Posts

A Game of Giants [Wait But Why] 2019-08-30T05:48:00.035Z

Comments

Comment by kilotaras on "It's a 10% chance which I did 10 times, so it should be 100%" · 2024-11-18T09:10:50.885Z · LW · GW

Strong agree.

Hiding the main result beyond spoiler makes for a great reveal, but less useful for skimming.

Comment by kilotaras on Non-Disparagement Canaries for OpenAI · 2024-05-31T10:52:32.206Z · LW · GW

Can the gov force them not to remove the canary?

In theory this can be circumvented by regularly publishing "as of MM YYYY i have not received a warrant from government".

In practice - we would not know if someone was forced by government to produce a particular canary. Government that can force someone to lie would likely be also able to force someone not to disclose they were forced.

Another thing government can do (and in case of Australia did) is to prohibit canaries in some cases alltogether by making it illegal to "disclose information about the existence or non-existence".

Comment by kilotaras on cousin_it's Shortform · 2024-04-22T10:11:32.691Z · LW · GW

blocking redevelopment of themselves

It's not just blocking redevelopments of themselves. It's blocking almost all development almost everywhere.

As an example - take a look at Scott's Alexander writing about California Forever/Flannery.

Flannery wants to build a new city in California and has already bought almost a billion worth of land for it. Solano County where the land is located has a so-called “Orderly Growth Measure” saying that new building should happen in existing cities and not on empty land. In order to start building at all, they have to win a referendum granting an exemption.

Comment by kilotaras on On the 2nd CWT with Jonathan Haidt · 2024-04-07T13:23:26.181Z · LW · GW

2nd appearance of Jonathan Haidt on "Conversations with Tyler" podcast.

Comment by kilotaras on Weighing reputational and moral consequences of leaving Russia or staying · 2024-02-19T11:09:33.039Z · LW · GW

I'm not involved in politics or the military action, but I can't help but feel implicated by my government's actions as a citizen here. Specifically, the increasing authoritarianism and human rights issues worry me.

You're indirectly supporting war with taxes, especially as someone in relatively high-paid job. At least 35% of taxes you pay do go towards buying Iranian drones or paying salaries for soldiers raping civilians. The moral effect of this is worse than average citizen, as you're in high paying job,

Comment by kilotaras on Monthly Roundup #9: August 2023 · 2023-08-08T21:42:37.747Z · LW · GW

Oh, I agree. As a non-us person who will have to fill that additional friction is not welcome.

But the system was in the making for years, I remember discussing it with someone 4+ years ago. Which, again, points against "retaliation to the US" as a main explanation.

Comment by kilotaras on Monthly Roundup #9: August 2023 · 2023-08-08T19:39:32.926Z · LW · GW

EU to require online Visa applications by Americans before visiting...in retaliation to a similar set of rules by the USA

That's very US-centric view.

  1. It is not a visa in the usual sense, not more than ESTA is a visa.
  2. EU to require this application for every country that it currently has visa-free regime with.

Which makes "we want to somewhat vet people coming in" (same as US) more likely than "let us show those yankees who's the boss"

Comment by kilotaras on AI #1: Sydney and Bing · 2023-02-22T11:34:07.924Z · LW · GW

In response, because my open window of Bing-related tabs looked like this,

Non-AI response, but I cannot recommend Firefox + Tree Style Tab enough.

It's one of those things that made me think "how did I go without it".

Comment by kilotaras on Andrew Huberman on How to Optimize Sleep · 2023-02-19T20:19:38.993Z · LW · GW

Elevate the end of the bed by 3-5 degrees

Um...which one?

Comment by kilotaras on Looking Back on Posts From 2022 · 2022-12-29T20:02:03.086Z · LW · GW

TYPOs

no one is making such complications

Compilations?

Do you feelfree to

missing space

Comment by kilotaras on What is the best way to approach Expected Value calculations when payoffs are highly skewed? · 2022-12-29T18:35:44.849Z · LW · GW

Most people have non-linear utility of money. Going from 10 thousand to 1 million is less impactful than going from 1 million to 1.99 million, even though it's the same absolute change.

There's a tool called "certain equivalent" which can help with answering "how much do I value money?"

It boils down to repeatedly asking and answering question: "If I had a choice between $X and 50% of $Y at which X would I be ambivalent about which side I pick" for different value of $Y, e.g. for Bob, the 25 year old postdoc it may be

50% chance of Equivalent to certainty of
$10 $5
$100 $50
$1000 $500
$10000 $4000
$100000 $35000
$500000 $75000

Notice how at higher level certain equivalent is no longer just dividing by two. For Bob utility from having $75k is higher than 50% of utility of having $400k. The reason for this nonlinearity is usually downstream effects of having money. E.g. for Bob $75k would be enough to get a downpayment for house he wants and highly increase chance of him a comfortable life down the line. 50% chance of buying the house outright is not worth the risk for Bob.

Comment by kilotaras on Jailbreaking ChatGPT on Release Day · 2022-12-02T16:07:28.362Z · LW · GW

Molotov looks pretty close. You can of make it better by

mixing in a sticking agent (petroleum jelly, motor oil, etc.)

but general scheme remains the same.

