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How to treat the AI consciousness topic with a more proper philosophy and science " Less Wrong
2+ hour, 34+ min ago (26+ words) I think that, IMO, ideally, it's best, that one treats AI consciousness topic with proper philosophy and science. It's IMO best, if anyone, on any "s...
Belief manifolds, and how to steer along them " Less Wrong
8+ hour, 42+ min ago (1319+ words) A reproduction of Sarfati et al. s "The Shape of Beliefs: How LLMs encode in-context beliefs as curved manifolds, and how manifold-aware steering changes them with fewer side effects than linear steering....
The Fundamentals of Cogitism: Grounding Ethics in the Nature of Consciousness " Less Wrong
1+ week, 10+ hour ago (1186+ words) I am crossposting this to Less Wrong to get more eyeballs on it, essentially throwing it to the wolves to see if it survives. While I'm aware of similarities with other rational moral frameworks, I believe that Cogitism is distinct…...
Falling for the statistical parrot " Less Wrong
1+ week, 6+ day ago (1164+ words) If it reads confused and stupid, for once it really is part of the intended message I guess. Epistemic status: 0. Sun 2. 30am, with Claude having helped me prepare last minute a 4h lecture I had no adequate time for. And after a…...
An Argument for Analogies'Polymaths 1/3 ' Less Wrong
2+ week, 12+ hour ago (234+ words) The following is a link-post to a series about polymathy (. .ism?) and makes a case for arguing by analogy as opposed to first principles (most of the...
Civilization as a tower of holes " Less Wrong
2+ week, 3+ day ago (440+ words) Epistemic note: This essay conflates two related concepts, the tendency of humans to build civilization by exploiting Nature's rules and the vulnerability of that same civilization to exploits in turn, under one name. I'd like a better name for these…...
I don't have questions: how a good Jewish boy turns atheist " Less Wrong
2+ week, 4+ day ago (1106+ words) I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I saw a blogpost which annoyed me, and Less Wrong is where I blog stuff (see my profile for my actual username). As one of the disproportionately many Less Wrong users…...
Explaining Volition Without Resorting to Free Will " Less Wrong
2+ week, 6+ day ago (24+ words) People often use free will to explain how we make choices, but have great difficulty explaining how free will itself works. Philosophers gesture towa...
If digital computers are conscious, they are conscious at the hardware level " Less Wrong
2+ week, 6+ day ago (1321+ words) Contemporary debate over the moral patienthood of digital minds misses the forest for the trees. Mainstream opinion is divided into physicalist and c...
ASI motives and the ontonormative goods (re IABIED's core argument) " Less Wrong
3+ week, 5+ day ago (239+ words) In IABIED, the load-bearing argument and, to me, the main contribution of the book, is about ASI motives. There's more in there, but the thrust of the book is to argue for the truth of a specific conclusion about motives,…...