All of Zvi's Comments + Replies

Somehow forgot to actually link, sorry. Here: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/gptllm-links-515

Would be happy to have this done automatically by the mods, but am hesitant to introduce another weekly task I'd have to do by hand.

Now we don't have to read it! Not all heroes wear capes. 

I don't see the reason for this defeatism - not on housing where YIMBY is actively winning some battles and gaining strength, not on aging where there might not be as much research as we'd like but there's definitely research and it will improve over time. As for balancing the budget, we did it as recently as the 1990s and also it's not obvious why we need to care about that. 

So basically on your (1) I'd say yes we agree there are upsides I don't see how that leads to enough to justify the risks, and (2) I disagree strongly with the premise but even i... (read more)

I mean, usually not Grimes, in this case the people I monitor were talking about her, and she is doing some interesting things (e.g. the AI voice thing) and it happened to take place four times in a week. She's a person, actually trying and thinking things, in addition to seeking attention and... we don't have as many people as we'd like.

The reason I included that was so I didn't have to get into arguments about it or have people harp on it, not because I thought you actually needed it. The whole idea is to isolate different objections.

I believe I have seen him make multiple statements on Twitter over months that express this point of view, and I see his statements herein as reinforcing that, but in the interests of this not being distracting to the main point I am editing this line.

Also including an additional exchange from yesterday he had with Elon Musk. 

Mods, please reimport. 

EDIT: Also adding his response to Max Tegmark from yesterday, and EY's response to that, at the bottom, but raising the bar for further inclusions substantially. 

Includes this quote: But regardles... (read more)

Actually a bit stronger than that. My intention is that I will continue to update this post if Yann posts in-thread within the next few days, but to otherwise not cover Yann going forward unless it involves actual things happening, or his views updating. And please do call me out on this if I slip up, which I might.

If a lot of readers do that? Seems fine with me! Hell, if enough others find it sufficiently interesting I'll happily make that its own post.

Editing based on google confirming and the 9 karma, but can anyone else confirm this for sure?

How was this generated, I wonder, given the article is several times the length of the context window (or at least, the one I have available)? 

(Note that I didn't find it useful or accurate or anything, but there are other things I'd be curious to try).

1. I see why one might think this is a mostly safe assumption, but it doesn't seem like one to me - it's kind of presuming some sort of common sense morality can be used as a check here, even under Goodhart conditions, and I don't think it would be that reliable in most doom cases? I'm trying to operationalize what this would mean in practice in a way a sufficiently strong AI wouldn't find a way around via convincing itself or us, or via indirect action, or similar, and I can't.  
2. This implies that you think that if you win the grey area you know how to u

Fair enough.

A twitter list is literally: You create it (or use someone else's) and if you load it (e.g. https://twitter.com/i/lists/83102521) you get the people on the lists in reverse chronological order and nothing else (or you can use Tweetdeck). Doesn't seem to have traps.

What's the difference between the Google Doc and a Twitter List with those accounts on it?

I can see the weird border case where the $8 gets you invested in a bad way but $0 makes you consume in a good way, I guess, but it's weird. Mostly sounds like you very much agree on the danger of much worse than -$8.

Also, you say there are still a bunch of mistakes. Even if it's effectively too late to fix them for the post (almost all readers are within the first 48 hours) I'd like to at least fix my understanding, what else did I still get wrong, to extent you know? 

Before GPT-4 I would have said I'd run that experiment and I definitely couldn't.

With it? Maybe.

Huh. It was much higher initially. I will fix.

Yes. His argument is it is against any particular risk and here the risk is particular, or something. Scott Alexander's response is... less polite than mine, and emphasizes this point.

Noting that I share my extended thoughts here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FcaE6Q9EcdqyByxzp/on-the-fli-open-letter 

Thank you. I will update the post once I read Wolfram's post and decide what I think about this new info.

In the future, please simply say 'this is wrong' rather than calling something like this misinformation, saying highly misleading with the bold highly, etc. 

EDIT: Mods this is ready for re-import, the Wordpress and Substack versions are updated.

I don't see his arguments as being in good enough faith or logic to do that. Hanania I have tried to engage with, I don't see how to do that with Pinker. What would you say are the arguments he makes that are worth an actual response? 

(Note that I get the opposite pushback more often, people saying various forms of 'why are you feeding the trolls?')

I encourage people to use agree-disagree voting on Nathan's comment (I will abstain) on the question of whether I should engage more with Pinker. 

A shame - I see this at an agreement voting -3 a day later, which means I didn't do a good enough job.

Thus, I kindly request some combination of (A) will someone else take a shot and/or (B) what would I have to do to get it where it needs to go?

(Edit, it's now at +3? Hmm. We'll see if that holds.)

Thread for suggesting if there is anything here that be its own post, either in current form or expanded form.

