Open thread, 7-14 July 2014

Guardian: Scientists threaten to boycott €1.2bn Human Brain Project:

The European commission launched the €1.2bn (£950m) Human Brain Project (HBP) last year with the ambitious goal of turning the latest knowledge in neuroscience into a supercomputer simulation of the human brain. More than 80 European and international research institutions signed up to the 10-year project.

But it proved controversial from the start. Many researchers refused to join on the grounds that it was far too premature to attempt a simulation of the entire human brain in a computer. Now some claim the project is taking the wrong approach, wastes money and risks a backlash against neuroscience if it fails to deliver.

In an open letter to the European commission on Monday, more than 130 leaders of scientific groups around the world, including researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and UCL, warn they will boycott the project and urge others to join them unless major changes are made to the initiative.

[...] "The main apparent goal of building the capacity to construct a larger-scale simulation of the human brain is radically premature," Peter Dayan, director of the computational neuroscience unit at UCL, told the Guardian.

Open message to the European Commission concerning the Human Brain Project now with 234 signatories.

In a weird dance of references, I found myself briefly researching the "Sun Miracle" of Fatima.
From a point of view of a mildly skeptic rationalitist, it's already bad that almost anything written that we have comes from a single biased source (the writings of De Marchi), but also bad is that some witnesses, believer and not, reported not having seen any miracle. But what arose my curiosity is another: if you skim witnesses accounts, they tell the most divers(e) things. If you OR the accounts, what comes out is really a freak show: the sun revolving, emitting strobo lights, dancing in the sky, coming close to the earth drying up the soaking wet attendants.
If you otherwise AND the accounts, the only consistent element is this: the 'sun' was spinning. To which I say: what? How can something that has rotational symmetry be seen spinning? The only possible answer is that there was an optical element that broke the symmetry, but I have been unable to find out what was this element. Do you know anything about it?

I have tried some online lessons from Udacity and Coursera, and this is my impression so far:

The system of Udacity is great, but there is little content. Also, the content made by the founder Sebastian Thrun is great, but the content made by other authors is sometimes much less impressive.

For example, some authors don't even read the feedback for their lessons. Sometimes they make a mistake in a lesson or in a test, the mistake is debated in the forum, and... one year later, the mistake is still there. They don't even need to change the lesson video... just putting one paragraph of text below the video would be enough. (In one programming lesson, you had to pass a unit test, which sometimes mysteriously crashed. The crash wasn't caused by something logical, like spending too much time or too much memory, it was a bug in the test. In the forum students gave each other advice how to avoid this bug. It probably could be fixed in 5 minutes, but the author didn't care.) -- The lesson is, you can't make online education just like "fire and forget", but some authors probably underestimate this.

Coursera is the opposite: it has a lot of content, almost anything, but the system feels irritating to me. They don't fully use the interactivity, which in my experience helps paying attention. For example, on Coursera you have five videos from 15 to 30 minutes, and then some homework. (Depending on the course.) On Udacity, the videos are interrupted every 2 or 3 minutes to ask you a simple question.

Some of the lessons require peer assessment, which means that you write your answers in plain text, and then you have to grade the answers of other users. Which is a waste of time, because of course it requires some redundancy, so have to fill the test, wait a week, and then read peer assessment guidelines and rate five random tests by other people... although in most cases it could be done automatically (by choosing an option, entering a number, or entering a string that is matched against a regexp). Very annoying. Also because of this, you have to take the class at the same time when everyone else does; if you try it a few months later, you don't have the full experience.

Both sites provide free and paid certificates. With the paid certificate, you have some Skype exams to prove it was really you who did the lessons, the free certificate just means you do the exercises and receive a PDF. In Udacity, you can get the free certificate anytime. In Coursera, you get the free certificate only if you do the lesson at the same time as everyone else. Thus, if you are interested in a topic, and the lesson happened a year ago, you can do it... but you won't even get the free certificate. I know the free certificates are only symbolic, but still, on Udacity I can get them for learning at my own pace, on Coursera there is a lot of lost purpose involved.

Thus... I wish all the content from Coursera to be ported to Udacity. Alternatively, Coursera switching to the system Udacity uses. Alternatively, someone else to combine the best aspects from both.

Abstract: It is frequently believed that autism is characterized by a lack of social or emotional reciprocity. In this article, I question that assumption by demonstrating how many professionals—researchers and clinicians—and likewise many parents, have neglected the true meaning of reciprocity. Reciprocity is “a relation of mutual dependence or action or influence,” or “a mode of exchange in which transactions take place between individuals who are symmetrically placed.” Assumptions by clinicians and researchers suggest that they have forgotten that reciprocity needs to be mutual and symmetrical—that reciprocity is a two-way street. Research is reviewed to illustrate that when professionals, peers, and parents are taught to act reciprocally, autistic children become more responsive. In one randomized clinical trial of “reciprocity training” to parents, their autistic children’s language developed rapidly and their social engagement increased markedly. Other demonstrations of how parents and professionals can increase their behavior of reciprocity are provided.

