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Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

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Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#221

Post by manish_gill »

Nostripus wrote: post #176
manish_gill wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying t forever. Thanks for putting it so succinctly. LessWrong is a cult of people who want to be smart and they've essentially found a community in which certain assumptions and hypothetical scenarios combined with mathematical concepts make them think they've found the answer to everything in the Universe. They're no better than any other cult in my book. The problem is that it's only going to get worse…

What is the answer to everything in the Universe they think they've found? I've read a lot of the bigger posts on Lesswrong ( http://lesswrong.com/top/?t=all ) and none of them are anything like. No better than any other cult? How are you deciding that? The LW community hasn't killed people. Doesn't cut people off from their family. Does't emotionally/physically abuse people. Etc... Even if they are a "cult", this pu…

cult |kʌlt| noun 1 a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object: the cult of St Olaf. • a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.

The veneration of Yudkowski and others in the LW community is more than a bit "religious". So I'd say by definition it's a cult.

LW hasn't done harm to people physically, but what it's done is spawn some very questionable ideas, perpetuate pseudo-science and pseudo-mathematics. The cult leader has no formal training, zero research in peer-reviewed journals and still calls himself a "senior research fellow" in an institute he himself started.

Hell, he even has an introductory religious text - The Sequences and the Methods of Rationality fan fiction (which by the way, he wanted to monetise before the broader fan fiction community stopped him. A clear violation of copyright law).

For more, see: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Yudkowsky

I'll quote the section titled "More controversial positions"

Despite being viewed as the smartest two-legged being to ever walk this planet on LessWrong, Yudkowsky (and by consequence much of the LessWrong community) endorses positions as TruthTM that are actually controversial in their respective fields. Below is a partial list: Transhumanism is correct. Cryonics might someday work. The Singularity is near![citation NOT needed]

Bayes' theorem and the scientific method don't always lead to the same conclusions (and therefore Bayes is better than science).[21]

Bayesian probability can be applied indiscriminately.[22]

Non-computable results, such as Kolmogorov complexity, are totally a reasonable basis for the entire epistemology. Solomonoff, baby!

Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics is correct (a "slam dunk"), despite the lack of consensus among quantum physicists.[23]

Evolutionary psychology is well-established science.

Utilitarianism is a correct theory of morality. In particular, he proposes a framework by which an extremely, extremely huge number of people experiencing a speck of dust in their eyes for a moment could be worse than a man being tortured for 50 years.[24]

Also, while it is not very clear what his actual position is on this, he wrote a short sci-fi story where rape was briefly mentioned as legal.

TL;DR: If it's associated with LessWrong/Yudkowsky, it's probably bullshit.

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#222

Post by manish_gill »

Anderkent wrote: post #191
manish_gill wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying t forever. Thanks for putting it so succinctly. LessWrong is a cult of people who want to be smart and they've essentially found a community in which certain assumptions and hypothetical scenarios combined with mathematical concepts make them think they've found the answer to everything in the Universe. They're no better than any other cult in my book. The problem is that it's only going to get worse…

I don't understand how you can be so certain that the hypothetical scenarios they imagine can't possibly happen. Even if it really is laughable, we spend a lot of money on laughable research (homeopathy, anyone?), so why is this case so particularly bad?

...Just because we've spent money on one laughable research doesn't mean we should spend it on more, does it? Are you seriously going to argue that?

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#223

Post by discreteevent »

jameshart wrote: post #187
edanm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm a LessWronger and know a bit about the "movement", and think you are misunderstanding what "LessWrongers think". Obviously not all LessWrongers think the same thing at all, but I'm talking about the average position of the people who believe AI safety should be worked towards. I'd love to explain the basic position, and tell me where you disagree with it. This is the basic position: 1. Intelligence can be crea…

Yeah, you go off the rails around step 5. "Something being much more intelligent than us means that, in effect, it has almost absolute power over what happens in the world" makes no sense. Since when does intelligence get you power? Are the smartest people you know also in positions of power? Are the most powerful people all highly intelligent? "whatever the goals of the AI will be, it will achieve them". Dude, if in…

"Since when does intelligence get you power?" You hit the nail on the head there. Its about I/O. (Just as its about I/O in the original article - garbage in, garbage out). Jaron Lanier makes this point in.

http://edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-the-myth-of-ai

"This notion of attacking the problem on the level of some sort of autonomy algorithm, instead of on the actuator level is totally misdirected. This is where it becomes a policy issue. The sad fact is that, as a society, we have to do something to not have little killer drones proliferate. And maybe that problem will never take place anyway. What we don't have to worry about is the AI algorithm running them, because that's speculative. There isn't an AI algorithm that's good enough to do that for the time being. An equivalent problem can come about, whether or not the AI algorithm happens. In a sense, it's a massive misdirection."

