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Some people have really good arguments for why ideas shouldn't be shared right away, in which case we might not read about them for a while, so the answers here might be biased '^_^
Mine is probably much longer than it should. Although I also have some reasons not to share them right away such as needing them to have a good first impression.
I probably haven't shared most of them yet, so the delay is probably at least a few years currently.
trying to put this in my own words to remember it
so different axes for take-off dynamics include:
- time span: physical time, economic time, political time, AI time (development speed of front runners over others)
- shape of the take-off curve, ex.: exponential, S-curves, linear, etc.
- monopolistic effect: do front runners become less likely to be outcompeted as they grow? how many large players will there be? also: how will this change? ex.: it could be that AI doesn't have strong monopolistic effect until you reach a certain level
measurement to quantify:
- AI progress: GDP, decisive strategic advantage
- AI progress speed: time until AI having more power than the rest of humanity / time until solving the control problem
related:
- impact on forecasting capabilities
the fraction of global economic activity attributable to autonomous AI systems will rise
I thought a bit about this, but haven't figured it out: how can this be measured? if AI is commoditized, AI companies won't make a profit from it. AI researchers might make more money, but likely not more than however much it would cost to train more AI researchers (or something like that). maybe we can see which industries have their price reduced because of AI, and count this as a lower bound for the consumer surplus created by AI. what else?
I personally would rather an FAI be able to bring me back than preventing an UFAI from doing so
when we were more people at the Macroscope (https://macroscopehouse.com/), the last tool we were using was weighted reverse auctions: https://matiroy.com/writings/weighted-reverse-auction.html
Thanks for the clarifying question. It's the impersonal "you"; although I think specifically the personal "you" would be even more interesting. I updated the question.
Believing you're likely in a simulation
- data point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIt-w8BwvV4 (see description as well)
Various lifestyles: believing that polyamory can be an healthy relationship structure; believing practicing various kinks and sexual interests can be healthy
Thank you for your answer! I'd want you to expand on all points, but will be more reasonable and prioritize my curiosity; re 2: does it creates more failures than successes because a) more people start a startup as a result, thinking it will be easier than it is, b) harder to get profit because competition is more fierce, or c) other reasons?
For your information, the above two links were judged as wrong
@davidad, any updates on your work?
I have the impression that the more unified the world is, a) the less likely wars are, b) the easier it is to coordinate to solve global problems. It would also create more economic prosperity. But some forms of globalisation could also make our civilisation less robust. Anders Sandberg says the extent a feature is globalize should be proportional to the extent that feature's impact is global (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FKgBURAV0).
awesome, thanks a lot! :)
@habryka, I don't see Intercom, but I'm still interested in having my username changed; thank you!
ah, right, the premise of my question might be wrong! do you think colonies is a more likely outcome? why? (will update the question's description)
Some variables I would be interested in seeing tracked include:
- the distribution on the number of people a person can communicate with (without translators; both fluently and at a basic level)
- how good and easy to use translators are getting (including audio<>text conversion)
- how much countries are legally merging (ex.: EU) or fragmenting (ex.: UK?), including level of desire to separate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_active_separatist_movements)
- how much art (music, books, movies) are consumed internationally vs locally
- how much other cultural elements are getting globally adopted (ex.: food, clothing)
- how much international products / services are getting consumed
- what fraction of people are multiracial, and multiracial to which extent on average
Epistemic status: arm chair thinking
I wonder if an Antarctic mass migration would lead to the UN working closer together to develop international laws, which would consequently increase international cooperation.
I'm not sure what cause you to like this framing and what it does to you psychologically, but personally it seems important to me to differentiate what's aligned with my preferences and what's fixable as 2 different concepts. I think having a single word for both "things that can be changed, but are okay as they are" and "things that can't be changed, but are not okay as they are" would render my cognition pretty confused, but maybe that's a cognitive hack to feel better or something.
by "that's fine", you mean "I learned helplessness", right? (just checking, because I'm not sure what it means to say that something terrible is fine)
I disagree, but haven't had time to write why yet:)
Maybe it would be a useful norm for people to have such a list of ideas; it would allow to move faster
Updated: 2019-12-10
2 of them:
- there's a lot of advantages to video-recording your life (I want to write much more about this, and only took time for a very brief overview so far https://matiroy.com/writings/Should-I-record-my-life.html)
- if MWI is true and today's cryonics is good enough, we can use quantum lottery to cryopreserve literally everyone for the cost of setting up a quantum lottery + some overhead (probably much less than 100k USD)
An FAQ about yourself that is? I like this idea. When someone asks me a question that seems like it could be of interests to others, I ask them to post on my subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mati_Roy/ , but I think it's weird because it looks impersonal to some among other things.
