Mutual Understanding

In this episode, I talk to my Twitter mutual Thinkwert about Twitter, the nature of whimsy, why he thinks Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and some general life stuff.Transcript:Divia (00:02)I'm here today with ThinkWert from Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you almost certainly also follow ThinkWert. checked and I think you were followed by 384 of the people that follow me, is a very high number. We're definitely in the same general vicinity. think, yeah. I think, so I got back on Twitter in, I think the end of the -Thinkwert (00:21)Same ecosystem, sure.Divia (00:29)At some point in 2019, I feel like that was around then when you started posting a bunch of tutors. Does that seem right?Thinkwert (00:34)It was like literally January 1st, 2020 that I kind of really hard launched ThinkWord. It was an old account I had for years and years and years, but I didn't really start honestly posting until literally like I decided that year I'm going to start really using Twitter a lot. And so, yeah, it's exactly four and a half years now.Divia (00:55)Yeah, no, I remember. think the first time you came up on my timeline, there was some reply and I'll pick a flower fairy for you. And I was like, I love flower fairies. I'll do that. So yeah.Thinkwert (01:02)Yeah. Yeah. That was also during the height of COVID too. So we had already had a lot of time. Everybody was on Twitter all the time.Divia (01:09)Right.Absolutely. Yeah, no, mean, in January, you probably, I mean, maybe you knew, but you probably didn't didn't quite know how it was going to play out. A couple of people knew in January.Thinkwert (01:16)I did.I knew before everybody else in my real life circles did because of Twitter. What everyone knew was that tidal wave was coming. I remember telling one of my classes, we're going for spring break, we're probably not coming back, take what you need with you. And nobody believed me. Every student was skeptical. said, OK, when we get back, you can laugh at me. You can laugh at me. I give you permission. But I'm telling you, we're not coming back. That's when Harvard had closed, Yale had closed, all the big schools closed.Divia (01:22)Because of Twitter. Yeah.YouYeah.Thinkwert (01:47)Yeah, we're gonna follow suit, we're gonna follow suit. So sure enough, I was right. For once, what am I predicting?Divia (01:52)It was a very bizarre time, I think, for a lot of people to be very online and then talking to people who weren't. And I think some people really like, I don't know, having the scoop or being contrarian or telling people. I was more like, no, no, I felt relieved by a lot when it became mainstream. I'm like, OK, I don't want to be the one trying to tell everyone that this is going to be a big thing. Heather, we're just... Yeah.Thinkwert (02:18)Yeah, the prophet in the square going, beware, beware, beware, it's not as fun. Like, yes, I told you so, is more fun. Yeah.Divia (02:24)Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, OK, so it wasn't because of COVID. What was it in January? And sorry, let me finish my answer. So for people who don't know, think we're mostly posts a lot of great. I want to say memes, but not like with meme formats, not like the latest format that's going around. It's like you put a picture and some text and it's usually really funny. It's usually really whimsical. I think it's always really wholesome. Occasionally you'll postThinkwert (02:49)Yeah.Divia (02:53)You were just telling me before we started recording, you will sometimes post pictures of you holding your daughters. You've done that periodically also, but your bread and butter is like the funny, the picture and the text, funny stuff like that.Thinkwert (02:59)Yeah, yeah.Yeah, I would say the er, think word, post is a picture of an animal with a funny caption. That's probably a little bit whimsical, a little off kilter. But yeah, that tends to be the main way I post it. Yeah.Divia (03:23)Yeah, and as with the flower fairy thing, I don't know how often you're actually getting there, but the vibe is very much, at least from my perspective, like the illustrations in the books I read growing up.Thinkwert (03:33)Yeah, yeah, especially early on I used a lot of the child book illustrations. I went through the Wikipedia list of child book illustrators, like hundreds, looked up every single one of them and tried to find material to use for tweets. And I've kind of phased out of that a little more or less. yeah, definitely the first couple of years. That was my bread andDivia (03:41)Okay.So what was it that made you think you were going to get back into posting in January 2020?Thinkwert (04:06)trying to think of what my mindset was there. I've always liked to kind of be part of something social. I didn't really have any, I didn't even know what I wanted to do. I started posting just a lot of different things. lot of, you try to see what's stuck to the wall. I actually tried a lot of emoticon art early on, believe it or not. When nobody was following me, I tried to

I got some feedback that the version of this episode I originally put up was too quiet, so I’m posting it again! Apologies for the duplication—I’m still figuring out this podcasting thing.You can find JC Cassis at jccassis.com, and can check out her own podcast, Risk.We cover a bunch of topics, including friendship in adulthood, what we owe each other, and a little about parenting.Divia (00:01.721)Hey, so I'm here today with my friend, JC. And I like to say that we went to school together and if people are like, like you mean like what? And I'm like, no, all the school we went to school together, starting in kindergarten through senior year of high school. And then we also went to college together. Yeah, it's yeah. Though, as we sometimes say, you were in the other class in kindergarten. really more like 16.JC (00:02.589)Hey.JC (00:20.116)17 years of nonstop togetherness.JC (00:27.356)Right, so it's, right. And then you were in a different dorm at Harvard and, you know, different friend group and all that. you know, yeah, yeah. It certainly wasn't, it wasn't overkill and it also wasn't nothing, you know?Divia (00:33.216)But we did hang out!Divia (00:38.83)Yeah, totally. And, you know, and we've kept in touch since then. I, you know, I wish I talked to you more ultimately, but, but I would say like at least, I don't know, like at least most years I think we check in. She seems like a.JC (00:45.106)Yeah, me too.JC (00:51.836)Yeah, and