Brief Notes on Hard Takeoff, Value Alignment, and Coherent Extrapolated Volition

I make some basic observations about hard takeoff, value alignment, and coherent extrapolated volition, concepts which have been central in analyses of superintelligent AI systems

Artificial Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy

Attention in the AI safety community has increasingly started to include strategic considerations of coordination between relevant actors in the field of AI and AI safety, in addition to the steadily growing work on the technical considerations of building safe AI systems. This shift has several reasons: Multiplier effects, pragmatism, and urgency. Given the benefits of coordination between those working towards safe superintelligence, this book surveys promising research in this emerging field regarding AI safety. On a meta-level, the hope is that this book can serve as a map to inform those working in the field of AI coordination about other promising efforts. While this book focuses on AI safety coordination, coordination is important to most other known existential risks (e.g., biotechnology risks), and future, human-made existential risks. Thus, while most coordination strategies in this book are specific to superintelligence, we hope that some insights yield “collateral benefits” for the reduction of other existential risks, by creating an overall civilizational framework that increases robustness, resiliency, and antifragility

Scheming AIs: Will AIs fake alignment during training in order to get power?

This report examines whether advanced AIs that perform well in training will be doing so in order to gain power later -- a behavior I call "scheming" (also sometimes called "deceptive alignment"). I conclude that scheming is a disturbingly plausible outcome of using baseline machine learning methods to train goal-directed AIs sophisticated enough to scheme (my subjective probability on such an outcome, given these conditions, is roughly 25%). In particular: if performing well in training is a good strategy for gaining power (as I think it might well be), then a very wide variety of goals would motivate scheming -- and hence, good training performance. This makes it plausible that training might either land on such a goal naturally and then reinforce it, or actively push a model's motivations towards such a goal as an easy way of improving performance. What's more, because schemers pretend to be aligned on tests designed to reveal their motivations, it may be quite difficult to tell whether this has occurred. However, I also think there are reasons for comfort. In particular: scheming may not actually be such a good strategy for gaining power; various selection pressures in training might work against schemer-like goals (for example, relative to non-schemers, schemers need to engage in extra instrumental reasoning, which might harm their training performance); and we may be able to increase such pressures intentionally. The report discusses these and a wide variety of other considerations in detail, and it suggests an array of empirical research directions for probing the topic further.Comment: 127 pages, 8 figures. Revised again to correct typo

Binarism and indeterminacy in the novels of Thomas Pynchor

Bibliography: pages 397-401.I attempt in this thesis, to graft together a close critical, and predominantly thematic, reading of Thomas Pynchon's novels with selected issues treated in the work of Jacques Derrida on philosophy and textuality, illustrating how this work demands the revision and interrogation of several major critical issues, concepts, dualisms and presuppositions. The thesis consists of an Introduction which sets forth a brief rationale for the graft described above, followed by a short and unavoidably inadequate synopsis of Derrida's work with a brief review and explication of those of his 'concepts' which play an important role in my reading of Pynchon's texts. The Introduction is succeeded by three lengthy chapters in which I discuss, more or less separately, each of Pynchon's three novels to date. These are V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49, (1966) and Gravity's Rainbow (1973), and I discuss them in the order of their appearance, devoting a chapter to each. I attempt to treat different but related issues, preoccupations, themes and tropes in each of the novels to avoid repeating myself, engaging the apparatuses derived from Derrida's writing where deemed strategic and instructive. I suggest moreover, that several of the issues examined apropos the novel under consideration in any one chapter apply mutandis rnutandi to the other novels. Each chapter therefore to some extent conducts a reading of the novels which it does not treat directly. Finally, supervising these separate chapters is a sustained focus on the epistemology of binarism and digitalism, and the conceptual dualisms which structure and inform major portions of the thematic and rhetorical dimensions The thesis concludes with a Bibliography and a summary Epilogue which seeks to assess briefly the 'achievement' of Pynchon's writing

Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals

The UN Millennium Project has been a unique undertaking. Its 10 task forces, Secretariat, and broad array of participants from academia, government, UN agencies, international financial institutions, nongovernmental organizations, donor agencies, and the private sector created a worldwide network of development practitioners and experts across an enormous range of countries, disciplines, and organizations. The Project was made possible by the unique commitment, skills, and convictions of the task force coordinators, who led their groups to take on some of the most challenging development questions of our generation, and by the task force members, who gave remarkably of their time. This has been a global effort, in the service of a great global cause—the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Our Project has been a microcosm of a larger truth: achieving the Millennium Development Goals will require a global partnership suitable for an interconnected world. The world truly shares a common fate. This has been a labor of love for the many participants in the task forces and Secretariat. Individuals have volunteered vast amounts of effort and expertise to the Project. Their contributions, far beyond any reasonable expectation, have immeasurably sharpened and strengthened the messages contained in the Project’s many outputs, including this report, the task force final reports, the newly developed tools for needs assessment, and the advisory support for MDG-based planning in several countries.https://www.scams.info/unmillenniumproject-org

Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals

The UN Millennium Project has been a unique undertaking. Its 10 task forces, Secretariat, and broad array of participants from academia, government, UN agencies, international financial institutions, nongovernmental organizations, donor agencies, and the private sector created a worldwide network of development practitioners and experts across an enormous range of countries, disciplines, and organizations. The Project was made possible by the unique commitment, skills, and convictions of the task force coordinators, who led their groups to take on some of the most challenging development questions of our generation, and by the task force members, who gave remarkably of their time. This has been a global effort, in the service of a great global cause—the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Our Project has been a microcosm of a larger truth: achieving the Millennium Development Goals will require a global partnership suitable for an interconnected world. The world truly shares a common fate. This has been a labor of love for the many participants in the task forces and Secretariat. Individuals have volunteered vast amounts of effort and expertise to the Project. Their contributions, far beyond any reasonable expectation, have immeasurably sharpened and strengthened the messages contained in the Project’s many outputs, including this report, the task force final reports, the newly developed tools for needs assessment, and the advisory support for MDG-based planning in several countries

Unmaking History-as-Fiction : Decoupling the Two Incompatible Principles of Language in Hayden White's Linguistic Turn, 1970s-2000s

This dissertation examines the deeply hidden metaphysical presuppositions from traditional philosophy of language that are built into the theoretical construct history-as-fiction. This construct is Hayden White's main contribution to the linguistic turn in the study of history-writing, or historiography, and is framed here from roughly the early 1970s to the early 2000s. History-as-fiction posits the figural nature of historical consciousness in terms of the master tropes of rhetoric (i.e., metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony). This figural analysis, which White developed on the basis of Giambattista Vico's 18th-century metaphor (tropic) theory of language, hypothesizes the unconscious linguistic strategies as structuring elements in historians writings. White is unaware, however, that this tropic theory unmakes history-as-fiction by sidelining the very framework it was meant to fulfill. Classical literary theory, which White employed as his framework in developing his tropic analysis, emerged from structural linguistics as developed in the early 20th century by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure's key principle of language is the arbitrariness of the binary linguistic sign (i.e., the random pairing of the sound of a word with its meaning). This binary arbitrariness separated mind from body and was the cornerstone upon which Saussure constructed the science of modern linguistics as a system of linguistic value. By contrast, Vico's key principle of language was the necessary dependence of language on the human body acting in the world. The strategy of this thesis is to separate White's figural, tropological (Vichian) analysis from his (post)structuralist (Saussurean) framework, within which he analyzed history-as-fiction. From my methodological standpoint of autopoietic enactive embodiment (AE), I examine tropology and (post)structuralism within their own philosophical contexts and logics. My examination reveals a hidden tension between the two principles of language underpinning each theoretical strand of White s construct history-as-fiction. By decoupling the two strands, I explore the source of the tension at the core of history-as-fiction in its unmaking.Tässä väitöstutkimuksessa tarkastellaan käsitystä historiasta fiktiona ( history-as-fiction ) teoreettisena konstruktiona ja tuohon käsitykseen sisäänrakentuneita, perinteisestä kielifilosofiasta peräisin olevia metafyysisiä piilo-oletuksia. Kyseinen historiakäsitys on Hayden Whiten keskeisin kontribuutio historiankirjoituksen eli historiografian lingvistiseen käänteeseen, joka rajataan tässä ulottuvaksi 1970-luvun alusta 2000-luvun alkuun. Ajatus historiasta fiktiona perustuu oletukseen historiallisen tietoisuuden figuratiivisuudesta, jota kuvaavat retoriikan perustroopit eli metafora, metonymia, synekdokee ja ironia. Figuratiivisessa analyysissään White nojaa Giambattista Vicon 1800-luvulla kehittämään tropologiseen kieliteoriaan ja olettaa alitajuisten kielellisten strategioiden konstruoivan historiankirjoitusta. Whitelta on jäänyt kuitenkin huomaamatta, että tropologia vie pohjan historia fiktiona -konstruktiolta ja ajaa samalla itse teoriasuuntauksen ohi, jota tropologian oli tarkoitus täydentää. Tropologisen analyysinsä viitekehyksenä White käyttää (klassista) kirjallisuusteoriaa, joka puolestaan perustuu kielitieteilijä Ferdinand de Saussuren 1900-luvun alussa kehittämään strukturalistiseen kieliteoriaan. Saussuren keskeinen kielellinen periaate on binaarisen eli kaksijakoisen kielellisen merkin arbitraarisuus (toisin sanoen sanan äänikuvan yhteys sanan merkitykseen on sattumanvarainen). Käsitys merkin binaarisuudesta ja arbitraarisuudesta erottaa mielen ruumiista; tästä käsityksestä Saussure kehitti modernin kielitieteen ajatuksen kielestä kielellisten arvojen järjestelmänä. Vicon keskeinen kielellinen periaate puolestaan perustuu käsitykseen kielen sidoksisuudesta maailmassa liikkuvan ja toimivan ihmisen ruumiiseen. Väitöstutkimuksen strategiana on erottaa Whiten figuratiivinen, tropologinen (vicolainen) teoria (jälki)strukturalistisesta (saussurelaisesta) viitekehyksestä, jossa White analysoi historiaa fiktiona. Metodologisena tarkastelunäkökulmana Whiten ajatteluun käytän autopoieettista enaktiivista ruumiillisuuden käsitettä (autopoietic enactive embodiment, AE). Tropologian ja (jälki)strukturalismin tarkastelu niiden omissa filosofisissa konteksteissaan kyseisestä ruumiillisuuden näkökulmasta paljastaa niiden perustuvan erilaisiin, yhteensopimattomiin kielikäsityksiin. Näiden kahden erilaisen kielellisen periaatteen ja niiden välisen jännitteen syiden tarkastelu kumoaa Whiten historia fiktiona ajatusrakennelman

