Posts

Program good ethics into artificial intelligence 2016-10-19T16:28:40.542Z
Ethnography recommendations? 2014-06-11T16:41:36.309Z
Recommendation request: Budgeting/accounting software for a non-profit 2014-01-29T15:16:01.984Z
Plan while your ugh field is down 2014-01-23T17:42:51.726Z
Useful Habits Repository 2013-09-03T01:58:16.970Z
[LINK] Should we live to 1,000? 2012-12-11T16:59:19.755Z
All free Stanford classes, continually updated 2011-11-29T16:41:39.265Z
Rationality Dojo Examples? 2011-11-15T21:28:58.282Z
Meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Computational Complexity 2011-11-07T19:00:17.009Z
Meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Learning Linear Algebra 2 + Social 2011-10-14T20:22:54.141Z
Meetup : Ottawa Meetup - Learning Linear Algebra 2011-10-05T18:02:40.682Z
Meetup : Ottawa Weekly Monday LessWrong Meetup 2011-09-16T20:52:14.679Z
Meetup : Ottawa Weekly Meetup 2011-09-07T18:18:11.307Z
Meetup : Ottawa Weekly Monday LessWrong Meetup 2011-08-31T15:39:47.981Z
Meetup : Ottawa LessWrong Weekly Meetup 2011-08-09T15:38:32.385Z
[LINK] Get paid to train your rationality 2011-08-03T15:01:48.056Z
Meetup : Ottawa LessWrong Weekly Meetup 2011-08-02T20:28:34.378Z
Meetup : Ottawa LessWrong Weekly Meetup 2011-07-25T17:38:00.382Z
Meetup : Ottawa LessWrong Weekly(ish) Meetup 2011-07-18T14:59:32.453Z
Meetup : Ottawa LessWrong Weekly Meetup 2011-06-23T20:01:03.920Z
Ottawa meetup, Saturday May 14 6pm 2011-05-13T21:14:30.252Z
Ask LessWrong: Design a degree in Rationality. 2011-05-13T15:51:21.628Z
Meetup report: Darwin, Some Rationalists and the Joker [link] 2011-05-09T19:01:14.541Z
Mutable Levels Are Path-Dependent 2011-05-06T20:47:02.976Z
More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA 2010-09-10T00:25:59.829Z
Recommended reading for new rationalists 2009-07-09T19:47:02.279Z

Comments

Comment by XFrequentist on Predictive history classes · 2023-07-18T15:00:42.214Z · LW · GW

Possibly you're thinking about this: https://www.quantifiedintuitions.org/pastcasting

Comment by XFrequentist on Will the growing deer prion epidemic spread to humans? Why not? · 2023-06-28T15:04:37.267Z · LW · GW

There's a formatting issue with the link, should be: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2634591/

Comment by XFrequentist on AGI safety career advice · 2023-05-02T19:44:51.543Z · LW · GW

Preventing neural network weight exfiltration (by third parties or an AI itself)

This is really really interesting; a fairly "normal" infosec concern to prevent IP/PII theft, plus a (necessary?) step in many AGI risk scenarios. Is the claim that one could become a "world expert" specifically in this (ie without becoming an expert in information security more generally)?

Comment by XFrequentist on Transcript: Yudkowsky on Bankless follow-up Q&A · 2023-03-01T20:30:55.800Z · LW · GW

Indeed, as Vladmir gleaned, I just wanted to clarify that the historical roots of LW & AGI risk are deeper than might be immediately apparent, which could offer a better explanation for the prevalence of Doomerism than, like, EY enchanting us with his eyes or whatever.

Comment by XFrequentist on Transcript: Yudkowsky on Bankless follow-up Q&A · 2023-02-28T19:06:08.479Z · LW · GW

I am saddened that this doomerism has gained so much track in a community as great as LW

You're aware that Less Wrong (and the project of applied rationality) literally began as EY's effort to produce a cohort of humans capable of clearly recognizing the AGI problem?