I think we totally could more and we probably just should do that. I don't think you're hard to reach at all, but I think it's just living in different cities and all that kind of stuff.Divia (00:57.377)Yeah, yeah that seems right.Divia (01:03.659)Yeah, totally. And, and JC also has a podcast. Do want to tell people a little about that?JC (01:07.252)Sure, yeah, so for the last 13 and a half years, which I cannot believe how long it's been, I've been working on the podcast called Risk, which is where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. No.Divia (01:17.857)Nice. Yeah. And so we were just texting the other day and I'm still sort of like restarting up with this podcast. Everybody took a pretty long break and trying to figure out what I'm doing. But one thing I know I want is just to like actually have conversations with people. And so I was like, yeah, let's, let's get on and, catch up and talk about stuff. I don't know, share our different perspectives. So JC, welcome to the podcast.JC (01:39.72)Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I think it's funny. You know, it's funny, I was talking to my brother the other day and he was saying that he remembered having a conversation with you when we were kids and you came over to my house and he was like, why are you friends with her about me? And you were like very diplomatic, classic Divya, you know, like he did his great impression of you. I forget exactly what the wording was, but it was just something like, you know, well, you know, I think we have good chemistry and I like to talk to her and we have a nice time together. So like, I'm friends with her, you know? And he was just like.I just thought that was hilarious.Divia (02:09.017)Yeah, siblings, siblings are really, I don't know, it's funny with sibling relationships. I hope your brother's doing well.JC (02:17.51)Yeah. Yeah, he is, you know, and he fondly remembers you, you know, so that's nice. But he could not believe that you have five kids. His head almost exploded when I said that. So I know I told him that. Yes, you have not wavered on this. I told him I was like, well, her dream was always three kids and then she had three kids and she wanted two more. So like she's doing what makes her happy. Like, you know, it's never it's never wavered, you know, but his head exploded.Divia (02:22.573)Yeah, it's mutual, totally.Divia (02:30.751)but I always wanted a bunch of kids. I feel like this has been consistent,Divia (02:45.229)You know, actually, so a little bit of it, you say that, I think that's almost right. I definitely said three kids, but this is, and I think we're gonna come back to this topic more than once, but like what I thought was normal growing up in New York, going to like a private girl's school with you like we did, and then what, you know, later I got older and I saw some more things. so I just, it sort of didn't occur to me, I think that anyone could have more than three kids.JC (03:08.928)that's hilarious.Divia (03:09.997)Because like, who did we really, I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I barely knew anyone who did. I was like, three kids is a big family. There was one Christian homeschool group at the music school I went to that had five kids, but I think that was maybe it for what I knew, which seems, I don't know, it seems sort of weird to reflect on that. And, okay, so then here's the other part of that.JC (03:15.751)Yeah.Divia (03:30.169)The next next week, assuming you know nothing goes wrong and I get eve

Michael Vassar and I had this exchange on Twitter, and this podcast is a followup discussion. I think we mostly didn’t find a huge disagreement, but did cover some interesting ground.Transcript:Divia (00:02)Hey, I'm here today with Michael Vassar because we had a disagreement on Twitter that was actually from many years ago that I recently circled back to. And Michael, which is totally in character, was like, let's actually hash this out. And yeah, I've known Michael for a really long time, definitely more than, we met more than 15 years ago. And I would describe you as one of my biggest intellectual influences for sure. I feel like at some point you sort ofI was like, what's going on? And you were like, let me try to tell you, which is, I don't know, it's very much what you're like. Something I quite admire about you is how perhaps more than anyone I know, it seems like you are really dedicated to being like, okay, you person in front of me, how are you making sense of the world? How am I making sense of the world? Let's like actually bridge that gap and talk about it. And so, yeah, I think it's fitting that we're here going to try to do a little bit of that now.And I'll start by just sharing. So yeah, I had posted, and this was one of the early things that I posted when I got back into Twitter around 2019. I was talking about words and I said, there's an issue with the word ego where people need self -concept, self -concepts are important in load -bearing. And then the word for it makes all of that sound nefarious. And then Michael said,Self -concepts are load -bearing, but suboptimal. Memory, perspective, and epistemology concepts are better and less vulnerable to memetic infections. So, I don't know, that's kind of the context. Should we dive in? What are your thoughts?Michael Vassar (01:36)Sure, I could dive in. I mean, I can see the value of something that is non -conceptually selfie, like Schopenhauer's concept of will and representation, as something distinct from memory and epistemology. The idea that there is a thing that is not represented that structures and constructsDivia (01:52)What is?Michael Vassar (02:06)the subject matter, the content of representation, like the way Yoshibok talks about consciousness says that you're definitely a simulation because you're conscious. Things that can be you are necessarily conscious and they're necessarily simulations of something else that is not AU and is not conscious, you know?Divia (02:26)Okay, so on the one hand that makes sense to me and then I'm like, okay, but are you arguing that like we shouldn't even have a word like I?Michael Vassar (02:35)I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have a word like I, I'm arguing that the natural meaning for the word I is...also the natural meaning for ego in a stage one and two simulation non -performative world. Like there's a performative shadow world and a non -performative ego world. And the real self is in some sense a particular