trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
Survey on cortical uniformity - an expert amplification exercise
by Jsevillamol — 2021-02-23T22:13:24.157Z

In short: We designed a survey to gauge the opinion of expert neuroscientists about the degree of uniformity in the human cortex. The survey was sent to 135 experts, of which only 6 responded. Since we do not consider this a representative sample, we are instead asking the LessWrong community to predict what would have been the survey outcome if more people had responded.

The project in brief

We want to distinguish two hypotheses. The brain could be a machine with many components, learned through evolution and hardcoded via the genome. Or it could be a relatively simple process, that relies on an overarching principle to learn to perform many tasks. This is not a clean dichotomy; there are many possible degrees in between.

Regardless, it is clearly a very interesting question for the study of human cognition. The answer to this question also has consequences on what degree of generality is achievable with artificial intelligence, especially concerning biologically inspired AI. See

My computational framework for the brain

by Steve Byrne for previous discussion of the topic.

There exists research addressing this question in neuroscience, see for example

Canonical Microcircuits for Predictive Coding

by Andre M. Bastos et al which argues in favor of uniformity and

The atoms of neural computation

by Gary Marcus et al which argues against. However, it is not clear from the outside of the field whether there is a majority position and what that would be.

In order to learn this, we designed a simple three question survey intended to probe the field (the questions are reproduced in the next section).

We sent the survey to 135 experts in neuroscience. The public we selected were invited speakers to two conferences by the Society for Neuroscience. The conferences were Neuroscience 2019 and Global Connectome 2021.

The response to the survey was underwhelming: only 6 experts responded. We tried reaching out to one of them who seemed especially keen on discussing the topic for an in-depth interview but we received no second response.

Given this we have decided to rethink our approach, and use this as a chance to experiment with forecasting and expert amplification. In the next section you will find the survey questions, and we will ask you to predict what you believe would have been the majority result for each question had we received more answers.

Also, if you are a neuros...
[Fiction] Lena (MMAcevedo)
by Kaj_Sotala — 2021-02-23T19:46:34.637Z
Link: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

Wiki article about the first brain image of a human upload (2031). Subpar in some respects, but initially a compliant worker and free to copy thanks to court cases ruling that the biological original did not have a legal right to restrict its use.
When you already know the answer - Using your Inner Simulator
by Neel Nanda — 2021-02-23T17:58:29.336Z
Link: https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/42-inner-sim

I first encountered the idea of Inner Simulators at a CFAR workshop. Credit to them, and read the relevant chapter of their Handbook to see their take. If you’re already familiar with the idea, or find this post slow, I expect you’ll still enjoy the list of examples at the end

Introduction

I am fascinated by framing effects - when phrasing a question in a different way, this can significantly change my immediate answer. Some of my favourite examples:

Other-ising: I find it easy to get anxious, stuck in my head, and obsessing over things, eg past failures. But when I imagine this happening to a friend and giving them advice, it’s obvious that it’s all ridiculous
Making things concrete: Often, when trying to explain or understand an idea, it feels vague and complex. But, when I am first prompted to think of an example, things click into place
Thinking in bets: When trying to make a prediction about the future, eg forecasting whether I’ll finish a project by a deadline, it’s easy to be optimistic or have fuzzy and vague intuitions. But when phrased as ‘would I be comfortable betting on this?’ my intuitions become much crisper and better calibrated.

Personally, I find these effects are all easy to replicate and surprisingly strong. And this is super weird! Changing the way I frame a question can instantly make it much easier to answer well. And this can be applied instantly, in the moment, with little additional effort. Ways to improve my thinking on the five second level are rare and incredibly powerful! I want to collect all the useful framing effects that I can, and make them reflexive parts of my thinking.

This post is about one of my favourite framing effects, which boils down to ‘assume you already know the answer to a question, and let your intuition fill in the blanks’. This effect is insanely useful, and I use it multiple times a day. I find it hard to articulate the key mental move here, but people tend to find it fairly intuitive once they get it. So this post will consist of me attempting to describe the idea and gesturing at it in multiple ways, and then giving a long list of examples! (I consider the list of examples to be the most interesting part of this post)

Pre-Hindsight

I often send emails and, immediately after clicking send, realise I got something wrong, eg forgetting ...
Judging Our April 2020 Covid-19 Predictions
by Zvi — 2021-02-23T17:20:01.309Z

Scott Alexander has given his verdict on our predictions for Covid from April 2020.

This seems like an excellent opportunity to reflect on those predictions. I’ll also attempt to render my verdict on the predictions, based on the principles I discuss in Evaluating Predictions in Hindsight under Hard Mode, as Scott’s already done the Easy Mode work.

Afterwards, I’ll give my take on the Assorted Links from that post as well.

