Duncan

Karma: 168

Duncan Feb 6, 2013, 2:31 PM
0 points
in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Rationality when it’s somewhat hard
Do you have any suggestions on how to limit this? I find meetings often meander from someone’s pet issue to trivial / irrelevant details while the important broader topic withers and dies despite the meeting running 2-3x longer than planned.

In meetings where I have some control, I try to keep people on topic, but it’s quite hard. In meetings where I’m the ‘worker bee’ it’s often hopeless (don’t want to rub the boss the wrong way).

Duncan Feb 6, 2013, 2:23 PM
20 points
on: How to offend a rationalist (who hasn’t thought about it yet): a life lesson
“Sorry if it offends you, I just don’t think in general that you should apply this stuff to society. Like… no.”

Let me translate: “You should do what I say because I said so.” This is an attempt to overpower you and is quite common. Anyone who insists that you accept their belief without logical justification is simply demanding that you do what they say because they say so. My response, to people who can be reasoned with, is often just to point this out and point out that it is extremely offensive. If they cannot be reasoned with then you just have to play the political game humans have been playing for ages.
What links here?
- JenniferRM's comment on How to offend a rationalist (who hasn’t thought about it yet): a life lesson by mszegedy (Feb 6, 2013, 6:53 PM; 15 points)

Duncan Jan 31, 2013, 6:15 PM
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
I agree that they should uphold strict standards for numerous reasons. That doesn’t prevent CFAR from discussing potential benefits (and side effects) of different drugs (caffeine, aspirin, modafinil, etc.). They could also recommend discussing such things with a person’s doctor as well as what criteria are used to prescribe such drugs (they might already for all I know).

Duncan Jan 31, 2013, 5:08 PM
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
Ah, I thought it was an over the counter drug.

Duncan Jan 31, 2013, 3:07 PM
2 points
in reply to: Kevin’s comment on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
I’m curious as to why caffiene wasn’t sufficient, but also why modafinil would offend people?

What about trying bright lighting?: http://lesswrong.com/lw/gdl/my_simple_hack_for_increased_alertness_and/

Duncan Jan 31, 2013, 3:00 PM
4 points
on: Thoughts on the January CFAR workshop
I’m glad to hear it is working well and is well received!

Once there has been some experience running these workshops I really hope there is something that CFAR can design for meetup groups to try / implement and/or an online version.

Is there a CFAR webpage that covers this particular workshop and how it went?

Duncan Jan 28, 2013, 9:48 PM
12 points
in reply to: Mestroyer’s comment on: Isolated AI with no chat whatsoever
It is useful to consider because if AI isn’t safe when contained to the best of our ability then no method reliant on AI containment is safe (i.e., chat boxing and all the other possibilities).

Duncan Jan 28, 2013, 9:26 PM
3 points
on: [LINK] NYT Article about Existential Risk from AI
My draft attempt at a comment. Please suggest edits before I submit it.:

The AI risk problem has been around for a while now, but no one in a position of wealth, power, or authority seems to notice (unless it is all kept secret). If you don’t believe AI is a risk or even possible consider this. We ALREADY have more computational power available than a human brain. At some point, sooner rather than later, we will be able to simulate a human brain. Just imagine what you could do if you had perfect memory, thought 10x, 100x, 1,000,000x faster than anyone else, could compute math equations perfectly in an instant, etc. No one on this planet could compete with you and with a little time no one could stop you (and that is just a crude brain simulation).

Here are two websites that go into much greater detail about the problem:

AI Risk & Friendly AI Research: http://singularity.org/research/ http://singularity.org/what-we-do/

Facing the Singulatiry: http://facingthesingularity.com/2012/ai-the-problem-with-solutions/

Duncan Jan 25, 2013, 6:52 AM
−2 points
on: Cryonics priors
“1. Life is better than death. For any given finite lifespan, I’d prefer a longer one, at least within the bounds of numbers I can reasonably contemplate.”

Have you included estimates of possible negative utilities? One thing we can count on is that if you are revived you will certainly be at the mercy of whatever revived you. How do you estimate the probability that what wakes you will be friendly? Is the chance at eternal life worth the risk of eternal suffering?

Duncan Jan 24, 2013, 3:52 PM
2 points
on: Meetup : Berkeley: CFAR focus group
I think the CFAR is a great idea with tons of potential so I’m curious if there are any updates on how the meetup went and what sorts of things were suggested?

Duncan Jan 24, 2013, 4:09 AM
1 point
on: AI box: AI has one shot at avoiding destruction—what might it say?
I’m confused as to what the point of the gate keeper is. Let us assume (for the sake of argument) everything is ‘safe’ except the gate keeper who may be tricked/convinced/etc. into letting the AI out.
1. If the point of the gate keeper is to keep the AI in the box then why has the gate keeper been given the power to let the AI out? It would be trivial to include ‘AI DESTROYED’ functionality as part of the box.
2. If the gate keeper has been given the power to let the AI out then isn’t the FUNCTION of the gate keeper to decide whether to let the AI out or not?
3. Is the point simply to have a text communication with the AI? If this is the case why bother stipulating that the gate keeper can let the AI out. If humans can be subverted by text there is no need to utilize a built in gate it seems to me.

Duncan Jan 18, 2013, 7:26 PM
8 points
on: My simple hack for increased alertness and improved cognitive functioning: very bright light
With the understanding that I only have a few minutes to check for research data:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1801013

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21298068 - “cognitive response … to light at levels as low as 40 lux, is blue-shifted”

Duncan Apr 20, 2012, 4:10 AM
0 points
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Partial Transcript of the Hanson-Yudkowsky June 2011 Debate
In the context of “what is the minimal amount of information it takes to build a human brain,” I can agree that there is some amount of compressibility in our genome. However, our genome is a lot like spaghetti code where it is very hard to tell what individual bits do and what long range effects a change may have.

