trentmkelly/LessWrong-43k huggingface dataset:
The case for hypocrisy
by Aaron Bergman — 2021-05-13T03:36:16.863Z
Link: https://aaronbergman.substack.com/p/the-case-for-hypocrisy

Related: The case for logical fallacies

Julia Galef makes an interesting point in her recent book

The Scout Mindset

: our beliefs come as tangled knots, not isolated strings. Changing one belief often implies that we change many others.

Consider Sarah, whose relationships, political beliefs, worldview, daily activities, and ethical code are all fundamentally derived from her religious beliefs. Sarah can’t merely decide that God doesn’t exist or that Hinduism is correct instead of Judaism or whatever; if taken to heart, such a change in worldview would imply reform of virtually every other aspect of her life: her belief that abortion is intrinsically immoral, her belief that contributing significant time and money to her congregation is an ethical and meaningful thing to do, and her belief that it is good and appropriate to go to Synagogue every Friday, among countless others

If Sarah wishes to maintain a harmonious, coherent set of practices, beliefs, and attitudes, it would take a tremendous amount to convince her that God isn’t real—crucially, more than if this belief were siloed away from the rest of her life and mind.

This isn’t an indictment of religion. It would take an equally huge amount of evidence to convince me that I should convert to orthodox Judaism—more than if my non-religiosity was siloed away from my other beliefs and behaviors.

The key clause, though, is “if Sarah wishes to maintain a harmonious, coherent set of practices, beliefs, and attitudes.” Why should Sarah wish to do so? Why should anyone?

The case against hypocrisy

Before making the case for hypocrisy, let me explain why, in many respects, hypocrisy is bad and maintaining a consistent set of practices and beliefs is good. I’m not just steelmanning to strengthen my later argument; hypocrisy often really is something to be avoided. The word has several definitions, but I’ll use

Merriam-Webster’s

Definition of hypocrisy
1. a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel

Also, much of the rest of this post will apply to plain old inconsistency, or holding two or more contradictory beliefs.

In general, from a non-religious perspective, our beliefs do not intrinsically matter (to others, that is; they may directly impact our own conscious experience). Our actions do. It doesn’t matter whether y...
Restricted Antinatalism on Subagents
by Josephine — 2021-05-13T01:48:52.889Z

Introduction

Antinatalism is the position, or class of positions, which finds existence is not preferable to nonexistence and which tries to minimize the creation of new people who will then suffer. I found it through David Benatar's book Better Never to Have Been, although I've encountered folk versions of it that are limited to certain conditions - why have a child in this blasted heath of a world? Benatar's deeper position, as I understand it, comes from counting positive and negative utility separately; nonexistence lacks any pain or suffering and is thus preferable, even if it involves no positive experience. (Even better, whatever negatives you would incur from "missing out" on positive experiences would be moot - there's simply no pain.)

A related position is efilism, taken from "life" backwards, the more fringe belief that life itself is suffering and that the only moral action is mass suicide. This is Dark Side philosophy if I've ever heard it, the girding with thought of one's most self-destructive impulses, possibly even a thought hazard. But I think that there's a way to redirect it, and what it represents, into doing useful ethical work without trying to burn the world down.

Fracturing Ethics

At least some minds can be broken up into bags of psychological subagents, and I think all minds can be expressed as cooperating with themselves (or failing to) across time. A person at time 0 is not the same person as at time 100, and certain of these subagents can clearly voice a preference not to exist. It's also possible to mix them, by saying that one subagent is more or less "in the driver's seat" at a given time, making up the circumstances under which this feeling of wanting-not-to-be arises. A person in extreme emotional distress will find more situations horrible than they would at an emotional baseline, and so they should seek to minimize states like distress and situations that are sufficiently negative.

This is all pretty instinctive, of course. The experience of pain or suffering seeks its own annihilation - we draw back from the flame and we flinch away from harsh realities. When we're in a terrible situation, typically we want to be anywhere else, or anyone else. In other words, some instances of ourselves would rather not have been brought into existence, and if at all possible would like to be replaced with other, better-adjusted instance...
Agency in Conway’s Game of Life
by Alex Flint — 2021-05-13T01:07:19.125Z

Financial status: This is independent research. I welcome financial support to make further posts like this possible.

Epistemic status: I have been thinking about these ideas for years but still have not clarified them to my satisfaction.

Outline

This post asks whether it is possible, in Conway’s Game of Life, to arrange for a certain game state to arise after a certain number of steps given control only of a small region of the initial game state.

