BrandonReinhart

Replying toMIRI's 2015 Winter Fundraiser!

MIRI's 2015 Winter Fundraiser!

Donation sent.

I've been very impressed with MIRI's output this year, to the extent I am able to be a judge. I don't have the domain specific ability to evaluate the papers, but there is a sustained frequency of material being produced. I've also read much of the thinking around VAT, related open problems, definition of concepts like foreseen difficulties... the language and framework for carving up the AI safety problem has really moved forward.

Replying toLessWrong 2.0

BrandonReinhart10y

LessWrong 2.0

Well I totally missed the diaspora. I read star slate codex (but not the comments) and had no idea people are posting things in other places. It surprises me that it even has a name "rationalist diaspora." It seemed to me that people ran out of things to say or the booster rocket thing had played itself out. This is probably because I don't read Discussion, only Main and as Main received fewer posts I stopped coming to Less Wrong. As "meet up in area X" took over the stream of content I unsubscribed from my CSS reader. Over the past few years the feeling of a community completely evaporated for me. Good to hear that there is something going on somewhere, but it still isn't clear where that is. So archiving LW and embracing the diaspora to me means so long and thanks for all the fish.

Replying toWhy startup founders have mood swings (and why they may have uses)

BrandonReinhart10y

Why startup founders have mood swings (and why they may have uses)

When you’re “up,” your current strategy is often weirdly entangled with your overall sense of resolve and commitment—we sometimes have a hard time critically and objectively evaluating parts C, D, and J because flaws in C, D, and J would threaten the whole edifice.

Aside 1: I run into many developers who aren't able to separate their idea from their identity. It tends to make them worse at customer and product oriented thinking. In a high bandwidth collaborative environment, it leads to an assortment of problems. They might not suggest an idea, because they think the group will shoot it down and they will be perceived as a generator of poor ideas.... (read more)

Replying toTake the EA survey, help the EA movement grow and potentially win $250 to your favorite charity

BrandonReinhart10y

Take the EA survey, help the EA movement grow and potentially win $250 to your favorite charity

I've always thought that "if I were to give, I should maximize the effectiveness of that giving" but I did not give much nor consider myself an EA. I had a slight tinge of "not sure if EA is a thing I should advocate or adopt." I had the impression that my set of beliefs probably didn't cross over with EAs and I needed to learn more about where those gaps were and why they existed.

Recently through Robert Wiblin's facebook have encountered more interesting arguments and content in EA. I had no concrete beliefs about EA, only vague impressions (not having had much time to research it in depth in the past).... (read more)

Replying toWhole Brain Emulation: Looking At Progress On C. elgans

BrandonReinhart10y

Whole Brain Emulation: Looking At Progress On C. elgans

I'm curious about the same thing as [deleted].

Replying toCourse recommendations for Friendliness researchers

BrandonReinhart13y

Course recommendations for Friendliness researchers

Furthermore, a hard to use text may be significantly less hard to use in the classroom where you have peers, teachers, and other forms of guidance to help digest the material. Recommendations for specialists working at home or outside a classroom might not be the same as the recommendations you would give to someone taking a particular class at Berkeley or some other environment where those resources are available.

A flat out bad textbook might seem really good when it is something else such as the teacher, the method, or the support that makes the book work.

Replying toFirewalling the Optimal from the Rational

BrandonReinhart13y

Firewalling the Optimal from the Rational

"A directed search of the space of diet configurations" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Steam Greenlight

BrandonReinhart

14y

I know there is interest among this community in building rationality oriented games as teaching tools. Today we announced Steam Greenlight. We're essentially turning the game approval process over to the community. It may be possible for quality rationality games produced by the Less Wrong community to create enough gamer-community interest to get placed on Steam for distribution.

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight

I feel that this creates a better opportunity for rationality games as teaching tools to find broad distribution than if it had to go through the Steam product review team. Ultimately, it shifts the responsibility onto the games' creators and their community to create and drive interest for the product and it removes our limited decision making from the system.

