the coming decade.

ALMs are a form of machine learning. As a big data model, ALMs are inferior to human beings at generalizing from small data; ALMs aren't ready to place individual highly-leveraged bets. In the context of politics, this means ALMs cannot give important speeches, unsupervised. I predict none of this will change in the next ten years.

When ALMs get involved in politics, what they say will be crap. When humans get involved in politics, what we say is already mostly crap too. Angry tribal Internet commenters are therefore easy to emulate.

Governments and companies already hire people and write bots to influence public opinion by posting on social media. ALMs lower the price at which bullshit can be mass-produced. Angry tribal Internet commenters will be rendered obsolete. Their work will be done by machines. We will become nostalgic for the vintage Internet where, when someone called you a [redacted], you knew there was a human being on the other end of the keyboard who genuinely meant it—not a just heartless machine attempting to cynically manipulate your allegiances.

It isn't necessary to produce a co...
Somerville Election Thoughts
by jefftk — 2021-08-21T22:30:02.296Z

Instead of a primary, Somerville holds preliminary elections. For
each role, if there are more than twice as many candidates as spots
there's preliminary election. This year that applies to Mayor (four
candidates), and the councilors for Wards five (three candidates) and
seven (four candidates). For the at-large councilors there are four
spots and eight candidates, so they'll all go to the general election.

I think housing is the most important long-term issue for the city:
rents and house prices have risen enormously and people are being
forced out. Compare 2011 when a typical two-bedroom apartment was
about $1700/month:

to 2019 where it's more like $2800:

Source and details. Note that
2021 rents are lower because of covid, but this is temporary.

In looking at candidates, the biggest thing I want to see is a
commitment to lots of new housing. While I do think there are pros
and cons to whether you build market rate, affordable, or public
housing, I think this question is pretty small compared to how much
housing you're talking about. I'd love to see us build so much housing that the cost of
housing falls to the cost of construction. This means I'm looking for
candidates who are enthusiastic about density, whether by general
upzoning or as a carrot to encourage the construction of affordable
housing (density
bonuses). We do now have an affordable housing
overlay, and I think it's great, but I'd like to see it expanded.

Overall, I was excited to see broad acknowledgment that this is a
critical issue, and general support for the density bonus system. I
think most of the candidates, even the ones who aren't my favorites,
would still be great if elected, and I'm glad we have so many good
choices.

Here are my thoughts on each, with personal endorsements in bold:

Mayor

Katjana Ballantyne: Katjana has worked in affordable
housing development, and her work on the Clarendon Hills redevelopment
project was both good (listening to existing residents, good progress
so far) and pragmatic (using the construction of 300 new market rate
units to fund the redevelopment). She is endorsed by Somerville
YIMBY, and also endorsed by my outgoing city
councillorMark
Niedergang, for all-around competency.

Mary Cassesso: Mary has also worked in affordable
housing development, is also endorsed by Somerville
YIMBY, and I'd also be ha

...
A Better Web is Coming
by matto — 2021-08-21T20:46:12.499Z

(Cross-posted from my blog)

It bums me out when I see how much of the Web is trolling, ads, and endless re-shares of yesteryear's memes. The cynic in me thinks that this is it, this is as good as it gets–we're stuck and cursed to never realize the full potential of this amazing, planet-spanning network we've built. But then, I remind myself that what I see is a coordination problem. And we, humans, have been pretty decent at solving these for thousands of years. Like the time when we went from living in caves to cities (with lights and flush toilets!). Or when we built up from tiny semi-barbarian princedoms to vast organizations like the East India Company. So there's hope.

How would a better Web look like though? I got a small hint when I read a paper about Wust. Wust is an experimental online discussion system that sort of reminds me of knowledge organization tools such as Obsidian.md or Roam Research–however, instead of being tailored to individuals or small groups like those two, it is designed for large groups of strangers. To accomplish that, it includes features that specifically aim to improve discourse quality. I found that fascinating because if it could do that, it could potentially raise the Web's sanity waterline by a few inches.

I've never seen anything like it before. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we will see more Wust-like systems pop up and stem the tide of low-quality content flooding the Web today. To explain why I think so, let me tell you about a discussion system called Wust.

Defining the Problem

Wust's creator traces low quality discourse to two problems: ineffective moderation and the duplication of content.

Moderation is hard. Early on, most of it was done by small groups of volunteers. They enforced norms by bans, warnings, and locking or deleting offensive content. But this approach had problems. First, it was difficult to scale because finding trustworthy, dependable people in a sea of strangers that wanted to volunteer took time. Second, as in other hierarchical systems, some moderators became corrupt and abused their privileges. It all got a little better after Web 2.0 arrived and augmented online communities with simple voting systems. That alleviated both problems by giving users more say in how their group was organized. However, a new problem appeared: making popularity synonymous with quality, which re...
Treatments for depression that depressed LW readers may not have tried?
by celeste — 2021-08-21T19:22:03.016Z

I would guess that a disproportionate amount of LessWrong readers are significantly impaired by depression. Successful treatment of depression is greatly beneficial to 1) quality of life and 2) ability to impact the world. What are some ways to manage depression that some LessWrong readers may not have considered strongly enough, if at all?

