jimrandomh

LessWrong developer, rationalist since the Overcoming Bias days. Jargon connoisseur. Currently working on auto-applying tags to LW posts with a language model.

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I think it probably meets the definition, but, caveat, it isn't actually out in the relevant sense, so there's some risk that it has a caveat that wasn't on my radar.

P(We invent algorithms for transformative AGI | No derailment from regulation, AI, wars, pandemics, or severe depressions): .8

P(We invent a way for AGIs to learn faster than humans | We invent algorithms for transformative AGI): 1. This row is already incorporated into the previous row.

P(AGI inference costs drop below $25/hr (per human equivalent): 1. This is also already incorporated into "we invent algorithms for transformative AGI"; an algorithm with such extreme inference costs wouldn't count (and, I think, would be unlikely to be developed in the first place).

We invent and scale cheap, quality robots: Not a prerequisite.

We massively scale production of chips and power: Not a prerequisite if we have already already conditioned on inference costs.

We avoid derailment by human regulation: 0.9

We avoid derailment by AI-caused delay: 1. I would consider an AI that derailed development of other AI ot be transformative.

We avoid derailment from wars (e.g., China invades Taiwan): 0.98.

We avoid derailment from pandemics: 0.995. Thanks to COVID, our ability to continue making technological progress during a pandemic which requires everyone to isolate is already battle-tested.

We avoid derailment from severe depressions: 0.99. 

This appears to be someone else's shortform, which was edited so that the shortform container doesn't look like a shortform container anymore.

This is the multiple stages fallacy. Not only is each of the probabilities in your list too low, if you actually consider them as conditional probabilities they're double- and triple-counting the same uncertainties. And since they're all mulitplied together, and all err in the same direction, the error compounds.

I don't recall the source, but I do recall having seen a public source saying: The US air force had a problem with pilots getting buzzed by foreign drones, and not reporting the incidents because of stigma around UFOs. An executive decision was made to solve the problem by removing the stigma.

I can reproduce loss-of-selection on mouseover some of the time on up-to-date Chrome, so, I think probably not browser specific.

Wait, you're running Firefox 88, on Xenial?! Why? What's wrong with you? You're a terrible person.

The main reason WaPo would have delayed is if they wanted additional confirmation/due diligence and didn't have it.

based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures

That only sounds impressive if you don't think too hard about what it means. It's saying that the fragments are made of a fancy alloy that they can't identify. But every military contractor has materials scientists, and being made of fancy new alloys is completely expected for cutting edge military aircraft.

Reusing a response I made to a previous UFO story, on a mailing list, lightly edited because the same logic still applies.

There's one core truth that you need to understand, and then all the talk of UFOs, videos, and the reactions to them make sense.

The US military has secret aircraft. Other militaries also have secret aircraft. These are kept in reserve for high-stakes operations. For example, in 2011, a previously-unseen model of stealth helicopter crashed in the middle of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Rumor is that the Chinese military got to inspect the wreckage; if true, this would be a pretty major fuckup, since it would enable them to plan around its capabilities, to design radars to detect it, and to attribute any operations using it to the United States.

The performance characteristics of secret military aircraft are military secrets. They are highly prototypical military secrets. That means the secrecy radiates a few conceptual steps outward: our own country's aircraft are secret, what we know about other countries' aircraft is secret, what we know that other countries know about our aircraft is secret, and so on. Deliberate disinformation is expected; if you look far back enough in time for things to be declassified, you'll find publicly-reported examples of the US putting out fake aircraft mockups for Soviet satellites to photograph, and similar tricks. There are a few videos taken from fighter-jet sensor packages floating around; these require some expertise to interpret, or else you'll wind up thinking that the sharpen filter is a glowing aura, or that the parallax is a fast movement speed, or that image-stabilization problems are fast accelerations. As it happens, the characteristics of fighter-jet sensor packages are *also* military secrets (perhaps a bit less well kept), which means that 100% of the people who are qualified to interpret those videos, are also legally forbidden from talking publicly about them.

With that as background, there's nothing left to explain. Given a specific video, it can be hard to tell whether it's an aircraft with a surprising capability, or a fake video, or a sensor issue. That's the point; foreign military strategists will also look at those videos, and encounter the same problems. Dispelling the confusion would mean accepting a substantial handicap in future military operations, and there's no reason to do that.

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