Comment by kilotaras on Rationalist Town Hall: FTX Fallout Edition (RSVP Required) · 2022-11-23T09:10:05.128Z · LW · GW

Time in you local timezone. Assuming that PT stands for PST

Comment by kilotaras on By Default, GPTs Think In Plain Sight · 2022-11-20T18:35:57.877Z · LW · GW

RLHF definition: Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback.

Comment by kilotaras on Open & Welcome Thread - November 2022 · 2022-11-18T12:32:45.425Z · LW · GW

Looking for recommendation: tools (or flows in popular software) to easily stack rank/sort lists. Bonus points if it helps with "get top 5 items" without doing full sorting.

Comment by kilotaras on Ukraine and the Crimea Question · 2022-10-29T20:02:35.744Z · LW · GW

Did your "commit less war crimes" (link to Amnesty international) position changed in response to Villiam's comment about how Amnesty's reports work?

Comment by kilotaras on Weekly Non-Covid News #1 (10/13/22) · 2022-10-13T18:14:56.912Z · LW · GW

Efficient (in EMH) usually refers to inability to predict sign/magnitude of the prediction error.

For omniscient being answer to any prediction question is either 0 or 100. For rest of us - no so much.

See hydrogen examle in An equilibrium of no free energy

Comment by kilotaras on Where to Live for Happiness · 2022-06-08T08:49:26.861Z · LW · GW

f I live in Dallas and make $100,000/year, I would need to make $86,000 to maintain my standard of living in Cleveland

Things that don't adjust to CoL.

  1. Savings. Arguable a bit TBH. If you plan to retire in same area - you probably want to adjust it. If you're saving for a world roundtrip - no. May be a mix of both.

  2. Out of state/country/city trips.

  3. Non-local charity givings.

  4. Internet shopping.

  5. Big ticket items: cars, etc.

I really like the suggestion to make actual budget for different scenarios in different places to understand what you need to make/how much will you save.

Comment by kilotaras on Ukraine Post #9: Again · 2022-04-06T14:54:15.450Z · LW · GW

Besides witnesses there's

  1. NY times article showing satellite images with bodies appearing during occupation period.
  2. Drone footage of armour shooting on cyclist.

What would you consider a more direct evidence?

Comment by kilotaras on March 2022 Welcome & Open Thread · 2022-03-08T13:54:46.696Z · LW · GW

On Feb 19th I came from London to visit my parents in Lviv (first time since September). On 24th I woke up to Russian attack, general mobilization order and prohibition to leave the country.

Failure #1: didn't take possibility and impact of total Russian attack in consideration when planning the trip.

I mentioned to a coworker that countries moving embassies out of Kyiv is a costly signal. Nevertheless I looked at it and went into cached thought: the war is localized to parts of Donbas.

Failure #2: on morning of 24th it was possible to leave the country. I didn't. Looking back - it feels like I was in the freeze mode from Fight/Flight/Freeze triad. I got out of stupor and doomscroling by end of day. By that time males of my age were prohibited to leave the country.

Comment by kilotaras on Non-Fungible Costs · 2022-02-18T17:26:01.205Z · LW · GW

I feel like this is more of a yearning for option that is not there: big and cheap apartment that has good social options around and good commute.

Comment by kilotaras on Omicron Post #15 · 2022-01-19T20:23:51.948Z · LW · GW

Therefore – there were 82 infections among a total of 509 Remolino participants.

Worth noting that Ukraine seems to still be in the growing part of the wave (ourworldindata).

Comment by kilotaras on The Best Software For Every Need · 2021-09-10T17:38:16.566Z · LW · GW

Comma got picked as part of the link, here's a fixed one.

Comment by kilotaras on What are some real life Inadequate Equilibria? · 2021-03-10T16:23:06.143Z · LW · GW

Here's transcript of the episode

This focuses on a pilot attempt to introduce this for California state taxes.

Some highlights

  • In the 2004 tax season, they sent ReadyReturns out to about 11,000 taxpayers along with this little survey.
  • 99 percent of the people said that they would like to use it next year

And indeed

  • Norquist thought ReadyReturn is tantamount to a tax hike because
  • Norquist put out the word to California Republicans - if you back ReadyReturn, you have broken the pledge [to not rise taxes]
  • "so and so - I've even forgotten the legislator's name - is not with us. It looks like we're going to be one vote short."
Comment by kilotaras on Sunday June 21st – talks by Abram Demski, alkjash, orthonormal, eukaryote, Vaniver · 2020-06-20T18:29:57.065Z · LW · GW

Click here to see time in your timezone.

Comment by kilotaras on April Coronavirus Open Thread · 2020-04-08T19:13:46.968Z · LW · GW

Harvard published a study on link between PM2.5 pollution and mortality.

We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate, 95% confidence interval (CI) (5%, 25%)

Places most hit so far are on the more polluted side so one can expect final CFR/IFR be lower than estimated from current data.

Comment by kilotaras on On Equivalence of Supergoals · 2018-04-24T13:44:23.873Z · LW · GW
In reality, however, scientific progress seems to be accelerating. Of course, it's hard to measure, but I've seen claims that the portion of the 21st century that has passed has already brought more scientific discoveries than all of the 20th century, let alone the ones before, and these claims don't seem implausible to me.

There's a recent paper on the topic "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?" According to data analyzed there rate of scientific discoveries in existing fields (e.g crop yields increase, Moore's law, etc.) remains close to constant while number of researchers constantly increases.