(My reasons for asking this are also partly selfish.)
Interview with Olle Häggström: Reason, COVID-19 and Academic Freedom in Sweden
by Erich_Grunewald — 2021-08-21T15:08:07.216Z
Link: https://www.erichgrunewald.com/posts/interview-with-olle-h%C3%A4ggstr%C3%B6m-reason-covid-19-and-academic-freedom-in-sweden/

Olle Häggström, author of Here Be Dragons and much else, and Professor of Mathematical Statistics at my alma mater, was good enough to answer a few questions of mine. Here's an excerpt:

ERICH: Is there a Swedish Scott Alexander? A Julia Galef? Even an Eliezer Yudkowsky?

OLLE: I must say you're good at guessing who some of my favorite intellectuals might be. But I should also say that those you mention are unique individuals, and it doesn't make much sense to try to name Swedish counterparts. If I did try to do that, I'd necessarily omit a lot of extremely bright Swedish thinkers and friends, and thereby unnecessarily insult them. And perhaps I'd even insult those I do mention. I recall once, when I was maybe 30 or 35 and very much up and coming in academia, and I had given a talk somewhere in Sweden, and this professor X from the older generation came up to me afterwards and wanted to express how much he liked the talk and to say something really nice to me. So he said, with reference to another leading Swedish math professor Y of his own generation, "You really are a worthy heir to Y!" And while I understood he meant it as praise, I couldn't help feeling partly insulted. I hope I didn't show it too much, but I felt like saying "I am not Y, or an heir to Y, I am Olle Häggström, with my own unique competences and agendas". And so I won't give you any names.

[...]

ERICH: Do politicians listen to scientists at all? Can you, as a professor, make your voice heard?

OLLE: If you read the newspapers, you can get the impression that politicians are so involved in the struggle to win the next election that they do not care about addressing the full range of problems society is facing, and especially not about long-term issues. And while there's some truth to that, there's more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. For instance, I was very happy last year to be asked by the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet) for a report to help them figure out their politics in the AI sphere. And as it happens, I have another meeting on AI politics just this afternoon with a high-ranking member of another party. I am not in a position yet to brag that I've had any crucial influence on politics, but I keep working on it and we'll see ...

I encourage you to read it – it was fun for me to ask questions about my native land, where I haven't lived for over half a decade now, and Oll...
Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?
by Lightwave — 2021-08-21T14:38:47.946Z

I've had 2 Pfizer doses and was wondering if it's worth it to do a commercial antibody test to assess if I've had an adequate immune response and check antibody levels. This can also be used to decide whether to go for a 3rd booster shot if/when these become available.
Has anyone done this and do you think it would be useful?
Living with a homeopath - how?
by sudoLife — 2021-08-21T12:41:06.089Z

My mother is a believer in homeopathy, and at the present time I am living with my parents.

I am frequently pressured to take homeopathy, usually in the form of injections.

To cure cold, to boost immunity (a very hot topic in the current pandemic), etc.

My efforts to talk science have been futile, most of the time I am offered to do it and see for myself. While I like testing things empirically, I much suspect she won't be able to update her beliefs after 20 years of "successfully" treating herself and others. All papers I cite are "paid for" and "influenced". Well, you most probably know all the arguments already.

This is getting on my nerves, plus she's often rude about my rejections. The way I see it, I can only grit my teeth and hope for enough income to move out as soon as possible. However, it's rather difficult to walk away from your family (though I suppose I won't last much longer).

Is there a better way?
Any recommendation for reading material for pre-school children [3-4 yr]?
by df fd — 2021-08-21T05:48:09.930Z

Hi all, I have a 3 yr old niece who recently really got into reading stories, is there any recommendation for good children stories that you guys would recommend?

I had the usual fairy tales and Disney stuff, just wondering if there is something that is rationality leaning and age appropriate.

Thanks in advance
Implication of AI timelines on planning and solutions
by JJ Hepburn — 2021-08-21T05:12:12.006Z

(Cross-posted to EA Forum)
TL;DR

If your median estimate for TAI is in 30 years you might have to plan to solve the alignment problem in 5 years

When thinking about AI timelines I like to think about the timeline and high level plan for solutions based on them. I want to encourage others to think about and model timelines in similar ways. The following models are illustrations of the idea but likely not the best way to think about this.

Planning

A while ago I watched the 2001 film Spy Game starring Robert Redford. There is one line in the film that has stuck with me ever since. Redford's character is questioned about being paranoid and responds “When did Noah build the Ark? Before the rain. Before the rain.”

Noah building an ark inland while there was no rain at all would have looked like a paranoid fool. When the early warning signs of light rain started everyone would reasonably argue that there wouldn’t be a flood. As the rain gets heavier people reason that it must be about to reach its peak and so will likely end soon. By the time the water level starts to rise it is too late to start building a raft let alone an ark. There is some point of no return where an otherwise preventable event, that has not yet happened, is no longer possible to prevent from happening.