Comment by XFrequentist on Bing chat is the AI fire alarm · 2023-02-17T16:56:15.503Z · LW · GW

It's probably based on GPT-4.  

Bing literally says it's powered by "GPT 4.0 technology" in this chat, is that synonymous with GPT-4 (genuinely unsure)?

Comment by XFrequentist on Why you should learn sign language · 2023-01-19T16:03:07.058Z · LW · GW

I've actually wondered if some kind of stripped-down sign language could be a useful adjunct to verbal communication, and specifically if a rationalist version could be used to convey epistemic status (or other non-obvious conversational metadata).

In the (outstanding) show The Expanse, a branch of humanity called "Belters" have been mining the asteroid belt for enough generations that they have begun to diverge (culturally, politically, and even physically) from <humanity-main>. They have such an adjunct sign language, originally developed to communicate in the void of space, fully integrated into their standard communication.

This seems so useful! I'm so frequently frustrated in conversations, trying to align on the same meta-level as my conversational partner, or convey my epistemic status effectively without derailing the object-level conversation.

An unrelated anecdote, on the general awesomeness of signing. Years ago, I was heading home on the NYC subway late at night, and the usual A train din precluded conversation. Most passengers were mindlessly scrolling on their phones or sullenly staring out windows, but four young men were carrying on a silent, boisterous conversation via signing, with full-body laughter and obvious joy. 

In that environment, their (presumed) general disability translated to local advantage. Still makes me happy to think about.

Comment by XFrequentist on Covid 1/20/22: Peak Omicron · 2022-01-20T22:53:52.332Z · LW · GW

<sarcasm>

And obviously, the entire public health community is up in arms about this…

</sarcasm>

[Narrator: They were not, in fact, up in arms.]

Comment by XFrequentist on Omicron: My Current Model · 2021-12-29T16:53:30.023Z · LW · GW

There might be another strain in the future. I don’t know how likely this is, but that’s the most likely way that things ‘don’t mostly end’ after this wave

I agree, and I also don't really have great mental handles to model this, but this seems like the most consequential question to predict post-Omicron life. My two biggest surprises of the pandemic have been Delta and Omicron, so sorting this out feels like a high VOI investment.

Here's a messy brain dump on this, mostly I'm just looking for a better framework for thinking about this.

  1. The amount of transmission obviously matters, since more generations provide more opportunities for mutation.  All else equal, VOCs are more likely to arise where cases are high.
  2. Is a partially vaccinated population more likely to generate VOCs? Either in the sense of a large number of single dosed people, or a large proportion unvaccinated, or some complex interaction of the two?
  3. If mutation and selection is happening within an immunocompromised individual (as opposed to gradually accumulating in a population), does this imply regions with high HIV-AIDS rates are most likely to produce VOCs? Are there other clusters of immunocompromised people, or are they fairly evenly distributed?
  4. The two VOC (Beta and Omicron) with the most immune evasion arose (or were at least first detected) in South Africa. Is that a coincidence? Is the presence of a BSL-4 (the only such institution south of Gabon)? Origin vs detection is confounded by the relative abundance of sequencing resources in SA vs the rest of Africa, which makes detection in SA quite likely even if VOCs emerge elsewhere, but the pattern of spread of both Beta and Omicron are more consistent with SA origin.
  5. Is any of this modifiable through policy decisions? The WHO is urging wealthy countries to forgo boosters in favour of distributing doses to the developing world, which is on-brand lunatic messaging given current events, but post-Omicron wave could this actually be good policy? Maybe this depends on sorting out some of the above?
Comment by XFrequentist on The LessWrong Team is now Lightcone Infrastructure, come work with us! · 2021-10-01T15:41:13.946Z · LW · GW

The lightcone is such a great symbol. It also kind of looks like an hourglass, evoking (to me) the image of time (and galaxies) slipping away. Kudos! 

