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See, this is what happens when you extrapolate data points linearly into the future. You get totally unrealistic predictions. It's important to remember the physical constraints on whatever trend you're trying to extrapolate. Importantly for this issue, you need to remember that time between successive crashes can never be negative, so it is inappropriate to model intervals with a straight line that crosses the time axis on April 7.

Instead, with so few data points, a more realistic model would take a log-transform of the inter-crash interval before fitting the prediction line. In fact, once you do so, it becomes clear that this is a geometric series, with inter-crash interval decaying exponentially with number of crashes. The total time taken for N cars to crash in front of your house after the first one grows as $T_N={\sum }_{n=1}^N{t}_0{r}^{n-1}=t_0\frac{1-r^N}{1-r}$, where $r\approx \frac{27}{155}\approx 0.174$ and $t_0=155$ days, based on your graph.

According to Google, there are 1.47 billion cars in the world. The time it will take for all of them to crash in front of your house is $T_{1.47e9}=155\frac{1-{0.174}^{1.47e9}}{1-0.174}=187.7$ days from the first crash, which works out to 5.7 days from today. Which turns out to be April 7.

Hmm...

Well, see you on Monday, I guess.

I suppose I mean influence over politics, policy, or governance (this is very high level since these are all distinct and separable), rather than actually being political necessarily. I do think there are some common skills, but actually being a politician weighs so many other factors more heavily that the strategic skill is not selected on very strongly at all. Being a politician's advisor, on the other hand...

Yes, it's a special case, but importantly one that is not evaluated by Brier score or Manifold bucks.

Do you think a superintelligence will be able to completely rule out the hypothesis that our universe literally is a dovetailing program that runs every possible TM, or literally is a bank of UTMs running every possible program (e.g., by reproducing every time step and adding 0 or 1 to each input tape)? (Or the many other hypothetical universes that similarly contain a whole Level-4-like multiverse?) It seems to me that hypotheses like these will always collectively have a non-negligible weight, and have to be considered when making decisions.

Another argument that seems convincing to me is that if only one universe exists, how to explain that it seems fine-tuned for being able to evolve intelligent life? Was it just some kind of metaphysical luck?

Also, can you try to explain your strong suspicion that only one universe exists (and is not the kind that contains a L4 multiverse)? In other words, do you just find the arguments for L4 unconvincing and defaulting to some unexplainable intuition, or have arguments to support your own position?

Glad to read your thoughts!

Agreed on being friends with communities who are not happy about AI. 

I’m personally not a fan of working with OpenAI or Anthropic, given that they’ve defected on people here concerned about a default trajectory to mass extinction, and used our research for their own ends [LW · GW].

(Other than the thoughts on the consequences of said idea) This idea largely seems like a rehash of https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vJFdjigzmcXMhNTsx/simulators [LW · GW] (and frankly, so does the three layer model, but that does go into more mechanistic territory and I think it complements simulator theory well)

A thing that gave me creeping horror about the Ghiblification is that the I don't think the masses actually particularly understand Ghibli. And the result is an uneven simulacrum-mask that gives the impression of "rendered with love and care" without actually being so. 

The Ghibli aesthetic is actually historically pretty important to me, and in particular important as a counterbalanacing force against, among other things, what I expect to happen by default with AI. Some things I like about Ghibli:

• The "cinematic lens" emphasizes a kind of "see everything with wonder and reverence" but not in a way that papers over ugly or bad things. Ugliness and even horror are somehow straightforwardly depicted, but in a way that somehow makes both seem very normal and down to earth, and also supernaturally majestic. (See On green [LW · GW], and The Expanding Moral Cinematic Universe [LW · GW]).
• The main characters are generally "low-ish neuroticism." (This youtube analysis I like argues that the women in particular are 'non-neurotic', and the men tend to be "low compared to modern city-dwelling standards.")

There's a bit of awkwardness where Miyazaki is particularly anti-transhumanist, where I disagree with him. But I feel like I could argue with him about it on his terms – I have an easy time imagining how to depict spirits of technology and capitalism and bureaucracy as supernatural forces that have the kind of alien grandeur, not on humanity's side or the "natural world's side", but still ultimately part of the world.