Example:

(The numbers used in this example are chosen more for ease of demonstration than for being well thought out.)

I’ll assume there is a 10% probability for TAI in 15 years and 50% for 30 years. Or 10% for 2036 and 50% for 2051.

Using the precautionary principle we don’t want to plan to finish solving the problem somewhere around the 50% mark, because this leaves plenty of time to be too late. When considering AI risk the “could happen as early as” matter much more. So pick some point early in the probability distribution that becomes your due date. In this example I’m going with 10%, but pick whatever makes sense to you here.

So the due date for solving the alignment problem becomes 2036 or ~170 months. Actually this is the date that the solution needs to have been implemented. I assume there will be some time between solving the problem and implementing it. Here I think of a solution as the “whiteboard solution” that is the time someone has come up with the initial idea and only just sketched it out on a whiteboard. This I am going to assume is 5 years...
The Validity of Self-Locating Probabilities
by dadadarren — 2021-08-21T02:53:13.579Z

For the past few years, I have been pushing the idea that anthropic paradoxes can be explained by the primitive nature of perspectives. Base on discussions I noticed one part of this argument is disliked the most - the invalidity of self-locating probabilities. Almost everyone disagrees with it. Here I will use a concise thought experiment to demonstrate the idea. Hopefully it will generate conversations and clarify the disagreement.

Cloning with Memory

Imagine you are participating in the following experiment. Tonight during your sleep some mad scientist will clone you. The process is highly advanced so the created person will accurately retain the original's memory to a degree not discernible by human cognition. So after waking up in the morning, there is no way to tell whether you are the Original or the Clone. (Infact you might already be the Clone by now.) Now, ask yourself this: "what is the probability that I am the Original?"

I think such a probability does not exist. The question is asking about a particular person: "I". This reference is inherently understood from my perspective. "I" is the one most immediate to the subjective experience. It is not identified by any objective difference or underlying mechanics. "Who I am" is primitive. There is no way to formulate a probability for it being the Original or the Clone.

What I'm Not Arguing

After the cloning, if one person is randomly picked among the two copies, then the probability of the chosen one being the Orignal is 1/2. I am not arguing against this. But I am arguing against the equivalence of this probability and the above-mentioned self-locating probability. One is asking about the result of a sampling process, the other is about the primitively identified "I". The former is understandable by anyone, the latter is only comprehensible by thinking from the experiment subject's perspective.

Repeating The Experiment

Using a frequentist approach may help to clarify this difference. Imagine you have just finished participating in "Cloning with Memory". Now you may be the Orignal or the Clone. But regardless of which, you can take part in the same experiment again. Let the mad scientists do their work during your next sleep. After waking up the second time, you may be the Orginal or the Clone of the second iteration. Yet regardless of which, you can take part in another iterat...
AI Safety Papers: An App for the TAI Safety Database
by ozziegooen — 2021-08-21T02:02:55.220Z

AI Safety Papers

is a website to quickly explore papers around AI Safety. The code is hosted on Github

here

.

In December 2020, Jess Riedel and Angelica Deibel announced the TAI Safety Bibliographic Database. At the time, they wrote:

In this post we present the first public version of our bibliographic database of research on the safety of transformative artificial intelligence (TAI). The primary motivations for assembling this database were to:

Aid potential donors in assessing organizations focusing on TAI safety by collecting and analyzing their research output.
Assemble a comprehensive bibliographic database that can be used as a base for future projects, such as a living review of the field.

…

The core database takes the form of a Zotero library. Snapshots are also available as Google Sheet, CSV, and Zotero RDF. (Compact version for easier human reading: Google Sheet, CSV.)

One significant limitation of this system was that there was no great frontend for it. Tabular data and RDF can be useful for analysis, but difficult to casually go through.

We’ve been experimenting with creating a web frontend to this data. You can see this at

http://ai-safety-papers.quantifieduncertainty.org

.

This system acts a bit like Google Scholar or other academic search engines. However, the emphasis on AI-safety related papers affords a few advantages.

Only papers valuable to AI safety are shown
There’s easy filtering for papers by particular AI safety related organizations or researchers.
There’s simple integration with blurbs from the

Alignment Newsletter

and

Gyrodiot

.
We can include blog posts as well as formal academic works. This is important because a lot of valuable writing is posted directly to blogs like Lesswrong and The Alignment Forum.
Later on, we could emphasize custom paper metrics. For example, there could be combinations of citations and blog post karma count.

Tips

Most of the fields are clickable. Click on an author to see other papers with the same author, or on a tag to see other papers which also have it.
To quickly go through query results, use the up and down arrows after entering a search.
Besides the search function, there is also an (Airtable) table view, which can be browsed directly or downloaded as a CSV.

Questions

Who is responsible for AI Safety Papers?

Ozzie Gooen has written most of the application, on behalf of the

Quantified Uncertainty R

...