Comment by XFrequentist on Speculations Concerning the First Free-ish Prediction Market · 2021-04-01T13:46:09.266Z · LW · GW

you really could have been the first mover on a few of these new enterprises back in 2021 if you had brainstormed a bit. Describe one of them.

Fun!

  • Curated data services for forecasting.
  • High-trust paid newsletter/research service oriented around interesting markets. Maintain a publicly-verifiable scoreboard linked to market positions to demonstrate reliability.
  • Insurance markets - take an extreme position as a catastrophe hedge, use this to subsidize market making.
  • Social network - rationales and discussion for various markets. Content discovery algorithms could include historic accuracy so truth propagates more easily.
  • Infrastructure to annotate opinion pieces with concrete predictions, link to market positions.
  • ... [will update if more occur to me]
Comment by XFrequentist on What are you surprised people don't just buy? · 2017-02-13T18:37:33.102Z · LW · GW

Lots of things, but the biggest win is probably snow removal services.

For $200 a year I save several dozen hours of drudgery, there's no management/coordination overhead to speak of, and my plow guy does a better job than I would have.

Comment by XFrequentist on What's the most annoying part of your life/job? · 2016-10-31T16:07:50.440Z · LW · GW

The commentary below has focused on child care - a more salient pain point for our demographic, surely - but the "elder care" angle actually seems much more promising. Still labor-intensive, but fewer regulatory nightmares (?).

Note there are some very large regional players in this game, but there don't appear to be any Starbucks-size winners (so says my wife, who often works with the elderly).

Comment by XFrequentist on Program good ethics into artificial intelligence · 2016-10-31T16:02:12.245Z · LW · GW

Thanks! LW was malfunctioning when I posted this, otherwise I would have.

Comment by XFrequentist on What's the most annoying part of your life/job? · 2016-10-24T14:25:27.110Z · LW · GW

This.

Also, schlep alert: this might be the densest regulatory thicket outside of healthcare, with huge variation in standards at (at least?) the state/province level. In my little environment of 13 million Ontarians, a recent arbitrary change of the teacher/child ratio allegedly drove a good many daycares out of business.

Also, parents are insane (source: am parent).

Comment by XFrequentist on Now is the time to eliminate mosquitoes · 2016-08-19T18:47:12.924Z · LW · GW

Assemble a group of scientists who on their own could eradicate mosquitoes and just do it. Don't wait for official approval.

The appeal of this route is obvious, but I don't think it should be discussed on a public forum.

Comment by XFrequentist on Now is the time to eliminate mosquitoes · 2016-08-19T14:54:22.989Z · LW · GW

Agreed! What would be the best approach (I'm a PhD student and vector-borne disease epidemiologist)?

  • Writing one or more popular/lay articles
  • Writing one or more technical/scholarly articles
  • Writing a popular/lay book
  • Writing a technical/scholarly book
  • Starting an advocacy non-profit
  • Performing an explicit cost-benefit analysis
  • Modelling to determine the necessary conditions for eradication
  • Something else... ?
Comment by XFrequentist on Lesswrong 2016 Survey · 2016-03-27T18:44:41.025Z · LW · GW

Yar, have taken the scurvy survey, says I!

Comment by XFrequentist on To contribute to AI safety, consider doing AI research · 2016-01-20T18:32:54.332Z · LW · GW

Your definition what counts as "AI related" seems to be narrower than mine, but fine. I trust readers can judge whether the linked resources are of interest.

Comment by XFrequentist on To contribute to AI safety, consider doing AI research · 2016-01-19T19:01:16.349Z · LW · GW

... quite a lot, no?

Comment by XFrequentist on To contribute to AI safety, consider doing AI research · 2016-01-17T22:28:49.227Z · LW · GW

Well, there's this ...

[ETA: link is to MIRI's research guide, some traditional AI but more mathy/philosophical. Proceed with caution.]

