Sure. Just post here what you decide. I'll check this page before turning up.

Calendared. I plan to be there!

+1!

"Ethical Artificial Intelligence" sounds great and makes sense without having to know the background of the technological singularity as "Friendly Artificial Intelligence" does. Every time I try to mention FAI to someone without any background on the topic I always have to take two steps back in the conversation and it becomes quickly confusing. I think I could mention Ethical AI and then continue on with whatever point I was making without any kind of background and it would still make the right connections.

I also expect it would appeal to a demographic likely to support the concept as well. People who worry about ethical food, business, healthcare etc... would be likely to worry about existential risk on many levels.

In fact I think I'll just go ahead and start using Ethical AI from now on. I'm sure people in the FAI community would understand what I'm talking about.

Maybe u shld write a post that describes the same effect but wihout the pics, citaations or grammar.

Hi

Been reading Less Wrong religiously for about 6 months, but still definitely in the consume, not contribute phase.

It feels like Less Wrong has pretty dramatically changed my life. I'm doing pretty well with overcoming Akrasia (or at least identifying it where I haven't yet overcome it). I'm also significantly happier all round, understanding decisions I make and most importantly exercising my ability to control these decisions. I'm doing a lot of things I would have avoided before just because I realise that my reasons for avoiding them were not rational. My boundaries are much more sensible now and getting better weekly. Still a work in progress, but I'm incredibly happy with where things are going.

So, a big thanks to everyone who contributes here. Can't thank you enough :)

I agree. I worry that anthropomorphising these conflicting thoughts just strengthens the divide.

I like your comment "All this has very little to do with actual agency or the workings of akrasia, though, and tends to interfere with the process of a person owning up to the goals that they want to dissociate from. By pretending it's another agency that wants to surf the net, you get to maintain moral superiority... and still hang onto your problem. The goal of virtually any therapy that involves multiple agencies, is to integrate them, but the typical person on getting hold of the metaphor uses is to maintain the separation."

Hmmm.... thinking feels to me like poking leaves floating down a river.

"How does thinking, in general, feel to you?" Do you mean this metaphorically? Can you give some examples of how thinking feels to you?

Brilliant idea for a series! I spend a lot of time thinking about this; trying to understand my thoughts and consequently hack them.

It's really interesting how much variation there is in people's ability to comprehend the origin of thoughts. Also it's surprising how little control, or desire for control, some people have over their decisions. Certainly seems like something that can be learnt and changed over time. I've seen some significant improvements myself over the past 12 months without many exterior environmental changes.

The main hurdle I hit up against is confidence in my conclusions - introspection can't be scientific by definition. I find it really difficult to measure improvement over time. Definitely interested to see how you deal with this!