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#224

Post by yzmtf2008 »

To me, the single most easy to understand form of Bayes' Theorem is:

    P(A|B) * P(B) = P(A∩B) = P(B|A) * P(A)
An intuitive explanation to the equation:

The (possibility of events A and B both happening) equals the (possibility of A happening when B is happening) * the (possibility of B happening), which equals to the (possibility of B happening when A is happening) * the (possibility of A happening).

Combining that with a Venn diagram:

    {A (A}∩{B) B}
Since P(B|A) means the chance of event B happening when A is happening, in this case which indicates that both A and B are happening, it's really just the area of (A∩B) divided by (A), which can be translated to (P(A|B) * P(B)) / P(A).

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#225

Post by sawwit »

danieltillett wrote: post #138
Chathamization wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with trying to rely on heuristics to avoid biases is people often ignore the biases in the heuristics of choice. To continue the example of LW, there are many people there who seem to think highly of IQ test, and who ignore the many issues with them (the Flynn effect an the effect of incentives being a couple examples of the flaws in IQ tests). Trying to remove biases is great. But there is a problem when…

The Flynn effect mystery is exactly the same as the mystery that in most countries the younger population is taller than the previous generation. The fact that the Flynn effect only occurs in the bottom half of the intelligence distrubtion is a bit of a clue as to what is the cause.

What's the cause that follows from that it mostly affects the bottom 50%?

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#226

Post by loup-vaillant »

manish_gill wrote: post #220
TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this type of writing before. It's a kind of twisted pseudo-criticism you write against a group you dislike. You can compose stuff like this against any group. It sounds believable from the outside, especially if you start sceptical to begin with. But take a closer look - it's actually full of ad-hominems, cherry-picking facts and presenting them in worst light possible. I've been a part of several groups th…

If your ideas can stand on their own merit, you can defend them against criticism without resorting down to saying things like "oh it's a pseudo criticism and cherry picking facts". You're the one calling it bullshit. You even admit you wouldn't want to refute specific accusations. And then go on to call it "malicious bullshit". So, basically what you're saying is that we shouldn't listen to this criticism (which pro…

Let's try: as far as I know, this bit: Under this rallying cry, Lesswrong insiders attempt to purge discussions of any political opinions they disagree with.

Having hanged around LessWrong for quite some time, I'm pretty sure this point is false. How am I to show it however? Dump the whole site to show the absence of such purges? And how the inevitable counter-example? Quite a lot has been said there, we're bound to find unacceptable behaviour somewhere. All I can provide is a testimony. In other word, anecdotal evidence, which we all know to be weak.

There's another way to say "pseudo criticism and cherry picking facts". It's the fully general counter-argument. If the criticism can indeed apply to all groups, then it effectively applies to none, because it doesn't provide a way to discriminate different groups.

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#227

Post by sawwit »

jimrandomh wrote: post #53
IanCal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do priors just start you off closer to the truth? That is to say, if you start with any prior, will enough additional pieces of evidence always let you converge on the truth? Does anyone commonly set their priors to be a distribution? Perhaps a range or actually a normal distribution to represent a prior with uncertainty?

> That is to say, if you start with any prior, will enough additional pieces of evidence always let you converge on the truth? Yes, with two caveats. First, you can't have assigned zero probability to the right answer. Which means that if you have a probability distribution over hypotheses, and the right answer wasn't one of the hypotheses in the distribution, you're doomed from the start. The Solomonoff prior is a m…

The prior of Solomonoff Induction is a uniform distribution over the enumerable set of Turing machines?