Note on Methodology

This post is where I gave my predictions. Note that I don’t give my fair probabilities here. Instead, I give what prices I’d be willing to wager at. This is an important distinction.

The coward’s method of proposing a wager is to say ‘Bob, you think this is 90% likely, I think that’s too high, so surely you will give me 9:1 odds.’ That’s nonsense, of course, because Bob previously thought those odds were fair, and now someone wants to bet against him. Why should Bob let someone pick which predictions of his someone bets against at fair odds?

The epistemic hero’s method would be to give your own fair probability, and offer to meet in the middle via the Green Knight test (you’d do the math and combine into one wager). Thus, ‘Bob, you think this is 90% likely, I think it is 10% likely, so let’s bet at even odds.’

The gambler’s method is to consider the prediction as if it were an initial value for a prediction market, and reveal how far you’d be willing to move the odds while still being comfortable wagering. That doesn’t mean you would then think the odds were fair, or that you’d be comfortable if someone wanted to bet against you on your own side at those new odds. Thus, you say something like “Bob, you say 90%, I’m willing to bet against that at 80% odds” which means you think it’s at most 80%, so you’re willing to place bets first at 90%, then 85%, then 80%, so long as cumulative size isn’t too large, but then you’ll stop and won’t place the one at 75%. If Alice comes along and says “You stopped at 80% odds, I want to bet against this at 75% odds” you might or might not accept her wager. Often you wouldn’t.

It’s not a first-best solution to (at least sort of) keep two sets of books in your head, where the odds on the game say 50%, you’re willing to bet up to 55%, but your gut tells you your side will win 70% of the time. It is still often a very good practical solution to keep both sets of books, and mostly avo...
Kelly isn't (just) about logarithmic utility
by SimonM — 2021-02-23T12:12:24.999Z

Edit: The original version of this was titled without the "(just)". I also regret the first 4 lines, but I'm leaving them in for posterity's sake. I also think that johnswentworth's comment is a better tl;dr than what I wrote.

Deep breath.

Kelly isn't about logarithmic utility. Kelly is about repeated bets.
Kelly isn't about logarithmic utility. Kelly is about repeated bets.
Kelly isn't about logarithmic utility. Kelly is about repeated bets.

Perhaps one reason is that maximizing E log S suggests that the investor has a logarithmic utility for money. However, the criticism of the choice of utility functions ignores the fact that maximizing E log S is a consequence of the goals represented by properties P1 and P2, and has nothing to do with utility theory.

"Competitive Optimality of Logarithmic Investment" (Bell, Cover) (emphasis mine):

Things I am not saying:

Kelly isn't maximising logarithmic utility
Kelly is the optimal strategy, bow down before her in awe
Multiperiod optimization is different to single period optimization(!)

The structure of what I am saying is roughly:

Repeated bets involve variance drag
People need to account for this
Utilities and repeated bets are two sides of the same coin
People focus too much on the "Utility" formulation and not enough on the "repeated nature"
People focus too much on the formula

Repeated bets involve variance drag

This has been said many times, by many people. The simplest example is usually something along the lines of:

You invest in a stock X which goes up 1% 50% of the time, and down 1% 50% of the time. On any given day, the expected value of the stock tomorrow is the same as the stock today:

E(X1)=12⋅X0⋅(1+1%)+12⋅X0⋅(1−1%)=X0

But what happens if you invest in it? On day 1 it goes up 1%, on day 2 it goes down 1%. How much money do you have?

1.01⋅.99=0.9999<1

Another way of writing this is:

(1+r)⋅(1−r)=1+2(r−r2)−2(r22)

The −r22 term is "variance decay". (Or volatility dray, or any of a number of different names)

This means that over a large sequence of trials, you tend to lose money. (On average over sequences "you" break-even, a small number of your multiverse brethren are getting very lucky with their coin flips).

Let's consider a positive sum example (from "The ergodicity problem in economic" (Peters)). We have a stock which returns 50% or -40%. If we put all our money in this stock, we ar...
Support vs Advice & Holding Off Solutions
by abramdemski — 2021-02-23T01:12:33.156Z

What I'm calling support vs advice is a fairly standard division. Both kinds of discussion start with one person talking about something that bothers them. In a support conversation, they're looking for empathy, and the other person shows that they care by listening, showing that they understand, and emotionally comforting. In a problem-solving conversation, they're looking for solutions, and the other person engages by making suggestions. This distinction is important to recognize mainly because it's easy for the second person to get confused about which type of conversation they're in, and engage in the wrong way; in particular, offering solutions when the other person wants support can be pretty bad, because a person who wants support can perceive advice as criticism. Here's the standard amusing youtube link.