This question is then connected to questions of agency and AI, since one way to answer this question in the positive is by constructing an AI within Conway’s Game of Life.

I argue that the permissibility or impermissibility of AI is a deep property of our physics.

I propose the AI hypothesis, which is that any pattern that solves the control question does so, essentially, by being an AI.

Introduction

In this post I am going to discuss a celular autonoma known as Conway’s Game of Life:

In Conway’s Game Life, which I will now refer to as just "Life", there is a two-dimensional grid of cells where each cell is either on or off. Over time, the cells switch between on and off according to a simple set of rules:

A cell that is "on" and has fewer than two neighbors that are "on" switches to "off" at the next time step

A cell that is "on" and has greater than three neighbors that are "on" switches to "off" at the next time step

An cell that is "off" and has exactly three neighbors that are "on" switches to "on" at the next time step

Otherwise, the cell doesn’t change

It turns out that these simple rules are rich enough to permit patterns that perform arbitrary computation. It is possible to build logic gates and combine them together into a computer that can simulate any Turing machine, all by setting up a particular elaborate pattern of "on" and "off" cells that evolve over time according to the simple rules above. Take a look at this awesome video of a Universal Turing Machine operating within Life.

The control question

Suppose that we are working with an instance of Life with a very large grid, say 1030 rows by 1030 columns. Now suppose that I give you control of the initial on/off configuration of a region of size 1020 by 1020 in the top-left corner of this grid, and set you the goal of configuring things in that region so that after, say, 1060 time steps the state of the whole grid will resemble, a...
Mostly questions about Dumb AI Kernels
by HorizonHeld — 2021-05-12T22:00:05.469Z

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily believe this is a good candidate for building strong(er) AI but it is interesting none-the-less

Also, for here, when I say 'more intelligent' or 'less intelligent' and generally when I talk about intelligence in general I usually mean intelligence in the sense of I know it when I see it[1], and not in any sort of rigorous sense

And another: if I do something that doesn't seem to classify the same as 'normal LW user behavior', please tell me. I find it is quite difficult to course-correct without diving-in, so-to-speak; and so I need as much direct feedback as possible now that I have dived in. I'm feedback hungry. For example, if you thought this post needed more elaboration, or could be shorter or longer, etc that is good information and commentable in my opinion. (meta: my opinion here might also be subjected to this same kind of correction)

DAKs and questions about them

Heres the idea: you have a Dumb AI Kernel (DAK) that is essentially an effectively very stupid AI that doesn't have very many abilities and isn't very intelligent at all. Then you provide it with tools[2] that do very particular things, that themselves aren't very intelligent (if at all), that otherwise extend the DAK's abilities, and increase its intelligence. Once composed together, the DAK plus tools are an AI Aggregate (AIA). This may or may not be possible or feasible for making intelligent systems

The idea at a different level is: if you can create a more intelligent AI by providing new modules -- that themselves aren't considered intelligent -- to that AI, then is the reverse true: can you remove modules and make a less intelligent, but still intelligent, AI? And if so, the DAK is the smallest AI that is still an AI, once all other intelligence-increasing modules have been removed. Removing anything else will make the DAK no longer intelligent, or no longer functional altogether

Related to this, you can imagine a superintelligent AI in the future creating temporary mesa-optimizers, and budding off smaller sub-AIs to tackle particular problems. At what point can you have an AI that is actually really stupid do the exact same thing?

Here are a bunch of assorted questions related to DAKs and AIAs:

Does an AIA always increase in intelligence when new, orthogonal[3] tools are added?

What does it mean for an AIA to become smarter? If that isn't a useful questi

...
Formal Inner Alignment, Prospectus
by abramdemski — 2021-05-12T19:57:37.162Z

Most of the work on inner alignment so far has been informal or semi-formal (with the notable exception of a little work on minimal circuits). I feel this has resulted in some misconceptions about the problem. I want to write up a large document clearly defining the formal problem and detailing some formal directions for research. Here, I outline my intentions, inviting the reader to provide feedback and point me to any formal work or areas of potential formal work which should be covered in such a document. (Feel free to do that last one without reading further, if you are time-constrained!)

The State of the Subfield

Risks from Learned Optimization (henceforth, RLO) offered semi-formal definitions of important terms, and provided an excellent introduction to the area for a lot of people (and clarified my own thoughts and the thoughts of others who I know, even though we had already been thinking about these things).