Do we know how much of the human genome can definitely be replaced with random code without problem?

In addition, do we know how much information is contained in the structure of a cell? You can’t just put the DNA of our genome in water and expect to get a brain. Our DNA resides in an enormously complex sea of nano machines and structures. You need some combination of both to get a brain.

Honestly, I think the important take away is that there are probably a number of deep or high level insights that we need to figure out. Whether it’s 75 mb, 750 mb, or a petabyte doesn’t really matter if most of that information just describes machine parts or functions (e.g., a screw, a bolt, a wheel, etc.). Simple components often take up a lot of information. Frankly, I think 1 mb containing 1000 deep insights at maximum compression would be far more difficult to comprehend than a petabyte containing loads of parts descriptions and only 10 deep insights.

Duncan Apr 19, 2012, 4:19 PM
1 point
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Partial Transcript of the Hanson-Yudkowsky June 2011 Debate

If a section of DNA is serving a useful purpose, but would be just as useful if it was replaced with a random sequence of the same length, I think it’s fair to call it junk.

Unless this is a standard definition for describing DNA, I do not agree that such DNA is ‘junk’. If the DNA serves a purpose it is not junk. There was a time when it was believed (as many still do) that the nucleus was mostly a disorganized package of DNA and associated ‘stuff’. However, it is becoming increasing clear that it is highly structured and that structure is critical for proper cell regulation including epigenetics.

If it can be shown that outright removal of most of our DNA does not have adverse affects I would agree with the junk description. However, I am not aware that this has been shown in humans (or human cell lines at least).

Duncan Apr 19, 2012, 2:18 PM
3 points
on: Partial Transcript of the Hanson-Yudkowsky June 2011 Debate

If you actually look at the genome, we’ve got about 30,000 genes in here. Most of our 750 megabytes of DNA is repetitive and almost certainly junk, as best we understand it.

This is false. Just because we do not know what role a lot of DNA performs does not mean it is ‘almost certainly junk’. There is far more DNA that is critical than just the 30,000 gene coding regions. You also have: genetic switches, regulation of gene expression, transcription factor binding sites, operators, enhancers, splice sites, DNA packaging sites, etc. Even in cases where the DNA isn’t currently ‘in use’ that DNA may be critical to the ongoing stability of our genome over multiple generations or have other unknown functions.

Duncan Apr 19, 2012, 1:58 PM
2 points
in reply to: [deleted]’s comment on: [link]Mass replication of Psychology articles planed.
I would bet this is totally impractical for most studies. In the medical sciences the cost is prohibitive and for many other studies you need permission to experiment on organisms (especially hard when humans or human tissues are involved). Perhaps it would be easier for some of the soft sciences, but even psychology studies often work with human subjects and that would require non-trivial approval.

Duncan Apr 18, 2012, 8:50 PM
6 points
on: [link]Mass replication of Psychology articles planed.
I look forward to the results of this study. Quite frankly, most soft science fields could use this sort of scrutiny. I’d also love to see how reproducible the studies done by medical doctors (as opposed to research scientists) are. Quite frankly, even the hard sciences have a lot of publications with problems, however, these erroneous results, especially if they are important to current topics of interest, are relatively quickly discovered since other labs often need to reproduce the results before moving forward.

I would add one caution. Failure to replicate an article’s results does not necessarily mean the results are wrong. It could simply mean the group trying to reproduce the results had any number of other problems.

Duncan Apr 16, 2012, 5:05 PM
0 points
on: How does long-term use of caffeine affect productivity?
Long term caffeine tolerance can be problematic. To combat this problem, every 2-4 months I stop taking caffeine for about 2 weeks (carefully planned for less hectic weeks). In my experience and that of at least one other colleague this method significantly lowers and possibly removes the caffeine tolerance. Two people does not make a study, but if you need to combat caffeine tolerance it may be worth a try.

Duncan Mar 28, 2012, 4:56 AM
0 points
in reply to: Rejoyce’s comment on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12
How do you propose organizing a ‘master list’ of solutions, relevant plot pieces, etc. given the current forum format? Some people have made some lists, but they are often quickly buried beneath other comments. I’m also not familiar enough with how things work to know if a post can be edited days after it has been posted. One obvious solution is that a HPMOR reader who likes making webpages puts up wiki page for this. Can this be done on Lesswrong.com?

Duncan Mar 28, 2012, 4:31 AM
1 point
on: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Author Notes, Chp. 81
This makes me worry that the actual chapter might’ve come as an anticlimax, especially with so many creative >suggestions that didn’t get used. I shall poll the Less Wrong discussants and see how they felt before I decide whether >to do this again. This was actually intended as a dry run for a later, serious “Solve this or the story ends sadly” puzzle – >like I used in Part 5 of my earlier story Three Worlds Collide—but I’ll have to take the current outcome into account when >deciding whether to go through with that.

Let me argue that this chapter was in no way an anticlimax:
- We had no way to know which solution Harry might have come up with or picked (I like the hat trick still even though I figured that was not likely the solution of choice).
- Neither Harry nor Eliezer are omniscient
- Harry was under a lot of time pressure and had less information to work with than the readers
- There is a lot of ‘motivation’ to keep the story interesting which limits the available solution space (i.e., any solution that results in a terrible story is not really an option)
- A lot of entertainment is derived from ‘watching’ HOW things play out. History, movies, fiction, etc. are interesting to me for this reason and not because the main character did everything flawlessly.
- If Eliezer does want to do a puzzle plot piece I strongly recommend accounting for fact that many of us read this story to relax and do NOT exercise our full investigative powers on solving story problems as that involves a lot of boring (for me at least) mundane work when done properly.