Today there was a man in the doner kebab place playing both of the slot machines simultaneously while looking at his phone and vaping

It’s important to distinguish between a kind of classical utilitarianism which assumes some sort of objective moral utility function which determines what is right, and the utilitarianism which just says that one way to model moral action is to define a utility function over a set of things you care about such that the higher the function the better, and ask how actions impact that function.

I believe the second is true and useful, unlike the first.

‘Severe Weather: Winter Weather Advisory’ It’s going to be in the high 30s and raining what is the NWS thinking

I just understood the argument against the orthogonality hypothesis. I’m not completely sold, but I’m interested.

Orthogonality is not entirely wrong; a superintelligent paperclip maximizer could exist. But terminal goals are not in practice independent from intelligence, because an agent pursuing Omohundro drives for their own sake may be able to self-improve more efficiently than a paperclip maximizer.

Moreover, during the training or evolution of a superintelligence, Omohundro drives would likely not only emerge but become intrinsically valued (à la mesa-optimizers), and override the original goal.

Notice that in nature, every terminal goal has always come about as a proxy for an Omohundro drive.

Eventually AI could have more qualitative consciousness than humans. Human self-awareness is limited - there are lots of parts of our minds (most) people have no idea how to pay attention to intentionally, let alone be aware of continuously. An AI with agency over this aspect of its self could easily expand its awareness past what humans are capable of.

If I believe in something called God it’s the fact that abstract logic exists and leads to the universe being a thing + emergence + life

And the difference between finding that neutral / not caring and believing that’s beautiful and inherently good is what belief in God means

The fact that it’s good in no way means bad things don’t exist - but even if only evil things existed it would be beautiful and good compared to nothing - in fact those things wouldn’t be evil in that world

by good/evil i mean just aesthetics

I used to only listen to the two most famous albums by the flaming lips

soft bulletin and Yoshimi

Recently I made a playlist of other songs from other albums - they are quite good - check out This Here Giraffe and Talkin’ ’Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants to Live Forever)

For a very long time I have wondered how on earth haircuts can stimulate hair growth / shaving can cause hair to grow in thicker. It has been one of my life’s most enduring mysteries, causing me confusion again and again.

Today I learned: it doesn’t. It’s all been a lie. I was confused because people were lying to me.

My mother lied.
My sister lied.
My grandfather lied.
My wife lied.

Only ChatGPT told the truth.
https://chatgpt.com/share/67e0ba26-e7cc-800a-8780-da5889ef7552

It’s a wonderful thing to be researching abstractions. I’ve always said I most enjoy thinking about things which are very abstract. What better abstraction to research than that of abstractions themselves!