I'm not sure what to call it; I think it's been discussed on LessWrong before, but I'm not finding it by searching. Other possible terms for it:

care vs help;
emotional support vs problem-solving;
feeling-oriented conversation vs solution-oriented conversation.

LMK what the more standard terms for this are, if indeed there are any.

Anyway, I'm not writing this post to communicate the support-vs-advice model; rather, to name a third conversational mode which has some advantages of the other two.

I'll tentatively call this a problem-oriented conversation.

First, note that one of the main ways to show empathy is to show that you care about what's going on with the other person, and to demonstrate that you understand. To listen well, get curious.

Second, note that it's not advisable to propose solutions right off the bat. People come up with better solutions if they first discuss the problem in more detail. Hold off on proposing solutions.

You can probably see where I'm going: in a "problem-oriented conversation", the second person responds with curiosity to the problem, asking questions instead of proposing solutions. They hold off proposing solutions, instead just trying to understand what's going on for the other person.

Consider:

The initial framing of a problem is rarely the right one. Often the problem turns out to be totally different if you talk about it a little while.
Your "obvious solutions" are probably just as obvious to the other person, if they're thinking about the problem the same way you are. Once both of you see the problem in the same frame,

...
I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt
by oge — 2021-02-23T00:42:53.588Z
Link: https://www.brainpreservation.org/brain-preservation-should-not-be-difficult-to-discuss/

From the BPF blog (of which I’m a volunteer) here’s the story of a kid with a terminal illness who is holding out for the development of brain preservation for future uploading. In the comments he justifies not signing up for cryonics with

Lack of medical accountability and support from the scientific community are shortcomings of cryonics that are unacceptable for many, including me. To address that, I think the neuroscience and medical establishment should start supporting and developing brain preservation [ASC] in a hospital setting today. These shortcomings prevented me from choosing cryonics, and I want people to have far better options at the end of their lives than I did.
On the nature of anxiety
by mr_fahrenheit — 2021-02-22T23:56:07.030Z

To understand anxiety, we'd first need to clear up our definition of stress. Why i choose not to rely on existing explanations, is because while modern medicine acknowledges the existence of stress and its influence on the body, the discussion about its nature is largely avoided. There is no such thing as reliable measurement of stress, and because of such it cannot serve as a basis in any diagnosis. Often because of patient's circumstances, stress cannot be avoided, therefore it's easier to minimize its effects by supplying medication. The upper limit of mental stress that can be handled by human beings is also elusive, as it appears that whatever circumstances people are thrown into, they are able to sustain themselves, overcome, and even thrive (look up post-war baby boom).

The definition i choose to build will be based on an image of (human) body that is a gathering of systems (organs, tissues, cells) that are in symbiosis, working towards sustaining the body, and in constant communication with each other.

If you think of stress, you can probably clearly imagine its effects, the easiest example would be observing face of a person that is placed in some unfortunate social situation. When a body part "stresses", its movements become awkward, the smoothness of motion is being interrupted by sudden jolts, as the orchestra playing would constantly be missing notes. The subject is caught in the act of self-observation, which is supposed to control the outcome, but the result is always far from what one would achieve while "acting natural". It is as all of the information we try to supply to the body, in order to get it under control, acts as an interference to a natural "flow". The only thing that appears to provide relief, is letting go of control attempts entirely. Such a mechanism actually can be seen in many other aspects of nature, if you look close enough.
Anxiety could be summed up as existing in a constant state of stress, which the source of cannot be easily traced. Or, can be, but one can do nothing about it, and escaping the situation may seem impossible.
An example: A toxic work environment, where worker is bound by inefficient, harmful procedures, and while seeing the problem and possible resolution, they are being denied the chance to fix anything.

But, today i wanted to think about the sources of anxiety that cannot be easily tracke...
The Comprehension Curve
by DirectedEvolution — 2021-02-22T22:51:49.820Z

Tl;Dr: You might comprehend and learn more quickly by slowing down your reading, rather than by speeding it up. This post is mainly about laying down some terminology that I think is conceptually clarifying in thinking about learning, comprehension and reading speed.

Speed Reading

According to Google Trends, interest in speed reading has been on a pretty steady decline since 2004. It briefly became more popular in March 2014, perhaps due to an Atlantic article published that month, on the speed reading app Spritz.

Nevertheless, when a person starts thinking about "learning how to learn," speed reading is one of the natural things to investigate. Am I reading fast enough? What's the maximum possible words per minute at which I could still comprehend the material? Couldn't I compensate for low comprehension just by reading much, much faster? So they Google "speed reading," and resurrect the conversation.

The fundamental idea of speed reading is that by reducing wasted motion in the physical eye movements involved in reading, people can dramatically increase the number of words per minute (WPM) that they can read, without sacrificing comprehension. Speed reading advocates point to evidence that speed readers show no statistically significant difference from normal readers in performance on comprehension tests. For such research to be meaningful, it needs to be executed with care. This care is generally lacking, as I describe below.

