Amateur Utility Maximizer's website about genetic patterns, networks, game theory, and civilization
The second-ever post on this blog is about the question of malevolent AI. I will now revisit the question with more detail, having had time to refine my thoughts. I don't think the question of malevolent AI, more broadly, the "AI alignment problem," can be simply dismissed. If my view has changed at all since the last … Continue reading Malevolent Artificial Intelligence (Sam Harris is Wrong, Part 4)
Sometimes, I find a blog and have no idea where to start reading. The first post? The last post? The most popular post? This is a solution to that. That's too many links! Well don't get intimidated. It's not like you have to read everything. Just look around. Some of my good posts The order … Continue reading Just discovered this blog – what should I read?
I know I'm a day late to this, but here's something that's been annoyed me. Do me a favor. Go to this link, a Google image search for "vintage halloween costumes." Now, the black-and-white coloring may be a factor, and there's probably some selection bias. But those are some scary costumes. Now simply search for … Continue reading The quintessential problem of our day: halloween costumes aren’t scary enough
Harris fails to appreciate the narrative power of religion, or the importance of belief. Here is an excerpt from a debate between Harris and Jordan Peterson, moderated by Bret Weinstein. Harris: I'm not saying that stories aren't incredibly powerful and useful and inevitable... Peterson: You are. You might be saying that they're inevitable. But you … Continue reading Theism, atheism, and antitheism (Sam Harris is Wrong, Part 3)
Every boat is copied from another boat. . . . Let's reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages and thus never be copied. . . . One could then say, with complete rigor, that … Continue reading Design vs Darwinism and “skin in the game”
This post will follow up on a previous one about anti-trust. In that post, I allege that the best (if not only) way to become aggressively rich — to have “passive income” — is to abuse some “barrier to entry.” A barrier to entry is essentially some leverage that makes it very difficult for someone else to compete with … Continue reading More about barriers to entry: How people get rich
See the image below. Imagine you start at the dot. Your job is to construct roads, in such a way to minimize the time spent traveling. It needs to be possible, starting at the dot, to arrive anywhere at the line. Here is the challenge: how do you construct the roads? If cost is not … Continue reading Tree structures, the last mile problem, fractals, and the inevitability of hierarchy
