Elon Musk AMA • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#111

Post by rl3 » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #101

rl3 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the unfamiliar, this is essentially the line of thinking behind Roko's basilisk .[0] While a mature superintelligence certainly could consign the human race to a fate of eternal suffering, the likelihood it would actually do this while sparing certain individuals in return for their assistance is infinitesimal. Therefore, helping bring a superintelligence into existence on this basis is absurd. Of course, it is p…

> However, anyone who would genuinely subscribes to such a justification would have to be both a sociopath and a card-carrying member of the LessWrong rationality cult. At the risk of sounding like sociopathic LessWrong cult apologist (not carrying a card, unfortunately), you're totally misrepresenting LessWrong, peole who participate in that community, their attitude towards Roko's basilisk and unbounded risk situat…

What I said was meant to be taken in proper context.

The parent I was replying to was concerned about humans with perverse motivation working to aid a hostile AI takeover. Not as some sort of abstract thought experiment, but literally.

The statement you quoted was a means of countering that, in a literal sense. As in, "who would realistically do such a thing?"

When I was referring to the rationality cult, I did not mean the LessWrong community as a whole, but a small subset that fanatically applies the principles of rationality to their daily lives. Admittedly I could have worded it better.

Also, it was not my intent to imply said people were sociopaths.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#112

Post by SammoJ » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 2:57 PM UTC

simple1 wrote: post #14

whichdan wrote: post #9

If you just want to read the questions/responses: http://www.reddit.com/r/tabled/comments/2rh6si/table_iama_i_...

I also made a site ( http://www.amatranscripts.com ) that transcribes popular AMAs. Elon Musk's is here: http://amatranscripts.com/ama/elon_musk_2015-01-05.html

This is brilliant, thank you.

On the Musk transcript I found this formatting confusing: "Have you played Kerbal Space Program?

What do you think SpaceX uses for testing software?"

I can't access Reddit to see what the original comment was.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#113

Post by debacle » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:04 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #69

Cogito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been following r/spacex for a little bit. When they started trying to work out some good questions a day ago someone suggested that everyone upvote the resulting questions but the mods there quickly shut that down. [1] The reasons given for deleting the comments was specifically what everyone was trying to avoid, that is voting brigading. As far as I can tell no one was asking for votes, simply working tog…

That's the attitude that they say murdered wikipedia. Rules are there to foster a better community, not to kill off good community initiatives. As soon as the adherence to the rules becomes more important than the quality of the product you've basically lost it. The whole trick is to know when not to apply the rules. AMAs are an exceptional item and a different ruleset for AMAs would not be all that hard to imagine.…

Reddit hasn't been about community in about a year, and /r/IAmA is a huge part of that. It's a huge profit center for reddit and they moderate it heavily.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#114

Post by darkmighty » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #83

jebus989 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure editor numbers are in decline, that doesn't support your point. Ignore All Rules is one of the fundamental principles the site was founded on.

The point is that that fundamental principle seems to be ignored by people that prefer to bicker over the rules rather than to be otherwise productive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 And that this in turn is what drives editors away. So it very much supports my point.

Wikipedia at this point is one of the primary sources for everything on the internet. At the early days of wikipedia, you could pick any topic and there would be major articles unwritten. It was far best to have some article than a great article. I can't comment exactly on the editor situation of the wiki, but it's to be expected a shift to more specialized and aggressive "curation" of articles, specially of more solidified topics. Wikipedia's fantastic performance contradicts this argument.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#115

Post by Cogito » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #76

Cogito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been following r/spacex for a little bit. When they started trying to work out some good questions a day ago someone suggested that everyone upvote the resulting questions but the mods there quickly shut that down. [1] The reasons given for deleting the comments was specifically what everyone was trying to avoid, that is voting brigading. As far as I can tell no one was asking for votes, simply working tog…

One of the few things you can do that will get Reddit admin attention is to "manipulate" votes. It's not surprising that mods are cautious when people say "get this whole sub to upvote the post". From a first reading that screenshot sounds like vote-brigading, not like using a single thread of questions within a sub to organise a list of great questions.

Yes you lose some context in the screenshot.

That comment was posted to the single thread of questions in the sub, and was quickly shot down by the subs mods (u/EchoLogic). Here is a link to the actual comment if anyone is interested in having a look:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2rb303/elon_musk_is...

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#116

Post by digitalzombie » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

lukeqsee wrote: post #25

I found his comment regarding learning to be the most insightful. It is a more developed explanation of what I have found to be an effective strategy for me: > One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. Without th…

I agree that fundamental is everything.

I just believe that almost everything in life is a skill and skill requires practice.

I've came across a research paper about deliberate practice and Peter Novig article about Teach yourself how to program in ten years.

This resonate and reinforce my belief of practices is everything.

As for the intricate of how, I'm more of a visual and kinestic kind of learner. Auditory suck. Also I need a book, I sit down and write notes first and then do problems. From there I usually look for a video on that subject for a secondary source. Most of the time a secondary source will give a different view on the subject matter and I get insight at a different point of view. Or that the second source explain it more better or fill in stuff that I didn't realize I gloss over or missed.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#117

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:24 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #114

jacquesm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that that fundamental principle seems to be ignored by people that prefer to bicker over the rules rather than to be otherwise productive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8596682 And that this in turn is what drives editors away. So it very much supports my point.