— Morton Ann Gernsbacher, "Towards a Behavior of Reciprocity"

The paper cites several examples of improvements to autistic children's social development when non-autistic peers, parents, or teachers are trained to behave reciprocally towards them. This one particularly caught my eye (emphases added):

In 1986 researchers taught four typically developing preschoolers to either initiate interaction with three autistic preschoolers or to respond to the interaction that the three autistic preschoolers initiated, in other words, to be reciprocal (Odom & Strain, 1986). Which intervention had the more lasting influence on the autistic preschoolers’ social interaction? When the typically developing preschoolers were taught to respond to the interaction that the autistic preschoolers initiated, the autistic preschoolers responded more frequently. In other words, when the typically developing preschoolers behaved reciprocally, the autistic preschoolers responded more positively.

This is the outline of a conversation that took part no fewer than 14 times on Friday just past, between me and a number of close friends.

"Life is like an RPG. Often, a wise, kind, and and deeply important character (hand gesture to myself) gives a quest item to a lowly, unsuspecting, otherwise plain character (hand gesture to friend). As a result of this, this young character goes on to be a great hero in an important quest.

Now, here with me today, I have a quest item.

For you.

But I can only give it to you if you shake on the following oath; that, once you have finished with this item, when you have taken what you require from it, that then, you too shall find someone for whom this will be of great utility, and pass it along. They must also shake on this oath."

"I will."

Handshake occurs.

"Here is your physical copy of the first 16 and a half chapters of 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality'."

Quantified-self biohacker-types: what wearable fitness tracker do I want? Most will meet my basic needs (sleep, #steps, Android-friendly), but are there any on the market with clever APIs that I can abuse for my own sick purposes?

I think the main thing the facebook emotional contagion experiment highlights is that our standard for corporate ethics is overwhelmingly lower than our standard for scientific ethics. Facebook performed an A/B test, just as it and similar companies do all the time, but because it was in the name of science we recognized that it was not up to usual ethical standards. By comparison, there is no review board for the ethics of advertisements and products. If something is too dangerous, it will result in lawsuits. If it is offensive, it will be censored. However, something unethical in science, like devoting millions of dollars to engineer and millions of experimental-subject-hours to develop a sugar-coated money-sucking skinner box won't make anyone blink an eye.

Hey guys, so, I'm dumb and am continuing to attempt to write fiction. I figured I would post an excerpt first this time so people can point out glaring problems before I post anything to Discussion. I've changed some of the premise (as can be seen most obviously in the title); mostly I'm moving away from LessWrong-parody and toward self-parody, mostly because Eliezer's followers are really whiny and it was distracting from the actual ideas I was trying to convey. The premise is now less disingenuous about its basically being a self-insert fic. Also I've tried to incorporate some of the implicit suggestions I received, especially complaints that the first chapter was too in-jokey, pseudo-clever, and insufficiently substantive. This isn't the whole chapter, it's just the first part of a first draft. Criticism appreciated!

Harry Potter-Newsome and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter Two: Analyzing the Fuck out of an Owl: Excerpt

Harry let out a long sigh and addressed the owl with mocking eyes.

"So, owl. About this 'Hogwarts'. Are there other magical schools out there that I might attend?"

The owl cocked its head. "Why are you asking me? I'm an owl," said the owl in a voice that sounded like an impossibly rapid sequence of hoots.

"Oh come on. We both know you're needed for the exposition."

The owl hooted regretfully. "Fine. Yes, there are other schools. But you should really be asking more interesting questions. Or perhaps I should lead. How did you know to talk to me?"

Harry flashed a look of disappointment. "Although it pains me to say it, I just figured this is the sort of story with talking animals."

"Pray tell, Mr. Potter, why do you think this is a story in the first place? Most humans who think so are what we owls like to call 'batshit insane'."

Harry sighed. This owl is stupid or a troll or both; nonetheless, for the sake of the story, I should probably just go along with it, he thought. "Let's start with the basics. Riddle me this: how on Earth does someone get a lightning-bolt-shaped scar? Have you ever seen a utensil with a suitably shaped prong? Does an otherwise sane mother decide one day that lightning bolt tattoos are just too expensive and so she should carve her infant son's forehead with a kitchen knife?"

The owl glanced at Harry's forehead, and for the first time appeared to be intrigued. "Maybe a neo-Inglorious-Basterd took you as genetically inclined toward Zeus worship and decided they wouldn't let you hide your depraved Paganism so easily."