Comment by XFrequentist on Why CFAR's Mission? · 2016-01-12T17:25:15.717Z · LW · GW

(The alignment of both goals and methods between CFAR and the IC is, I think, under-exploited by both.)

Comment by XFrequentist on Optimizing Rationality T-shirts · 2015-11-13T21:36:43.325Z · LW · GW

It might be a bit obscure, but it's not LW jargon!

Comment by XFrequentist on Why Don't Rationalists Win? · 2015-09-12T19:08:50.014Z · LW · GW

I got waaay too far into this before I realized what you were doing... so well done!

Comment by XFrequentist on Crazy Ideas Thread · 2015-07-09T13:23:19.643Z · LW · GW

Why limit it to the Americas?

Proof of concept, capacity, and feasibility. I'd love to see this done for all disease-carrying mosquitoes, but you've got to start somewhere.

can a lethal mutation be self-perpetuating?

Yes. I'm actually not sure if this would work at a continental scale (or rather, how many modified mosquito releases would be required, is this number infeasible, etc). This is something I'm interested in modelling.

Comment by XFrequentist on Crazy Ideas Thread · 2015-07-09T03:25:59.727Z · LW · GW

Aedes aegypti (the "Dengue mosquito") should be eradicated from the Americas by releasing genetically-modified mosquitoes carrying self-perpetuating lethal mutations.

Comment by XFrequentist on Human factors research seems very relevant to rationality · 2015-06-26T19:20:53.678Z · LW · GW

I've delved into this literature a bit while researching a (currently shelved) paper on automation-associated error, and I agree with the title of this post!

Comment by XFrequentist on [LINK] Author's Note 119: Shameless Begging · 2015-03-12T16:53:53.471Z · LW · GW

Your confusion is a clever ruse, but your username gives away your true motives!

Comment by XFrequentist on [LINK] Author's Note 119: Shameless Begging · 2015-03-11T18:21:46.641Z · LW · GW

Self-perpetuating area-wide techniques like mass release of modified mosquitoes with gene-drive systems is very probably a superior answer if the problem is "there are too many (ie any) human-feeding mosquitoes".

If the problem is rather "what is the coolest-sounding possible way to wipe out mosquitoes", then drone-mounted lasers are in the running.

Comment by XFrequentist on Comments on "When Bayesian Inference Shatters"? · 2015-01-08T05:18:25.802Z · LW · GW

I call forth the mighty Cyan!

Comment by XFrequentist on Non-obvious skills with highly measurable progress? · 2015-01-04T22:11:49.193Z · LW · GW

I credit an undergrad summer job in door-to-door sales for moving my social skills from "terrible" to "good". For that particular job we literally had a points system that was visible to everyone in the office (and determined incentives like fully-paid vacations abroad), and you'd sell enough on a daily basis that you knew roughly how you were doing (ie 5 sales was a decent day, 10 outstanding, 2 bad, out of perhaps 100 interactions), so it was a near-perfect training ground.

Comment by XFrequentist on Harper's Magazine article on LW/MIRI/CFAR and Ethereum · 2014-12-16T18:41:06.451Z · LW · GW

I know who this is. If he doesn't out himself I'll PM you with contact info.

Comment by XFrequentist on Fighting Mosquitos · 2014-11-25T15:20:26.155Z · LW · GW

Just some epistemic hygiene: Janet Fang is a journalist, this quote is from a (good) non-scientific article, and the basis for this statement is a collection of (mostly expert) opinions.

I happen to share this opinion, but I don't think this quote should be given very much weight in anyone's risk evaluation.

Comment by XFrequentist on Fighting Mosquitos · 2014-11-25T15:16:27.817Z · LW · GW

One issue is the same intervention doesn't necessarily affect both. For example, where I live West Nile virus is transmitted primarily by Culex pippiens mosquitoes, while the most abundant nuisance mosquito is Ochlerotatus stimulans.

