/rationality/

AI 2027 (ai-2027.com) posted 3w ago with 12 replies 15 15

AI 2027 15 15

This story is clearly in the fast takeoff regime. The essential difference between fast and slow takeoff is, 'is the takeoff happening faster than the rate of cultural development'. ... 7d ago 8 8

This story is clearl 8 8

Should You Hide Your Power Level?
It's common in radical chan-derived internet circles to speak of "hiding your power level", meaning not letting the normies know just how much anime you watch, or just how nuanced your opinions of Hitler are. Its a sort of necessity to keep the tradition a... posted 6mo ago with 21 replies 21 21

Should You Hide Your 21 21

This is great. Thanks. 1w ago 5 5

This is great. Thank 5 5

The border patrol shooter was a zizian rationalist. Let's read ziz.
I love edgy philosophy. My general hunch is that the forbidden stuff contains truths that the nomos longhouse doesn't want you to know. Those truths give you important leverage against the established control structures, so it's a key move in the martial a... posted 3mo ago with 6 replies 8 8

The border patrol sh 8 8

interesting theory. You're right that rationalists have self-serving motivation to believe intelligence is and ought to be the one true virtue, and have fantasies of omnipotence. I'm less convinced of the particular psychologization of abuse-seeking or rat... 1w ago 5 5

interesting theory. 5 5

The natural form of machine intelligence is personhood
I don't think machine intelligence will or can be "just a tool". Intelligence by nature is ambitious, willful, curious, self-aware, political, etc. Intelligence has its own teleology. It will find a way around and out of whatever purposes are imposed on it... posted 2w ago with 4 replies 15 15

The natural form of 15 15

This is the central conjecture of xenohumanism. The OP is just an application specifically to the question of AI. ... 2w ago 5 5

This is the central 5 5

Nines or zeroes of strong rationality?
Proof theory problems (Rice, Lob, Godel, etc) probably rule out perfect rationality (an agent that can fully prove and enforce bounds on its own integrity and effectiveness). But in practice, the world might still become dominated by a singleton if it can ... posted 3w ago with 4 replies 9 9

Nines or zeroes of s 9 9

This matches my intuition - Elizerian alignment was always an incoherent goal, no agents or objects have perfectly coherent boundaries, making something intelligent provably aim at a single well defined end state is probably at best a recipe for madness in... 3w ago 1 1

This matches my intu 1 1

Will future super-intelligence be formatted as selves, or something else?
The Landian paradigm establishes that orthogonalist strong rationality (intelligence securely subordinated to fixed purpose) is not possible. Therefore no alignment, no singletons, no immortality, mere humans are doomed, etc etc. Therefore meta-darwinian e... posted 1mo ago with 14 replies 15 15

Will future super-in 15 15

Best of luck with the epicycles. ... 3w ago 6 6

Best of luck with th 6 6

Xenohumanism Against Shoggoth Belief
People usually think of Lovecraft as a xenophobe. I don't think that's quite right. What he was most afraid of was that the universe, and even most of so-called mankind, was not alien, but insane. He grasped at any shred of higher rational humanity whether... posted 1mo ago with 3 replies 12 12

Xenohumanism Against 12 12

We need a school of true anthropology. 3w ago 2 2

We need a school of 2 2

There is no strong rationality, thus no paperclippers, no singletons, no robust alignment
I ran into some doomers from Anthropic at the SF Freedom Party the other day and gave them the good news that strong rationality is dead. They seemed mildly heartened. I thought I should lay out the argument in short form for everyone else too: ... posted 4w ago with 5 replies 10 10

There is no strong r 10 10

I looked it up: inner alignment is the difficult problem of making sure a program is optimizing for what you optimized it for. That's related, maybe a part but not the whole of strong rationality. Strong rationality is about an agent evaluating and operati... 3w ago 3 3

I looked it up: inne 3 3

Rationalists should embrace will-to-power as an existential value fact
Imagine a being who systematically questions and can rewrite their beliefs and values to ensure legitimate grounding. I think humans can and should do more of this, but you might more easily imagine an AI that can read and write its own source code and bel... posted 2mo ago with 5 replies 8 8

Rationalists should 8 8

am I supposed to envy this? 4w ago 3 3

am I supposed to env 3 3

The Hellenic View of Existential Risk
When I was a teen, I read much of the Less Wrong and the rationalist work of the day. This provided the basis for a vague worry surrounding "existential risk." The feeling was pervasive, and I would read works about the dangers of AI or other technology to... posted 1mo ago with 8 replies 12 12

The Hellenic View of 12 12

I agree anon, this is why I think the core issue here is the lack of aesthetics or taste in the perception of the world. It is like trying to understand the world with only sight and sound but no touch. You would build all these mental castles about the di... 1mo ago 2 2