monkey and in some senseDivia (02:50)Right?Yeah.Michael Vassar (03:16)physics or evolution or the fabric of reality in Deutsches' sense and like the agency of the self.Divia (03:24)Like an all self type of self, mean? When you say that?Michael Vassar (03:26)Well, not all self insofar as it's evolution, it's not necessarily all self. Physics is a fully extended self, but evolution and computation are like...Divia (03:31)Okay, but in terms of its physics, I'm like, that sounds like pretty broad, yeah.Okay, all right, so there's a lot to unpack, but I think where I'm starting from is like, no, but there's a monkey, for sure, that's sort of like, I don't know, more, there's a body, there's a bag of skin, there's a thing, but there's also like a feature in the world that is not just the body, that.Michael Vassar (03:57)There is a body, there is a monkey.Divia (04:06)To me it seems natural to use some word like I to have some sort of self -concept around this feature and it's like, it's nebulous, it's fuzzy, whatever, there's a bunch of nonsense, but like, we do need something to refer to this feature, right?Michael Vassar (04:18)So like the issue is that there's the version of eye that's in my head and the version of eye that's in your head. And it's natural for the version of eye that's in my head to be a partial picture that I construct to shape my actions and the version in your head to be a partial picture that you construct to shape your actions. And for those two things to be like pretty different so thatDivia (04:35)Yeah.Yes.Michael Vassar (04:48)If I forget something that I said I was to do something for you that I said I was going to do, this is unintentional from the perspective of my eye and not unintentional from the perspective of your eye because the eye that is constructed by me is aDivia (05:04)Cool.Michael Vassar (05:10)tool for remembering commitments, among other things. And the eye that is constructed, the micol that's constructed by you, is the thing that constructs that t

In this episode, Daniel Filan and I talk about Elliot Thornley’s LessWrong post There are no coherence theorems. Some other LessWrong posts we reference include:* A stylized dialogue on John Wentworth's claims about markets and optimization* Why Not SubagentsTranscript:Divia (00:03)I'm here today with Elliot Thornley, who goes by EJT on less wrong and Daniel Phylin and Elliot is currently a postdoc at the global priorities Institute working on this sort of AI stuff and also some global population work. And at the end we're going to be discussing the his post on less wrong. There are no coherence theorems, which he wrote as part of the.the case philosophy fellowship. And Daniel, you are currently doing ML, you're research manager at MATS, which is the ML alignment and theory scholars. And you also have your own AI risk research podcast. So welcome to the podcast, both of you guys.Elliott Thornley (00:56)All right, yeah, thanks.Daniel (00:56)Thanks, great to be here.Divia (00:58)Yeah, so I had read this post, There Are No Coherence Theorems. I missed it when it first came out and then someone linked it to me on Twitter recently and I was like, this is pretty interesting to me. It's very relevant to my interests and I also thought the discussion of it was pretty interesting. yeah, Elliot, would you mind summarizing for our audience what the post is and what it says?Elliott Thornley (01:22)Yeah, the sort of background context is I was reading about all this AI safety stuff, just getting into it and looking for places I felt like I could contribute. And in particular, I came across these coherence arguments. And coherence arguments are supposed to be ways in which we can predict the behavior of advanced artificial agents. you know, maybe we can't know exactly what they'll want, but maybe we can sort ofknow the form in which they're wanting will take, namely that they'll be expected utility maximizers. So this means that they'll at least choose as if they assigned a real valued utility and probability to each outcome and makes choices that maximize the expectation of utility. They'll maximize expected utility in this sense. Coherence arguments are arguments for thinking that advanced artificial agents are going to be expected utility maximizers.And the argument basically goes that if agents aren't representable as expected utility maximizers, if they don't behave in this kind of way, then they're going to be liable to pursue dominated strategies, which basically means like you present them with a series of choices or gambles or something like that. And they sort of plot away through this decision tree. They make this sequence of choices that leaves them with an outcome or lottery that they dis -prefer to some outcome or lottery that they.could have preferred instead. And this seems like a bad consequence. If that was going to happen, then maybe it would put some pressure on you as an agent to revise your preferences. And so the thought of these coherence arguments goes that agents that are not representable as expected utility maximizers will recognize this vulnerability and so be motivated to change their preferences to the extent necessary to make them invulnerable, which will in turn make themexpected utility maximizers. And the post that I wrote is pushing it back against these arguments. So in particular, the sort of canonical version of the argument, seems to me, appeals to these so -called coherence theorems, which I define in the posters, theorems which imply sort of the result, theorems which imply that unless an agent can be represented as an expected utility maximizer,then it's liable to pursue dominated strategies. And this seemed like kind of surprising to me. I'd sort of not heard of these coherence theorems before, like theorems that imply this particular thing before. So I went looking and I sort of read the theorems that had in various places been called coherence theorems. seems to be some like haziness or disagreement about exactly which theorems were supposed to be the coherence theorems. And I found that sort of none of the listed theorems had that particular implication.And so this was sort of my way of pushing back against these coherence arguments and thinking like, no, actually, no, this argument isn't a good reason to think that advanced artificial agents are going to be representable as expected utility maximizers.Divia (04:33)Yeah, thank you so much for the summary. And is it fair in like, is it a fair summary in like somewhat less technical terms to say that the reason people think that AIs will be expected utility maximizers is because otherwise they get Dutch booked? Or is that not a not a very good summary?Elliott Thornley (04:50)That's a pretty good summary. like Dutch books, people kind of use it in different ways. Sometimes people use it just to mean like a particular kind of exploitation or like pursuit of a dominated strategy. But yeah, that's pretty much it.Divia (05:05)And t