Controlling one species will not greatly affect the other (they breed in radically different conditions). It's not a matter of scaling up operations; you need an entirely different strategy, with commensurate increase in operating costs, complexity, potential failure points, etc etc.

Give me unlimited resources and global remit and I'll take them all out, absent this prioritisation becomes necessary.

Comment by XFrequentist on The "best" mathematically-informed topics? · 2014-11-15T19:30:41.230Z · LW · GW

[Hey, I thought I was the token epidemiologist! ;) ]

I largely agree with Anders' comment (leave Pearl be for now; it's a difficult book), but there are some interesting non-causal mathy epidemiology topics that might suit your needs.

Concretely: study networks. Specifically, pick up the book Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World (or download the free pdf, or take the free MOOC).

It presents a smooth slope of increasing mathematical sophistication (assuming only basic high school math at the outset), and is endlessly interesting as it gently builds and extends concepts. It eventually touches many of the topics you've indicated interest in (game theory, voting, epidemic dynamics, etc), giving you some powerful mathematical tools to reason with. Advanced sections are clearly marked as such, and can be passed over without losing coherence.

And hey, if the math in the advanced sections frustrates your understanding... that's basically what you've said you want!

Comment by XFrequentist on A discussion of heroic responsibility · 2014-10-30T04:15:54.983Z · LW · GW

Ooh ooh, do mine!

Comment by XFrequentist on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey · 2014-10-25T04:13:28.849Z · LW · GW

Done did the survey!

Comment by XFrequentist on Fighting Mosquitos · 2014-10-17T17:14:08.784Z · LW · GW

I don't see any reason to only target those that transmit diseases. Target ones that are simply annoying because they string the average person, gives everyone a clear reason to support the proposal.

This is a good point - in fact, a distinction is usually drawn between "nuisance" and "disease vector" mosquito control (they can involve very different operations), and I've heard very knowledgeable people say that the only way to maintain public support for a control program is if there's a strong nuisance component. You may be right on this, but note that I never contended otherwise (albopictus is both an efficient disease vector and a major nuisance).

If you have to continue paying a few million each year to keep the mosquito population near zero that's no problem for any industrialized country if there's public will.

Oh sure, but that's not eradication! There are lots of mosquito population suppression programs around the world, many paid for with public funds (particularly in areas with lots of outdoor tourism and a strong local business influence in municipal politics). Programs like this work at even vastly sub-country spatial scales, but as you say you need to keep doing them year in year out. Part of the beauty of eradication is no longer needing ongoing investment.

Don't worry as far as biological imprecision goes. [...] I would certainly invest the necessary effort [...]

Good!

According to the map on Wikipedia we don't have any aedes albopictus in Germany but 4 neighboring countries have them. That means that it's not a valid target for German activism. Otherwise do you disagree with that map?

Well, species distribution maps are notoriously tricky to get right, but suppose it's right. The beauty of albopictus as a target is it's a highly invasive species, happy to set up shop anywhere a little pot of water with some organic residue can be found (and perhaps an annual mean temperature >11C, though I'm not convinced by the data on this). I would imagine Germany is at risk of invasion, which is an awesome opportunity for activism - (almost) no one minds local eradication of an invasive species!

Comment by XFrequentist on Fighting Mosquitos · 2014-10-17T03:41:51.810Z · LW · GW

Sleeping sickness is transmitted by the Tsetse fly, which is not a mosquito. Even ignoring this I'm unsure what the effect on sleeping sickness has to do with environmental impact - this is the target effect of the program, no?

Comment by XFrequentist on Fighting Mosquitos · 2014-10-17T03:35:40.003Z · LW · GW

(Please take this as constructive, as I very much want to see the global eradication of biting mosquitoes occur.)

I think this specific proposal (an online petition/Facebook activism) is naive and likely counter-productive. I feel like I should be docked several thousand Initiative Points for saying this, but please don't do as you propose.