For years, I have sometimes walked down the street and metaphorically put on "Miyazaki goggles", where I choose to lean into a feeling of tranquility, and I choose to see everything through that "normal but reverent" stance. I imagine the people that live in each house doing their day to day things to survive and make money and live life. And seeing the slightly broken down things (a deteriorating fence, a crumbling sidewalk) as part of a natural ebb and flow of the local ecosystem. And seeing occasional more "naturally epic" things as particularly majestic and important. 

So, the wave of "ghiblify everything" was something I appreciated, and renewed a felt-desire to live more often in a ghibli-ish world. But, also, when I imagine how this naturally plays out, I don't think it really gets us anything like a persistent reality transfer the way you describe. Mostly we get a cheap simulacra that may create some emotion / meaning at first, but will quickly fade into "oh, here's another cheap filter."

...

That all said, I do feel some intrigue at your concept here. I'm still generally wrapping my mind around what futures are plausible, and then desirable. I feel like I will have more to say about this after thinking more.

Yes, I get you don’t just want to read about the problem but a potential solution. 

The next post in this sequence will summarise the plan by those experienced organisers.

These organisers led one of the largest grassroots movements in recent history. That took years of coalition building, and so will building a new movement. 

So they want to communicate the plan clearly, without inviting misinterpretations down the line. I myself rushed writing on new plans before (when I nuanced a press release put out by a time-pressed colleague at Stop AI). That backfired because I hadn’t addressed obvious concerns. This time, I drafted a summary that the organisers liked, but still want to refine. So they will run sessions with me and a facilitator, to map out stakeholders and their perspectives, before going public on plans.

Check back here in a month. We should have a summary ready by then.

If there are a lot of people for the very-low-context NY meetup, possibly at least one very-low-context meetup per quarter is worth doing, to see if that gets people in/back more?

"Stimulating" here is not quite the opposite of "boring". Many minds are used to said temperature changes, water assaults, and laborious motions, such that they still stimulate, but are easily ignored, leaving much space for thoughts. Showers are boring by consistency, despite stimulation.

Whether you do it by genetic engineering or surgically or through some other means is entirely beside the point. Genetic engineering isn't special.

I'm not especially distinguishing the methods, I'm mainly distinguishing whether it's being done to a living person. See my comment upthread https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rxcGvPrQsqoCHndwG/the-principle-of-genomic-liberty?commentId=qnafba5dx6gwoFX4a [LW(p) · GW(p)]

We get genetic engineering by showing people that it is just another technology, and we can use it to do good and not evil, applying the same notions of good and evil that we would anywhere else.

I think you're fundamentally missing that your notions of good and evil aren't supposed to automatically be made into law. That's not what law is for. See a very similar discussion here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JFWiM7GAKfPaaLkwT/the-vision-of-bill-thurston?commentId=Xvs2y9LWbpFcydTJi [LW(p) · GW(p)]

The eugenicists in early 20th century America also believed they were increasing good and getting rid of evil. Do you endorse their policies, and/or their general stance toward public policy?

Any normal person can see that a genetic engineer should be subject to the same ethical and legal constraints there as the surgeon. Arguing otherwise will endanger your purported goal of promoting this technology.

Maybe, I'm not sure and I'd like to know. This is an empirical question that I hope to find out about.

This notion of "erasing a type of person" also seems like exactly the wrong frame for this. When we cured smallpox, did we erase the type of person called "smallpox survivor"? When we feed a hungry person, are we erasing the type of person called "hungry person"? None of this is about erasing anyone. This is about fixing, or at least not intentionally breaking, people.

That's nice that you can feel good about your intentions, but if you fail to listen to the people themselves who you're erasing, you're the one who's being evil. When it comes to their own children, it's up to them, not you. If you ask people with smallpox "is this a special consciousness, a way of life or being, which you would be sad to see disappear from the world?", they're not gonna say "hell yeah!". But if you ask blind people or autistic people, some fraction of them will say "hell yeah!". Your attitude of just going off your own judgement... I don't know what to say about it yet, I'm not even empathizing with it yet. (If you happen to have a link to a defense of it, e.g. by a philosopher or other writer, I'd be curious.)

Now, as I've suggested in several places, if the blind children whose blind parents chose to make them blind later grow and say "This was terrible, it should not have happened, the state should not allow this", THEN I'd be likely to support regulation to that effect.

See also https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JFWiM7GAKfPaaLkwT/the-vision-of-bill-thurston?commentId=Y5y2bky2eFqYwWKrz [LW(p) · GW(p)]