You can find JC Cassis at jccassis.com, and can check out her own podcast, Risk.We cover a bunch of topics, including friendship in adulthood, what we owe each other, and a little about parenting.Divia (00:01.721)Hey, so I'm here today with my friend, JC. And I like to say that we went to school together and if people are like, like you mean like what? And I'm like, no, all the school we went to school together, starting in kindergarten through senior year of high school. And then we also went to college together. Yeah, it's yeah. Though, as we sometimes say, you were in the other class in kindergarten. really more like 16.JC (00:02.589)Hey.JC (00:20.116)17 years of nonstop togetherness.JC (00:27.356)Right, so it's, right. And then you were in a different dorm at Harvard and, you know, different friend group and all that. you know, yeah, yeah. It certainly wasn't, it wasn't overkill and it also wasn't nothing, you know?Divia (00:33.216)But we did hang out!Divia (00:38.83)Yeah, totally. And, you know, and we've kept in touch since then. I, you know, I wish I talked to you more ultimately, but, but I would say like at least, I don't know, like at least most years I think we check in. She seems like a.JC (00:45.106)Yeah, me too.JC (00:51.836)Yeah, and I think we totally could more and we probably just should do that. I don't think you're hard to reach at all, but I think it's just living in different cities and all that kind of stuff.Divia (00:57.377)Yeah, yeah that seems right.Divia (01:03.659)Yeah, totally. And, and JC also has a podcast. Do want to tell people a little about that?JC (01:07.252)Sure, yeah, so for the last 13 and a half years, which I cannot believe how long it's been, I've been working on the podcast called Risk, which is where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. No.Divia (01:17.857)Nice. Yeah. And so we were just texting the other day and I'm still sort of like restarting up with this podcast. Everybody took a pretty long break and trying to figure out what I'm doing. But one thing I know I want is just to like actually have conversations with people. And so I was like, yeah, let's, let's get on and, catch up and talk about stuff. I don't know, share our different perspectives. So JC, welcome to the podcast.JC (01:39.72)Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I think it's funny. You know, it's funny, I was talking to my brother the other day and he was saying that he remembered having a conversation with you when we were kids and you came over to my house and he was like, why are you friends with her about me? And you were like very diplomatic, classic Divya, you know, like he did his great impression of you. I forget exactly what the wording was, but it was just something like, you know, well, you know, I think we have good chemistry and I like to talk to her and we have a nice time together. So like, I'm friends with her, you know? And he was just like.I just thought that was hilarious.Divia (02:09.017)Yeah, siblings, siblings are really, I don't know, it's funny with sibling relationships. I hope your brother's doing well.JC (02:17.51)Yeah. Yeah, he is, you know, and he fondly remembers you, you know, so that's nice. But he could not believe that you have five kids. His head almost exploded when I said that. So I know I told him that. Yes, you have not wavered on this. I told him I was like, well, her dream was always three kids and then she had three kids and she wanted two more. So like she's doing what makes her happy. Like, you know, it's never it's never wavered, you know, but his head exploded.Divia (02:22.573)Yeah, it's mutual, totally.Divia (02:30.751)but I always wanted a bunch of kids. I feel like this has been consistent,Divia (02:45.229)You know, actually, so a little bit of it, you say that, I think that's almost right. I definitely said three kids, but this is, and I think we're gonna come back to this topic more than once, but like what I thought was normal growing up in New York, going to like a private girl's school with you like we did, and then what, you know, later I got older and I saw some more things. so I just, it sort of didn't occur to me, I think that anyone could have more than three kids.JC (03:08.928)that's hilarious.Divia (03:09.997)Because like, who did we really, I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I barely knew anyone who did. I was like, three kids is a big family. There was one Christian homeschool group at the music school I went to that had five kids, but I think that was maybe it for what I knew, which seems, I don't know, it seems sort of weird to reflect on that. And, okay, so then here's the other part of that.JC (03:15.751)Yeah.Divia (03:30.169)The next next week, assuming you know nothing goes wrong and I get everything recorded promptly etc. The podcast guest will be Michael Vassar whom I believe I introduced you to at one point. Yeah and I think you guys talked about like the New York City Counc

Jessica Ocean is on X, as is her husband Malcolm Ocean. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Divia Eden and Ben Goldhaber of Mutuals interviewed me about what I’ve been thinking about over the last 5 years. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. (Link to audio on Youtube with clickable timestamps.)Topics discussed include:* what religion and spirituality might have to offer moral philosophy, AI alignment, and AI coordination* Christopher Langan's theory-of-everything, the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, and how it might provide coherent intellectual foundations for synthesizing the metaphysical claims found across religious and spiritual traditions* speculations about non-naive interpretations of "the afterlife" * my interpretation of the Second Coming of Christ as a potential self-fulfilling prophecy, along with speculations about what it might look like* what embodied cognition means to me, and why it's led me to have longer AGI timelinesTable of contentsShow Notes[0:00] Introducing Alex[1:51] What is metaphysics?