However, RLO spent a lot of time on highly informal arguments (analogies to evolution, developmental stories about deception) which help establish the plausibility of the problem. While I feel these were important motivation, in hindsight I think they've caused some misunderstandings. My interactions with some other researchers has caused me to worry that some people confuse the positive arguments for plausibility with the core problem, and in some cases have exactly the wrong impression about the core problem. This results in mistakenly trying to block the plausibility arguments, which I see as merely illustrative, rather than attacking the core problem.

By no means do I intend to malign experimental or informal/semiformal work. Rather, by focusing on formal theoretical work, I aim to fill a hole I perceive in the field. I am very appreciative of much of the informal/semiformal work that has been done so far, and continue to think that kind of work is necessary for the crystallization of good concepts.

Focusing on the Core Problem

In order to establish safety properties, we would like robust safety arguments ("X will not happen" / "X has an extremely low probability of happening"). For example, arguments that probability of catastrophe will be very low, or arguments that probability of intentional catastrophe will be very low (ie, intent-alignment), or something along those lines.

For me, the core inner alignment problem is the absence of such an argu...
[AN #150]: The subtypes of Cooperative AI research
by Rohin Shah — 2021-05-12T17:20:27.267Z

Alignment Newsletter is a weekly publication with recent content relevant to AI alignment around the world. Find all Alignment Newsletter resources here. In particular, you can look through this spreadsheet of all summaries that have ever been in the newsletter.

Audio version here (may not be up yet).

Please note that while I work at DeepMind, this newsletter represents my personal views and not those of my employer.

HIGHLIGHTS

Cooperative AI: machines must learn to find common ground (Allan Dafoe et al) (summarized by Rohin): This short piece argues that rather than building autonomous AI systems (which typically involves a non-social environment), we should instead work on building AI systems that are able to promote mutually beneficial joint action, that is, we should work on Cooperative AI (AN #133). This can be separated into three main categories:

1. AI-AI cooperation: Here, two AI systems must cooperate with each other. Think for example of games like Hanabi or Diplomacy.

2. AI-human cooperation: This setting involves an AI system that must understand and work with a human. Assistance games (AN #69) are a central example. When there are multiple humans, it becomes important for our AI system to understand norms and institutions as well.

3. Human-human cooperation: Here, AI systems are used to enhance cooperation between humans. For example, machine translation helps people who speak different languages cooperate with each other.

There is now a new nonprofit, the Cooperative AI Foundation, that supports research on these topics.

Read more: Import AI #248

Rohin's opinion: I think there are three main sources of impact of this agenda from an x-risk perspective:

1. If an AI system has better agent-agnostic cooperative intelligence, it should be less likely to fall into “traps” of multiagent situations, such as conflict, bargaining failures (AN #86), or commitment races (AN #63).

2. If an AI system has better human-specific cooperative intelligence, it should be easier to (a) align that system with a human principal and (b) have that system cooperate with other humans (besides its principal).

3. If an AI system promotes cooperation between other agents (including humans), that seems to help with a variety of other major global problems, such as biorisk, nuclear war, and climate change.

I agree that all three of these th...
Personal Advice/Request: Can I be your apprentice?
by aysajan — 2021-05-12T16:01:08.903Z

It has not been very long since I joined LessWrong but I have been truly enjoying the intelligent conversations/debates going on here, whether it is about general rationality, ML/AI, or investment. In the meantime, I find myself thinking Albert Einstein’s famous quote about learning quite frequently. He famously said “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” While being truly amazed by all the fascinating work LessWrong community members have been doing, I realize that I couldn’t do much due to my limited domain knowledge and limited hands on experience. I am inspired and I want to contribute, especially in the fields of ML research. But in reality, as an outlier in my current network (business academia), I am greatly struggling due to lack of guidance and lack of hands on experience.

After much thinking I decided to mimic Warren Buffett’s move in 1954. So, my question is: Can I be your free apprentice? Becoming an apprentice of the best is exactly how I want to learn ML skills: learn from the best and do original research. If you think I need to know X, Y, Z in order to be your apprentice, please list them. I will learn and show you that I am qualified in the shortest time possible.

My background: I have a master’s degree in Statistics and PhD in Operations Research from the United States. I earned my PhD in 2018 and have been working as a business school faculty member in Canada since then. Due to the nature of my job, I have the luxury to dedicate majority of my time throughout the year to research projects I find interesting and inspiring.

Within the business academia community, ML research is somewhat an unconventional territory with lack of originality. That’s why I expanded my horizon to beyond academia. Additionally, recent great advancements in ML/AI research have been from outside academia.