Thanks for your answer
Thanks for sharing! If you want to, I would be curious to know how the last 2 points made you feel bad for not adopting earlier (if there's anything more specific than just the general point)
oops, I just saw that; thank you!
oh, I had missed that :o thanks for letting me know!
by the way, I often see you link information together, and make sure to follow-up on various things; I really appreciate that!
thanks, I appreciate! I don't see Intercom (?). I would like my username to be Mati_Roy
A place to suggestion features, hence this question '^_^
A way to update my username given I changed my name to Mati a while ago :)
I think the main one for me is learning to be productive
- Questions on LessWrong-related topics
- Polling questions about the community
- Open problems
according to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733321/, 2 weeks on dry ice seems to be equivalent to 3 seconds at room temperature (seems acceptable)
according to https://alcor.org/Library/html/HowColdIsColdEnough.html, 2 weeks on dry ice seems to be equivalent to 19.5 minutes at room temperature (seems unnecessarily risky)
Maybe "The End of Banking: Money, Credit, and the Digital Revolution"
The average completion time for this year’s survey is 20 minutes.
how was this measured?
Added to Concrete project lists
@The_Jaded_One
Are you now signed up for cryonics? If not, email me at contact@matiroy.com for guidance to sign up.
not sure how to delete; moved to draft
oops, I had looked, but not hard enough apparently; will delete
Re Climate
Oh yeah, I also wanted to have more questions that would inform me on the extent to which I should be prepping. Thanks for bringing it up, I'll add it.
Re Politics
And I also wanted to know the probability that San Francisco would receive a nuclear bomb or a earthquake of magnitude >X to inform me on whether I should avoid moving there.
it might be a sign to move one's assets into more liquid forms
Although by the time the prediction market tells you that, a lot of money will already have moved to liquid form, and so your assets will already have lost a lot of value.
Re AI
As for AI, putting aside the issue of operationalizing them in a prediction market, how would people change their behavior based on them? I guess by being more careful about their health and security if it seemed aligned AI was around the corner (and less careful if it seemed extinction was). Also change career plans.
Last updated: 2019-10-31
Embryo selection
How likely is it that embryo selection (or other technology) will be available to a consumer for less than [price] per expected additional IQ point in the next [number of] years?
Similarly for other reproductive technology and characteristics.
Depending on the probability, one could decide to postpone having children and/or cryopreserve sperm/eggs/embryos.
Related: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection
Immigration
How likely is it that people from country X will still be able to immigrate in country Y by year Z?
Depending on the probability, one could decide to immigrate sooner or later.
Cryonics
How likely is it that Oregon Cryonics will still offer services in 50 years? (conditioning on cryonics still being offered by some organizations)
Depending on the probability, one could decide to move to Salem or otherwise move near another facility (ex.: Phoenix).
Catastrophe risk in a city
How likely is it that San Francisco would receive a nuclear bomb? How likely is it that San Francisco would receive an earthquake of magnitude >X.
Depending on the probability, one could decide not to move to San Francisco.
Global catastrophe
How likely is it that world GDP drops that more than 10x in the next 10 years?
Depending on the probability, one could decide to start prepping.
Employment
How likely is it that there will be demand X for job Y in Z years?
Depending on the probability, one could chose a different career path.
Memory preservation
How likely is it that Google Photo will still have my pictures in X years?
Depending on the probability, one might do more or less back-ups.
Privacy
How likely is it that service X will leak some of my data by year Y?
Depending on the probability, one might avoid using the service.
Nutrition studies
How likely is it that there will be a good [to operationalize] study showing that creatine supplements have positive effects [to operationalize] in the next 20 years?
Depending on the probability, one might take creatine supplements.
Some notes on this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xGjvSHq7YdJDoTgfP08cgzeJKSrciT9b5E9AConBvjY/
please go ahead!:) and let me know if you have trouble editing the wiki
I guess the best way is just to post on a bunch of platforms and have those web pages back-up by various archiving services (notably the Wayback Machine).
Publishing a book is probably too much work for most used cases.
I've also heard one could publish text on the Bitcoin blockchain for example, but I'm not sure how well that works.
Sweet! I added it to the list of podcasts by people with a LessWrong profile: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/List_of_Podcasts#By_people_with_Less_Wrong_profiles
See section “Games and Exercises” of “How to Run a Successful LessWrong Meetup Group” for some ideas: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/mediawiki/images/c/ca/How_to_Run_a_Successful_Less_Wrong_Meetup_Group.pdf
Because it's near the best cryonics facility in the world: https://alcor.org, and the quality of cryopreservations for people living in Phoenix is much higher on average than remote cases (it reduces the delay to start the procedure, it avoids problems at borders, the delay to start the sub-zero cool-down is shorter, they have good relationships with nearby hospitals, they have better infrastructure, and there's more legal antecedent supporting cryonics).
This summer I went to Phoenix for about a month to see how it was. I organized the first local effective altruism event: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAltruismPhoenix/. I reached out to the LessWrong group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/317266081721112/ and the SlateStarCodex group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/slate-star-codex-phoenix . There are 4 people in the Brain Debugging Discussion Facebook group that specified living in Phoenix on their Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/groups/144017955332/local_members/ , 1 on the Effective Altruism Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/437177563005273/local_members/ , 0 on EA Hub: https://eahub.org/profiles , and 7 on the Global Transhumanist Association: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2229380549/local_members/ . IIRC, I had reached out to (some of) them as well (and probably more). I also had invited people from the cryonics community. IIRC, there was 2-3 rationalists and 3 cryonicists that showed up to the event. And maybe around 5 that were interested but couldn't make it. IIRC, there had been a few SSC events in the last 2 years, with maybe a total of something like 12 people showing up. I've also met with about 20 cryonics old-timers.