[2:54] Tenuous metaphysical assumptions behind the is-ought problem[4:43] Alex's AI alignment journey[8:30] Healing infant trauma – Alex's first formative spiritual experience[10:25] The relevance of spiritual experiences for moral philosophy[12:34] Convergent philosophical views among religious and spiritual traditions[14:43] Alex’s take on Buddhism[16:19] Mathematical formalizations of truth, goodness, and beauty might essentially coincide[18:21] Alex’s take on Christ’s crucifixion[20:14] Alex’s first "direct experience of God"[22:23] Psychological distortions as a central problem in AI alignment and AI coordination[25:18] A secular lens on spirituality – addressing psychological distortions[28:53] Introducing Chris Langan and the CTMU[29:41] How Alex got interested in the CTMU[32:48] Alex attempts to summarize core ideas of the CTMU[35:25] Alex’s ITT-passing habit[37:15] On Chris Langan’s political views[39:08] Metaethics from UDT and the CTMU, pt 1 – acting from behind the universal veil of ignorance[40:03] Logical time and the "lazy evaluation" of reality[41:31] Spirituality vs the orthogonality thesis[46:19] Metaethics from UDT and the CTMU, pt 2 – elaborations on "ethics as self-interest"[48:15] Speedrunning the AI "danger zone"?[49:20] Metaethics from UDT and the CTMU, pt 3 – "we are all one"[50:52] "Reincarnation" and "the afterlife"[54:53] How might information get transferred across lifetimes?[58:17] Is love a spandrel?[59:18] "Reincarnation" and "souls"[1:04:56] Karma[1:06:47] Overt physicalist vs subtle physicalist vs non-physicalist explanations[1:07:36] Cross-lightcone effects of prayer via influencing wave function collapse[1:10:18] The physicalism null hypothesis, pt 1[1:11:19] Cross-hemisphere remote healing with ayahuasca?[1:12:13] Learning from "plant spirits"[1:17:22] The physicalism null hypothesis, pt 2[1:19:45] "The afterlife" as already happening, but occluded by psychological distortions[1:23:37] The CTMU as an articulation of the metaphysical a priori[1:24:54] CTMU vs Tegmark IV vs ultrafinitism[1:26:19] The Distributed Second Coming as a self-fulfilling prophecy[1:30:26] Synthesizing the world religions with each other, and with science[1:31:35] AI coordination – the Second Coming as the prevailing of the "Schelling coalition"[1:33:31] AI peacemakers, for empowering human peacemakers[1:35:24] Cellular intelligence, "embodied cognition", and AI timelines[1:42:05] Transformative AIs may not outcompete humans at everything[1:43:04] Is the "AI" part of "AI alignment" a red herring?[1:45:16] ClosingSubscribe for upcoming pieces about related topicsShow notesDouble-crux: a conversational technique for arriving at mutual understandingPaul Dirac on truth and beauty: “If one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one's equation, ... one is on a sure line of progress.”Eliezer’s LessWrong comment about a superintelligence stably believing that 51 is prime: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Djs38EWYZG8o7JMWY/paul-s-research-agenda-faq#:~:text=E.g.%3A%20Eliezer,ounce%20of%20understanding Reincarnation book that Alex recommended to Divia: https://www.amazon.com/Lifecycles-Reincarnation-Life-Christopher-Bache/dp/1557786453 Universal Love, Said the Cactus Person: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ Ayahuasca retreat centers where Alex "interfaced with plant spirits": https://templeofthewayoflight.org/ and https://niweraoxobo.com/Metareligion as the Human Singularity: https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/694 Michael Levin interview excerpt about cellular robustness, from 1:25:15 -1:27:08: [0:00] Introducing AlexDivia: Today we're here with Alex Zhu, whom I've known for a long time. I think I met you almost a decade ago? Alex: That sounds about right. Divia: Yeah, Alex is currently working full time. You have an institute now, you just said? Alex: Yes. Divia: What's it called? Alex: The Mathematical Metaphysics Institute.Divia: Okay, the Mathematical Metaphysics Institu

Sarah is a director at Nanotronics and writes on Twitter and on Substack.Timestamps[00:01:00] Why AI is probably a good thing[00:08:00] The limits of current robotics[00:13:00] Nanotronics and process improvements with AI[00:23:00] Predictions on AI[00:26:00] Input output limitations on AI models[00:35:00] Drug discovery[00:45:00] Instrumental convergence[01:05:00] Progress studies[1:13:00] Morality[01:27:30] Game Theory and Social Norms[01:41:00] Shrimp Welfare[01:48:00] LongevityShow NotesAlphaDev discovers faster sorting algorithmIt Looks Like You’re Trying to Take Over the WorldEA has a lying problemGoals (and not having them)Sarcopenia Experimental TreatmentsReality Has a Surprising Amount of Detail This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Coordination among 8 billion people is very tough. We're very far away from doing that with the intelligence that we have now, it's incredibly costly to send information to different people and for different people to learn about each other in order to trust each other… we should kind of expect that people will have a lot of trouble coordinating on a big scale. But if we could then we’d grow a lot!…In terms of least ‘failing with dignity’ do we think that the public did a good job in trying to investigate this and was misled? Or do we think that the public just like did a terrible job in like doing anything coordinated and just got hoodwinked super easily? I think we fall a lot more into the latter campOzzie Gooen is the president of the Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (QURI). In this episode we discuss Utilitarianism, improving trust in organizations, communities, and governments, and his work in building better software for thinking, forecasting, and estimation.Links from the Show* The Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute* The QURI Medley* A video explaining QURI’s new Relative Value Estimation tool.* Reports on the failure to identify Bernie Madoff’s fraud* How to Measure Anything* The OpenAI BoardTimestamps[00:01:00] Worldview[00:08:00] Starter Pack Philosophies[00:12:00] How tools for better Epistemics fits into Utilitarianism[00:20:00] Mistake theory vs Conflict Theory[00:24:00] Improving EA institutions[00:30:00] Justified Trust in Governments[00:38:00] Contracts and monitoring for evaluating orgs[00:46:30] Estimation utopias[00:52:00] Centralization vs Decentralization[00:58:00] The value of a good investigation in the case of FTX[01:05:00] The importance of the OpenAI Board[01:09:00] Estimating Relative Values[01:18:15] Shared intellectual infrastructure[01:26:00] Epistemically mature civilizations This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

