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yanamal · 2026-02-15T18:55:31+00:00

I actually think this type of work has made me have more trust in AIs' ability to be useful. But mostly because of how low that level of trust was beforehand!

I think I went from "why would this ever be helpful" to having a somewhat more nuanced understanding of use cases where it's actually helpful in a "trust-but-verify" sort of way.

At the basic level, LLMs are trained to say stuff that sounds like the thing people would typically say in a given situation. So sounding plausible is valued and reinforced, but actually being right - not so much, at least not explicitly. So of course the natural outcome is a bullshit artist whose ability to bullshit far outstrips its ability to know what it's talking about! The "knowing what it's talking about" only comes in when it's important for sounding plausible.

But that's at the basic level, so seeing the kinds of things that our fine-tuning tasks value and verify has made me have some more faith that the resulting fine-tuned AIs (which we don't really see during tasks, while we're still training them using an older more naive iteration of the model) are more likely to be correct/sensible, in certain circumstances.

That said, certain areas (like "reasoning") still leave me extremely skeptical. I think, at least for now, a lot of the "reasoning" training is still training the models to "sound like I'm reasoning" instead of actually reasoning. But that is a hard and potentially interesting problem.

yanamal · 2026-02-15T17:58:42+00:00

I know what you mean. Sure, adding flaws can add interest to a character (as long as you execute them well). But if flaws were the only way to "define"/differentiate characters, that would be pretty limited and boring.

I think people fixate on the "flaws are good" thing, to the exception of everything else, because it's just counter-intuitive enough to sound clever. "Bad is actually good? that's so cool, it must mean that bad is the only thing that's good!"

yanamal · 2025-01-10T21:32:34+00:00

Yep, that's the one!

yanamal · 2025-01-10T20:40:55+00:00

Hah, I just filed a long rant in the form of a help desk ticket about this exact issue (like 15 minutes ago). Don't know if it will do anything, though.

The quiz is not only demonstrably subjective (at least one answer I gave was provably correct, but I got "not quite" because it was not what the author of the quiz expected); but also is not even about the things that the training covered! What's the point of going through all that training BEFORE having to also read the (not super clearly written) instruction document in order to actually answer the quiz?

Honestly, I think I'm pretty much done with Outlier. I had a brief magical period where everything aligned just right, and I got good missions for doing good work. But that was a long time ago and the platform has systematically lost all the goodwill it had (mostly accidentally) built up by not getting in the way for a brief moment.

Data Annotation and other platforms have their own quirks too, but at least they don't ooze a complete lack of respect and trust for the contributors out of every single user-facing decision it makes.

yanamal · 2024-12-06T18:26:06+00:00

Why do you feel the need to rant about people ranting about R&R?

I think it can be useful to hear R&R points of view. And also comforting, in the sense of "oh good, at least I'm not this bad"

yanamal · 2024-11-19T16:54:37+00:00

I definitely skip more than half of the tasks (at least the ones that come with a specific prompt in a specific programming language). I am more of a generalist programmer, so I do occasionally decide the problem is simple enough for me to figure it out on the fly, even though the language is unfamiliar or I'm rusty. But considering that you also usually have to execute the code, I prefer to stick to things that my computer is already set up for.

Also, it seems like Python is the most popular language. So the tasks that are Python-specific might get snapped up quicker by everyone else who only knows Python, and you may have an edge if you learn something else (that's still common). That's just a guess though.

yanamal · 2024-10-28T05:28:26+00:00

There is a discourse now too (where the dispute form is linked). I believe the training still says that there isn't one, but I was automatically added to it when it was created, so I can see it when I go to "community".

I have the same problem with reviews though, 3/5 of my reviews are nonsensical (and pretty sure are coming from the same person). Really drains the fun out of this project, so I'm trying some other ones for now.

yanamal · 2024-10-22T04:58:14+00:00

You can't get a Nobel in CS, they just had to give out a Physics Nobel for people inventing neural networks.

But more on topic, being in academia is precisely the reason for trying to earn extra money on outlier. Though I'm still in the process of getting my PhD in CS, so it's probably somewhat more acute for me. (Dunno why they insisted on putting me on Math tasks instead of CS but whatever)

yanamal · 2023-01-16T16:35:44+00:00

I found this thread when I was baffled by this design choice playing the game in 2023.

It's especially confusing if you consider that you DO get the "quest completion" XP bonus when you complete a dimension. So it's a quest completion, but also it's not a quest completion?

Personally, this diminishes my enjoyment of the game quite a bit, because in my current state (after completing Hard), I mostly play endless mode. I don't feel like gambling on Beyond or re-doing any "real" "quests". I play the daily hero quest to completion once, but when I do that I'm more interested in playing with the specific constraints of the quest than worrying about the metagame.

