scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5cn7s4.md

[D] Rationality: AI to Zombies; Intros and Parts A & B

• Author: u/rthomas2 *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5cn7s4/d_rationality_ai_to_zombies_intros_and_parts_a_b/

• Score: 42

• Created: 2016-11-12T23:48:02

Post:

There's been some interest among the NYC Less Wrong meetup group of (re-)reading the Sequences. Upon realizing this might be of general interest here, and that reddit provides a good mechanism for discussion, I suggested we make a post. So, for anyone who hasn't read them yet, or anyone looking to do so again, this post is meant as the first in a series discussing the Less Wrong Sequences part by part.

We'll be using the edited/consolidated book version, titled "Rationality: from AI to Zombies". It's available here as a pay-what-you-want ebook; the suggested price is $5.00, and I will now shamelessly plug MIRI and the authors/editors as good people who you should very much give your money to pretty please with a cherry on top so that they can save the world. /shamelessness

Posts will normally come on Wednesdays; due to the hectic-ness of the US election, I've been late posting this first thread. In today's post, the goal is to discuss:

• The Preface
• Biases: an Introduction
• Part A, and finally
• Part B

So the idea is that anyone who's interested reads as much as they can/like, and then posts any thoughts they have in the comments below. For those in the NYC area, there will also be a live discussion held soon; those looking for dates and times can find them via the OBNYC Google Group, which can be found by searching https://groups.google.com. If anyone has any suggestions for improving this post or future ones, please do PM me. Past that, I hope everyone enjoys, or at the very least experiences that complex mix of pleasure and strife that comes from mind expansion.

All the best!

Comments:

u/xamueljones [+7] My arch-enemy is entropy (2 hours later)

Just how much material are you proposing we discuss each week? Looking at my pdf version of the book, the introduction, part A, and part B is ~75 pages total of dense information. Any one of these posts are worth a full discussion on their own.

Is there a reason for you to go so quickly through the book?

u/rthomas2 [+5] (5 hours later)

Mainly group preference: the OBNYC folks who suggested the discussion seem to be quick readers. But it's definitely not set in stone; I'm hoping to see what people think is a good pace, and adjust accordingly.

u/MoralAbolitionist [+3] (21 hours later)

Agree. I'd prefer a slower pace for the reasons already mentioned.

u/lawnmowerlatte [+2] (14 hours later)

Seconded. I would prefer a slower pace as I have work and family commitments that keep me fairly busy.

u/rthomas2 [+2] (9 days later)

Sounds good; the next post'll be up tomorrow, and it'll be just Part C.

u/nexech [+6] (6 hours later)

In case anyone is wondering, OBNYC stands for the Overcoming Bias NYC meetup group, which is a Less Wrong meetup.

u/jonathan_paulson [+3] (3 days later)

I'll start with some chapter summaries from part A (if you feel I've left something important out or mischaracterized something, say so):

1. "Epistemic rationality" is believing true things; "instrumental rationality" is about moving the world in the direction you want
2. Emotions are fine; cold logic isn't an ideal to strive for
3. Good reasons to seek truth are curiosity and a goal; a moral duty towards truth is more suspect
4. A bias is a systematic unforced error in epistemic rationality
5. The availability heuristic is that we judge probabilities by thinking of examples
6. Extra details lower probabilities, even when those details are plausible
7. People are very optimistic in planning. Estimates based on similar past projects are more reliable.
8. We overestimate how well others understand us; it's hard to empathize with the process because we already know what we meant.
9. Don't assume other people have the same base assumptions as you; try to start with their base assumptions
10. Humans can self-reflect and improve themselves

And a random thought:

On "Burdensome Details": I'm not sure I agree with the thrust of this argument (I agree with the math, of course). There seems to be a tradeoff between inferential distance and details; extra details can show a plausible path to a conclusion, as long as you remember it's one of many paths.

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