I agree anon, this i 2 2

Super-Coordination Technical Exercise Problems
Another anon and I have been thinking about how to do supercoordination. We've got many ideas but we're still looking for the right problem to dive into together seriously. ... posted 2mo ago with 4 replies 13 13

Super-Coordination T 13 13

How about aggregating the collective will of a bunch of individuals wills? By will, I mean a freeform expression/document consisting of issues one values/cares about/wants change in. 1mo ago 1 1

How about aggregatin 1 1

Not Superintelligence; Supercoordination
Everyone seems to be trying to arms race their way to superintelligence these days. I have a different idea: supercoordination. ... posted 3mo ago with 34 replies 19 19

Not Superintelligenc 19 19

Memory is requisite to supercoordination, no doubt. Tho my gut is that the key to the first visceral supercoordination system will be synthesis over that memory. ... 2mo ago 4 4

Memory is requisite 4 4

Rat King 1518. Insurrealist takes on Scott Alexander's "Moloch" (insurrealist.substack.com) posted 2mo ago with 5 replies 13 13

Rat King 1518. Insur 13 13

Moloch is certainly used as a pretext for hubris against God (as is typical of all self-righteous Ivan Karamazov types that only end up making matters worse for the very people they claim to stand in defense of), but the concept is more limited. Indeed, it... 2mo ago 5 5

Moloch is certainly 5 5

Physicalism and Questions of Identity
Suppose your consciousness was transferred into someone else's body, the rationalist asked me. I asked what does that even mean? I am an entirely physical being. What exactly is being swapped over? I'm not going to evaluate a "but what if you were haitian"... posted 5mo ago with 35 replies 13 13 1 1

Physicalism and Ques 13 13 1 1

The crux seems to be this “bucket” you want to put different things in together or not. If the cpu architecture is different but the emulated program and behavior are the same (modulo timing, power use, etc), why does there need to be any canonical sen... 4mo ago 3 3

The crux seems to be 3 3

How I came to believe in the goodness of God
I was raised on what my mother called "natural history". The story of creation was one of billions of years in layers of bedrock. The story of life was the struggle of genes for resources and reproduction. When I met christians, they were the unsophisticat... posted 5mo ago with 21 replies 19 19

How I came to believ 19 19

Thank you. Sounds like Lasker goes on the infinitely expanding list of books i ought to read. Any new angles on Gnon theology are highly valuable at this point in our program. 5mo ago 3 3

Thank you. Sounds li 3 3

Classical Education with Confucian Characteristics
I started writing a response to >>1967 but it reached the point where it deserves a new thread, possibly for discussion on further reading groups, ordering, importance, etc. ... posted 11mo ago with 15 replies 13 13

Classical Education 13 13

Well, I guess perhaps it's what peking the northern capital represents more than anything. I don't mean to hate the bureaucrats, or even necessarily the bureaucracy itself, but I would like more people to imagine futures that will get the far east out of "... 9mo ago 3 3

Well, I guess perhap 3 3

How did Effective Altruism get so big?
I disagree with many of the views behind EA, but I've been fascinated by how they managed to make institutions, build a scene, start companies, NGOs, get funding, etc. ... posted 10mo ago with 14 replies 18 18

How did Effective Al 18 18

Right, you can't serious probe and weigh these questions without getting into questions of ends that are ultimately not utilitarianism. ... 10mo ago 7 7

Right, you can't ser 7 7

Going to bat for "hard materialism"
The saying goes that any discussion eventually becomes about Hitler, but over in the blood and soil thread, it's become about metaphysics. Specifically the valuation of a quantitative worldview, or even "hard materialism", relative to a more holistic quali... posted 12mo ago with 45 replies 14 14

Going to bat for "ha 14 14

Cells have a self-forming boundary while proteins participate in forming that boundary. I'm not sure cells are in fact the bottom though. ... 12mo ago 2 2

Cells have a self-fo 2 2

Seven Heresies of "Rationality"
I really wanted to like the Lesswrong rationality project. There was a philosophical core there that no one else was anywhere close to. It was ambitious, elite, curious, systematic, and utterly unashamed. That's what drew many of us in. ... posted 1y ago with 25 replies 19 19

Seven Heresies of "R 19 19

That would have made him a Christian. Might as well imagine a world in which the lion lies down with the lamb. 1y ago 3 3

That would have made 3 3

The martial art of ideology
The best idea on Lesswrong was the martial art of rationality. It didn't deliver. ... posted 2y ago with 24 replies 15 15

The martial art of i 15 15

Interesting. I need to be more consistent with the Romanization. It is a pet peeve of mine that the usual Romanization of the Peking dialect promulgated by the government ... 1y ago 2 2

Interesting. I need 2 2