For starters, you cannot say "mosquitoes" - as others have pointed out, there are ~3500 separate mosquito species, only ~100 bite humans, and only several dozen transmit disease. Narrowness is a virtue here, and this level of biological imprecision could alienate potential allies who will take you as reckless and uninformed.

(A related point is that the most promising interventions for eradication (like the sterile insect technique) are species specific, so it makes sense to start with the highest-priority target. Because [complex chain of reasoning to fill in later], I think aedes albopictus is likely the best bet.)

Also, I don't think country-level eradication plans (even for a single species) have the slightest chance of working long-term due to persistent re-invasion risk. A continent- or hemisphere-scale plan would be required, which comes with the commensurate coordination problems, and is much less likely to be aided by petition.

Additionally, don't underestimate the potential for politicization of such a program. Raising it to the level of public awareness without a good communication plan is premature.

Finally, many folks have entirely reasonable concerns about downstream effects that really do deserve sober analysis. I think it's likely that effects on other species or ecosystem stability will be negligible (or at least worth the cost), but that's an empirical question that deserves serious attention. As someone else pointed out, this is probably the key objection to overcome, so you might want to invest some effort in alleviating it upfront.

(All that said, it's awesome that you're thinking about this seriously. The eradication proposal is sort of my favourite idea ever, so please PM me if you'd like to discuss it further offline.)

Comment by XFrequentist on Meetup : Toronto: Meet Malo from MIRI · 2014-06-11T14:28:05.493Z · LW · GW

That's extremely generous of you!

Comment by XFrequentist on LessWrong as social catalyst · 2014-04-29T00:43:59.598Z · LW · GW

Me too!

Comment by XFrequentist on Community overview and resources for modern Less Wrong meetup organisers · 2014-04-06T17:45:02.222Z · LW · GW

Nice, upvoted.

Are you planning to update this post with NY, Austin, etc, or are these to be separate posts?

Aside: "salon)" maps neatly to a type of semi-social semi-structured meetup that seems to arise pretty often. Glad to have a name for it, thanks!

Comment by XFrequentist on Open Thread: March 4 - 10 · 2014-03-04T15:38:20.507Z · LW · GW

I'm experiencing this now (with about six months still on the clock). Anything you wish you'd implemented pre-kids?

Comment by XFrequentist on [RESCHEDULED] NYC Rationality Megameetup and Unconference: 4/5 - 4/6 · 2014-02-18T14:35:37.839Z · LW · GW

Me, 95%

Comment by XFrequentist on Find a study partner · 2014-01-24T18:35:56.085Z · LW · GW

That's currently sitting on my desk, staring at me suggestively.

I've got borderline too much stuff on the go right now, but depending on what you're looking for in a partner I might be interested. Just FYI, I don't believe this book contains any exercises (although we could work through the examples).

If you're willing to wait until March to start, I'm definitely interested!

Comment by XFrequentist on Plan while your ugh field is down · 2014-01-23T19:05:34.497Z · LW · GW

Well, I didn't deliberately disassociate myself from the situation, I was just structurally barred from action.

I guess if "clone" is "Tuesday me" then your description is otherwise a decent abstraction.

Is this a known technique? It sounds useful, kind of Stanovich-ey.

Comment by XFrequentist on [Link] Good Judgment Project, Season Three · 2013-12-03T16:59:31.867Z · LW · GW

Same story for me this season. Check out SciCast, I have much higher hopes.

Comment by XFrequentist on Useful Habits Repository · 2013-09-04T15:30:13.044Z · LW · GW

Thanks! I liked your article a great deal.

Comment by XFrequentist on Useful Habits Repository · 2013-09-04T15:28:41.584Z · LW · GW

One useful thing is to start with the tinyest habit possible, and not worry about optimality for the habit forming period.

Yup. The Tiny Habits program I linked in the post is built around this approach. 2 seconds rather than 2 minutes, but same idea.