Other approaches I see towards solving this problem:
- do movement building once I'm Phoenix, or support other people that are interested in doing that
- try to connect more with rationalists (or rationalists adjacent) that are already in Phoenix
- instead of finding 75 interesting (to me) people, find only a dozen, but start a strong intentional community
- here's one project proposal for this idea: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JdZ1lnXwoJatofsYa-oVKM0b55ev9EFr081Twd0YebI/ (this is just an idea; I'm much more flexible than that, and my interests are wider); I visited a lot of intentional communities, and have been running one for 3 years ( https://macroscope.house/ ), so I think I would have the expertise to start a new one
- significantly improve the cryonics response quality in other cities (current contenders: Salem, Berkeley, Los Angeles)
If you (or anyone you know) are interested or can help with any of those, that would be great/appreciated!
How many rationalists / EAs / interesting people do you know in Phoenix? Do you like living in Phoenix?
I would like to connect with more LessWronger in Phoenix. If you want, you can add me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09 and/or send me an email at contact@matiroy.com and/or chat in public on https://www.reddit.com/r/Mati_Roy/ .
Allow to edit one's username (context: I now go by Mati_Roy instead of MathieuRoy, but I don't want to create another account and loose my history).
I added this thread here: https://causeprioritization.org/Coordination
Updated: 2019-12-22
General note: If you're interested in any of the propositions below (except the first one), please let me know, either here or at contact@matiroy.com .
Bootstrapping a commitment platform
Make at least 5 commitments if a commitment platform is created (or rather, the creator might want to commit to improving a bare-bone platform if at least 200 people commit to make a total of at least 1,000 commitments).
Improving the Cause Prioritization Wiki (CPW)
Migrate the CPW on the MediaWiki platform and improve the structure if enough people commit edits for a total of 2000+ edits.
Side note: I've added this thread here: https://causeprioritization.org/Coordination
Moving to Phoenix
If 75 EAs / rationalists / life extensionists committed to move to Phoenix this year, I’d move to Phoenix this year.
Financing cryonics research
If 500 other people committed 10,000 USD to cryonics research, I would give 10,000 USD to cryonics research.
Doing a cryonics related PhD
I would do a PhD in some field relevant to cryonics if some people committed a fraction of my salary to do cryonics research over 10 years. That is, they would give say 20% (or 10k USD / year) of my salary to whatever cryonics lab that hires me.
Training a local cryonics team
I would arrange to have a local (to Montreal) standby cryonics team if at least 500,000 CAD was committed (exact amount TBD). (Although I guess I could just use Kickstarter for that, or do it entirely ad hoc?)
Organizing Rationalist Olympiads
If 12+ people committed to go to Rationalist Olympiads (in Montreal), I would organize Rationalist Olympiads.
Simplified spelling
I unilaterally switched to simplified spelling in French ( https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10157948032459579 ), but I feel more uneasy about doing it in English for a combination of reasons (not my native language, switch seems more complex, I have more important conversations in English than French, competing proposed simplification).
I'm not sure what coordinated commitment I would want here exactly, but maybe something like 1% of my Facebook friends or 1% of LessWrong posters committing to switching to a simplified spelling convention in English. I might still end up unilaterally switching, but that's much less likely.
Ref.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reforms_of_the_English_language
How would you classify existential risks within this framework? (or would you?)
Here's my attempt. Any corrections or additions would be appreciated.
Transparent risks: asteroids (we roughly know the frequency?)
Opaque risks: geomagnetic storms (we don't know how resistant the electric grid is, although we have an idea of their frequency), natural physics disasters (such as vacuum decay), killed by an extraterrestrial civilization (could also fit black swans and adversarial environments depending on its nature)
Knightian risks:
- Black swans: ASI, nanotech, bioengineered pandemics, simulation shutdown (assuming it's because of something we did)
- Dynamic environment: “dysgenic” pressures (maybe also adversarial), natural pandemics (the world is getting more connected, medicine more robust, etc. which makes it difficult how the risks of natural pandemics are changing), nuclear holocaust (the game theoretic equilibrium changes as we get nuclear weapon that are faster and more precised, better detectors, etc.)
- Adversarial environments: resource depletion or ecological destruction, misguided world government or another static social equilibrium that stops technological progress, repressive totalitarian global regime, take-over by a transcending upload (?), our potential or even our core values are eroded by evolutionary development (ex.: Hansonian em world)
Other (?): technological arrests ("The sheer technological difficulties in making the transition to the posthuman world might turn out to be so great that we never get there." from https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html )
From the original article by Nick Bostrom: "Reductions existential risks are global public goods [13] and may therefore be undersupplied by the market [14]. Existential risks are a menace for everybody and may require acting on the international plane. Respect for national sovereignty is not a legitimate excuse for failing to take countermeasures against a major existential risk." See: https://nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html