Wikipedia at this point is one of the primary sources for everything on the internet. At the early days of wikipedia, you could pick any topic and there would be major articles unwritten. It was far best to have some article than a great article. I can't comment exactly on the editor situation of the wiki, but it's to be expected a shift to more specialized and aggressive "curation" of articles, specially of more sol…

> Wikipedia at this point is one of the primary sources for everything on the internet.

That is explicitly what it isn't, anything but that.

> I can't comment exactly on the editor situation of the wiki, but it's to be expected a shift to more specialized and aggressive "curation" of articles, specially of more solidified topics. Wikipedia's fantastic performance contradicts this argument.

Wikipedia would still be a fantastic resource if nobody contributed to it from today forward. But that does not mean it couldn't be a whole lot better without the army of lawyer wannabes that are in a tug of war over who gets to have the most power over others by citing policies until the cows come home.

Lots of long time contributors have left because of this and the exodus is far from over. I agree that there is an expected shift to curation but the fantastic performance of wikipedia is not in any way evidence for there not being a significant negative undercurrent at work.

That's just evidence of how good the concept originally was and how much momentum it has built up.

Any kind of success will attract two kinds of people: those that wish to contribute and those that see it as a means to their personal ends, to get a piece of that success. Since wikipedia is not big on credit for contributions the only place where people craving for recognition get to achieve their fix is in becoming 'editors', and unfortunately the motivations of those editors are not always pure.

See elsewhere in this thread for some of the more bizarre displays of such behavior.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#118

Post by ctdonath » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

lotsofmangos wrote: post #47

zamalek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is basically how I learn. I know concepts, not facts and recreate the facts as I need them. That being said, it's definitely not how everyone learns and I would classify it as bad advice: schools have the correct learning strategy for the vast majority of the human race, so stick to that. If you are one of the outliers (as you have said you are) you would have figured this all out a long time ago, even if…

Schools massively vary in learning strategies though. Saying to stick to schools rather than teaching yourself, as a learning strategy, is a bit like saying to stick to food from shops rather than trying to grow your own, as an eating strategy.

If you're new to growing your own food, I indeed highly recommend you initially stick to food from shops as you start learning to grow your own, transitioning gradually as your skills improve and can rely more on yourself. If you completely & abruptly stop buying food, relying entirely on your own farming, with no transition period, trust me you'll starve.

Likewise, stick to schools initially until you are sure you've got a solid grasp of core concepts, as taught & validated by people who know what you don't but should, then start transitioning away as your education can stand on its own. I've known too many "self taught" people who, while yes they can function in industry, suffer gaping glaring holes where early formal thoroughness would have closed them.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#119

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 3:41 PM UTC

SammoJ wrote: post #112

simple1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also made a site ( http://www.amatranscripts.com ) that transcribes popular AMAs. Elon Musk's is here: http://amatranscripts.com/ama/elon_musk_2015-01-05.html

This is brilliant, thank you. On the Musk transcript I found this formatting confusing: "Have you played Kerbal Space Program? What do you think SpaceX uses for testing software?" I can't access Reddit to see what the original comment was.

Two KSP mentions:

Q: In order to use the full MCT design (100 passengers), will BFR be one core or 3 cores?

EM: At first, I was thinking we would just scale up Falcon Heavy, but it looks like it probably makes more sense just to have a single monster boost stage.

Q: Nice to see you are doing things the Kerbal way.

EM: Kerbal is awesome!

The second one:

Q: "Hi Elon! Huge fan of yours. Have you heard of/played Kerbal Space Program? Also do you see SpaceX working with Squad (the people behind KSP) to integrate SpaceX parts into KSP?"

Reply (not from EM): What do you think SpaceX uses for testing software?

EM to Reply: Kerbal Space Program!

Short version - Elon Musk likes and plays Kerbal Space Program.

Re: Elon Musk AMA

#120

Post by VLM » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #61

FooBarWidget wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't buy the doom scenario. There is so much more to world domination than just intelligence... like having the proper weapons. See https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ Pigs are also intelligent, but they never dominated humans because they don't have / cannot use guns.

That's a really bizarre analogy. Pigs aren't as intelligent as humans. I wouldn't expect pigs with guns to be a serious threat to humankind unless they've also developed military strategy, for example.

Unfortunately, although it won't sound very politically correct, you could search and replace "pigs" with "natives" and that statement would sound like every imperial power, ever, most of which eventually fell to armed former barbarians. Of course the imperial powers wiped out a lot of native tribes, but all it takes is one success by a digitally replicating capable of learning enemy...

The more likely doom scenario is related to godhood. Sure a godlike power is capable of wiping out humans, but we've had our own power structures supporting themselves by propagandizing for millennia that "our" godlike superiors always help us wipe out our enemies because our cause is right and just or whatever, at least until it doesn't work and they're replaced by a new batch telling the same old story. So what worked as a paleo-conservative success strategy for millennia when talking about something imaginary, might not work when it collides with something real created by ourselves. Or even worse, collides with a strategy that actually works that's being run by another tribe.

Another interesting doom scenario is of course MAD, although now it only requires a team of programmers to play along, instead of a massive industrial complex. Sooner or later somebody's deadman switch will trip or a cult does the equivalent of drinking kool-aid then the party starts.