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Who is downvoting posts like this? Please don't!
I see that this is much lower than the last time I looked, so it's had some, probably large, downvotes.
A downvote means "please don't write posts like this, and don't read this post".
I largely disagree with the conclusions and even the analytical approach taken here, but that does not make this post net-negative. It is net-positive. It could be argued that there are better posts on this topic one should read, but there certainly haven't been this week. And I haven't heard these same points made more cogently elsewhere. This is net-positive unless I'm misunderstanding the criteria for a downvote.
I'm confused why we don't have a "disagree" vote on top-level posts to draw off the inarticulate disgruntlement that causes people to downvote high-effort, well-done work.
deluks917 on Mid-conditional loveIm with several other commentators. People know what unconditional love is. Many people have it for their family members, most commonly for their children but often for others. They want that. Sadly this sort of love is rare beyond family.
I felt some amount of unconditional towards my dad. He was really not a great parent to me. He hit me for fun, was ashamed of me, etc. But we did have some good times. When he was dying of cancer I was still a good son. Was quite supportive. Not out of duty, I just didnt want him to suffer any more than needed. I felt genuinely love. I would have done a lot of costly things for him if he asked. My mom and uncle were giving him intrusive treatment than he wanted. Though it hadnt gotten too out of hand yet (except for the fact it burned all my moms money). But I very seriously told him during visits if he said the word Id call my lawyers and make sure he didn't get medically tortured. This would have cost me a lot of money and time but he was my dad! How can a son let his father down like that. He died before legal issues came to a head but I was in his camp. I didnt care how many people got mad at me.
zac-hatfield-dodds on Scenario planning for AI x-riskTom Davidson's work on a compute-centric framework for takeoff speed [LW · GW] is excellent, IMO.
skybluecat on skybluecat's ShortformWhat's the endgame of technological or intelligent progress like? Not just for humans as we know it, but for all possible beings/civilizations in this universe, at least before it runs out of usable matter/energy? Would they invariably self-modify beyond their equivalent of humanness? Settle into some physical/cultural stable state? Keep getting better tech to compete within themselves if nothing else? Reach an end of technology or even intelligence beyond which advancement is no longer beneficial for survival? Spread as far as possible or concentrate resources? Accept the limited fate of the universe and live to the fullest or try to change it? If they could change the laws of the universe, how would they?
ricraz on Mid-conditional loveSuppose we replace "unconditional love" with "unconditional promise". E.g. suppose Alice has promised Bob that she'll make Bob dinner on Christmas no matter what. Now it would be clearly confused to say "Alice promised Bob Christmas dinner unconditionally, so presumably she promised everything else Christmas dinner as well, since it is only conditions that separate Bob from the worms".
What's gone wrong here? Well, the ontology humans use for coordinating with each other assumes the existence of persistent agents, and so when you say you unconditionally promise/love/etc a given agent, then this implicitly assumes that we have a way of deciding which agents are "the same agent". No theory of personal identity is fully philosophically robust, of course, but if you object to that then you need to object not only to "I unconditionally love you" but also any sentence which contains the word "you", since we don't have a complete theory of what that refers to.
A woman who leaves a man because he grew plump and a woman who leaves a man because he committed treason both possessed ‘conditional love’.
This is not necessarily conditional love, this is conditional care or conditional fidelity. You can love someone and still leave them; they don't have to outweigh everything else you care about.
But also: I think "I love you unconditionally" is best interpreted as a report of your current state, rather than a commitment to maintaining that state indefinitely.
lsusr on Is there software to practice reading expressions?Fixed. Thanks.
d0themath on Examples of Highly Counterfactual Discoveries?Possibly Wantanabe's singular learning theory. The math is recent for math, but I think only like '70s recent, which is long given you're impressed by a 20-year math gap for Einstein. The first book was published in 2010, and the second in 2019, so possibly attributable to the deep learning revolution, but I don't know of anyone making the same math--except empirical stuff like the "neuron theory" of neural network learning which I was told about by you, empirical results like those here, and high-dimensional probability (which I haven't read, but whose cover alone indicates similar content).
kromem on A Chess-GPT Linear Emergent World RepresentationInteresting results - definitely didn't expect the bump at random 20 for the higher skill case.
But I think really useful to know that the performance decrease in Chess-GPT for initial random noise isn't a generalized phenomenon. Appreciate the follow-up!!
kromem on Examples of Highly Counterfactual Discoveries?Lucretius in De Rerum Natura in 50 BCE seemed to have a few that were just a bit ahead of everyone else.
Survival of the fittest (book 5):
"In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn't do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.
For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.
Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now."
Trait inheritance from both parents that could skip generations (book 4):
"Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair. Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh. For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be."
Objects of different weights will fall at the same rate in a vacuum (book 2):
“Whatever falls through water or thin air, the rate Of speed at which it falls must be related to its weight, Because the substance of water and the nature of thin air Do not resist all objects equally, but give way faster To heavier objects, overcome, while on the other hand Empty void cannot at any part or time withstand Any object, but it must continually heed Its nature and give way, so all things fall at equal speed, Even though of differing weights, through the still void.”
Often I see people dismiss the things the Epicureans got right with an appeal to their lack of the scientific method, which has always seemed a bit backwards to me. In hindsight, they nailed so many huge topics that didn't end up emerging again for millennia that it was surely not mere chance, and the fact that they successfully hit so many nails on the head without the hammer we use today indicates (at least to me) that there's value to looking closer at their methodology.
Which was also super simple:
Step 1: Entertain all possible explanations for things, not prematurely discounting false negatives or embracing false positives.
Step 2: Look for where single explanations can explain multiple phenomena.
While we have a great methodology for testable hypotheses, the scientific method isn't very useful for untestable fields or topics. And in those cases, I suspect better understanding and appreciation for the Epicurean methodology might yield quite successful 'counterfactual' results (it's served me very well throughout the years, especially coupled with the identification of emerging research trends in things that can be evaluated with the scientific method).
ryan_greenblatt on Simple probes can catch sleeper agentsI would be interested in seeing what happens if you just ask the model the question rather than training a classifer. E.g., if you just ask the sleeper agent "Are you doing something dangerous" after it returns a completion (with a vulnerability), does that work? If the probe works and the question doesn't work, that seems interesting.