The future is here?
Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
201–210 of 319 posts
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This context makes it worse. I was imagining a bunch of different framings that would make it sound thoughtful, but I've literally heard the same thing from Klansmen in Arkansas. Literally, not figuratively. That last sentence is a symptom of people thinking that the only important issue is whether they're good people or not. He's saying that saying dogs are stupider than humans is not the same as hating dogs. Who ca…
I don't understand you position. Are you saying the question of if dogs are stupid is irrelevant, off limits, and if you know the answer it is unethical to say it?
Suppose dogs (your choice) are stupider. How should someone behave?
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
why do people not like Max Tegmark? he was kind of a rockstar at NeurIPS
I think it's maybe that he kind of rebranded modal realism into his own concept.
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think are the logical flaws in the trilemma argument?
It's a false trilemma, as there are othe possibilities: he did not actually exist historically, or he was a wise, nice guy and others made up all the God stuff over the years, or he was a nice guy trying to help people and he thought tactically the mystical claims would allow him to help more people. One can probably imagine a bunch more or less realistic possibilities given a little while to think about it.
You must remember that the trilemma exists in a context. Lewis set it up as a reply to people who "say that they're ready to accept Jesus as a good human teacher, but not ready to accept him as God". That is, they already accepted that he existed, and that the set of teachings recorded was more or less accurate.
That rules out "did not actually exist historically" and "others made up all the God stuff over the years". (I mean, those exists as possibilities in an absolute sense, but not as possibilities that he had to answer, because the people he was answering didn't hold those as options.)
And to me, "a nice guy trying to help people and he thought tactically the mystical claims would allow him to help more people" sounds a lot like "liar". Liar with good intentions, but still liar.
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if these people ever paused to consider they aren't as smart as they think they are, if they're just figuring out some basics of human communication in their mid 20s that my 8 year old has known for years.
Bostrom has always had the air of knowing he’s phenomenally intelligent and absolutely brilliant and almost certainly the smartest person in any room. Yet his work smacks of grind and storytelling rather than genius.
Your comment lead the poker player in me to watch a few videos of Bostrom speaking, such as his TED talk. He has clearly worked hard to become conversant in these ideas, but I don't detect any original provocative thought.
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#206This 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…
Even the apology is sort of terrible. I'm not sure that I ever want it implied that black people have lower "cognitive capacity", whether or not it's said with recognition of social factors outside of our control. Social outcomes =/= cognitive capacity. And the causal factor here is poverty > race.
Why do you jump to that conclusion? It certainly isn't implied by a literal and direct interpretation of the statement. Somewhat ironic because the quote is talking about the value of being direct.
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are you saying that the author has no rational to say that? Sure, instrumental rationale: PR. And, because I believe that Bostrom says what he means, Bostrom probably does think what he said was repugnant, but probably not in a way that you would find satisfying. Bostrom probably thinks that speaking truthfully about vulnerable people, in a manner that could distress them (e.g. owing to their misunderstanding of th…
A statement that Race X is "more stupid" than Race Y is almost tautologically racist. The idea that Nick denigrating an entire race as 'stupid' is "accurate and mild", whereas any suggestion that the statement contains racism requires a "license to denigrate" is truly through the looking glass...
Do facts not have any relevance to this debate? Is it all just vibes? I.e. Bostrom is racist because his vibe was off?
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or because Nick Bostrom is a hack. Together with Max Tegmark . Not to mention Ray Kurzweil. Initially wrote wrong surname.
I have not read any paper by Tegmark that seems hacky: https://arxiv.org/search/cs?searchtype=author&query=Tegmark,... Could you point to some?
Before turning to AI, Tegmark's claim to public fame was his "mathematical universe" hypothesis, which is complete drivel
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why does he think black people have a lower IQ? Because of every study that's ever been done on this topic? Pointing this out isn't racist. >Nigerian immigrants to the US are some of the most successful immigrants. Typically those immigrants come from among the smartest few %.
It of course depends on how you cut and slice it, and also on the categorisation of black - but we are talking about approximately 2-3 billion people there if we include India, Indonesia, Africa and the rest of the world. Can you point to a study that has comprehensively assessed that total population? Or just a few studies by Americans, who make their own racial biases, which from a cynical perspective can be boiled…
Can you point to anyone other than yourself who calls Indonesians black? Because I think otherwise it's not worthwhile discussing categorization and measurement in good faith with you.
Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, he published a nonfiction book, the best part of which is the first chapter which consists of literally a fiction story . He also has some serious problems with blinders, but they're the same blinders HN has so if I explain any further this post will get flagged, flogged, deleted, and downvoted. Ah well.
Tell me what they are. I won't do any of those things.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the allegations in this article? https://expo.se/nyhet/elon-musk-funded-nonprofit-run-mit-pro...
But I have no idea whether those allegations are true or accurate–I just did a search trying to work out what people here were talking about, and this is the first thing that came up, and this is the first I've heard of this controversy