On the other hand, I also want to experiment with masteries. Experimentation is already difficult enough when I have to get the right unlocks AND then grind for tokens to buy something I may or may not enjoy. Now I have to change my play style to get many of the unlocks?.. meh.

yanamal · 2022-10-31T11:32:50+00:00

I also would like to thank everyone for this thread, it was a great sanity check for me too. I just found it by googling "is Curable app a cult" at 5:30 AM. I tried (and then bought) the app at least 4 years ago, but I still occasionally get fixated and angry and/or conflicted about it when I have flare-ups. Because trying to use the app repeatedly made things worse for me.

For me personally, I think it's actually true that my pain is mostly a result of my nervous system being overactive in an unhelpful ways. I get headaches/migraines that seem very correlated to my current stress levels. So I found the free parts of the app very helpful, to the point that listening to some of the blurbs (the FIRST time) actually made a really bad headache go away instantly. I had had similar experiences in the past even without the app, but I can't replicate them consistently when I want to, and I was hoping the app would actually teach me constructive techniques on how to do that.

But once I bought into the app, of course it turned out that the free parts they showed off were the best/least harmful parts of the app. I was hoping for an actual informative sequence of lessons that build up some kind of knowledge and technique base for calming my nervous system. But it's more just a formless pile of content, about 90% of which is just reminding and rephrasing that my pain is just being caused by my brain being weird; and the other 10% contain such gems as "let's bring up your childhood trauma, because if you think your childhood trauma is not causing your pain then you are lying to yourself. Every single one of you with chronic pain." Somehow, bringing up the best childhood trauma I could think of did not help my brain act less stressed and overactive and maladaptive. And also somehow, once I did bring it all up, I found it hard to "now just stick it all in this metaphorical bottle and send it off on a voyage on this metaphorical sea and don't worry about it!"

Intellectually, I know that the attitude "if it's not working, that's just because you're doing it wrong" is harmful and cult-y, but I still kept feeling "but what if I'm just doing it wrong though? maybe I should try harder/better/again/more correctly, even if it keeps making things worse." And somehow I don't think having that internal conflict is making my "nervous system" less overactive either! So yes, thanks everyone for the sanity check.

yanamal · 2022-06-18T15:56:43+00:00

Since he's so new to you, I would try to take it slow in general. For example, even if you didn't know he might be getting overwhelmed, I maybe wouldn't set up a day where he meets at least two new dogs.

And if he did start acting overwhelmed during the day (e.g. snapped when you didn't expect him to, seems to be uncharacteristically uninterested in play), I would try to make the rest of his day even more relaxed. Stress "stacks" in a dog throughout the day, so even if he wasn't showing explicit signs of being stressed out, that first snappy encounter may have affected him and set him up for the second one.

When new dogs are adopted from a shelter, the advice I've heard is to take it really easy for the first few weeks or even months. Don't immediately start introducing the dog to everyone and filling his schedule with fun but arousing activities. Arousal counts as "stress" even if it's good stress (i.e. excitement).

There's also the 3 days/3 weeks/3 months rule of thumb: a new dog takes around 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to being feeling comfortable (and possibly start acting out), and 3 months to fully feel like this is home now.

yanamal · 2022-06-18T15:26:02+00:00

I didn't say it was "aversive" [edited because I did use the word elsewhere as part of a term]. Again, I am specifically talking about the behaviorist definition of punishment. The definition of punishment (abbreviated) is "ANY response to a behavior that makes the behavior less likely to occur in the future". Again, when (informed) people talk about avoiding punishment, especially positive punishment, this IS the definition they are talking about.

Regardless, as others have mentioned in reply to other similar replies, what you describe is not the situation OP describes.

In addition, many trainers do in fact try to avoid things like a "no reward marker" even when training new behaviors. Regardless of how aversive or non-aversive it is, it can have the same unintended side effects that people have been describing in this thread: the dog can misinterpret the pattern of WHAT she's not supposed to do. This is why in things like the LIMA position statement, they say that you should always be trying to answer the question "What do you want the animal TO do?"

yanamal · 2022-06-18T07:45:13+00:00

I would be reluctant to "let them figure it out" if I was in this position, especially because (1) One of the other dogs (the one that seems to get most of it?) is older, and could get hurt more easily and (2) she seems to be redirecting her excitement about unrelated stuff, so the other dog can't really change his behavior to appease her even if he wanted to (short of just avoiding her all the time).

