Posts

The case for pay-on-results coaching 2025-01-03T18:40:22.304Z
Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July 2024-12-29T21:12:02.574Z
Being Present is Not a Skill 2024-12-18T01:11:04.715Z
Is this a better way to do matchmaking? 2024-12-16T19:06:14.574Z
Just one more exposure bro 2024-12-12T21:37:07.069Z
Locally optimal psychology 2024-11-25T18:35:11.985Z
Social events with plausible deniability 2024-11-18T18:25:17.339Z
What is autonomy? Why boundaries are necessary. 2024-10-21T17:56:33.722Z
What is it like to be psychologically healthy? Podcast ft. DaystarEld 2024-10-05T19:14:04.743Z
Eye contact is effortless when you’re no longer emotionally blocked on it 2024-09-27T21:47:01.970Z
Pay-on-results personal growth: first success 2024-09-14T03:39:12.975Z
what becoming more secure did for me 2024-08-22T17:44:48.525Z
I didn't have to avoid you; I was just insecure 2024-08-17T16:41:50.237Z
List of Collective Intelligence Projects 2024-07-02T14:10:41.789Z
Emotional issues often have an immediate payoff 2024-06-10T23:39:40.697Z
Retrospective on Mathematical Boundaries Workshop 2024-05-12T21:58:46.367Z
Boundaries Update #1 2024-04-11T16:07:18.746Z
Plausibility of cyborgism for protecting boundaries? 2024-03-27T18:53:38.615Z
How I turned doing therapy into object-level AI safety research 2024-03-14T01:54:47.290Z
self-fulfilling prophecies when applying for funding 2024-03-01T19:01:40.991Z
Boundary Violations vs Boundary Dissolution 2024-02-26T18:59:08.713Z
The natural boundaries between people 2024-02-23T01:09:28.592Z
What does davidad want from «boundaries»? 2024-02-06T17:45:42.348Z
Protecting agent boundaries 2024-01-25T04:13:50.993Z
What are the most common social insecurities? 2024-01-16T17:24:59.761Z
What technical topics could help with boundaries/membranes? 2024-01-05T18:14:58.795Z
Agent membranes/boundaries and formalizing “safety” 2024-01-03T17:55:21.018Z
Safety First: safety before full alignment. The deontic sufficiency hypothesis. 2024-01-03T17:55:19.825Z
Agent membranes and causal distance 2024-01-02T22:43:41.508Z
Environmental allergies are curable? (Sublingual immunotherapy) 2023-12-26T19:05:08.880Z
The absence of self-rejection is self-acceptance 2023-12-21T21:54:52.116Z
Lessons from massaging myself, others, dogs, and cats 2023-12-17T04:28:40.080Z
Apply to the Conceptual Boundaries Workshop for AI Safety 2023-11-27T21:04:59.037Z
Spaced repetition for teaching two-year olds how to read (Interview) 2023-11-26T16:52:58.412Z
Formalizing «Boundaries» with Markov blankets 2023-09-19T21:01:01.901Z
Coherence Therapy with LLMs - quick demo 2023-08-14T03:34:29.102Z
"Membranes" is better terminology than "boundaries" alone 2023-05-28T22:16:21.404Z
«Boundaries» for formalizing an MVP morality 2023-05-13T19:10:51.833Z
«Boundaries/Membranes» and AI safety compilation 2023-05-03T21:41:19.124Z

Comments

Comment by Chipmonk on MichaelDickens's Shortform · 2025-02-22T21:18:39.688Z · LW · GW

fwiw, FABRIC was able to get funding in November 2024 (who knows if this date is correct though)

nvm this was an "exit grant" lmao

Comment by Chipmonk on (The) Lightcone is nothing without its people: LW + Lighthaven's big fundraiser · 2025-02-16T05:17:55.497Z · LW · GW

Now that this is "over", I'd be fascinated to see a post about what the fundraising process was like for you and what can be learned. Seems like a big L for retroactive funding for example

https://x.com/ohabryka/status/1882579367110586459 

Comment by Chipmonk on We probably won't just play status games with each other after AGI · 2025-01-26T01:04:43.766Z · LW · GW

Aside: I'm surprised you're suggesting people get validation --> people feel secure ?  This does not at all seem like the causality to me (though I'm aware most people probably think like this). 

