Cure aging or give a small number of disabled people jobs as janitors?

Aubrey De Grey writes on Facebook:

Hi everyone,

After several days in the lead for the #sharetowin challenge, we've been overtaken by Los Angeles Habilitation House. They have a less radical agenda than ours, so it's no surprise that they're getting support, but I'd still prefer us to win $5000! Therefore, if you haven't yet commented, please do it now:

- go to http://bit.ly/sensf
- click the "comment" link
- comment!

The Share to Win competition describes itself as follows:

Share to Win is a fun contest we put together to help health, environment and education-related non-profit causes push the boundaries of the social internet to get people talking about them and to raise money for their mission.

We’re donating money to five non-profits who can share a mission that resonates online. Just post information about a cause you care about as a note on 3banana, and then spread the word using email and social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

At the end of September, we will declare five winners: a $5,000 Grand Prize, a $2,000 Runner Up, and three Honorable Mentions of $1,000 each. The Honorable Mentions will include one cause from each category: Health, Education, and Environment.

The causes that spread the most — as measured by online comments — can win donations from 3banana, while engaging supporters and recruiting new ones. It’s a double win. Simple as that.

And LA Habilitation House (LAHH) describes itself as follows:

Offering employment and career opportunities to persons with disabilities is our commitment at Los Angeles Habilitation House Inc. LAHH delivers contracted services in the janitorial and light duty industry.

A picture says a thousand words:

Making a few disabled people's lives better today versus accelerating the cure of human aging - which causes 100,000 deaths per day... from a utilitarian point of view, there is a clear winner here. But predictably, people vote based upon their emotional reactions, which are based upon tangible visual clues such as pictures of smiling disabled people proudly holding mops and buckets.

It is at times like this that I start to wonder whether the human race is worth saving at all. Then I remember that the human moral frame of reference is fundamental to every good thing that has ever happened to me, or will ever happen, and that even the concept of "being worth saving" is a human one.

Affective Death Spirals

I just met someone on facebook who convinced me to re-iterate the need for careful thought about human cognitive biases. A classic from the Yudkowsky school of thought - "Affective death spirals" that I probably linked to before:

Many, many, many are the flaws in human reasoning which lead us to overestimate how well our beloved theory explains the facts. The phlogiston theory of chemistry could explain just about anything, so long as it didn't have to predict it in advance. And the more phenomena you use your favored theory to explain, the truer your favored theory seems - has it not been confirmed by these many observations? As the theory seems truer, you will be more likely to question evidence that conflicts with it. As the favored theory seems more general, you will seek to use it in more explanations.

If you know anyone who believes that Belgium secretly controls the US banking system, or that they can use an invisible blue spirit force to detect available parking spaces, that's probably how they got started.

(Just keep an eye out, and you'll observe much that seems to confirm this theory...)

This positive feedback cycle of credulity and confirmation is indeed fearsome, and responsible for much error, both in science and in everyday life.

But it's nothing compared to the death spiral that begins with a charge of positive affect - a thought that feels really good.

A new political system that can save the world. A great leader, strong and noble and wise. An amazing tonic that can cure upset stomachs and cancer.

Heck, why not go for all three? A great cause needs a great leader. A great leader should be able to brew up a magical tonic or two.
The halo effect is that any perceived positive characteristic (such as attractiveness or strength) increases perception of any other positive characteristic (such as intelligence or courage). Even when it makes no sense, or less than no sense.

Positive characteristics enhance perception of every other positive characteristic? That sounds a lot like how a fissioning uranium atom sends out neutrons that fission other uranium atoms.

Weak positive affect is subcritical; it doesn't spiral out of control. An attractive person seems more honest, which, perhaps, makes them seem more attractive; but the effective neutron multiplication factor is less than 1. Metaphorically speaking. The resonance confuses things a little, but then dies out.

With intense positive affect attached to the Great Thingy, the resonance touches everywhere. A believing Communist sees the wisdom of Marx in every hamburger bought at McDonalds; in every promotion they're denied that would have gone to them in a true worker's paradise; in every election that doesn't go to their taste, in every newspaper article "slanted in the wrong direction". Every time they use the Great Idea to interpret another event, the Great Idea is confirmed all the more. It feels better - positive reinforcement - and of course, when something feels good, that, alas, makes us want to believe it all the more.

