tryactions

Background link: Do any AI alignment orgs hire remotely?

Disclaimer: The generator of me writing this post is my own desire for remote AI Alignment opportunities to exist. I have Alignment research in mind while writing this, but similar arguments might apply to other Alignment-related jobs?

This is a post about a capabilities overhang, but not in the usual sense.

The Problem (if there is one)

It seems to me that there's been substantial growth in ways to get involved with Alignment. However, there are very few advertised jobs in Alignment that do not involve moving to specific locations, mostly the Bay Area. I hypothesize that people who might otherwise be productive are dropping out of... (read 986 more words →)

Replying toHow good is spending?

I've got no attachment to the phrase, I meant it in the sense of (From Wikipedia):

In simple terms, a negative externality is anything that causes an indirect cost to individuals.

I think e.g. paying for labor increases the demand for labor, thus increasing the price everyone else pays. That's an indirect cost to them. I didn't intend to make any claims about rights.

Replying toHow good is spending?

I disagree that believing there's a negative externality of production leads to the position you're arguing against -- for instance, I might think the negative externality is very small compared to the positive gains from trade. But I appreciate you pointing out exactly where you disagree with my framing.

Replying toHow good is spending?

The part that is missing from your question is, in a parallel reality where you didn't buy the PS5, how did you spend the extra money

Correct, and intentionally so. This is why I compare to setting the money on fire instead. Maybe I have the wrong framing, but it seems valuable to me to look at the marginal value of a single spending act in isolation. I might do many things with the money (like invest, spend, or donate it in various ways), and it would be interesting to know each of their values independently so I could compare them on even footing.

Maybe the parallel reality we should look at is the

... (read more)

Replying toHow good is spending?

I strong downvoted this, because it doesn't answer the question and instead seems to me to be making a political point.

Insanity Wolf would tell you you're absolutely right.

About what? I don't think I believe any of the things you're arguing against. I'm just wanting to get a quantitative sense, whether it supports or opposes the political point you're trying to make.

In classic microeconomics, both parties benefit from transactions:

Buyers receive a "consumer surplus" measured by the maximum amount they would've been willing to pay versus the actual price.
Sellers receive a "producer surplus" measured by the minimum amount at which they would've been willing to sell versus the actual price.

Let's assume I make a purchase that I will selfishly enjoy but which won't help anyone else, like a PS5.

On one hand: when I make a purchase that I'm happy with, I capture consumer surplus and provide the other party with producer surplus. I also put money in someone else's hands which they can use to make further beneficial trades. If I skipped the trade... (read more)

Replying toHow To Get Into Independent Research On Alignment/Agency

How To Get Into Independent Research On Alignment/Agency

Thanks for this post, these kinds of details seem very useful for anyone wanting to attempt this path!

A worry I have: there are people who long for the imagined lifestyle and self-description of being an independent AI alignment/agency researcher. I would categorize some of my past selves this way.

For many such people, trying to follow this path too enthusiastically would be bad for them -- but they might not have the memetic immunities that protect them from those bad decisions. For instance, their social safety net might be insufficient for the level of financial risk, or the career tradeoffs might be very large. This post is enthusiastic, but I think many people... (read more)

Replying toBest empirical evidence on better than SP500 investment returns?

tryactionsApr 25, 2021*

Best empirical evidence on better than SP500 investment returns?

For buy-and-hold strategies: leverage (borrowing to invest) can be used to increase returns. The Sharpe ratio of a portfolio is a measure of it's risk/reward trade-off; there's a theorem that given a set of assets with fixed known distributions and ability to borrow at the risk-free rate, the Kelly optimal allocation is a leveraged version of the portfolio with highest Sharpe ratio. You can calculate that optimal leverage in various ways.

In practice, we don't know future Sharpe ratios (only the past), we don't have assets with fixed known distributions (to the extent there is a distribution, it likely changes over time), and there's other idiosyncratic risks to leverage.

Using past data, however, is... (read 696 more words →)

Replying toA No-Nonsense Guide to Early Retirement

tryactions5y

A No-Nonsense Guide to Early Retirement

This is mentioned in the "don't screw up" section. By market cap, crypto was 1.7% as big as the world stock market, and Bitcoin 1% as big, so those seem like good starting points -- adjust from there for your desired level of risk vs reward.

IMO, self picked stocks are dumb. You give up diversification benefit for no reason, unless you think you know better than the market (which you don't).

A No-Nonsense Guide to Early Retirement

(Edited 2024-07-18: Looking at this 3.5 years later, there's a few changes I would make.

First, I avoided being too opinionated about asset allocation -- but I now think it's pretty important to have a high % of investments in stock index funds. I would not drop below 80%, except perhaps briefly during the early stages of retirement. I am currently 100% invested in stocks.

Second, I recommended establishing an emergency fund in cash, then paying off all debt above 3-4% interest rate. Interest rates have since increased across the board, and you can earn 5% just sitting money in a high-yield savings account, so this no longer makes sense. I also think it... (read 8139 more words →)

Why do stocks go up?

GAN Discriminators Don't Generalize?

Here are two stories about stocks that I find hard to reconcile:

Stock prices represent the market's best guess at a stock's future price.
Overall, stock prices tend to go up due to advances in technology.

But if stock prices tend to go up due to technology, why isn't that already priced in?

This seems relevant to investment strategy:

The more true #1 is, the less you should expect to beat the market over the long term: lots of other people with skin in the game have worked hard to produce that best guess.
The more true #2 is, the more you might expect to beat the market over the long term: you only need to know which

... (read 395 more words →)