Prediction: In the absence of radically improved psychotechnology, a significant fraction of people will always find a way to feel insecure.

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2025-01-24T03:35:09.389Z · LW · GW

hmm i suspect releasing these metrics could make my customers significantly more annoying. like, early adopters are fun and experimental. but if i make it seem not risky then i get risk-averse people who tend to be prickly

so maybe i will compile and release this data but i would need to figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't change the funnel

Comment by Chipmonk on Increasing IQ is trivial · 2025-01-14T05:30:08.300Z · LW · GW

Any updates on this?

Comment by Chipmonk on Increasing IQ by 10 Points is Possible · 2025-01-14T05:29:59.747Z · LW · GW

Any updates on this?

Comment by Chipmonk on (The) Lightcone is nothing without its people: LW + Lighthaven's big fundraiser · 2025-01-13T17:16:37.009Z · LW · GW

I wonder if you could set up a conditional donation? “I donate $X, minus if total donations exceed $3M"

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-31T02:29:36.285Z · LW · GW

i like this thanks. might take a bit of time to put together but interested

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T18:16:13.946Z · LW · GW

made some light edits because of this comment, thanks

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T17:50:45.217Z · LW · GW

oh ok i might start doing that. knowing my calibration on that would be nice

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T17:27:55.988Z · LW · GW

oh ok hm. i also don't want to be incentivized to not give easy-for-me help to people with low odds of success though

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T01:18:30.880Z · LW · GW

could you give a few examples? 

also seems time-intensive hmmmm

also, i thought about it more and i really like the metric of "results generated per hour"

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T01:16:19.712Z · LW · GW

:D i really hope bounties catch on

Comment by Chipmonk on Began a pay-on-results coaching experiment, made $40,300 since July · 2024-12-30T01:15:23.431Z · LW · GW

wow this is contraversial (my own vote is +6) 

wonder why

Comment by Chipmonk on Shallow review of technical AI safety, 2024 · 2024-12-29T14:20:47.967Z · LW · GW

boundaries / membranes

  • One-sentence summary: Formalise one piece of morality: the causal separation between agents and their environment. See also Open Agency Architecture.
  • Theory of change: Formalise (part of) morality/safety, solve outer alignment.

Chris Lakin here - this is a very old post and What does davidad want from «boundaries»? should be the canonical link

Comment by Chipmonk on Orienting to 3 year AGI timelines · 2024-12-26T17:07:54.185Z · LW · GW

Why SPY over QQQ?

Comment by Chipmonk on The Deep Lore of LightHaven, with Oliver Habryka (TBC episode 228) · 2024-12-25T23:18:20.373Z · LW · GW

available on the website at least 

Comment by Chipmonk on Pay-on-results personal growth: first success · 2024-12-22T00:41:01.818Z · LW · GW

Update: Bob has recorded a 6-month follow-up here.

Comment by Chipmonk on Walking Sue · 2024-12-18T17:38:11.090Z · LW · GW

Why was this post tagged as boundaries/membranes? I'm inclined to remove the tag.

Comment by Chipmonk on Being Present is Not a Skill · 2024-12-18T01:44:19.038Z · LW · GW

makes sense

Comment by Chipmonk on Sorry for the downtime, looks like we got DDosd · 2024-12-02T04:22:40.197Z · LW · GW

works!

Comment by Chipmonk on Sorry for the downtime, looks like we got DDosd · 2024-12-02T04:17:30.234Z · LW · GW

another weird bug is if i click the link i was just sent in my email, it brings me to a 403 Forbidden page (even though the URLs of this functional page and that 403 page look identical)

Comment by Chipmonk on (The) Lightcone is nothing without its people: LW + Lighthaven's big fundraiser · 2024-11-30T17:41:31.901Z · LW · GW

I've run two workshops at LightHaven and it's pretty unthinkable to run a workshop anywhere else in the Bay Area. Lightcone has really made it easy to run overnight events without setup

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-29T20:03:59.406Z · LW · GW

Yeah i'm confused about what to name it. we can always change it later i guess.

also let me know if you have any posts you want me to definitely tag for it that you think i might miss otherwise

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-27T07:23:54.891Z · LW · GW

Do we have a LessWrong tag for "hierarchical agency" or "multi-scale alignment" or something? Should I make one?

