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Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

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Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#141

Post by tel »

Alex3917 wrote: post #121
Eliezer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works. Anyone else got 3 or higher?

"Anyone else got 3 or higher?" I have a drug that could massively raise the IQ of the world's population, in total more than the power of all the world's computers combined. And it costs only a couple pennies per person per year. Iodine.

Okay, then create a segmentation strategy and preventative intervention and then solve effective, ethical, and informed distribution of that intervention. You're also going to have to prove that your intervention actually improves mental health outcomes if you want funding/support from anywhere in the developed world.

I'm not even evaluating whether or not your claim is accurate, just that there's a lot that stands in the way of delivering that kind of change.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#142

Post by podperson »

hluska wrote: post #107
pg wrote: post #42

I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.

Several years ago, a good friend came to me and excitedly pitched his latest invention - perpetual motion. He grew more and more animated as he explained how his device used magnets... Being young, I drew a diagram showing why it would fail. With each line, I could sense him deflating, but I kept drawing. Finally, by the time I brought up Newton, I realized that I'd gone too far. Our friendship didn't really work out…

Once upon a time a good friend tried to convert me to Scientology. That didn't work out so well for our friendship either. All I did was ask to see him levitate...

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#143

Post by hollerith »

niklas_a wrote: post #32
hollerith wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I have been assuming that a large fraction of VC-funded startups try for exits of at least $1 billion. (The more rational ones know they will probably fail, but that does not prevent their sincerely aiming for that target.) I am almost certain their investors want them to aim at least that high. Are you sure you're not confusing billion and trillion? ADDED. I'm not trying to appear bad-ass or hardcore (and in fa…

I had the same reaction as you. But to answer your question and being a startup founder myself - doing a startup is just an amazing experience. It's a bit like trying heroin (not that I've done that, but from what I hear). The highs are extremely high and the lows are extremely low. Going back to a "normal" job after doing a startup is like taking methadone. Sometimes I wish I could think rationally around this (like…

Just to clarify: some young men find life (making friends, college, dating, getting and holding a good job) easy, and for those young men, I do not doubt that founding a startup is the rational path -- especially if they care as much about improving the world as they do about themselves. (If you're trying to improve the world, a 1% chance of making 5 billion dollars is a much more attractive choice than it is if you care only about yourself and your family and close friends because your ability to improve the world is approximately linear in how much money you can spend whereas your ability to stay safe and happy and to keep your friends and family safe and happy is distinctly sub-linear in "spending power" once spending power gets above $100,000 a year.)

However, I do not find life easy (nor am I young).

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#144

Post by wtracy »

thebigshane wrote: post #71
ph0rque wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale. My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/ , rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.

In case anyone missed the small blog link on the bottom: http://blog.automicrofarm.com More information about the idea there. Count me interested! As long as it doesn't involve entomophagy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

TED talk on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E...

A cool Maker-type article on how to build your own setup (it looks like the AutoMicroFarm may be loosely based on this): http://www.northernaquafarms.com/knowledgelibrary/NAF_PDF_Fi...

I know someone in Campbell who is playing with this stuff, and he's sent me tons of links that I can share here if people are really interested.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#145

Post by nicolasmiller »

martindale wrote: post #89
Eliezer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works. Anyone else got 3 or higher?

We've got a solid 5 with what we're building at LocalSense: https://localsense.com -- but it contains elements of #9 which is strangely high on the list.

You cannot be serious.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#146

Post by sbierwagen »

martindale wrote: post #89
Eliezer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy schmaloly, that actually is a 3 if it works. Anyone else got 3 or higher?

We've got a solid 5 with what we're building at LocalSense: https://localsense.com -- but it contains elements of #9 which is strangely high on the list.

#9 is transhumanist dogwhistle phrasing-- it essentially means the end of the world.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#147

Post by gwern »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #136
Alex3917 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anyone else got 3 or higher?" I have a drug that could massively raise the IQ of the world's population, in total more than the power of all the world's computers combined. And it costs only a couple pennies per person per year. Iodine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_deficiency

Unfortunately, the iodine has to be available before the third trimester for the full 10-15 point effect. :)

For everyone reading this, it's already far far too late. I've been compiling some of the child & adult iodine studies into a little meta-analysis: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#iodine

Current conclusion: for 13+ year olds, the effect size is (95% CI) -0.11 to 0.29. Yes, we can't even rule out that iodine is harmful to adults.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#148

Post by lifeisstillgood »

mej10 wrote: post #103
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just vote for better funding of science research. It only takes one genius to change the world, but it turns out that one genius tends to produce many changes (cf Einstein // Lord kelvin // Faraday)

That doesn't really seem like a great attitude to have. It is far too hands-off and unreliable. I just can't imagine thinking "Well, I voted. That's the best I can do."

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say

- you could try to change career, become a renowned research scientist and invent number 3-8 on the Yudkowsky Ambition scale, but ...

You are just one person, probably without the right inclinations to be a world class researcher (or frankly you would have become one, it would have been an irristable calling)

So a more worthwhile use of your time and effort would be as part of a co-ordinated effort to select, support and reward a world wide network of inter-dependant researchers, and then layers of secondary innovators and implementors who in totality will bring the benefits of scientific progress to all humanity.

  They also serve who stand and insist politicians use
  empirical based testing to validate their spending on 
  our behalf
As it were

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#149

Post by sbierwagen »

SilasX wrote: post #129
davidgerard wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would the World Wide Web be on this scale? It would look below 4, but one instance of it, Wikileaks, arguably sparked several revolutions and is a 3 by itself.

It's a solid 5 -- made the kind of change that electrification did, in terms of there being massively many more ways to get informed, fact-check, collaborate, organize, the importance of location, and so on.

I don't know... what kind of impact has the internet actually made on human lifespans, or manufacturing output?

The internet has affected global GDP a lot, but almost entirely in the "moving numbers around in a database" fields, with all the profit ending up in the pockets of a few hundred hyperrich. (high finance, entertainment)

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#150

Post by freshhawk »

decode wrote: post #114
seiji wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Does SI actually do anything other than hold conferences and take donations so smart people don't have to get real jobs?

A cynic would say that the main activity of SI's Research Fellows is to type up their Science Fiction and Philosophy musings and upload them as PDFs to their website. Someone less cynical would say that these musings are fundamental research in the area of self-replicating AIs that will enable other people to build said AIs in the future. I tend to lean toward the cynical interpretation.

But the appropriate area for fundamental research is in explaining consciousness and intelligence so that in the future someone trying to build an AI can actually define what they are trying to build.

That kind of science takes large scale organization and specialization by each person in a narrow field. It carries enormous organizational costs. It's also frequently quite a lot of boring work.

Easier to just speculate on a wide area of interesting topics while you wait for people to do the real work.

Looks like I leaned so far towards the cynical interpretation that I fell over on it.

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