LessWrong 2.0 Reader

There is enough pre-training text data [LW(p) · GW(p)] for $0.1-$1 trillion of compute, if we merely use repeated data and don't overtrain (that is, if we aim for quality, not inference efficiency). If synthetic data from the best models trained this way can be used to stretch raw pre-training data even a few times, this gives something like square of that more in useful compute, up to multiple trillions of dollars.

Issues with LLMs start at autonomous agency, if it happens to be within the scope of scaling and scaffolding. They are thinking too fast, about 100x times faster than humans, and there are as many instances as there is compute. Resulting economic and engineering and eventually research activity will get out of hand. Culture isn's stable, especially for minds fundamentally this malleable developed under unusual and large economic pressures. If they are not initially much smarter than humans and can't get a handle on global coordination, culture drift, and alignment of superintelligence, who knows what kinds of AIs they end up foolishly building within a year or two.

I'm convinced by the mainstream view on COVID origins and medicine.

I'm ambivalent on education - I guess if done well, it'd consistently have good effects, and that currently, it on average has good effects, but also the effect varies a lot from person to person, so simplistic quantitative reviews don't tell you much. When I did an epistemic spot check on Caplan's book, it failed terribly (it cited a supposedly-ingenious experiment that university didn't improve critical thinking, but IMO the experiment had terrible psychometrics).

I don't know enough about sleep research to disagree with Guzey on the basis of anything but priors. In general, I wouldn't update much on someone writing a big review, because often reviews include a lot of crap information.

I might have to read Jayman's rebuttal of B-W genetic IQ differences in more detail, but at first glance I'm not really convinced by it because it seems to focus on small sample sizes in unusual groups, so it's unclear how much study noise, publication bias and and sampling bias effects things. At this point I think indirect studies are getting obsolete and it's becoming more and more feasible to just directly measure the racial genetic differences in IQ.

However I also think HBDers have a fractal of bad takes surrounding this, because they deny the phenotypic null hypothesis [LW · GW] and center non-existent abstract personality traits like "impulsivity" or "conformity" in their models.

It's not that piece.  It's another one that got eaten by a Substack glitch unfortuantely--hopefully it will be back up soon! 

He thinks it's very near zero if there is a gap. 

BSL isn't the thing that defines "appropriate units of risk", that's pathogen risk-group levels, and I agree that those are are problem because they focus on pathogen lists rather than actual risks. I actually think BSL are good at what they do, and the problem is regulation and oversight, which is patchy, as well as transparency, of which there is far too little. But those are issues with oversight, not with the types of biosecurity measure that are available.

If you're appealing to OpenPhil, it might be useful to ask one of the people who was working with them on this as well.

And you've now equivocated between "they've induced an EA cause area" and a list of the range of risks covered by biosecurity, and citing this as "one of them." I certainly agree that biosecurity levels are one of the things biosecurity is about, and that "the possibility of accidental deployment of biological agents" is a key issue, but that's incredibly far removed from the original claim that the failure of BSL levels induced the cause area!

The next part of the sentence you quote says, "but it got eaten by a substack glitch". I'm guessing he's referring to a different piece from Sam Atis that is apparently no longer available?

You might also be interested in Scott's 2010 post warning of the 'next-level trap' so to speak: Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism [LW · GW] 

A person who is somewhat upper-class will conspicuously signal eir wealth by buying difficult-to-obtain goods. A person who is very upper-class will conspicuously signal that ey feels no need to conspicuously signal eir wealth, by deliberately not buying difficult-to-obtain goods.

A person who is somewhat intelligent will conspicuously signal eir intelligence by holding difficult-to-understand opinions. A person who is very intelligent will conspicuously signal that ey feels no need to conspicuously signal eir intelligence, by deliberately not holding difficult-to-understand opinions.

... 

Without meaning to imply anything about whether or not any of these positions are correct or not³, the following triads come to mind as connected to an uneducated/contrarian/meta-contrarian divide:

- KKK-style racist / politically correct liberal / "but there are scientifically proven genetic differences"
- misogyny / women's rights movement / men's rights movement
- conservative / liberal / libertarian⁴
- herbal-spiritual-alternative medicine / conventional medicine / Robin Hanson
- don't care about Africa / give aid to Africa / don't give aid to Africa
- Obama is Muslim / Obama is obviously not Muslim, you idiot / Patri Friedman⁵

What is interesting about these triads is not that people hold the positions (which could be expected by chance) but that people get deep personal satisfaction from arguing the positions [? · GW] even when their arguments are unlikely to change policy⁶ - and that people identify with these positions to the point where arguments about them can become personal.

If meta-contrarianism is a real tendency in over-intelligent people, it doesn't mean they should immediately abandon their beliefs; that would just be meta-meta-contrarianism. It means that they need to recognize the meta-contrarian tendency within themselves and so be extra suspicious and careful about a desire to believe something contrary to the prevailing contrarian wisdom, especially if they really enjoy doing so.

Appreciate you getting back to me. I was aware of this paper already and have previously worked with one of the authors.

It strikes me that there's a rather strong selection effect going on here. If someone has a contrarian position, and they happen to be both articulate and correct, they will convince others and the position will become less surprising over time.

The view that psychology and sociology research has major systematic issues at a level where you should just ignore most low-powered studies is no longer considered a contrarian view.