When Warren Buffett wanted to be Benjamin Graham’s free apprentice, Graham said, “Actually, you’re overpriced, free is overpriced.” But I believe this is a positive-sum game for two parties involved. I have strong desire to contribute to the community by conducting original research. But before that I want to be your apprentice. Message me if you need an apprentice and I can learn from you.

Specific topics/areas I am particularly interested (without order): deep/reinforcement learning, AI safety, AI alignment, ML/AI applications in hea...
How do we build organisations that want to build safe AI?
by sxae — 2021-05-12T15:08:58.847Z

Originally posted here.

Much has been written about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and how the intelligent systems we build may sometimes unintentionally drift in alignment from their original goals. However, we seem to focus almost entirely upon an Artificial Intelligence System (AIS) drifting from an organisation's values, and yet little attention is paid to the danger of an organisation's values drifting from alignment with the common good. It is our responsibility when judging risk to plan for bad actors, despite any desire to be optimistic about the human condition. We do not yet know if truly malevolent artificial intelligences will come to exist. We can be confident in the existence of such human beings.

This essay does not address the technical question of how you embed ethics within an artificial system, as much of the field focuses on. It instead attempts to draw attention to a more social question: how do we build organisations that are strongly incentivized to create safe and ethical intelligent systems in the first place?

Goals, Control & Risks

Who are the groups that have a stake in the safety of developing AIS?

Production Team: The developers and technical staff working directly on improving the product.

Safety Team: The people working to assure the quality and safety of the product.

Product Owners: The people who have ownership over the property which makes up the wider organisation.

Direct Consumers: The people who use or directly interact with the product.

Wider Public: Everybody currently alive.

These groups are not necessarily separated, but rather represent a categorisation based on differences in goals and differences in power. Obviously, everyone falls into the last category regardless of involvement. Some people on the Production or Safety teams may have direct equity in the product they are developing, and therefore also fall within the category of Product Owners. There are many complex interactions between each group, with each exhibiting different goals and relationships to power.

In this table, we can see the different levels of control and exposure to risk that each group of stakeholders has. Note how the Safety Team fulfils a role distinct from others.

Technical Control: This refers to direct development of the core technologies relating to the AIS. For instance, decisions about algorithms, datasets, technical systems and other...
Testing the FLEDGE Prototype
by jefftk — 2021-05-12T12:40:05.048Z

(I work at Google, but not on Chrome. Speaking only for myself.)

Chrome has proposed TURTLEDOVE to support
remarketing ads without sending your browsing history to advertisers.
(discussed in why I work on ads).
Since the overall proposal is very complicated and requires large
changes, they have also proposed an initial version, FLEDGE,
that they expect to build and ship this year. They're building it
incrementally, and they've now checked in very initial prototype
support.

Lots of things are still missing, but if you download Chrome
Canary and start it with
--enable-features=FledgeInterestGroupAPI,FledgeInterestGroups
you can play with what they have. For example, on my Mac this looks like:

"/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
Canary" --enable-features=FledgeInterestGroupAPI,FledgeInterestGroups

I made a demo:

Visit auction.html.
You should see "no turtledove winner" because you are not yet in any
turtledove interest groups.

Visit join.html. You
should see "joined interest group", because it is adding you to an
interest group.

Visit auction.html
again. This time, you should see an iframe containing "TC AD 1".
This is an ad selected by a turtledove auction.

Things I ran into in setting up the demo:

Even though the spec uses snake_case the
implementation uses camelCase (#156)

DevTools support is still minimal

You have to send X-Allow-FLEDGE: true response headers
on anything the FLEDGE API is fetching.

Keep in mind that this is a minimal initial implementation, and there
are large parts of the spec they haven't gotten to yet. If something
that is implemented doesn't work yet, though, it's probably worth filing a
bug.

Comment via: facebook
What is the strongest argument you know for antirealism?
by Michele Campolo — 2021-05-12T10:53:33.152Z

Other questions you can answer:

What is the strongest argument against moral realism?

If you think nothing is "valuable in itself" / "objectively valuable", why do you think so?

How do you know that disinterested (not game-theoretic or instrumental) altruism is irrational / doesn't make any sense?

I am interested in these arguments because I am trying to guess the behaviour of an AI system that, roughly speaking:
1) knows a lot about the physical word;
2) has some degree of control over its own actions and what goals to pursue—something like the human brain.
(See this if you want more details.)

If you could also write the precise statement about realism/antirealism that you are arguing against/for, that would be great. Thanks!