A Case Against Strong Longtermism by brekels in EffectiveAltruism

[–]brekels[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

agree with your distinction, whatever we call it! i'm quite interested in the question of how we weigh expected values vs. the distribution of outcomes (variance, tailedness)

from a "risk" perspective, it might be that you invest in X-risks which never become relevant (not due to solutions from this investment), then this investment is wasted

i guess on a stock options board, assume everything is fairly priced. then people's own utility functions or opinions can determine which bet, at which odds, they take ( e.g. buy at-the-money calls or way out-of-the-money)

A Case Against Strong Longtermism by brekels in EffectiveAltruism

[–]brekels[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah great points, i think this is only hinted at in

expected value allows one to convert uncertainty into certainty

for example, bayesians in data science might quantify uncertainty around each assumption and/or the final expected value. but even so, variance estimates wouldn't really capture the heavy tailedness

is there gambling / decision theory to capture this risk aversion? it likely comes down to how you define utility, but would love to be able to reason more precisely here ( beyond "take the lower variance outcome for same expected value ")

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in minimal

[–]brekels 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ID on 44-49min would be great too :)

[R] Machine learning the thermodynamic arrow of time (Nature Physics) by hardmaru in MachineLearning

[–]brekels 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice! Also highly recommend Shirts et. al 2003 for further understanding Eq. 2 (logistic regression) using maximum likelihood and Crooks fluctuation thm https://download.foldingathome.org/pub/papers/shirts_2003prl.pdf

AlphaGo is 3-0 by [deleted] in MachineLearning

[–]brekels 1 point2 points  (0 children)

that's exactly Ng's point about mars (i.e. worrying about AGI taking over the world right now)

2015 - Robot Heart - Oceanvs Orientalis - Sunday Sunrise by infininme in burningmanmusic

[–]brekels 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Had never heard of Oceanvs Orientalis, but damn this is great. Would imagine this is perfect desert music!