rationalnewsletter

Issue #159: Full List

Efforts to fuse AI and neuroscience into a single mathematical field: Predictive coding can approximate backpropagation without needing nonlocal information transfer. It is also biologically plausible. // astralcodexten.substack.com

# Coronavirus

Monastery and Throne // Jacobian, 12 min

Covid 4/9: Another Vaccine Passport Objection // Zvi, 18 min

Sometimes, it can take a while to notice confusion // jean-nassar, 6 min

Is there any plausible mechanisms for why taking an mRNA vaccine might be undesirable for a young healthy adult? // MathieuRoy, 1 min

There Is No Control System For COVID // mike-harris-1, 11 min

How should I behave ≥14 days after my first mRNA vaccine dose but before my second dose? // dsj, 1 min

By which mechanism does immunity favor new Covid variants? // anorangic, 1 min

# Instrumental

Specializing in Problems We Don't Understand // johnswentworth, 9 min Favorite

Recently I bought a new laptop // tetraspace-grouping, 3 min

Forcing Yourself is Self Harm, or Don't Goodhart Yourself // gworley, 6 min

Homeostatic Bruce // matejsuchy, 12 min

Metis And Bodybuilders // Scott Alexander, 8 min

# Epistemic

Beliefs as emotional strategies // Kaj_Sotala, 10 min

Reflective Bayesianism // abramdemski, 16 min

Curious Inquiry and Rigorous Training // AllAmericanBreakfast, 5 min

Our compressed perception // pchvykov, 2 min

Is there a mu-like term that means something like "why is this any of my business?" // CraigMichael, 2 min

Position Vs. Topic Contrarians // Robin Hanson, 2 min

Here’s why we don’t understand heavier-than-air flight // Brian Skinner, 1 min

Two Unexpected Multiple Hypothesis Testing Problems // Scott Alexander, 7 min

# Ai

Another (outer) alignment failure story // paulfchristiano, 14 min Favorite

Testing The Natural Abstraction Hypothesis: Project Intro // johnswentworth, 7 min

Opinions on Interpretable Machine Learning and 70 Summaries of Recent Papers // lifelonglearner, 111 min

Solving the whole AGI control problem, version 0.0001 // steve2152, 32 min

I Trained a Neural Network to Play Helltaker // lsusr, 3 min

What will GPT-4 be incapable of? // mtrazzi

What will GPT-4 not be able to do given the right prompt? // mtrazzi

How do scaling laws work for fine-tuning? // daniel-kokotajlo, 1 min

The Japanese Quiz: a Thought Experiment of Statistical Epistemology // DanB, 11 min

A System For Evolving Increasingly General Artificial Intelligence From Current Technologies // Tsang Chung Shu, 12 min

Averting suffering with sentience throttlers (proposal) // quinn-dougherty, 3 min

AI oracles on blockchain // Caravaggio, 3 min

What if we could use the theory of Mechanism Design from Game Theory as a medium achieve AI Alignment? // farari7, 1 min

Why unriggable *almost* implies uninfluenceable // Stuart_Armstrong, 4 min

# Meta-ethics

Notes on Perseverance // David_Gross, 11 min

How do you reconcile the lack of choice that children have in being born? // Bayu, 1 min

# Longevity

Air Quality and Cognition // chw, 18 min

Aging: A Surprisingly Tractable Problem // quinn-dougherty, 1 min

Noise Pollution and Cognition // chw, 5 min

# Anthropic

Historical Examples of Opposition to Technological Progress // chw, 8 min

To Beat Aliens, We Must Become Aliens // Robin Hanson, 1 min

# Decision theory

Don't Sell Your Soul // Jacobian, 10 min

Ranked Choice Voting is Arbitrarily Bad // kohaku-none, 4 min

Preventing overcharging by prosecutors // ChristianKl, 1 min

My Current Take on Counterfactuals // abramdemski, 26 min

Identifiability Problem for Superrational Decision Theories // Bunthut, 2 min

The Many Faces of Infra-Beliefs // Diffractor, 86 min

Risk Budgets vs. Basic Decision Theory // vlad-firoiu, 1 min

Response to Suri Re Futarchy // Robin Hanson, 6 min

# Math and cs

Vim // lsusr, 10 min

An Informal Introduction to Solomonoff Induction and Pascal Mugging // mtrazzi, 3 min

Insights from "All of Statistics": Statistical Inference // sil-ver, 20 min

# Books

Highlights from The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie // jasoncrawford, 23 min

Convict Conditioning Book Review // Borasko, 14 min

Your Book Review: Order Without Law // Scott Alexander, 60 min

Your Book Review: On The Natural Faculties // Scott Alexander, 30 min

# Community

[Recruiting for a Discord Server] AI Forecasting & Threat Modeling Workshop // quinn-dougherty, 1 min

2020 predictions - Politics, Econ, Tech // Bucky, 3 min

# Culture war

Reviving Freedom of ‘Religion’ // Robin Hanson, 4 min

# Fun

IQcaptcha enters beta // ballerburg9005, 1 min

# Misc

If my previous research is wrong, what are my options ? // [email protected], 1 min

The innocent gene // joekc, 10 min

What do you think would be the best investment policy for a cryonics trust? // MathieuRoy, 1 min

Homage to the Hive, part 3 (or maybe 4) // tristan-miano, 2 min

Rediscovery, the Mind's Curare // Erich_Grunewald, 4 min

Compounding Incumbent Advantage // adaminoue, 1 min

# Podcasts

AXRP Episode 6 - Debate and Imitative Generalization with Beth Barnes // DanielFilan, 75 min

AXRP Episode 6 - Debate with Beth Barnes // DanielFilan, 75 min

#96 – Nina Schick on disinformation and the rise of synthetic media // The 80000 Hours team, 120 min

c31: You Must Save One Child For Each Person You Murder // Constellation, 66 min

YANSS 203 – How to build a sailboat of self-actualization to explore the sea of human potential //

EP119 Max Borders on Post-Collapse // The Jim Rutt Show, 75 min

EP120 James Ehrlich on ReGen Villages Part 2 // The Jim Rutt Show, 64 min

134 – We’ve Got Class // The Bayesian Conspiracy, 137 min

Are Uber and Lyft drivers being exploited? // Rationally Speaking, 61 min

# Rational fiction

I'm from a parallel Earth with much higher coordination: AMA // Benito, 72 min Favorite

The Accord // timothy-underwood-1, 1 min

Real Vs. Fake Stories: Complements or Substitutes? // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Videos of the week

What is Tabfund? // Tabfund, 1 min