I've just started my journey toward a PhD in machine learning. My first steps are in computer vision. But my long term goal is to be able to help in the effort to solve the alignment problem and produce Friendly AI before any non-friendly alternatives emerge. What sort of trajectory should I aim for with my research? What sort of post-PhD jobs should I be aiming for? Who should I be making contacts with as I go?
I've just started my journey toward a PhD in machine learning. My first steps are in computer vision. But my long term goal is to be able to help in the effort to solve the alignment problem and produce Friendly AI before any non-friendly alternatives emerge. What sort of trajectory...
I was recently reading a blog here, that referenced a paper done in 1999 by Baba Shiv and Alex Fedorikhin (Heart and Mind in Conflict: The Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making). In it, volunteers are asked to memorise short or long numbers and then asked to...
I wrote the following on my blog last night. I thought that I'd run it past an intelligent audience. Note that what I have referred to as an idea is what we here at lesswrong would call a 'belief'. I changed the name to remove any strange foggy baggage that...
Hi all, This is a follow-up to a previous post of mine - 'A digitized belief network?'. I have now created a discussion group for anyone who wants to discuss the problems involved in creating a digital representation of a human's beliefs. Anyone who is interested in joining us can...
Hello to all, Like the rest of you, I'm an aspiring rationalist. I'm also a software engineer. I design software solutions automatically. It's the first place my mind goes when thinking about a problem. Today's problem is the fact that our beliefs all rest on beliefs that rest on beliefs....
I've just started my journey toward a PhD in machine learning. My first steps are in computer vision. But my long term goal is to be able to help in the effort to solve the alignment problem and produce Friendly AI before any non-friendly alternatives emerge.
What sort of trajectory should I aim for with my research? What sort of post-PhD jobs should I be aiming for? Who should I be making contacts with as I go?
Wow. I see now what EY meant when he said it wasn't fair to criticize HPMOR as sexist before it was done. I finished reading the last chapter with the feeling that this was actually an origin story for Hermione.
Brin seems to equate 'rational' with 'non-violent'. They're not always the same thing.
Why is Harry special? His sleep cycle? Anybody can use a time turner.
In the text, they made it clear that the vow was based on the meaning of the words and not the words itself. V said that it was important that everyone understood the meaning.
Harry would not consider star lifting or terraforming or the creation of a virtual world at the expense of the actual one to be 'destroying the world'. He would considering 'destroying the world' to mean 'the ending of all life' or somesuch.
Did Harry time-turn the day Hermione died, and, if so, what did he do?
Yes. When he went into the room with Hermione's body, he turned the time turner and transfigured her body into a ring while also transfiguring something else (presumably something very small) into a copy of Hermione's body. He then hid from his past self and left the room just after his past self entered. After the transfiguration wore off, the 'body' dissapeared.
In canon, the map was made by Harry's dad and his three friends.
QuirrelMort's wand is in Quirrel's hand.
Harry went to where Quirrell lay, and straightened out the body as best he could, and put Quirrell's wand into his hand.
Voldemorts wand is the one that Harry took.
After rereading, I beleive that Mr White is Lucius Malfoy. Not only is the name an allusion to his hair, he is said to be less useful than he was in the past due to the fact that V will soon rule openly. In the past Lucius was V's puppet in the Wizengamot.
Mr Write then proceeds to sacrifice most of his magic to bind Harry Potter. I suppose with him dead, this doesn't matter.
I remember that part too. I had thought that they had searched all of Harry's things. Upon re-reading the relevant part of Chapter 94, I now realise that they only searched his trunk and mokeskin pouch. If he left it in his bed it would have escaped detection.
I was recently reading a blog here, that referenced a paper done in 1999 by Baba Shiv and Alex Fedorikhin (Heart and Mind in Conflict: The Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making). In it, volunteers are asked to memorise short or long numbers and then asked to chose a snack as a reward. The snack is either fruit or cake. The actual paper seems to go into a lot of details that are irrelevent to the blog post, but doesn't actually seem to contradict anything the blog post says. The result seems to be that those with a higher cognitive load were far more likely to chose the cake than... (read more)
I wrote the following on my blog last night. I thought that I'd run it past an intelligent audience. Note that what I have referred to as an idea is what we here at lesswrong would call a 'belief'. I changed the name to remove any strange foggy baggage that might appear in the heads of potential readers who are not familier with belief vs belief-in-belief and other concepts like that.
What are your thoughts?
... (read 821 more words →)I recently got into a discussion on Facebook that started with an assertion that free-thought/atheism/humanism/etc was no different than the certainties of fundamentalism. But that discussion moved into many topics, one of which is why it should not be controversial to assert that
Hi all,
This is a follow-up to a previous post of mine - 'A digitized belief network?'.
I have now created a discussion group for anyone who wants to discuss the problems involved in creating a digital representation of a human's beliefs. Anyone who is interested in joining us can sign up here.
See you all around the list,
Avi
Hello to all,
Like the rest of you, I'm an aspiring rationalist. I'm also a software engineer. I design software solutions automatically. It's the first place my mind goes when thinking about a problem.
Today's problem is the fact that our beliefs all rest on beliefs that rest on beliefs. Each one has a <100% probability of being correct. Thus, each belief built on it has an even smaller chance of being correct.
When we discover a belief is false (or less dramatically, revise its probability of being true), it propagates to all other beliefs that are wholly or partially based on it. This is an imperfect process and can take a long time (less in rationalists, but still limited by our... (read 179 more words →)
Thanks for your great story. I particularly enjoyed 'Swimming Upstream'.
I'm much earlier in my journey and the milestones are probably different than yours. In Australia, a PhD is 3 years and I don't know if you get much choice on committee selection. As it happens, I haven't even started it yet as I am currently doing an Honours research project to prove my research bona fides.
My first challenge is to find a way to pay for my PhD. In Australia, you can get a salary to do a PhD, but it is 1/4 of my current salary and I have kids to feed. I have a plan to convince my company to... (read more)