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#228

Post by TeMPOraL »

RodericDay wrote: post #211
RodericDay wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who feels injustice, but hasn't had the time or resources to codify it into a calm rational treatise is said to be speaking from emotion. Someone who merely experiences base greed, but is able to justify it to themselves as righteous and deliberate and socially beneficial with a bunch of babble, is considered rational. And so, the idea that the rigid set of discursive boundaries that LessWrongians impose upon…

I can't seem to post a reply, so I'll wrap it up here. I'm criticizing an ecosystem. Yudkowsky-types noodle with weird hypotheticals, others with elitist views get validation. Fantasizing of fixing our current issues with futuristic tech, using it as a yard-stick to criticize ie: a collective black identity from forming a political block, is not explicitly pro-status quo but ends up being so in practice.

So the only criticism here is that views of various people on LW forum do not conform to the mainstream social justice outrage narrative, where everything needs to be politicized and "status quo" must be fought?

That's sort of the entire point of "Politics is the Mind-Killer" statement, a point which Bond also missed - LW community wants to focus on effective ways to deal with actual problems, as opposed to doing politics. They're not criticizing "a collective black identity", speaking against them "forming a political block". They're not talking about it. It's besides the point of that article and mostly besides the point of the entire community, which tends to focus on how to make things better for everyone.

Frankly, I find it funny to see accusations of racism aimed at people who are known to seriously, and not just as a figure of speech, consider humanity as one great family who are in it together. But then again, everyone of us who is not outraged is secretly a racist and supports the enemy.

Also consider the core statement of the Mind-Killer article:

"Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue."

It's perfectly OK to avoid that kind of political discussions. I'd say it's weird to actually partake in them.

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#229

Post by TeMPOraL »

manish_gill wrote: post #220
TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this type of writing before. It's a kind of twisted pseudo-criticism you write against a group you dislike. You can compose stuff like this against any group. It sounds believable from the outside, especially if you start sceptical to begin with. But take a closer look - it's actually full of ad-hominems, cherry-picking facts and presenting them in worst light possible. I've been a part of several groups th…

If your ideas can stand on their own merit, you can defend them against criticism without resorting down to saying things like "oh it's a pseudo criticism and cherry picking facts". You're the one calling it bullshit. You even admit you wouldn't want to refute specific accusations. And then go on to call it "malicious bullshit". So, basically what you're saying is that we shouldn't listen to this criticism (which pro…

Yes, I see the problem you mention. All I offer is, as a person who spent some time hanging around that group but not exactly an insider, my honest assessment: this criticism is very unfair, very hurtful, and mostly bullshit. You don't have to believe me - but you now have a second data point for your consideration.

I did engage with some points in comments below though, to show examples of this cherry-picking facts, ripping them out of context and twisting them into supporting something completely untrue.

But my general point is that this kind of criticism is impossible to defend against. To prove that it's mostly bullshit would take me literally writing a book - in which I would surely make mistakes, that then could be used to discredit it entirely in a single article. This is the asymmetry of dishonest arguing - you can get your results with 1/100 the effort if you're willing to deceive your reader.

When people read a powerful criticism "debunking" things about a group they vaguely know, the default for most is to agree with the criticism. For some reason it's natural to humans. All I want now is to make people stop for at least a moment, consider that the article may be unfair, and to not make judgments before double-checking the claims.

Maybe I could've written it in a more dispassionate way. It's hard for me - not because I like LW, but because I've been in other groups targeted by this kind of criticism, spent way too much time trying to defend the group from it, and I know the crushing feeling that no matter what the truth is, it'll be twisted and bent until it can be used as a weapon against you.

Re: Bayes's Theorem: What's the Big Deal?

#230

Post by sawwit »

manish_gill wrote: post #221
Nostripus wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the answer to everything in the Universe they think they've found? I've read a lot of the bigger posts on Lesswrong ( http://lesswrong.com/top/?t=all ) and none of them are anything like. No better than any other cult? How are you deciding that? The LW community hasn't killed people. Doesn't cut people off from their family. Does't emotionally/physically abuse people. Etc... Even if they are a "cult", this pu…

cult |kʌlt| noun 1 a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object: the cult of St Olaf. • a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members. The veneration of Yudkowski and others in the LW community is more than a bit "religious". So I'd say by definition it's a cult. LW ha…

I cannot judge to which degree these theses are bullshit, but I've found LW a tremendously rich source of thinking tools and I'm convinced that reading or skimming a lot of the sequences have improved my thinking.

Regarding the rape sequence in HPMOR: It's a terribly chosen trope to convey that the fictional society has very different values from ours. Apparently it ties into various parts of the story, so that EY didn't remove it and only toned it down after it was criticized.

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