I'm posting this here for awareness of this possible avenue toward reaching a broader audience.

Consider a robot vacuum.

BrandonReinhart

14y

My wife and I recently acquired a robot vacuum. It has turned out to be a really great time-saving and life-improving investment. Some simple math suggests it may be worth you also considering buying one.

Let's say you spend 20 minutes a week vacuuming. That's about 17 hours of vacuuming per year. The Neato XV-11 costs about $350 bucks with basic shipping. For the purposes of our Fermi calculation we will say that your time spent vacuuming with the robot is zero. This is close to true. See below for exceptions.

At $350, if you value an hour of your time at more than about $20 you would be better off buying the robot... (read 596 more words →)

Replying toProblematic Problems for TDT

BrandonReinhart14y

Problematic Problems for TDT

Thanks for this. I hadn't seen someone pseudocode this out before. This helps illustrate that interesting problems lie in the scope above (callers to tdt_uility() etc) and below (implementation of tdt() etc).

I wonder if there is a rationality exercise in 'write pseudocode for problem descriptions, explore the callers and implementations'.

Replying toMinicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness: May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28

BrandonReinhart14y

Minicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness: May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28

Doh, I have no idea why my hands type c-y-r instead of c-r-y, thanks.

Replying toMinicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness: May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28

BrandonReinhart14y

Minicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness: May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28

Metaphysical terminology is a huge bag of stupid and abstraction, but what I mean by mysticism is something like 'characteristic of a metaphysical belief system.' The mysticism tag tells me that a concept is positing extra facts about how the world works in a way that isn't consistent with my more fundamental, empirical beliefs.

So in my mind I have 'WARNING!' tags (intentionally) attached to mysticism. So when I see something that has the mysticism tag attached to it, I approach cautiously and with a big stick. Or to save time or avoid the risk of being eaten I often don't approach at all.

If I find that I have a metaphysical belief or... (read more)

SIAI - An Examination

BrandonReinhart

15y

12/13/2011 - A 2011 update with data from the 2010 fiscal year is in progress. Should be done by the end of the week or sooner.

Disclaimer

I am not affiliated with the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
I have not donated to the SIAI prior to writing this.
I made this pledge prior to writing this document.

Notes

Images are now hosted on LessWrong.com.
The 2010 Form 990 data will be available later this month.
It is not my intent to propagate misinformation. Errors will be corrected as soon as they are identified.

Introduction

Acting on gwern's suggestion in his Girl Scout Cookie analysis, I decided to look at SIAI funding. After reading about the Visiting Fellows Program and more recently the Rationality... (read 3763 more words →)

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Seattle, WA - Less Wrong Meetup - Sunday February 20th, 2:00 PM

BrandonReinhart

15y

Hello Seattle area Less Wrongers! I know there has been some loose discussion about a Seattle area meet-up, but as far as I know we have never pulled the trigger. Now is the time!

Let's meet up on Sunday, Feb 20th, at 2:00 PM at the Elysian Pub!

- Why the Elysian? I thought this was a good compromise location for west & east siders. Looks farther away from university than I thought. I know that other types of meet-ups have gone there and done well. Suggestions for other pubs near the university would be great, but barring a superior suggestion we'll do it here.

- Why a Sunday afternoon? People are unlikely to have... (read more)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

SIAI - An Examination

Consider a robot vacuum.

Steam Greenlight

Seattle, WA - Less Wrong Meetup - Sunday February 20th, 2:00 PM

BrandonReinhart

Steam Greenlight

Consider a robot vacuum.

SIAI - An Examination

Seattle, WA - Less Wrong Meetup - Sunday February 20th, 2:00 PM

BrandonReinhart

SIAI - An Examination

Consider a robot vacuum.

Steam Greenlight

Seattle, WA - Less Wrong Meetup - Sunday February 20th, 2:00 PM

BrandonReinhart

Steam Greenlight

Consider a robot vacuum.

SIAI - An Examination

Seattle, WA - Less Wrong Meetup - Sunday February 20th, 2:00 PM

Notes

Introduction