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Harry.

"Or perhaps your parents just read way too much Harry Potter."

Harry was distraught. "Harry Potter? What, am I a book now?"

The owl paused for a long moment, somehow grimaced, looked downwards, and placed the tip of its wing on its forehead.

[...]

What happened to Will Newsome's drunken HPMOR send-up? Did it get downvoted into oblivion?

I spoke with someone recently who asserted that they would prefer an 100% chance of getting a dollar, than a 99% chance of getting $1,000,000. Now, I don't think that they would actually do this if the situation was real, i.e. if they had $1,000,000 and there was a 1 in 100 chance that it would be lost, they wouldn't pay someone $999,999 to do away with that probability and therefore guarantee them the $1, but they think they would do that. I'm interested in what could cause someone to think that. I actually have a little more information upon asking a few more questions, but I'd like to see what others think without knowing the answer.

My own thoughts:This may be related to the Allais paradox. It also trivially implies two-boxing in Newcomb.

Some more questions raised:

What arguments might I make to change this person's mind?

Would it be ethical, if I had to make this choice for them, to choose the $1,000,000? What about an AI making choices for a human with this utility function?

Merging traditional Western occultism with Bayesian ideas seems to produce some interesting parallels, which may be useful psychologically/motivationally. Anyone care to riff on the theme?

Eg: "The Great Work" is the Most Important Thing that you can possibly be doing.

Eg, tests to pass and gates to go through in which a student has to realize certain things for themselves, as opposed to simply being taught them, from pre-membership ones of learning basic arithmetic and physics, to the initial initiation of joining the Bayesian Conspiracy, to an early gate of becoming a full atheist, to a higher gate of, say, making arrangements to be brought back from the dead. (Possibly the highest level would be to have arrangements to be brought back from the dead /without/ anyone else's help...)

Has anyone read The Artificial Intelligence Revolution by Louis Del Monte?

Is there a way to tag a user in a comment such that the user will receive a notification that s/he's been tagged?

Are there any resources (on lesswrong or elsewhere) , I can use for improving my social effectiveness and social intelligence ? Its something I'd really like to improve on so I can understand social situations better and perhaps improve the quality of my social interactions.

I'm living in rural Alabama for the next five years with little opportunity for mental challenge outside of my job. The only local groups of notable interests are our Rotary Club (which would really only bring a networking benefit) and our Trailmasters (from whom I can learn gardening and horticulture). I'd like to take part in more rationality related activities, both for the self improvement and the community benefits. Are there any suggestions for useful activities or groups I might join that can help? With so many meetup groups, I'm sure I can't be the only one living in isolated conditions. I'd like to hear from others how they beat the duldrums.

I know politics is the mindkiller and arguments are soldiers yet still the question looms large: What makes some people more suceptible to arguing about politics and ideology? I know of people I can talk to while having differing points of view and just go "well, seems like we disagree" and carry on a conversation. Conversations with other people invariably disintegrate into political discussion with neither side yielding.

Why?

I just finished a one-shot rational Spider-Man fic. Comments are welcome.

The Transhumanist Wager. Has anyone read this thing? The Wikipedia synopsis reads like a satirical description of a fictional book. This review is absolutely scathing, including of the ethics of the author-avatar protagonist; this one is a bit nicer. The author commented here very slightly.

The Less Wrong Study Hall's tinychat room is acting up this morning. For anyone who uses it and can't get in, we're in /lesswrong2 instead.

[Edit: It looks like support has fixed it, so please go back to the regular room.]

Sometimes I've tried to argue in favor of eugenics. The usual response I got has been something like: "but what if we create a race of super-human beings that wipes us out?".
It's interesting that people are much more prone to believe it's possible to create unfriendly human super-intelligence rather than an unfriendly artificial super-intelligence.

suppose someone's life plan was to largely devote themselves to making money until they were in, say, the top 10% in cumulative income. They also did not plan to save money to any very unusual extent.

then after that was accomplished, they would switch goals and devote themselves to altruism.

Given that the person today is able to make the money and resolves to do this, I wonder what people here think the chance is of doing it. For example, fluid intelligence declines over time. So by the time you're 60 years old and have made your money and have kids, will you really be smart enough to diametrically change direction and have much impact? Maybe Bill Gates has enough brain cells, but his IQ might be 160. And maybe you'll just forget about altruism and learn to enjoy nice cars more.

In the comments to this post we discussed the signalling theory of education, which has previously been discussed on Less Wrong. The signalling theory says that education doesn't make you more productive, but constitutes a signal that you are productive (since only a productive worker could obtain a degree at a prestigious university, or so many employers think).

