Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

futureofhumanityinstitute.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 319 posts

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#221

Post by baobabKoodaa »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #50
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…

It's because the people who run the site tolerate it and ban/warn people for making comments like yours.

Give me one single example of a ban like that

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#222

Post by cool_dude85 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #220
cool_dude85 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you have to presuppose that the gospels are true then you are probably arguing with a tiny slice of people: those who believe the gospels are more or less accurate down to the specific quotes of Jesus but do not believe he was the son of God. I would say that "accept Jesus as a good human teacher" is a far broader category than this and nothing about it implies a particularly strict belief in the truth of th…

In the 1950s, in Great Britain, the basic accuracy of the gospels was a lot more widely shared assumption/presupposition than it is today. If you're going to accept Jesus as a good human teacher, but not accept that he actually taught what the gospels say he did, then you have a good teacher but no teachings. And maybe that's a position that a lot of people like, because it leaves them an empty figure into which they…

>Accepting the gospels, the liar you describe is still offering people eternal life, at a price - "take up your cross and follow me". (The cross was not just a burden, it was an instrument of execution.) If the eternal life isn't there, it's hard to describe that as a benign or beneficial lie.

If you don't actually believe in the supernatural stuff it seems like the definition of a benign lie. He thinks having society follow his broader teachings would result in a much better society on net, regardless of some people being killed for following and spreading it. He thinks that you go in the dirt when you die so he says, hey, actually you go up to this great place. This really helps it catch on and spread. Nobody finds out that part's not true because when they die they just go in the dirt.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#223

Post by nybsjytm »

_delirium wrote: post #216
nybsjytm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reflects kind of badly on NeurIPS if true. I first became aware of him over 10-15 years ago when he was pushing his "mathematical universe" idea, which is quite simply the most vapid and contentless idea I've ever seen in physics. (I don't think it's at all surprising that someone like him would be drawn to the AI community, or vice versa!)

He has some PhD students doing what seems to me to be reasonable work that gets published at NeurIPS. Somewhat speculative, of the flavor you’d expect from theoretical physicists doing AI work, but it’s at least speculation about concrete technologies that exist, not pure metaphysics. For example, there’s a recent paper proposing and validating in small models a possible mechanism to explain some power laws seen in N…

I think that paper is pretty weak, but at least in terms of content it's still night and day compared with the nature of Tegmark's clout-chasing in his physics days. But it's pretty grim if that's the kind of paper that made him popular at NeurIPS.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#224

Post by arduanika »

Lockal wrote: post #198

Good riddance. A group of scammers without specialized education, theorizing about immortality (from people without medical education), saving humanity (thank you, but humanity thrives without your help), about ethics in artificial intelligence (from people who do not know any programming language), about drug promotion (from professional drug abusers), about pumping money into cryptocurrencies (which they personally…

I hate to break it to you, but these scholars are not going to jail for their bad ideas. That's not how a free society works. We'll have to settle for general disrepute.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#225

Post by williamtrask »

karma_pharmer wrote: post #152

Starting in 2020, the Faculty imposed a freeze on fundraising and hiring. In late 2023, the Faculty of Philosophy decided that the contracts of the remaining FHI staff would not be renewed. Can anybody offer insight into the reasons here? Obviously there is not going to be an objective answer to this question. And that is probably why the linked page does not try to give an answer. I'm assuming lack of funding wasn't…

"Any organization embedded in a larger organization or community needs to invest to a certain degree in establishing the right kind of social relationships to maintain this embeddedness. Incentives must be aligned, and both parties must also recognize this alignment. We did not invest enough in university politics and sociality to form a long-term stable relationship with our faculty. There also needs to be an understanding of how to communicate across organizational communities. When epistemic and communicative practices diverge too much, misunderstandings proliferate. Several times we made serious missteps in our communications with other parts of the university because we misunderstood how the message would be received. Finding friendly local translators and bridgebuilders is important."

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/660e95991cf0293c2463b...

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#226

Post by cad31 »

rdl wrote: post #6
patrulo wrote: post #4

Curious as to why they didn't explore independence, moving from Oxford to a separate non-profit org. Getting funded doesn't seem impossible given the amount of high-profile e/acc advocates.

I think they're the enemies of e/acc, and their EA background (due to FTX, SBF, etc.) taints them a bit when it comes to fundraising.

By "enemies" you mean the sinking boat that e/acc people jumped out of, giving way for the next scam.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#229

Post by selimthegrim »

frozenseven wrote: post #119
neffy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

South Asians are a wholly different and distinct group. Most Indonesians are South-East Asian, except for Chinese migrants and those living on the island of New Guinea. Africa is a continent, not a race. What you're saying is all over the place. And I'm not here to discuss politics.

South Asians in the UK in the 80s and 90s were classed as black, n____, etc.

Re: Future of Humanity Institute shuts down

#230

Post by skissane »

cma wrote: post #203
swyx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

His flavour of "modal realism" is rather different from those of David Lewis or Takashi Yagisawa – the way he intersected that with debates about mathematical Platonism – original and interesting

I doubt he's right, but novel wrongness is admirable in a way that same old wrongness

Post reply on HN