Hi, I’m new here, so I’m not quite familiar with all the ideas here. However, I am a young mathematician who has some familiarity with how mathematical theories are developed.
Highly intelligent, and especially skilled in maths, probably at the IMO medal-winning level. (FAI team members will need to create lots of new math during the course of the FAI research initiative.)
It might be much cheaper to accept more average mathematicians who meet the other criteria. Generally, to build a new theory, you’ll need a few people who can come up with lots of creative ideas, and lots of people who are capable of understanding the ideas, and then taking those ideas and building them into a fleshed out theory. Many mathematicians accept that they are of the second type, and work towards developing a theory to the point where a new creative type can clearly see what new ideas are needed.
Trustworthy. (Most FAI work is not “Friendliness theory” but instead AI architectures work that could be made more dangerous if released to a wider community that is less concerned with AI safety.)
Shouldn’t this just be a subset of number 5? I’m sure you would rather have someone who would lie to keep AI risk low than someone who would tell the truth no matter what the cost.
Seems likely that the distribution of personalities among math competition winners isn’t the same as the distribution of personalities you’d want in an FAI team.
These contests are a bit like spelling bees. There is some connection between good spelling and good writing, but the winner of the state spelling bee does not necessarily have the talent to become a good writer, and some fine writers are not good spellers.
Under ideal conditions, maybe SI would identify “safe” problems that seemed representative of the problem space as a whole and farm these problems out (in a way similar to decision theory has been farmed out some to Less Wrong), inviting the best performers on the safe problems to work on more dangerous problems.
Or SI could simply court proven mathematical researchers.
Yeah, that was the analogy I had in mind. I wasn’t sure if people here would be familiar with it though.
And yeah, I agree that math competition winners wouldn’t have the ideal distribution, although it probably wouldn’t hurt to recruit from them as well. Also, I may have some bias here, since I never liked competitions and avoided participating in them. But I agree with the points made in that article.
That seems like a good idea, although it’s hard to know what the problem space looks like without going there. My intuition says that it would be a good idea to try to have a good amount of diversity in whatever team is chosen.
One other issue is that a near precondition for IMO-type recognition is coming from at least a middle class family and having either an immediate family member or early teacher able to recognize and direct that talent. Worse, as these competitions have increased in stature, you have an increasing number of the students pushed by parents and provided regular tutoring and preparation. Those sorts of hothouse personalities would seem to be some of the more risky to put on an FAI team.
Are you sure about this? I don’t know of that many people who did super-well in contests as a result of being tutored from an early age (although I would agree that many that do well in contests took advanced math classes at an early age; however, others did not). Many top-scorers train on their own or in local communities. Now that there are websites like AoPS, it is easier to do well even without a local community, although I agree that being in a better socioeconomic situation is likely to help.
I think we can safely stipulate that there is no universal route to contest success or Luke’s other example of 800 math SATs.
But, I can answer your question that, yes, I’m sure that at least some of the students are receiving supplemental tutoring. Not necessarily contest-focused, but still.
Anecdotally: the two friends I had from undergrad who were IMO medalists (about 10 years ago) had both gone through early math tutoring programs (and both had a parent who was a math professor). All of my undergrad friends who had 800 math SAT had either received tutoring or had their parents buy them study materials (most of them did not look back fondly on the experience).
Remember, for any of these tests, there’s a point where even a small amount of training to the test overwhelms a good deal of talent. Familiarity with problem types, patterns, etc can vastly improve performance.
I have no way to evaluate the scope of your restrictions on doing “super-well” or the particular that the tutoring start at an “early age” (although at least one of the anecdotal IMO cases did a Kumon-type program that started at pre-school).
Are there some people who don’t follow that route? Certainly. However, I do think that it’s important to be aware of other factors that may be present.
Hi, I’m new here, so I’m not quite familiar with all the ideas here. However, I am a young mathematician who has some familiarity with how mathematical theories are developed.
It might be much cheaper to accept more average mathematicians who meet the other criteria. Generally, to build a new theory, you’ll need a few people who can come up with lots of creative ideas, and lots of people who are capable of understanding the ideas, and then taking those ideas and building them into a fleshed out theory. Many mathematicians accept that they are of the second type, and work towards developing a theory to the point where a new creative type can clearly see what new ideas are needed.
Shouldn’t this just be a subset of number 5? I’m sure you would rather have someone who would lie to keep AI risk low than someone who would tell the truth no matter what the cost.
On mathematician personalities:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2z7/draft_three_intellectual_temperaments_birds_frogs/
Seems likely that the distribution of personalities among math competition winners isn’t the same as the distribution of personalities you’d want in an FAI team.
More potential problems with math competitions. Quote by a Fields medalist:
Under ideal conditions, maybe SI would identify “safe” problems that seemed representative of the problem space as a whole and farm these problems out (in a way similar to decision theory has been farmed out some to Less Wrong), inviting the best performers on the safe problems to work on more dangerous problems.
Or SI could simply court proven mathematical researchers.
It should be noted that I’m not a mathematician.
Yeah, that was the analogy I had in mind. I wasn’t sure if people here would be familiar with it though.
And yeah, I agree that math competition winners wouldn’t have the ideal distribution, although it probably wouldn’t hurt to recruit from them as well. Also, I may have some bias here, since I never liked competitions and avoided participating in them. But I agree with the points made in that article.
That seems like a good idea, although it’s hard to know what the problem space looks like without going there. My intuition says that it would be a good idea to try to have a good amount of diversity in whatever team is chosen.
One other issue is that a near precondition for IMO-type recognition is coming from at least a middle class family and having either an immediate family member or early teacher able to recognize and direct that talent. Worse, as these competitions have increased in stature, you have an increasing number of the students pushed by parents and provided regular tutoring and preparation. Those sorts of hothouse personalities would seem to be some of the more risky to put on an FAI team.
Are you sure about this? I don’t know of that many people who did super-well in contests as a result of being tutored from an early age (although I would agree that many that do well in contests took advanced math classes at an early age; however, others did not). Many top-scorers train on their own or in local communities. Now that there are websites like AoPS, it is easier to do well even without a local community, although I agree that being in a better socioeconomic situation is likely to help.
I think we can safely stipulate that there is no universal route to contest success or Luke’s other example of 800 math SATs.
But, I can answer your question that, yes, I’m sure that at least some of the students are receiving supplemental tutoring. Not necessarily contest-focused, but still.
Anecdotally: the two friends I had from undergrad who were IMO medalists (about 10 years ago) had both gone through early math tutoring programs (and both had a parent who was a math professor). All of my undergrad friends who had 800 math SAT had either received tutoring or had their parents buy them study materials (most of them did not look back fondly on the experience).
Remember, for any of these tests, there’s a point where even a small amount of training to the test overwhelms a good deal of talent. Familiarity with problem types, patterns, etc can vastly improve performance.
I have no way to evaluate the scope of your restrictions on doing “super-well” or the particular that the tutoring start at an “early age” (although at least one of the anecdotal IMO cases did a Kumon-type program that started at pre-school).
Are there some people who don’t follow that route? Certainly. However, I do think that it’s important to be aware of other factors that may be present.