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VelveteenAmbush

Prime Intellect did nothing wrong

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VelveteenAmbush


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Prime Intellect did nothing wrong

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 05 02:49:35 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And some (like me) think that the King has poor taste, admitting mediocrities genuinely unsuited to the responsibilities of nobility who will therefore bend their mediocre talents toward scapegoating society for their mediocrity and attempting to undermine and erode it out of spite.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And what if Abbott escalates back, and blocks the Coast Guard? Escalating is a great move whenever you're sure the other side won't counter-escalate. When you aren't, it's dicey.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Sanctuary state is one thing, “come have your anchor baby in California” advertisements across Central America is another.




They're the same picture.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most other populations manage to survive without corporate sponsorship.




Corporate sponsorship is all that separates us from malthusianism, under which most extant populations would collapse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the high comorbidity of psychiatric disorders that does not seem to be abating as societal acceptance improves




You did propose to set this aside, so I acknowledge that I'm not actually disputing anything necessary to your point, but I nonetheless feel obligated to mention that while these comorbidities are associated with gayness, the causality isn't obvious.


Another interesting analogy is left-handedness. Left-handed people are more likely to have mental health comorbidities than right-handed people. But it would be kind of odd to suggest that left-handedness is unhealthy, and certainly odd to suggest that left-handed people should use their right hands to avoid mental illness. Which isn't to suggest that the latter is (analogously) what you're saying about gay people, but in these conversations the label gay or homosexual (among men) seems to vascillate between the inclination and the practice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree with your broader point, but... cheap indoor lighting and washing machines were transformative.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's the part where the growth stays at the level it's at despite there being no other recent transformative breakthroughs in the past 20 years.


Zoom out to a scale of millennia, using human population as a proxy for wealth. Here's a representative chart (ignore the dotted projections for this exercise). We are on the insane upward spike at the very rightmost edge. What sustains that meteoric rise? The answer is periodic transformations, such as the steam engine, indoor plumbing, electricity, the washing machine, commercial air travel, the personal computer, the internet and the smartphone. Your question seems to assume that this rate of improvement is just background radiation, some sort of fundamental base rate against which innovations should provide additional upside, but in fact it is sustained by these breakthroughs.


Krugman deserves all the scorn that he gets for that quote; the fax machine was useful, but nowhere near on the scale of the internet, and not nearly the same economic engine.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Does a Clinton or Biden really ensure it?




Biden has certainly pulled every lever he could reach to send as much money as he can to universities. His initial student loan bailout had a cost of hundreds of billions before SCOTUS spiked it...


And here's the bailout for news organizations, framed as allowing them to collectively bargain to collude against tech companies.


So that's university jobs and news media jobs...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


North Koreans seem worse off than South Africans (than all Southern Africans) on any metric except violent crime rate, for which little data exists but which we can probably assume is lower in the DPRK. The DRC and Liberia have higher GDP/capita by some estimates.




I don't dispute your metrics, but there is a consistent effect where North Koreans who successfully defect to South Korea end up missing their home. Naturally this is blamed on "discrimination" but the defectors I have seen interviewed in the documentaries I've watched reminisce about villages where everyone knew one another and had a defined role in a tight knit community that lasted their whole lives. Not that this excuses the starvation or state-sponsored grotesqueries, but personally I would not find it an easy decision if forced to choose whether to be born into an average life in North Korea or in South Africa.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You could procure the Pope's death, and your own selection in the ensuing Conclave, I suppose. Sounds hard, but coups usually are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I tend to agree that the old religions have been rendered obsolete, more or less empirically; science has reduced them to Russell's teapot. Some people still believe in them, genuinely, but that's more of a feature of their personal psychological ability to believe things as a result of cultural overhang or because they want them to be true than of any epistemological strength of the belief systems, the latter being similar in some sense to QAnonism.


Science taketh, but science also giveth, and thanks to the empirical advances of machine learning and the retreat of the soul in prevailing theories of cognition, there is now plenty of room for new religions. The Simulation Hypothesis is fertile ground for spiritual entrepreneurs to build neo-gnosticisms. Roko was the John Edwards of Yudkowskianism. Reports abound of the emotional tortures of EA types who have heard his brimstone sermon, and I trust their sincerity. Scott's The Hour I First Believed is a more sophisticated and pro-social synthesis.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Right, if that's the idea, the proponent should do the budget math to figure out what it would cost to raise the entire rest of the world up to first-world standards, because it's obviously a fantasy even if you assume that wealth can be delivered via wire transfer irrespective of the human capital in the recipient country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's a lot of superstructure now that is intended to prevent further such changeovers...


