I didn’t get to use Java 8 features when I was working on an Android app because the sdk level was too low :(

Great find. A reactionary fetishising Japan?? Unheard of

This paragraph caught my interest. It used some terms I wasn’t familiar with, so I dove in.

Ego gratification as a de facto supergoal (if I may be permitted to describe the flaw in CFAImorphic terms)

TL note: “CFAI” is this “book-length document” titled “Creating Friendly AI 1.0: The Analysis and Design of Benevolent Goal Architectures”, in case you forgot. It’s a little difficult to quickly distill what a supergoal is, despite it being defined in the appendix. It’s one of two things:

1. A big picture type of goal that might require making “smaller” goals to achieve. In the literature this is also known as a “parent goal” (vs. a “child goal”)

2. An “intrinsically desirable” world (end) state, which probably requires reaching other “world states” to bring about. (The other “world states” are known as “subgoals”, which are in turn “child goals”)

Yes, these two things look pretty much the same. I’d say the second definition is different because it implies some kind of high-minded “desirability”. It’s hard to quickly figure out if Yud actually ever uses the second definition instead of the first because that would require me reading more of the paper.

is a normal emotion, leaves a normal subjective trace, and is fairly easy to learn to identify throughout the mind if you can manage to deliberately "catch" yourself doing it even once.

So Yud isn’t using “supergoal” on the scale of a world state here. Why bother with the cruft of this redundant terminology? Perhaps the rest of the paragraph will tell us.

Anyway this first sentence is basically the whole email. “My brain was able to delete ego gratification as a supergoal”.

Once you have the basic ability to notice the emotion,

Ah, are we weaponising CBT? (cognitive behavioral therapy, not cock-and-ball torture)

you confront the emotion directly whenever you notice it in action, and you go through your behavior routines to check if there are any cases where altruism is behaving as a de facto child goal of ego gratification; i.e., avoidance of altruistic behavior where it would conflict with ego gratification, or a bias towards a particular form of altruistic behavior that results in ego gratification.

Yup we are weaponising CBT.

All that being said, here’s what I think. We know that Yud believes that “aligning AI” is the most altruistic thing in the world. Earlier I said that “ego gratification” isn’t something on the “world state” scale, but for Yud, it is. See, his brain is big enough to change the world, so an impure motive like ego gratification is a “supergoal” in his brain. But at the same time, his certainty in AI-doomsaying is rooted in belief of his own super-intelligence. I’d say that the ethos of ego-gratification has far transcended what can be considered normal.

Kind of a fluff story (archive) where salty’s douchiness is on full display.

I referenced it because fake book titles are throwaway jokes, you can reference something hyperspecific and not have to worry about whether or not someone will get it, because they might not even notice it at all.

It is well known that the Marketplace Of Ideas is Zero Sum

Thanks for the lore, and sorry that you had to ingest all that at some point.

Like a lot of sci-fi that I will comment on without having read, that sounds like a Dune ripoff (that I also have not read). Except, rather than "ok we tried the whole AI thing and it turned out bad", Yud is saying "my world is smarter because they predicted AI would be bad, so they just didn't try it, neener neener neener!"

Also, iterating on the name origins of "dath ilan," as I've said before, it's an anagram of Thailand. But I have a new hypothesis. It's formed from "Death Island" minus the letters "ESD". What could this mean?!?!?! Electrostatic discharge? "Eek, Small Dragon?" "Eliezer Sudden Death?" The abyss pondering continues...

Don’t worry, utility monsters aren’t real. A utilitarian would say the “benefit” the IDF reaps from doing genocide is completely dwarfed by the suffering they cause.

lol. Utilitarianism requires you to come up with some way to quantify the utility of an action. Such a system isn’t real, so a utilitarian just makes shit up about utility according to whatever agenda they have in mind. Case in point: Zionists, of which EA is rife with.

Doesn’t even know the basic strats for these pattern questions, SMH, Do You Even IQ Test? (trying to start DYEIQT)

you use a lot of terms I’m not inherently familiar with (is there a “welcome guide” of some sort somewhere I missed).

we’re pretty receptive to requests for explanations of terms here, just fyi! I imagine if it begins to overwhelm commenting, a guide will be created. Unfortunately there is something of an arms race between industry buzzword generation and good sense, and we are on the side of good sense.

He’s (lol) supposedly super into math and game theory

It’s kind of the inverse of a sports fan that is into sports because of the stats. He’s into the stats for the magical thinking

Band I like accidentally purchases a poster design from a probable AI grifter. Here's their apology/acknowledgement post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C98X_6huBOJ

The poster in question:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C95H8MQuVI6

I do not blame the band. I blame the AI person for being shit and passing off AI-generated shit as his own.

I aim to displease!