Read the rest at LessWrong

Einstein and Millikan should have done a Kurzweil

Over on facebook, Shane Legg writes, (regarding my previous post):

Some nice quotes I hadn't seen before. So what's best hypothesis we can draw from this? It seems like most people take the last few data points and then just extrapolate linearly to predict the future.

The key quotes here are:

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.

(Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923.)

No “scientific bad boy” ever will be able to blow up the world by releasing atomic energy.

(Robert Millikan again)

There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.

(Albert Einstein, 1932.)

The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.

(Ernest Rutherford, 1917.)

Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.

(Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, then soon-to-be British Prime Minister, 1939.)

That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done [research on]... The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.

(Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project)

What made these smart people make false statments? (Einstein's statement is not technically false - but it certainly shows that one of the smartest minds ever to exist can make huge blunders. The tone of the quote - and the likely interpretation of it by lay people listening - is "this technology won't work, ever") Perhaps their mistakes are forgivable - there is a difference between being rational and being omniscient, after all.

But consider, for example, Einstein's quote from 1932. Rutherford had split the atom back in 1917, but it was done using a particle beam, and this method clearly didn't allow arbitrarily large numbers of atoms to be split. But does "The existing method doesn't scale" legitimize the jump to "There is not the slightest indication that it will ever be obtainable"?. Surely Einstein, if questioned, would have said something like:

"maybe there is some more efficient way of doing it that I haven't yet thought of, and the fact that it can be done at all does count as an indication that it might be possible to do it better, especially if we are in the business of making predictions about the entire technological future of mankind".

But he did not say this. One good explanation for why people like Einstein, Rutherford and Millikan wrote the bomb off for no good reason is that they were following what we might call the absurdity heuristic: if a hypothesis you come up with seems sufficiently absurd on a "gut instinct" level, reject it no matter what the evidence says.

But, if Einstein et al had considered the history of high-energy weapons up to the day they made those predictions (circa 1932), they would have seen something like this:

Weapon Energy (Joules) over time

Predicting that the energy of the most powerful kind of weapon in the world will not increase is a predictive strategy that would have made bad predictions again and again; there appear to have been 5 "paradigms" of weapon development: the ballista (not shown) around the time of the romans and greeks, the (re)invention of the trebuchet around 1200-1400, the invention of gunpowder based siege weapons circa 1600, the development of explosive shells in 1722 (culminating in the 70,000,000 Joule Paris Gun used by the germans to shell Paris in 1914-18), and finally the development of heavy bomber aircraft - which allowed the British Handley-Page bomber to drop a massive 1,650 pound (600kg) bomb on the Germans in 1918, which had an energy of roughly 3 billion Joules.

If Einstein, Millikan, etc had looked at the historical data in a Kurzweilian way, they might have thought to themselves:

"Weapon energy seems to increase in paradigms, with each paradigm shift increasing the energy by a greater multiple: 30,000, 130,000, 10,000,000, 30,000,000,000 . The next term in the sequence ought to be about 4 orders of magnitude larger than the heavy chemical bomb - or about 3*10^14 Joules per bomb. Nuclear bombs have roughly this energy - perhaps we shouldn't write them off as impossible just because our imagination is failing to see a way to make them work right now?"

More false predictions from the past - nuclear power

Katja and Shane got me thinking about the veracity and significance of the quotes I posted last time. So I went to wikiquotes, and found a nice juicy set of quotes on nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The parallells between nuclear weapons and recursively self-improving AI were first suggested to me by our favorite proginy of sci-fi fans, but it seems that the similarity goes deeper than just "they are both examples of feedback causing something small to get very big beyond some critical point". The reaction of the world's elite may be somewhat similar. Here are the quotes from wikiquote:

• There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.
  • Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923.

• No “scientific bad boy” ever will be able to blow up the world by releasing atomic energy.
  • Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, attributed without citation in "They are saying", Popular Science 116 (2), Febriary 1930, p. 66.

• There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
  • Albert Einstein, 1932.

• The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.
  • Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.

• Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.
  • Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, then soon-to-be British Prime Minister, 1939.

• That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done [research on]... The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.
  • Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.