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-27T07:16:07.783Z · LW · GW

I just made a twitter list with accounts interested in hierarchical agency (or what i call "multi-scale alignment"). Lmk who should be added

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-27T07:14:13.124Z · LW · GW

Random but you might like this graphic I made representing hierarchical agency from my post today on a very similar idea. What would you change about it?

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-27T07:12:36.151Z · LW · GW

This was an impressive demonstation of Claude for interviews. Was this one take?

(Also what prompt did you use? I like how your Claude speaks.)

Comment by Chipmonk on Hierarchical Agency: A Missing Piece in AI Alignment · 2024-11-27T07:12:25.207Z · LW · GW

I'm glad you wrote this! I've been wanting to tell othres about ACS's research and finally have a good link

Comment by Chipmonk on Locally optimal psychology · 2024-11-26T17:35:00.957Z · LW · GW

Great question, thanks!

I think you're correct in pointing towards the existence of basically-all-downside genetic conditions, but I still think these are in the minority. Moreover, even most of those don't create a big issue on the object level— compared to how people might feel about the issue as a result.

This argument doesn't extend to conditions like Huntington's, but if a person is missing a pinky finger, most of the issues the person is going to face are related to social factors and their own emotions, not the physical aspect.

I also just say this from experience helping others

Comment by Chipmonk on Locally optimal psychology · 2024-11-26T00:56:43.552Z · LW · GW

I did not say that depression is always a strategy for everyone.

Comment by Chipmonk on Which things were you surprised to learn are not metaphors? · 2024-11-21T18:59:03.125Z · LW · GW

I wrote about my own experience discovering “feelings in the body” here

Comment by Chipmonk on Social events with plausible deniability · 2024-11-20T04:59:09.184Z · LW · GW

Eliezer likes it but lesswrong doesn't

Comment by Chipmonk on Social events with plausible deniability · 2024-11-20T04:57:55.842Z · LW · GW

can someone explain to me why this is so controversial

Comment by Chipmonk on The hostile telepaths problem · 2024-11-18T00:45:48.985Z · LW · GW

What would you say that the main types of power are?

My list (for humans): physical security, financial security, social security, emotional security (this one you can only give yourself though)

Comment by Chipmonk on Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout · 2024-11-16T17:23:33.769Z · LW · GW

In other cases, or for other reasons, they might be instead set up to demand results, and evaluate primarily based on results.

Why might it be set up like that? Seems potentially quite irrational. Veering into motivated reasoning territory here imo

Comment by Chipmonk on Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout · 2024-11-16T17:05:36.085Z · LW · GW

Maybe, but that also requires that the other group members were (irrationally) failing to consider that the “attempt could've been good even if the luck was bad”. 

In human groups, people often do gain (some) reputation for noble failures (is this wrong?)

Comment by Chipmonk on Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout · 2024-11-16T16:43:43.845Z · LW · GW

I got the bidding idea from Kaj, and “if the mind is a group” is my preferred metaphor/simplification of multi-agent models of mind (writing about this soon). This metaphor naturally implies reputation, as I realized yesterday while working with a client. I don't know if there’s a name for the reputation idea; it may be original

Comment by Chipmonk on Ayn Rand’s model of “living money”; and an upside of burnout · 2024-11-16T04:44:45.739Z · LW · GW

Oh! The metaphor I've been using with my clients for the thing I think you're pointing at is reputation.

If the mind is a group (in this case a group of pattern predictors, but please also imagine it as a group of people), then ask yourself: How does a group of people (with no dictator) make a decision? 

Well, they talk. They make bids. 

Can one person use "willpower" and force the group to make a decision a particular way? Yes, if they make a strong enough bid and the rest of the group lets them. Why would the rest of the group let them? Reputation. But if they do that too many times with poor results, they lose their reputation and won't be able to dictate the group anymore. "Willpower" lost.