A critical investigation of deaf comprehension of signed tv news interpretation

This study investigates factors hampering comprehension of sign language interpretations rendered on South African TV news bulletins in terms of Deaf viewers’ expectancy norms and corpus analysis of authentic interpretations. The research fills a gap in the emerging discipline of Sign Language Interpreting Studies, specifically with reference to corpus studies. The study presents a new model for translation/interpretation evaluation based on the introduction of Grounded Theory (GT) into a reception-oriented model. The research question is addressed holistically in terms of target audience competencies and expectations, aspects of the physical setting, interpreters’ use of language and interpreting choices. The South African Deaf community are incorporated as experts into the assessment process, thereby empirically grounding the research within the socio-dynamic context of the target audience. Triangulation in data collection and analysis was provided by applying multiple mixed data collection methods, namely questionnaires, interviews, eye-tracking and corpus tools. The primary variables identified by the study are the small picture size and use of dialect. Secondary variables identified include inconsistent or inadequate use of non-manual features, incoherent or non-simultaneous mouthing, careless or incorrect sign execution, too fast signing, loss of visibility against skin or clothing, omission of vital elements of sentence structure, adherence to source language structures, meaningless additions, incorrect referencing, oversimplification and violations of Deaf norms of restructuring, information transfer, gatekeeping and third person interpreting. The identification of these factors allows the construction of a series of testable hypotheses, thereby providing a broad platform for further research. Apart from pioneering corpus-driven sign language interpreting research, the study makes significant contributions to present knowledge of evaluative models, interpreting strategies and norms and systems of transcription and annotation.Linguistics and Modern LanguagesThesis (D. Litt.et Phil.) (Linguistics

Critique of Fantasy, Vol. 1

"Critique of Fantasy, Vol. 1: Between a Crypt and a Date Mark addresses both the style or genre of fantasy and the mental faculty, long the hot property of philosophical ethics. Freud passed it along in his 1907 essay on the poetics of daydreaming when he addressed omnipotent wish fantasy as the source and resource of the aspirations and resolutions of art, which, however, the artwork can never look back at or acknowledge. By grounding his genre in the one fantasy that is true, the Gospel, J.R.R. Tolkien obviated and made obvious the ethical mandate of fantasy’s restraining order. With George Lucas’s Star Wars we entered the borderlands of the fantasy and science fiction genres, a zone resulting from and staggering a contest, which Tolkien inaugurated in the 1930s. The history of this contested borderland marks changes that arose in expectation of what the new media held in store, changes realized (but outside the box of what had been projected) upon the arrival of the unanticipated digital relation, which at last seemed to award the fantasy genre the contest prize. Freud’s notion of the Zeitmarke (datemark), the indelible impress of the present moment that triggered the daydream that denies it, already introduced the import of fantasy's historicization. Science fiction won a second prize that keeps it in the running. No longer bound to projecting the future, the former calling which in light of digitization it flunked, science fiction becomes allegorical and reading in the ruins of its failed predictions illuminates all the date marks and crypts hiding out in the borderlands it traverses with fantasy. To motivate the import of an evolving science fiction genre, Critique of Fantasy makes Gotthard Günther's reflections in the 1950s on American science fiction – as heralding a new metaphysics and a new planetary going on interstellar civilization – a mainstay of its cultural anthropology with B-genres.