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Anna Gajdova
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Apply to ESPR & PAIR, Rationality and AI Camps for Ages 16-21
Anna Gajdova1y21

Hopefully before the end of the month! More than a half of the applications were submitted only over the weekend, so there's a lot to evaluate.

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Why do we enjoy music?
Answer by Anna GajdovaMay 14, 2024158

You might enjoy Kevin Simler's review of Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution. It's a beautifully written essay offering some speculative and surprising answers I don't want to spoil. 

Re: predictive error explanation: You might say that a good music piece needs the right balance of familiarity, emotional impact and surprise even when you are listening to it on repeat. 

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My techno-optimism [By Vitalik Buterin]
Anna Gajdova2y50

Bostrom was trying to bait controversy to get podcast views

What's this referring to? 

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Your Dog is Even Smarter Than You Think
Anna Gajdova4y110

From my experience, dog owners and people in general tend to see human-like patterns in dog behavior even when more simple explanations ("looking at the world through dog's eyes") have better predictive power.

As many dog owners would tell, dogs learn how to show their needs (staring at a door to be let outside, bringing a leash when they want to go for a walk, or a toy when they want to play, etc.). I find it pretty impressive that Bunny learned to communicate her needs through the board, but from what I've seen, I don't really think there's much evidence for some of the complex behaviour this post and the owner suggested there is.

I think that she learned which words or parts of the board to use in specific contexts (questions about time and place, mirror) but I don't it shows she can tell time or recognize herself in the mirror (AFAIK, no dog can do that). On the other hand, I think that she can somewhat describe the world around her and I'm really curious what is the extent of this ability.

A lot of the behavior from the videos (eg. the negotiations) reminds me of a dog training technique when you let the dog try things and reward them when they do the thing you want. Dogs can get pretty creative this way and can generate novel behavior (which can be "shaped" into a more complex one). This way, Bunny learns sequences of words that generate amusement or other positive feedback (eg. the poop conversation).

Also, Bunny and her owner have a very strong bond and there are definitely many nonverbal cues happening.

That being said, I updated my model of dog cognitive skills and how can it be tested. I'm most excited about testing the ability to generalize and I expect I'll look into it further.

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36Announcing EXP: Experimental Summer Workshop on Collective Cognition
4mo
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4[ages 16-21] Apply to PAIR & ESPR, Summer AI & Rationality Programs
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48Demis Hassabis and Geoffrey Hinton Awarded Nobel Prizes
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58Apply to ESPR & PAIR, Rationality and AI Camps for Ages 16-21
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18ASPR & WARP: Rationality Camps for Teens in Taiwan and Oxford
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42Apply now to rationality camps: ESPR & PAIR - new Program on AI and Reasoning (ages 16-20)
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25Rationality camps in Oxford for 16-20 yo: Apply by June 12th
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7PIBBSS Fellowship: Bounty for Referrals & Deadline Extension
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14Epistea Workshop Series: Epistemics Workshop, May 2020, UK
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50Epistea Summer Experiment (ESE)
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