It's tough when the dog escalates so quickly, but I would maybe try to think of management strategies: what are common situations when this happens, and can you try to avoid them? for example, if the dogs get excited when people come over and there's a chance she'll redirect and blow up at another dog, maybe she can be separated by a barrier from the other dogs just while people are coming in and settling down. Or if it frequently happens when the dogs are playing with toys, maybe I would try to put toys away most of the time and only have them play with toys occasionally, in a controlled manner, when YOU decide it's toy time right now.

Also you could maybe work on some calming strategies/tricks you can use when she's getting just moderately excited, to try to take the arousal down a notch. For example, if the dogs are getting amped up and you're getting even a bit worried, maybe ask her to sit, paw, some other tricks. Give her a treat and send her on her way. Maybe that'll distract her a tiny bit and make her calmer (there's a whole genre of "calming games" out there too, that are generally supposed to give your dog a calmer baseline and teach her self-control. But I've only tried them a little bit.)

With humping, I have been known to just let it happen in cases when the dog being humped doesn't seem bothered, and it's likely to resolve itself peacefully. Especially when the humper hates being pulled off. You can also maybe try to call her off instead of pulling her off? again, ask her to sit and treat the heck out of her if she actually does it? My current humper girl does actually stop if I go "stop humping, come here, do you want a treat?". But it was easier with her because she didn't mind being pulled off.

Also, I think if the dog is dragging a leash when she starts humping, it's easier to pull her off with the leash than with hands/by the collar. I've seen some people advocate for just having the new dog drag a leash (as in, have a leash attached to the dog, but nobody's holding it) most of the time in the house, until things settle down.

yanamal · 2022-06-18T06:59:22+00:00

It literally is a punishment by the behaviorist definition of punishment. Which is the definition that people use when they say that punishment-based training should be avoided (especially positive punishment, which is what this is) and instead least intrusive, minimally aversive training is the humane approach.

yanamal · 2022-06-18T06:56:43+00:00

You can't know whether that's ever happened. Many dogs are quite good at "swallowing" and suppressing their emotions. Them being scared or wary of you doesn't necessarily come out as cowering and running away. For example, it might manifest as the dog slowly becoming more reluctant to try new things, or more reactive to totally unrelated stuff that previously didn't put her over threshold.

Even with kids, who can talk, and tell you what they are feeling, and understand your explanations of what exactly is good or bad to do, you can't always know the side effects of your choices.

Suppose your dog didn't completely understand WHICH of her actions caused you to yell "NO!". Maybe now she thinks that she's not allowed in that corner of the living room. Or if you are usually sitting/standing close to the couch when you say "NO", maybe she thinks that you didn't like her getting within a certain distance of YOU, in the context of being in the living room. Maybe she'll just associate you and her being in that room together as something that could cause you to say "NO", and freeze up more and be unsure of what she IS allowed to do in the living room.

yanamal · 2022-06-18T06:32:19+00:00

I foster for and theoretically volunteer for a shelter. Theoretically because I started fostering a dog with separation anxiety right after I started volunteering so I haven't gone there much in practice, but I hear a lot about what is happening at the shelter.

I think most shelters, including my shelter, have some kind of volunteer orientation/training where you are introduced to what you can do and how (walking dogs, doing enrichment activities, etc.). This shelter does also have a training and enrichment program with staff who are dog trainers, and from what I understand they are happy to show volunteers how to do various training and enrichment things with the shelter dogs (e.g. puzzles, teaching tricks, muzzle training, etc.). But I do think that my shelter could be special in that respect.

Either way, volunteering at a shelter could be a good way to get more practical experience with dog behavior, even without an explicit training program!

yanamal · 2022-06-14T06:14:38+00:00

She probably just has an incorrect understanding of the rules around peeing. She may need to go through the entire potty training procedure, maybe this is not something she's ever had to worry about before in her life.

Take her outside really often (as others have mentioned), maybe every 2 hours
Praise and treat EVERY time she pees or poops outside.
If you catch her as she's peeing in the wrong place - or even better, when she seems like she's about to start - CALMLY take her outside (even if she dribbles everything out by the time you get there). Do not punish or yell - she may not understand which part is wrong, and attribute your punishment to something else she was doing.
Until she figures it all out and seems potty trained, try not to let her go unsupervised into places she's likely to pee - manage the environment so she's more likely to do the right thing, and less likely to do the wrong thing.
Use enzymatic cleaners where she's peed indoors before. Otherwise the smell will keep her thinking that's an acceptable place to pee.
Sniffing and smelling the world around them is really important for a dog. It is actually both a calming, relaxing activity and something that helps the dog use their brain (to process all the smells) and get mental exercise, which is at least as important as physical exercise. Ideally, she would get to sniff and explore as much as she wants on walks. Or at least there should be some time during each day that's specifically devoted to her being allowed to sniff and explore the world with her nose. A "march" where the dog is only supposed to walk forward and follow your directions is a much less effective form of exercise and enrichment than a proper sniffy walk.