This episode may make more sense after reading Quintin’s LessWrong post about evolution and the sharp left turn, but I think we end up talking through most of it.Our conversation appeared as two Twitter Spaces:https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649925920529223680?s=20 andhttps://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649957263535394821?s=20 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Robin talks about why he thinks developments in AI will be on a continuum with civilizational progress in general, and Ronny, who is mostly trying to understand Robin, talks some about why he thinks many of the things he values about humanity aren't on track to being preserved, and that he cares about that.Video version available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fBdPnwFrI This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

In this episode we discuss several ‘frames’ - ways of processing and orienting to information - that are appearing in public discussions around AI, and in particular reflect on how grounded they are in longstanding debates within the AI X-Risk community."It’s sort of like the democratic ideal where everybody's sort of out there at the public square arguing with each other, talking about the things… I don't think there are a lot taboos about what to say yet either. It hasn't gotten super corrupted.Like it's very rare that in the real world, I'm encountering trolleys running over people right? And you can set up these fake scenarios that mess up my moral intuitions… but maybe it’s not always virtuous to endorse the repugnant conclusion that these very limited, decoupled thought experiment bring you to."Links:* MusicLM from Google* TV’s War With the Robots Is Already Here (Writer’s Strike connection with AI)* Ronny Fernandez and Robin Hanson Discuss AI Futures* Roko and Alexandros on AI Risk* Universal Fire* SpandrelsTimestamps[00:01:00] Updates on Politics[00:07:00] The State of the AI Discourse[00:13:00] The Yudkowskian Foomer vs Hansonian Continualist[00:18:00] Mood Affiliations[00:22:00] Biting Bullets vs Rejecting Fake Hypotheticals[00:28:00] Divide between Game Theorists and Engineers[00:36:00] The complexity of predictions about the future[00:47:00] How similar are the values of optimizing systems?[00:54:00] The rupture of the GMU Rationalist Alliance[01:00:00] Public Perception that AI has Moral Weight[01:03:00] AI Veganism/Freeganism[01:06:00] Overton Window Shifts This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

No transcript for this episode yet, but I wanted to get it out there anyway, since it can be hard to listen on Twitter Spaces. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Ben Weinstein-RaunAnd so my guess is that that fairness seems like a plausible candidate for something like an alien species might have… kind of universal, like given some sort of assumptions about how evolution worked or works.Like there is something happening that results in us making choices. And if your philosophical determinism denies that, like you're wrong. And, I think it makes about as much sense to talk about will and free will in making choices as it does to talk about a glass of water.Ben Weinstein-Raun’s Twitter and Website.Timestamps[00:02:00] - Meta-Ethical Stance[00:11:00] - Contrasting with Moral Realism[00:26:00] - What EA misses[00:47:00] - Fanaticism and Outside of Distribution Sampling[01:28:00] - Building new Tools for Forecasting and Thinking[01:44:00] - Actually using Tooling for Better Decisions[01:53:00] - Guided by the Aesthetics of our Distributed SystemsThis transcript is machine generated and contains errorsBen Goldhaber: [00:00:00] And hi I'm going to maybe make a quick introduction to our guest here, and then we'll just dive into some conversation. Ben - who has a great first name - Ben Weinstein-Raun has worked at a number of top tech companies including crews and council, number of innovative tech research organizations such as MIRI and Redwood Research, and Secure DNA.Ben is currently building a tool for forecasting estimation, and dare I say, thinking. Having known Ben for some time now, I'd describe Ben as a careful, discerning thinker on issues of not just technology, but also philosophy.And so, yes, welcome to the pod, Ben. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, we're excited to have you. I was saying to Divia, one of the reasons I was excited to invite you on[00:01:00] was because of a really great conversation that you and I had a few weeks ago about. Naturalism and ethics and how it's put into practice and like all good conversations about philosophy, it was like 3:00 AM around a kitchen table.And I felt like you really captured something important about I don't know, naturalism and ethics, and I really just wanna see if we could recapture some of that magic in our conversation today. Cool.Ben WR: Yeah, totally. Great. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about it. Awesome.Divia Eden: I'm excited. I haven't heard most of this yet, so I'll get to hear it for the first time.Ben WR: Yeah. Nice.Ben Goldhaber: Well, lemme just ask for the start. How would you describe your moral stance?Ben WR: Yeah, I guess, I guess at the moment, I would describe my, like best I don't know, my, my best stab or something. My best stab at understanding ethics as more like a pretty strong stance [00:02:00] on meta ethics. And not as strong of a stance on like, sort of object level ethics.Where meta ethics is sort of questions about like where ethics comes from. Like why do we say moral sentence or like sentences about morality, sentences about good and bad and should whereas like ethics, like object level ethics would be sort of like, what sentences do we say about or like should we say about good and bad?And like sort of what's true on the, on the direct object level there? I guess the, yes, so the meta ethical stance that I really wanna take is basically derived from an observation, which is that MetaEthical questions are under I think some pretty reasonable assumptions entirely empirical.So whatever the truth of the object level, ethical facts insofar as they exist. [00:03:00] There's some reason that people go around talking about shoulds and, and good and bad and so on. And, and that