rationalnewsletter

Issue #74

Scientist states that AGI is not actually "general" but highly constrained to match human capacities so tightly that only a machine structured similarly to a brain can achieve it. // www.nature.com

# Instrumental

Unstriving // Jacobian, 7 min Favorite

How has rationalism helped you? // Evan Rysdam, 1 min

# Epistemic

Intentional Bucket Errors // Scott Garrabrant, 3 min

Actually updating // SaraHax, 5 min

Do We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think? // Raemon, 1 min

# Ai

Classifying specification problems as variants of Goodhart's Law // Vika, xrchz, 6 min

Troll Bridge // abramdemski, 2 min

Computational Model: Causal Diagrams with Symmetry // johnswentworth, 4 min

GPT-2: 6-Month Follow-Up // lifelonglearner, 1 min

Optimization Provenance // Adele Lopez, 5 min

# Anthropic

Why so much variance in human intelligence? // Benito, 4 min

"Can We Survive Technology" by von Neumann // Benito, 1 min

Is there a simple parameter that controls human working memory capacity, which has been set tragically low? // Liron, 1 min

Don’t Fear The Simulators // Scott Alexander, 2 min

# Decision theory

Negative "eeny meeny miny moe" // jkaufman, 1 min

Three Levels of Motivation // DragonGod, 8 min

How Idealists Aid Cheaters // Robin Hanson, 2 min

# Math and cs

Algorithmic Similarity // LukasM, 13 min

Logical Counterfactuals and Proposition graphs, Part 1 // Donald Hobson, 2 min

Embedded Naive Bayes // johnswentworth, 3 min

Neural Nets in Python 1 // lifelonglearner, 7 min

Odds are not easier // MrMind, 1 min

# Books

What authors consistently give accurate pictures of complex topics they discuss? // seez, 1 min

Epistemic Spot Check: The Fate of Rome (Kyle Harper) // Elizabeth, 6 min

how should a second version of "rationality: A to Z" look like? // Yoav Ravid, 1 min

# Ea

What are the reasons to *not* consider reducing AI-Xrisk the highest priority cause? // capybaralet, 1 min

Alex Berger on "GiveWell’s Top Charities Are (Increasingly) Hard to Beat" // Raemon, 7 min

# Community

Response to Glen Weyl on Technocracy and the Rationalist Community // John_Maxwell, 11 min

Is LW making progress? // zulupineapple, 1 min

LessLong Launch Party // Raemon, 1 min

Petrov Day Celebration 2019 - Oxford Campsite // jbeshir, 1 min

# Culture war

Ways to Choose A Futarchy Welfare Measure // Robin Hanson, 2 min

A misconception about immigration // limerott, 5 min

# Fun

Lana Wachowski is doing a new Matrix movie // MakoYass, 1 min

# Misc

Raph Koster on Virtual Worlds vs Games (notes) // Raemon, 2 min

Paradoxical Advice Thread // Hazard, 1 min

Parables of Constraint and Actualization // Spencer Wyman, 7 min

Time Travel, AI and Transparent Newcomb // johnswentworth, 1 min

Has Moore's Law actually slowed down? // Matthew Barnett, 1 min

# Podcasts

095: Review of BLACK MIRROR Season 5, Part 2 // Review the Future, 37 min

#166 — The Plague Years // Waking up with Sam Harris, 64 min

Rationally Speaking #238 - Razib Khan on "Stuff I've Been Wrong About" // NYC Skeptics, 51 min

# Videos of the week

A vision for the future of Sierra Leone | Julius Maada Bio // TED, 16 min