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Up to what standard? I had understood that residents of impoverished countries actually become more likely to emigrate as the countries become wealthier.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, they needed a plaintiff if they wanted the policy change. The absence of live controversies doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of impact. The chilling effect of the threat of prosecution (and its downstream effect on other policy debates) is what they were trying to lift.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed. If we were designing the Constitution from scratch, I think it would actually be kind of difficult to come up with a convincing argument as to why we should have a case and controversy requirement for constitutional impact litigation in particular. The sweep of a SCOTUS decision is so vast in proportion to the individual plaintiffs that I'm not sure what practical effect it has other than to slow SCOTUS down -- but SCOTUS can do that directly via its ripeness doctrine, and it doesn't necessarily constrain SCOTUS if it wants to hasten its review (I believe it could choose to grant cert directly on appeal from a pre-trial motion). For the most part, it's easy enough to find or manufacture a case when there is the will to mount a challenge. There are the occasional scenarios where it isn't clear that anyone could have standing to challenge a particular policy, even in theory, but that strikes me as more of a bug than a feature, insofar as I'm not sure why we should want that particular class of scenarios to be immune to judicial review.


I think the particular cases that end up before SCOTUS are mostly just a quirk of fitting a square peg (Marbury v. Madison) into a round hole (a constitution that purports to forbid advisory opinions), and my baseline assumption is that those specific petitioners/cases are extreme outliers -- either manufactured or highly selected as vehicles -- and unlikely to be representative of the practical effect that the litigation is intended to produce. Such is the nature of systems that are evolved rather than designed, I suppose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think LLMs with an "agent wrapper" should be enough. AutoGPT is a primitive wrapper. It can't do much with the LLMs of today, but it wouldn't surprise me if the LLMs of tomorrow OR a more sophisticated wrapper around GPT-4 suffices to bootstrap a generally intelligent agent.


I don't think they'll be able to recursively self improve right away... modern foundation models take a LOT of dollars and time to train, so a "just barely AGI" model won't be able to execute a takeoff. But in principle it could still be a full agentic AGI.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That isn't at all contrary to the claim, regardless of the claim's truth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"The Facebook algorithm accidentally ordered the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma in order to drive clicks" is sufficiently truth-adjacent that I no longer believe this.




(head cocks)


"Oh, yes, we have a huge team working on AI misinformation and AI racial bias to avoid incidents like that, that is indeed exactly what AI safety means and we are leaders in the field."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Are you really just overlooking the word "white" as though it's an unnecessary detail in this discussion?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Less unlikely to do so. Where are the pictures of the White Christian White House staffers having developed a firm enough ethnic identity as such to gather together and take pictures of themselves celebrating their shared White Christianity?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every alliance that excludes you from its membership is an implicit threat to your interests. This is basic Survivor logic.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


In all seriousness, top companies had to have prepared PR teams for this scenario.




They very much haven't.


I think it is impossible to overstate just how far outside of the bounds of thought EY style doomerism has been and remains for... well, everyone except the "rationalists." It is literally impossible to talk about "AI safety" with normal human beings without them looking at you like you have two heads. The logic doesn't matter. The world runs on inductive reasoning, not deductive reasoning. Because "AI safety" has never been a problem in real life so far, it is literally impossible for normal people to understand it, much less take it seriously. If you try to explain it, you will notice that they cock their heads while they listen to you, and this is from the cognitive effort of rewriting your arguments in realtime as they hear them to be about jobs and racial bias instead of AI safety.


I am not an AI doomer. I ascribe to exactly your view with respect to Erlich and Yudkowksy, and it's well said.


But I am reporting to you, from the corporate front lines, that every single person in a position of authority has a brain defect that makes it literally impossible for them to understand the concept of "AI safety." They don't disagree with AI safety concerns; they cannot disagree with the concerns, because they cannot understand them, because when you articulate a thought about AI safety, the words completely fail to engender concepts in their brain that relate to AI safety. They cannot even understand that other people have thoughts about the concept of AI safety, except perhaps as a marketing ploy to overstate the the commercial utility of various AI-powered systems.


So the PR people have not planned a response, and the policy people have not engaged with the concept, and the executives have not been briefed, and you should expect large companies to continue acting as uncomprehending about the topic of AI safety as they would about the threat of office wall art coming to life and eating their children.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's part of the bargain to be a lifestyle brand. If you want people to value your product not just for its practical utility but for what that product says about the people who consume it, then they're going to be as insulted by the unfavorable brand implications as they are flattered by the favorable. It doesn't matter that the ad wasn't "aimed" at them. Lifestyle brand advertising works by influencing what other people think of the product's customers, not just the customers themselves. The whole reason you choose to become a customer of a lifestyle brand is because of what you expect it will make other people think of you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


OK, so then my initial point that a parental rights argument is complete bullshit here is correct then?




Some red states believe that social transition is a question that should be left to the parents. Others believe that it should be forbidden. Blue states seem to adopt the mirror image of the latter view, that it should be required (for children who demand it) without the parents' approval. The second and third groups of states would seem not to care much for parental rights on this topic. The first does. That seems to be the lay of the land. I'm not sure how it would improve one's understanding to insist that any particular argument is "complete bullshit," unless you believe that it is somehow illegitimate for different states to adopt different policies.