reason is like entirely inside of physics. It's not mysterious. It's the kind of thing that we could figure out by like, looking carefully at humans and at human societies and at maybe, maybe game theory and math.We don't need fundamentally different tools to answer that kind of question. If we're interested in answering like, the straightforward question, why do people say sentences like that? What is sort of the driver for humans having these intuitions and having these sort of discussions and, and and so on.And so that's sort of like the, the, the meta ethical stance. And then I think it has some kind of interesting implications for taking this stance has an interesting implications for the more object level stuff. So I think the most obvious one to me is that it, it does [00:04:00] not seem like it lends itself well to sort of very simplified rule-based systems.So I think it, it pushes me pretty far away from like a sort of total utilitarian kind of a view where you're aiming to make your object level ethical system very simple and make that sort of like this very beautiful sort of object that you know, is unassailable.Ben Goldhaber: I'd love to ask a question there about that because I could see some people actually like in intuition that I feel like I have, when I hear that from a meta ethical point of view, everything is within this same kind of system and I suppose all derived from physics on down it. Lends itse

Divia and Ben discuss politics, reminisce about elections gone by, and try and make AI predictions.This transcript is machine generated and contains errors.Ben Goldhaber: [00:00:00] so how's it going Divia?Divia Eden: It's going well. Great to have a chance to talk to you on the podcast.Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, same back at you and Hi. Who, who else is joining us for the next minutes?Divia Eden: Yeah, this is my 15 month old son. He'll be here just for a few minutes and and then, then it'll be just the two of us.He's our, our podcast guest. Yeah. Likely.Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. One of our easiest to understand guests. I would bet. You know, just very clear and direct. Absolutely. In a straightforward way. This is no slur against our previous guests but we, I feel like we invite people on in some ways for loving the Galaxy Brain takes.And the beautiful thing about a 15 month year old is just you know, that's right. Simple, clear wants, I imagine I'm speaking as if I have any actual parenting expertise, but,Divia Eden: It's all good one day. Yes. So we don't, we don't have a guest for today. But we have a plan that sometimes just two of us [00:01:00] are going to talk and catch up about things that are on our mind.Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Seems good.Divia Eden: And before we started recording, we were just exchanging a few predictions about some political stuff, you know, as you do. So I thought, I thought maybe we would, we would talk aboutBen Goldhaber: that. Yeah. As maybe some listeners know and, and Dvia knows. I, I was about to say I don't have many vices, but I don't think that's for me to say.But one vice that I do have is I very much enjoy betting on politics. And I will say it has been exciting to see that predict it is looks like it's gonna survive, which, yeah, I was actually much more negative about a few months ago. I did not think it was gonna happen.Divia Eden: Yeah, there wasn't, unfortunately, I think there was no prediction market for predicted unpredicted, so weBen Goldhaber: were left not unpredicted.There was one unlike poly market, which I don't think I ever, I I, I have, the crypto ones have always been just a little, I don't know. I've, I've done some stuff with them, but I've always been like [00:02:00] feel like they're about to fail or about to run away. But yes, poly market had one, but yeah, was not, when I predicted that would've been way cooler.Divia Eden: Yeah. I'm also a longtime political better. I, one of my at the, this is actually, I don't know if you'll ever listen to this. Hello to my dad. If, if we had and wonderful short conversation with my dad back when, so I bet on Obama on, I guess it was Intrade at the time when he was running the first time.And I remember I, cuz my dad was, he was a big, like, he, his read was, Obama's gonna win. He was like, this guy's very charismatic, he's gonna win. And so I was talking to him and I was like, all right, well you think he's gonna win? He's trading it like at whatever it was like 57% right before the first debate or something like that.I was like, well how much do you think I should bet? And he was like, yeah, you should bet like 50 bucks or something. And I was kinda like, well, okay, but if you're so sure. And we talked about it for a while and then he, we hung up. Yeah. And then he called me back maybe an hour later and he was like, wait, how much do you have liquid?And I was like, yeah, this is the right question. Cause in fact, yeah. Yeah, [00:03:00] it was a big, and I mean I was, I think I was just out of college. I did not, I had very little money at the time, but I think I did put little liquid on Obama and Nice. It paid off. So that was then, you know, and then I was kind of hookedBen Goldhaber: after that.Yeah, it's, it's compelling. It's, we don't need to get into all the very good reasons. Prediction markets are, are awesome and, and should be more widely used. But yeah, it's just, it's, it's also just fun because I feel like when you're kind of chatting like with your dad, like I, I talk about politics with my, with my dad as well and with friends.It's really, it's easy to get into the kind of like blather mode and. It's both nice to have as a forcing function, thinking about what your actual bet is gonna turn into or like what this actually means in terms of betting. And also just adds like a nice little, like I, I guess this is for people who are more into sports than I am.It's the same reason why gambling on sports is probably fun. Just add when, then when you keep following it, you get to like have that additional zing of [00:04:00] excitement of like, oh I've got, got money on this debate.Divia Eden: Yeah, totally. And yeah, and I also, like, I've been on Trump the first time, but I didn't have a, the thing I was just saying before we started recording was that I, I think like many very online people, underrated Biden last time.I think I didn't make any big bets. I don't remember. I think I made some small, small ones.