General request for feedback on my AI posts and how they could be improved, keeping in mind that LW is not the main demographic I am aiming for. 

Yeah, I quickly fixed this in original, I definitely flipped the sign reading the graph initially.

Mods can reimport, since I don't know the right way to fix the <img errors.

We were (checks notes) a few days early to the party on that.

You can find my attempt at the Waluigi Effect mini-post at: https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-3#%C2%A7the-waluigi-effect. 

I haven't posted it on its own yet, everyone please vote on whether this passes the quality threshold with agreement voting - if this is in the black I'll make it its own post. If you think it's not ready, appreciated if you explain why. 

Anyone up for writing software that can automate this browser process? Seems like it should be viable to write a program that checks all your autocompletes, you tell it what you want to change and then it fixes it via doing the thing a human would do?

For many overdetermined reasons I highly recommend the Mac/Windows versions - the Android experience is worse even if you're using it responsibly. 

(I fixed a few things, probably worth reimporting - confirming 3:55pm on a few new minor fixes)

Mods please reimport/fix: First Kate Hall tweet is supposed to be this one, accidentally went with a different one instead. Also there's some bug with how the questions get listed on the lefthand side.

Note: This is being edited in real time in response to late feedback. You can see the most updated version on Substack while that's happening, I'll have this re-imported when the process is done, but overall levels of change are minor so far.

(Looks like it'll be stable for at least a bit.)

Oh, yeah, guess so. That's how much I don't know how this should be graded!

OK, I'll do housing as well, no problem. Or top tier jobs.

Being free to the student (although of course the French overall still pay taxes to fund the real costs) makes it less toxic, but it also means you have that much less excuse if  you don't go. So my guess is this makes it maybe 25% less bad?

Thank you. I agree that the phrasing here wasn't as clear as it could be and I'll watch out for similar things in the future (I won't be fixing this instance because I don't generally edit posts after the first few days unless they are intended to be linked to a lot in the future, given how traffic works these days.) 

If it's still confusing, I meant: I would not say that making my parents proud is one of my main goals in life. I would expect [people I know] to mostly also not see this as one of their main goals. I think that the percentage of people a... (read more)

I've been editing the post at the Substack version (https://thezvi.substack.com/p/how-to-bounded-distrust) but I don't see the option to switch back to the usual non-HTML editor on this one, so mods please reimport and let me know what I'm missing. 

There is no requirement that the windows serve this purpose. Mine don't. I don't find this to be a reasonable response.

I can speak a bit to what I have in mind to do. It's too early to speak too much about how I intend to get those particular things passed but am looking into it. 

I am studying the NEPA question, will hopefully have posts in a month or two after Manchin's reforms are done trying to pass. There are a lot of options both for marginal reforms and for radical reimagining. Right now, as far as I can tell, no one has designed a outcome-based replacement that someone could even consider (as opposed to process based) and I am excited to get that papered over t... (read more)

Yes, there are lesser goals that I could hit with 90% probability. Note that in that comment, I was saying that 2% would make the project attractive, rather than saying I put our chances of success at 2%. And also that the bar there was set very high - getting a clear attributable major policy win. Which then got someone willing to take the YES side at 5% (Ross).

Our funding sources are not public, but I will say at this time we are not funded in any way by FTX or OP.

I am confident that the container stacking rules caused major damage when compared to better stacking rules. If we had a sensible stacking rule across LB/LA from the start I am confident there would have been far less backlog. 

What is less clear is the extent to which the rules changes that were enacted mitigated the problem. While LB made some changes on the day of the post, LA didn't act and LB's action wasn't complete. Thus there was some increase in permitted stacking but it was far from what one would have hoped for. And Elizabeth is right that we did not see a difference in port backlog that we can definitively link to the partial change that was enacted.

Good stuff. This is going to be the first work of fiction linked in a weekly post of mine.

Somewhat tempted to write the rationalfic version of this story, because these characters are missing all the fun.

Naming things in politics is much more about not shooting yourself in the foot than anything else - you can't win that way but you can lose, and [plant] research is a standard option. Can always change later if we find something awesome. I learned from MetaMed that obsessing over finding the right name is not worth it, and this was (1) available (2) short (3) sounds nice and (4) is a good metaphorical plant.

This is a full energy top priority effort.

I will continue the blog as part of that effort, it is the reason I am in position to be able to do this, and I will continue to attend to other commitments because life is complicated, but the effective barrier is 'I can only do so much in a week on this type of stuff no matter what anyway.'

Oh, yeah, I forgot to edit this copy, it's fixed now.

I much prefer to create a post that defines the jargon, you can then link to it as needed. I keep meaning to make a glossary page when I have time, as another tool.

Not entirely, but basically yes.

Yes. Good call.