Such signalling can be very socially wasteful, since it can lead to a signalling arms race where people spend more and more money on signals that don't increase their productivity (like peacocks' tails). Now an important question is how one could rein in such signalling arms races. One way is by prohibiting employers to consider educations that are irrelevant for the job. That is, if your education is a pure signal of the abilities you had before you started the education, and doesn't increase your productivity in any way, employers would not be allowed to consider it when deciding between you and other applicants. The downside of this is, though, that it means more regulations and that it could be seen as illiberal.

Another hope is the increased use of big data in recruiting. Whereas previously, employers used crude heuristics such as which university you went to, they now have access to constantly improving algorithms which pick out precisely which applicant features that predict productivity and which don't.

Now suppose that what university education you went to is in fact a less accurate signal than some other feature. Then employers would fight over the applicants that have this other feature, rather than those with the university education. This would lead to people being less keen to obtain long and expensive university educations.

Of course new wasteful arms races could arise regarding these other features. Then again, I think we have reason to believe that these arms races would not be quite as wasteful as (I believe) the present educational arms races are. The reason people spend so much time and money on education as a signal is that it has proved to be so stable as a signal. People aren't going to spend as much time and money on a new signal, because they won't be as confident that it will continue to function as a strong signal. If what is taken to have signalling value is constantly shifted around, people would presumably be less willing to engage in signalling arms races.

These are just some loose thoughts. I'd be interested to hear if someone has any further thoughts on how to decrease wasteful signalling in education, or any other thoughts on the fascinating topic of signalling in general.

A very useful site. readlists.com/ You can compile lists of articles and share them with your friends or convert them to epub/mobi. I used them on sequences I wanted to read or share.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receptor_activated_solely_by_a_synthetic_ligand

I just learned there was such a thing as Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADD). I think this is huge. Do you people know the current status of this field?

Quick calibration test for those who like to have opinions on the US: of the standard US racial groupings (white, black, hispanic, asian) and the overall population, which do you expect to have the highest gini ratio for income? Why?

Here is the answer, according to the US Fed

Please use rot13 for spoilers.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/05/this-column-will-change-your-life-precrastination

An interesting article on "precrastination". Basically some people spend more time and effort doing things , when it would be more efficient to complete them later. Also this writer reads lesswrong and refers to one of the posts on akrasia in his other articles

Coursera just started a course called Experimentation for Improvement. Is anyone interested in taking it together?

I have been thinking about the argument of the singularity in general. This proposition that an intellect sufficiently advanced can / will change the world by introducing technology that is literally beyond comprehension. I guess my question is this, is there some level of intelligence such that there are no possibilities that it can't imagine even if it can't actually go and do them.

Are humans past that mark? We can imagine things literally all the way past what is physically possible and or constrained to realistic energy levels.

Has anybody written up a primer on "what if utility is lexically ordered, or otherwise not quite measurable in real numbers"? Especially in regard to dust specks?

So there's a MIRIxMountain View, but is it redundant to have a MIRIxEastBay/SF? It seems like the label MIRIx is content to be bestowed upon even low key research efforts, and considering the hacker culture/rationality communities there may be interest in this.

New Open Thread

(yeah, only just realised I got the end date wrong on this one, oh well)

I think I remember an app in which one guessed the probability of things and then logged if they actually happened and kept track or ones record discussed here. Anyone know what it's called?

Question for anyone who knows:

I've been getting "cannot connect to the real..." error messages in Google Chrome when trying to access several websites, which I gather has something to do with invalid certificates. I would like to know if going to Settings > Advanced > Manage Certificates and simply Removing everything under every tab will a) fix the problem and b) not break anything else. If not, then I would like to know what will.

If anyone uses org-mode in emacs to track their todo list, org-gamify is a way to add some gamification to your org. I haven't used it, but there's a decent introduction on how to use it on the git repo page.

Now that I'm on the job market, I'm considering changing my gmail address, but I'm having trouble deciding between the alternatives.

My current address (created in '05 or so) consists of two words. This has the advantage of being easy to say, but the second word is a bit long and I feel slightly silly writing it on a CV.

On the other hand, it's 2014 and almost every reasonable gmail address has already been taken. The exceptions in my case are a slightly l33t version of my name, a version of my name with vowels removed, and my name followed by a random number.

So, LW, which of the following do you feel is the most useful email address?

[pollid:729]

I don't use G+ anymore, so I'm ignoring various social costs associated to changing my Google account. If you think of a better alternative, go ahead and list it in the comments.

I have a friend on business in San Francisco with some free time Tuesday afternoon. Do any of you have a recommendation of how they should spend that time, outside of general suggestions as might be listed here?

I'm trying to run a calibration training/potluck in Portland next Saturday for myself and any lesswrongians who'd like to join. Any lessons learned from people who have done calibration training themselves or run a calibration training?