As I’ve said often in the past, utilitarianism is a hell of a drug. And it can get you to do incredibly horrible things while you’re high on it. Utilitarianism not even once, just say no to utilitarian.All of these discussions are old discussions. Instead of being had among 200 people, they are being had in public among vast numbers.Perry Metzger writes on Substack at Diminished Capacity and on Twitter.* [00:02:00] Jupiter Brains and Extropians* [00:07:00] Life Extension* [00:11:00] Ethical Systems* [00:19:00] Rejection of Utilitarianism* [00:26:00] Anarcho-Capitalism* [00:30:00] SVB Collapse* [00:40:00] Finanical System Structuring* [00:54:00] AI* [01:00:00] The history of futurist discussion of AI* [01:03:00] AI Safety* [01:07:00] Fishing in the sea of AI Minds* [01:17:00] Mask on the Shoggoth* [01:22:00] Future Shock* [01:25:00] Competition in FDA Regulation* [01:38:00] Kardashev Scale Civilizations* [01:42:00] Estimates of X-Risk* [01:52:00] Cultural Effects of AI Developments* [01:56:00] Nanotechnology* [02:15:00] Sociology of the Nanotechnology field* [02:27:00] Engineering vs Theorizing* [02:43:00] Back to the future; accuracy of early extropian discussion* [02:52:00] Grabby Aliens* [02:56:00] AstrophysicsThis transcript was machine generated and contains errors.Perry Metzger: [00:00:00] to try to make our lives better, which is, I'm gonna quit my Firefox instance with 8,500 tabs in it.Ben Goldhaber: Can't hurt. And I do think that the recording is working now. Cool. Divia Eden: Yeah. Okay. So, and do you wanna introduce Perry or should I?Ben Goldhaber: No, Divia. I think why don't you do the introduction. Perry Metzger: Okay. Divia Eden: Perry Metzger is a computer scientist who's done academic research, who's also had a bunch of different programming jobs, including startups and consulting. He knows more than anyone else I talked to about nanotech.I originally met Perry through my husband, who met him through an ancap meetup (Anarcho-Capitalism). And from my perspective, he's one of those guys who's been around the futurist scene forever. He was an early member of the Cypherpunks mailing list, started the original cryptography list, and started the Extropians mailing list.He says that he claims no ownership or originality of any transhumanist ideas, except that he did coin the term Jupiter Brain. So, Perry thanks so much for coming on our podcast. Perry Metzger: Hello. Actually no one hires me to write software [00:01:00] anymore. People, people hire me to be a horrifying management consultant.Or what have you. Secretly I still write software here and there, and it horrifies people really, really badly. I have scarred a number of people working for me by having to deal with my software. They, you know, we, but we don't talk about that mostly, you know, and I've, I've gotten rid of most of the bodies over the years successfully.So provided, no one finds them. We should be okay. Yes. Yeah I’ve done all sorts of stuff. I have no idea actually what I'm going to be when I grow up, but I've been told that if you don't actually figure that out by the time you're 60 or 70, you don't have to grow up.So I might actually just have to opt for that. Divia Eden: Sounds good to me. Well, we have a lot of questions, but I was wondering if you could first start by telling our listeners what a Jupiter Brain is, in case they don't already know. Perry Metzger: Oh, okay. So, I should set a little context, which is for those that, [00:02:00] have no idea what Divia was mentioning when she said, I started the Extropians mailing list about 723,000 years ago.In, you know, slightly before Homo Sapien showed up I was hanging out with a friend of mine. And I'll cut the story really short by saying that we discovered this zine, this was back in the era when people would decide, you know, they'd get access to a photocopier and they'll start publishing a magazine.There was this Zine called Extropy: Vaccine for Future Shock put out by a gentleman who was then Max O'Connor, but is now Max Moore. And, you know, Harry and I were reading this thing and it looked like, oh, you know, these guys came down on the same spaceship as us. And I got in touch with Max and I said, Hey, I'd like to set up a mailing list to talk about these ideas.And the ideas like the Magazine was roughly centered on anarcho-capitalism, radical life extension, transhumanism, uploading artificial intelligence you know neurotropic drugs, the usual stuff that young people were interested in, back then. So, I got in touch with Max and I said, Hey, max, I want to set up a mailing list for subscribers of this thing.And he said, well, what's that? And I said, well, you know why I set up this thing and a bunch of people then can have an online conversation. And he said, okay. And I sent out invites on something that was called Libernet back then, which was for Crazy Libertarians and the Cryonics mailing list for crazy people who want to freeze their heads to save their