I suspect this happens in the mind among pattern predictors, too. (I believe @Kaj_Sotala has written about this somewhere wrt Global Workspace Theory? I found this tweet in the meantime.) If a certain part of your mind lose reputation with the others parts, that part will lose reputation and won't be able to make competitive bids anymore. That part's "willpower" has decreased.

Comment by Chipmonk on Gwern: Why So Few Matt Levines? · 2024-10-29T05:22:52.837Z · LW · GW
  1. What other fields except finance have a tradition of reading weekly/daily news? Surely not chemistry, drug development, petroleum, fracking, …
  2. Maybe there actually is a Matt Levine of petroleum but we don't know? 
Comment by Chipmonk on The hostile telepaths problem · 2024-10-28T01:22:15.828Z · LW · GW

I think it's true that people who have more power (whether emotional security or social status etc) generally have less muscle tension yea. 

But that reminds me that I should check with my clients if they accidentally experience much less muscle tension

Comment by Chipmonk on The hostile telepaths problem · 2024-10-27T17:08:26.912Z · LW · GW

This reminds me… maybe muscle tension is a frequent solution to this problem?

Some context: Lately I've been wondering, Why do we often experience feelings as things in the body? For example, why do I feel anxiety in my chest rather than just “knowing” I'm anxious? 

For example, my previous chronic neck pain seemed to be related to information that manifested in my neck: 

I suspect the feeling in my neck represented the information "I have the choice to leave the social situation I'm in right now" and/or "I am disliking/suppressing myself."

Why might this feeling have manifested in my neck?

What if feelings use the body as a screen to communicate information with others? If you have a certain feeling in your chest, maybe others can see that

BUT: What if a feeling represents information that your system doesn't want other people to know? Hostile telepaths problem.

Im my case:

The feeling represented the awareness that I was insecure, and there were probably situations (probably social situations) in which it partially benefited me to be partially unaware of the fact that I was insecure. 

Well, in that case, your system could create muscle tension to "jam the signal"

If the muscles are stiff, maybe they can't be used as a screen anymore.

Comment by Chipmonk on The hostile telepaths problem · 2024-10-27T15:58:22.126Z · LW · GW

I'm very glad you wrote this

Comment by Chipmonk on Pay-on-results personal growth: first success · 2024-10-27T01:38:30.096Z · LW · GW

I've come to think of it in terms of inferential distances

yeah probably something like that. I also wrote a little more about this in my blog post today.

People are experts on themselves. Given enough space and gentle enough questions from an active listener, they often have the capacity to solve their own problems.

yeah

it's much higher bandwidth and more efficient too

process the information where it is

Comment by Chipmonk on My 10-year retrospective on trying SSRIs · 2024-10-18T15:58:12.647Z · LW · GW

oh cool!! i'm glad :-)

Comment by Chipmonk on My motivation and theory of change for working in AI healthtech · 2024-10-12T06:22:14.710Z · LW · GW

If anything, I suspect mental health is more tractable, with quicker feedback loops, and with more of a possibility of directly helping alignment[1] compared to physical health.

  1. ^

    Why? I'll have to write a full post on this eventually, but the gist is: I suspect many social conflicts, such as those around AI, could dissolve if the underlying ego conflicts dissolved. Decision-makers who become more emotionally secure also become better at coordination. Improving physical health has much less of this effect imo.

Comment by Chipmonk on My motivation and theory of change for working in AI healthtech · 2024-10-12T06:17:38.505Z · LW · GW

Have you thought much about mental health?[1] Mental health seems to meet all of your same criteria. I say this because I'm currently working on this (and for alignment-like reasons).

  1. ^

    Maybe "healthcare" includes mental health to you, but https://healthcareagents.com/ doesn't seem to mention it.

Comment by Chipmonk on Time Efficient Resistance Training · 2024-10-09T18:52:59.921Z · LW · GW

Plus some need to be loaded quite heavy, risking injury.

To be clear, by isometrics i mean pushing against immovable objects. (also see)

Comment by Chipmonk on Time Efficient Resistance Training · 2024-10-09T00:31:35.863Z · LW · GW

Do you have any thoughts on isometrics? They seem even quicker if so

Comment by Chipmonk on Why you should be using a retinoid · 2024-10-06T15:21:39.750Z · LW · GW

ooh thx