Summary: Comfort with really big and really small quantities is very useful for understanding the world and is perfectly doable with practice. Therefore, you should (1) try to familiarize yourself with the sizes of various things using e.g. spaced repetition and (2) comment some of your favorite numerical facts about...
Summary: Zoning out is difficult to avoid and common, zoning out without admitting it hurts your comprehension, therefore you should admit that you zoned out and ask people to repeat things. If you’re anything like me, you’ve “zoned out” before. You’ve probably even zoned out when you’re trying to learn...
A common figure cited for the death toll of smallpox is 500 million, as in the title of the excellent essay and adaptation. Half a billion human lives lost is difficult to internalize. The more you think about it, the more it becomes clear that its eradication was among humanity's...
I find it interesting how nobody seems to make Mr. Humman's arguments about chess, but plenty of people seem to make his arguments concerning ASI.
Now, if I were arguing with Mr. Humman, I'd get him to try to play against stockfish (or to play against me, and cheat using stockfish) to let him know what it really feels like to play against a superior mind. I feel like it would be pretty hard to continue arguing his point about chess after Stockfish punched his lights out for the 5th time in a row (or however long it takes to sink in). As a side-note, I do find it interesting that chess engines... (read more)
That's an interesting recommendation. I'm unfamiliar with buying reusable masks, do you know a good way to decide whether to buy a small, medium or large mask?
Great post!
I think I'd argue something similar but distinct at the beginning. My impression is that people only quit anki for one reason, and that reason is that they don't like it. All "how to stick with anki" advice is only useful insofar as it makes anki more fun or enjoyable. I genuinely look forward to my reviews (almost) every day. Sometimes I do a lot, sometimes I do a little.
The 20-card/day limit is probably more useful at the beginning, when it can be tempting to try to add in tons of new cards. But more reviews can be fun too! I don't have a hard limit, and I think I do... (read more)
One example of a web of interrelated facts that I have concerns molecular simulations, with bold/italic denoting things that I have in my anki deck, or would make good cards.
One interesting thing about moleculaes bouncing around is that a nanosecond, which sounds really short, is actually a decently long time. Consider that molecules at room temperature are typically moving at about the speed of sound (340 m/s) and a typical chemical bond length is about 0.1 to 0.2 nanometers. This means that a typical molecule (if nothing bumps into it) will go 1700-3400 bond-lengths in a nanosecond! Of course, molecules in liquid, which are jammed pretty close together, won't move that far... (read more)
One thing that's useful for me is to draw analogies. For instance, the earth is about as big compared to the kilogram as benzene ( kg) is small.
That's true. The specific energy of antimatter is also actually double the "maximum" if you don't count the mass of the matter (1 gram of antimatter + 1 gram of air produces about 2 grams worth of energy). Funny enough, this is analogous to combustion fuel. The reason combustion fuel (on the order of 50 MJ/kg for most hydrocarbons) seems to be able to store much more energy than, say a high explosive (on the order of 5 MJ/kg) is because high explosives contain their own oxidizers, while combustion fuel uses the air as an oxidizer.
I'll have to push back on this. I think if there's one specific program that you'd like to go to, especially if there's an advisor you have in mind, it's good to tailor your application to that program. However, this might not apply to the typical reader of this post.
I followed a k strategy with my PhD statements of purpose (and recommendations) rather than an r strategy. I tailored my applications to the specific schools, and it seemed to work pretty decently well. I know of more qualified people who were rejected from a much higher proportion of schools who spent much less time on each application.
(Disclaimer: this is all anecdotal. Also, I was applying for chemistry programs, not AI)
Summary: Comfort with really big and really small quantities is very useful for understanding the world and is perfectly doable with practice. Therefore, you should (1) try to familiarize yourself with the sizes of various things using e.g. spaced repetition and (2) comment some of your favorite numerical facts about the world that give a sense of scale so others can learn from them. I have a list of links at the bottom that I'd love for you to add to, in a similar spirit to The Best Textbooks on Every Subject.
One of the greatest lies that science fiction and popular science told me was that there were features of the universe... (read 653 more words →)
Another way to assess the efficacy of ML-generated molecules would be through physics-based methods. For instance, binding-free-energy calculations which estimate how well a molecule binds to a specific part of a protein can be made quite accurate. Currently, they're not used very often because of the computational cost, but this could be much less prohibitive as chips get faster (or ASICs for MD become easier to get) and so the models could explore chemical space without being restricted to only getting feedback from synthetically accessable molecules.
If this happens, it could lead to a lot of AI researchers looking for jobs. Depending on the incentives at the time and the degree to which their skills are transferable, many of them could move into safety-related work.
Summary: Zoning out is difficult to avoid and common, zoning out without admitting it hurts your comprehension, therefore you should admit that you zoned out and ask people to repeat things.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve “zoned out” before. You’ve probably even zoned out when you’re trying to learn something interesting. In fact, I’d bet that you’ve zoned out when listening to someone you respect teaching you something interesting, and that you didn’t admit it, and that this left you with a gap in understanding that you may or may not have filled in later.[1] Perhaps I’m falling for the typical minds fallacy, but I don’t think I am. This happens to me... (read 535 more words →)
A common figure cited for the death toll of smallpox is 500 million, as in the title of the excellent essay and adaptation. Half a billion human lives lost is difficult to internalize. The more you think about it, the more it becomes clear that its eradication was among humanity's greatest accomplishments. However, if you look further you'll see that this figure refers to the deaths due to smallpox in the century preceding its eradication—approximately the time period of 1880-1980—not the total number of humans smallpox killed. We don't know how many people it killed before then. It's important to remember that vaccines were developed in 1769, so 500 million deaths happened... (read 1065 more words →)
The moon can get surprisingly hot! 120 degrees celsius in some parts which is enough to boil water at atmospheric pressure. The cold parts of the moon are "craters of eternal darkness" which have a stable, extremely low temperature so one might be able to use those.
Also, I'm not sure to what extent the moon can be used as a heat sink, given its low thermal conductivity. Then again, if your surroundings are in the tens of kelvins, that might be good enough on its own.