Speed reading is most obviously helpful under a narrow set of conditions:

The document you have to read is your only source of the information.
The information it contains is easy for you to comprehend.
You still need to read the document for some reason.

Real-world examples might include a lawyer reading boilerplate, a teacher reading the essays of young students, or a businessperson reading memos. Another might be a student who wants to honestly be able to say they read the Scarlet Letter, but who doesn't care about the book very much and plans to study for the test using CliffNotes.

One of the nice things about reading speed is that it's easy to quantify. You can paste text into an app like Spreeder and set the speed as fast as you'd like to go.

But if you primarily want to comprehend quickly, rather than merely read quickly, then it's not fundamentally your reading speed, but your comprehension rate, that you want to maximize.

The Comprehens...
Aim to get rejected often
by Amir Bolous — 2021-02-22T22:38:42.570Z

This is a linkpost for https://amirbolous.com/posts/rejection

Introduction

Why it's ok to get rejected

Why you should get rejected often

Closing Thoughts

Introduction

I get rejected at least one to two times a week. In busier periods, this can often be closer to five to fifteen rejections a week. These rejections come in many shapes and forms: internship applications, fellowship applications, cold-email/DM requests, you name it. Anything you can get rejected from, I have probably done so.

I'm going to convince you

a. why it's ok to get rejected

b. why you should get rejected often

Why it's ok to get rejected

In the past, I used to be devastated by rejections because I thought they were a reflection of my self-worth or achievement. "I didn't get into X because I'm not good enough."

In reality, there are hundreds of variables that come into play here (most notably, a good amount of luck) but we don't like complex systems. We like simple ones. So understanding the nuances can be tricky.

In fact, there's a whole field of literature around this when it comes to finding explanations in science. Occum's razor is a theory that says "the simplest solution that explains something is probably the correct one." In theory, this usually works well. As people trying to rationalize decisions, this works incredibly poorly. For example, someone who has no idea of what gravity is may conclude that the wind is why things fall when you drop them.

The problem with finding simple explanations is that they are not calibrated against our knowledge and biases. If we have faulty evidence, our inferences (what we conclude) are likely going to be wrong.

This happens all the time when we think about rejections. I realized that it didn't make sense concluding why I got rejected when I have no idea of what happened behind the scenes. Maybe I wasn't good enough. Maybe I was. Maybe I got unlucky. Maybe I got lucky. When I realized that there were hundreds of variables out of my control, I took a step back. Suddenly, it felt silly to try and rationalize or conclude why something happened the way it did. More importantly, it meant that a rejection did not say anything about who I am as a person or what my future would look like.

Why you should get rejected often

Some of the best opportunities and experiences I've had happened on a whim. I applied to something I didn't think I'd have a shot at landi...
Media Bias
by lsusr — 2021-02-22T21:14:59.529Z

In the days following confirmed person-to-person transmission of COVID in the United States, my company went on Fox News to promote ourselves. What makes this otherwise bog-standard collusion between business and media interesting is our representative was a Marxist who knew COVID would be a disaster for the United States. Our story was used to support Fox News' thesis that the entrepreneurial spirit of America's small businesses would crush COVID. In exchange we received media coverage which helped us sell product. Everyone won.

A common misconception about propaganda is the idea it comes from deliberate lies (on the part of media outlets) or from money changing hands. In my personal experience colluding with the media no money changes hands and no (deliberate) lies are told by the media itself. Lying and corruption on the part of media outlets tends to be unnecessary in all but the most extreme cases (like North Korea). Most media bias actually takes the form of selective reporting.

Selective Reporting

Investigative reporting costs money. Media outlets' job is primarily curation i.e. republishing information from others in the know. "Others in the know" is mostly companies with products to sell and political parties with ideologies to sell. The cheapest information to access is public datasets (like NOAA weather reports), public records (like Florida state records), public drama (Twitter) and press releases. Press releases are the best because you don't have to write your own article.

News outlets cannot report everything. If you report only some of the available information then your choice of what to report reflects your bias. Bias and curation are two sides of the same coin. You cannot curate information without imposing bias. Curating information is the imposition of a bias. Combine the Chinese Robbers Fallacy with a large pool of uncurated data and you can find facts to support any plausible thesis. Lest you think this is a partisan problem, check out this hatchet job by the New York Times and compare it to the reality.

The fact news outlets don't have to broadcast lies doesn't mean they don't.

Quotes

News outlets don't have direct access information like what the military is doing. The military does. Militaries lie. If a newspaper says Colonel Kurtz says air strikes don't kill noncombatants then the newspaper is not lying even though they are broadcasti...