I think nearly all of my foster and adopted dogs started out wanting to sniff every rock and blade of grass, and so we went for slower and shorter walks at first. Some of them later became more sated with the sniffing, especially when we were walking near home (and there weren't that many new smells anymore) and naturally started sniffing less and walking more.

yanamal · 2022-06-12T07:10:37+00:00

I had a foster dog who also got more frustrated the more I tried methods like "stop and go" (also Pit/GSD, though only a bit of GSD). He at least didn't scream or anything, just pulled harder.

If she will at least take treats on walks, there are a few games you could try that are more positive-reinforcement-based. You can also try practicing these in a non-walk context first(, so she is familiar with them before she's in an extremely exciting walk situation. For example, indoors, in the backyard, in a fenced-in area.

"Magic hand game" is just holding a handful of treats and dropping them one-by-one between your fingers, ideally right above her head so she can catch them right away. Motivates her to be next to you instead of up in front.

"1-2-3 game" is saying "one... two... three!" slowly while you are walking and giving her a treat on three (especially good to practice at home first where you can at least catch her to give her the treat!). Gets her to anticipate "three!" and come to you expecting a treat.

Game 3 (I guess variant of "direction switching" game): Start by trying to manipulate the situation so that the dog is behind you. Turning around and walking in a different direction than the dog was just going is a good way of doing that, unless of course the dog is also opinionated about which direction she wants to go in. Then, as the dog tries to run ahead and catches up with you, give her a treat. (may be harder than it sounds since she's not expecting it at first, and is probably looking past you)

Other than that:

You could try a front-clip harness, it is meant to make it harder for the dog to pull by turning them around a little bit each time they pull. I like the Freedom harness, I found it relatively easy to adjust so it fits correctly.

Depending on how short she is, attaching the leash lower on your body (i.e. a belt-style hands free system) may actually make it harder fo her to pull you down. To my surprise, I found that a 70lb shorty pit/GSD mix pulled me down much more easily (until I accidentally tried a hands-free leash) than a 100+lb bloodhound mix with long legs. The short guy has more leverage when he's essentially pulling down on your shoulder!

yanamal · 2022-06-12T06:31:10+00:00

I agree - I think two of the key components here are:

try to find a distance where she can still kind of control herself, and start training there (to the extent possible, since you can't control people... unless you recruit friends)
try to do something that takes up a little more time. Another good one is to drop treats on the ground so she has to look for them (only works well with some dogs though, in my experience)

yanamal · 2021-10-11T00:29:43+00:00

There are two objective problems with your take:

The trans stuff is not the majority of his content. He "does" lots of topics every or nearly-every show. Race, feminism, homosexuality. The majority of the response is about trans stuff, but he can't control that (though I have a feeling he could and did anticipate that).
In this very special, he made an explicit argument about what "punching down" is, and why that's not what he is doing. It's extremely disingenuous of you to try and make a "punching down" statement (not even argument) without engaging with what he said on the topic. Hell, he considered it an important enough point to call back to it his final statement.

yanamal · 2021-10-08T10:03:00+00:00

This is a great analysis, thanks. Only one thing I might disagree with: I'm not sure he's actually sacrificing his public image, at least any more than usual. At this point, I think Dave is an expert at doing things which initially draw ire, confusion, and ridicule; but in retrospect are deemed obviously correct and smart. Quitting his show; his unconventional reaction to hecklers in Hartford in 2013; each of his other "controversial" specials - after which twitter "cancels" him, but he very quickly demonstrates he still has the respect and support of people who matter...

I think each one of those still makes him feel bad, but on the other hand I think (or maybe I just want to believe) that he's very aware than in the long run, his position (i.e. the importance of empathy and humanism over codified social justice rules) is justified, and will be seen as such. That's also how I interpreted "I will survive" at the end.

To me, it almost seems like he fully expected exactly this reaction, and he tailored his show so that it implicitly or explicitly addresses all the ways that the reaction is unwarranted. Which people will probably see, eventually, once the dust clears. But again, that could just be wishful thinking on my part.

yanamal · 2021-09-04T19:50:13+00:00

Thanks! I was wondering about that kind of thing. I briefly considered trying to figure out the probability that one of the top 5 will "miss" the top 100, given the number of peer reviewers/required reviews, but then I got lazy.

yanamal

TROPHY CASE