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Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

futureofhumanityinstitute.org

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Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#61

Post by skeeter2020 »

EarthAmbassador wrote: post #57
sinuhe69 wrote: post #8

What an irony! The Bostrom Institute has to close in the midst of the spectacular rise of AI, and the all-important questions of AI risks and human value alignment are more hotly debated than ever. I hope that Bostrom and his colleagues will continue and deepen their research, because humanity needs such insights now more than ever.

How does one research and generate insights for what does not exist yet? Is there a framework? At SXSW this year, there were a couple of talks about forecasting, as a tool for futurism, but where ethics are concerned, I’ve not seen a good template. Maybe all if this is obvious, yet I’m curious so I’m asking.

I'm not expert and struggled to read Bostrom's Super Intelligence, but my interpretation was it started with a lot of broad, hand-wavy factors & historical interpetations, layered on some pretty tenious projections as inevitable and wanked off with deep thought experiments. I get this sort of open-ended exploration has value, but I'm not sold on it's "prioritized value" when compared with other areas and directions.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#62

Post by busterarm »

n4r9 wrote: post #42
johngossman wrote: post #22

Bear with a digression. CS Lewis was a professor at Oxford. His novel “That Hideous Strength” is about an organization that wants to use science to save humanity. “It’s a little fantastic to base one’s actions on a supposed concern for what’s going to happen millions of years hence; and you must remember that the other side would claim to be preserving humanity, too.” — That Hideous Strength: (Space Trilogy, Book Thr…

I doubt that the philosophy faculty would take CS Lewis' opinion seriously into consideration. He was a decent storyteller, but not much of a philosopher.

His work is often quietly cited by a handful of moral philosophers. In particular, The Discarded Image, anytime someone is writing about medieval philosophy.

Anyway, being a philosopher simply isn't what the guy did and academics are fairly dismissive without consideration anytime religion (and specifically Christian apologetics) gets in the mix.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#64

Post by vkou »

esafak wrote: post #35
constantcrying wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing EA and e/acc. EA was about billionaires defrauding the population who entrusted them with their money to give away to whatever cause was deemed best by the current "scientific" consensus in EA. Causes can include things like the suffering of fish or AI ending the known universe. e/acc is about doing capitalism so hard so that AI will solve every problem.

That's not true. sbf was about that, but EA is not. Are there other cases of EA fraud?

He was doing fraud, but the rest are mentally masturbating about problems that are about as relevant to the world as the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#65

Post by helboi4 »

zo1 wrote: post #51
helboi4 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time race comes up on HackerNews i am shocked at how horrifyingly racist (some) users of this site are. Not only did a user somehow think that this context would exonerate this very racist man, both you and I are getting immediately downvoted for disagreeing. There was a post last week or so that was so full of racist comments it just got taken down. I wonder what on earth brings together HackerNews and racism…

You know, topics like this are not always black and white. There is a full-range, nuance and discussion. I'd also wager that the downvotes here are because this flame-bait kind of comments are not appropriate for HN, or if they are appropriate then some might not think it's contributing to the discussion anyways. Me, I think the refusal by some to admit (or accept) that the full-context post adds to the discussion an…

I'm not sure what you think about my comments is flame bait. I'm having a discussion about whether or not these comments are racist, since someone brought them up.

This is not pulling out the "race card". I made absolutely no "low-blows". Stating that calling black people lower IQ than whites is very much racist is not an unreasonable thing to say. I have no problem with anyone bringing up context. I just think implying that anything about the statement is "accurate" is racist. I'm not sure what is so contraversial about stating that saying white people are inherently smarter than other races is a white supremacist talking point.

And its not just me, anyone saying absolutely anything in support of the idea that what this guy said was bad is being downvoted. No matter how restrained their comment.

I would also much rather people replied to me rather than just downvote. That would be a discussion.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#66

Post by observationist »

johngossman wrote: post #31
observationist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laying SBF at the feet of effective altruism is more than a little silly. It'd be similar to associating the Democratic National Party with Bernie Madoff, or Epstein with any of the universities and foundations he donated to. One of the things criminals do to hide their activity, assuage their guilt, or put on a good show is associate with legitimate organizations. Social organizations typically don't and probably sh…

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFEwQbetaaSpvHm9e/... Not so silly that the EA community didn’t talk about what went wrong.

EA tend to be a bunch of intellectual windbags, by and large, and overestimate their impact on the world at every level it's possible to do so. Just because they collectively gasped and claimed responsibility doesn't mean their interpretation has anything to do with reality.

The reality is SBF was a con man, and however complex his motivations and personality and psychological issues, whatever his ultimate intent, he willfully scammed a lot of money from a lot of people. EA might have been an influence, but SBF is a human with complex agency whose actions can't and shouldn't be reduced to membership or association with a community.

Going from "here's a set of good ideas about how to effectively give to charity, since we see a lot of corruption and inefficiency in charities" to "we have a moral duty to ensure that we only associate with good people" is how you go from a good idea to a pompous internet cult.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#67

Post by exo-pla-net »

setgree wrote: post #39
exo-pla-net wrote: post #18

Seems the incompetent and curiously hostile Philosophy Faculty at Oxford killed FHI. > While FHI had achieved significant academic and policy impact, the final years were affected by a gradual suffocation by Faculty bureaucracy. The flexible, fast-moving approach of the institute did not function well with the rigid rules and slow decision-making of the surrounding organization. (One of our administrators developed a…

I think that either the link has changed or that the statement has changed, because the statement I'm reading is very different from your quote "in both content and deliverance" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UGtlUMMkOU ))

The quote is from their "Final Report, which is the first link in the submitted article.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#68

Post by throw7 »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #23
Maro wrote: post #11

This 2023 incident around founder Nick Bostrom may have something to do with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom#1996_email_contro... From the wikipedia article: > In January 2023, Bostrom issued an apology for a 1996 email where he had stated that he thought "Blacks are more stupid than whites", and where he also used the word "niggers" in a description of how he thought this statement might be perceived…

This is a smear taken out of context. What Bostrom actually had to say is both accurate and mild: > “I have always liked the uncompromisingly objective way of thinking and speaking: the more counterintuitive and repugnant a formulation, the more it appeals to me given that it is logically correct,” the quoted excerpt begins. “Take for example the following sentence: Blacks are more stupid than whites. I like that sen…

I suppose we could also say IQ highly correlates with social ineptitude. Who could've known people wouldn't like you if you made repugnant statements... surely not 'smart' people!

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#69

Post by dotsam »

optimalsolver wrote: post #13

EDIT: Got my “future of” institutes mixed up.

Tegmark’s institution is the Future of Life Institute, this is the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute.

Tegmark’s institute is well-funded, apparently largely due to a big crypto donation from Vitalik Buterin. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/25/a-665m-crypto-war-c...

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#70

Post by jessriedel »

neilv wrote: post #43

The HN headline, "Future of Humanity Institute shuts down", sounds cynically funny, in context of current problems/challenges. The grandiose name Oxford chose now sounds like they've determined the situation is hopeless.

"Oxford" did not choose the name
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