• The basic questions of design, material and shielding, in combining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler and cooling unit, no longer are problems... The system would heat and cool a home, provide unlimited household hot water, and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300.
  • Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955.

• Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years.
  • Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

Now there is an obvious pattern in these quotes - which are explicitly preselected (only incorrect predictions are listed) - those that underestimate the potential of nuclear weapons and energy all come before one was demonstrated, and the two that overestimate its potential come after demonstration.

But the most interesting aspect of these quotes is the folley of those world famous physicists who claimed nuclear weapons/power to be impossible. Churchill's is particularly amusing: where on earth did he get the idea that nukes would work, but only work a little bit? Perhaps he was just trying to sound reasonable, compromise? Or perhaps he had a particular view of the future (a world much like his own militarily), and then backward-chained his technology predictions from that view?

Woeful short-sightedness about technology progress

- "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at the University of Toulouse, 1872

- "The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British Surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.

- "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

- "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work

- "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

- "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

- "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

- "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

- "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

- "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

- "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

from http://thpromo.pbworks.com/Quotes

BBC news article asks for proposals for better forms of government

A recent BBC news article asks for new ideas for "open government":

A DIY guide to becoming an MP and a database of the connections between the powerful could soon be created online. The two ideas are among those being considered by MySociety - a charitable group that helps construct civic tools.
It is looking for ideas for new ideas to enhance its existing sites, entirely new projects or ways to spread the word about the digital democracy group. Previous competitions have produced a site that automated and logged Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
Statistics from the Ministry of Justice suggest that the FOI site, WhatDoTheyKnow, is behind 8.5% of the requests received by central government departments. MySociety also set up the WriteToThem website that helps people get in touch with their MP.
Similar requests for proposals were run in 2003 and 2006 and this time, said MySociety founder Tom Steinberg, it was looking for one big idea to develop. "The next step will be on a different scale from what we have built before," said Mr Steinberg, "something that might have an order of magnitude more impact or more users."

I think that someone should submit decision markets AKA futarchy as an idea. Decision markets are an idea from the economist Robin Hanson:

Democracy seems better than autocracy (i.e., kings and dictators), but it still has problems. There are today vast differences in wealth among nations, and we can not attribute most of these differences to either natural resources or human abilities. Instead, much of the difference seems to be that the poor nations (many of which are democracies) are those that more often adopted dumb policies, policies which hurt most everyone in the nation. And even rich nations frequently adopt such policies.
These policies are not just dumb in retrospect; typically there were people who understood a lot about such policies and who had good reasons to disapprove of them beforehand. It seems hard to imagine such policies being adopted nearly as often if everyone knew what such "experts" knew about their consequences. Thus familiar forms of government seem to frequently fail by ignoring the advice of relevant experts (i.e., people who know relevant things).


"Futarchy" is an as yet untried form of government intended to address such problems. In futarchy, democracy would continue to say what we want, but betting markets would now say how to get it. That is, elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. The basic rule of government would be:

When a betting market clearly estimates that a proposed policy would increase expected national welfare, that proposal becomes law

.

Getting a fundamentally new form of government that is in a different league to democracy working would drastically improve our lives - if succesful. For transhumanists, getting futarchy or something like it working ought to be a very high priority, because better decisionmaking will naturally favor Transhumanist technologies like life-extension, mind uploadin and safe superintelligence. This is an area where I think a small group can have a massive impact if, and only if, they play their cards right.

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The Economist Magazine, an island of rationality in a sea of nonsense

I am becoming more and more of a fan of The Economist magazine - since my disillusionment with New Scientist it has been my magazine of choice for long train journeys from Scotland to the South and back.

In this week's issue, we find a great article about the coming British energy crisis, and another about the ridiculous US sex-offender laws, from which I quote:

In fact America's sex-offender laws have grown self-defeatingly harsh. They have been driven by a ratchet effect. Individual American politicians have great latitude to propose new laws. Stricter curbs on paedophiles win votes. And to sound severe, such curbs must be stronger than the laws in place, which in turn were proposed by politicians who wished to appear tough themselves. Few politicians dare to vote against such laws, because if they do, the attack ads practically write themselves.

In all, 674,000 Americans are on sex-offender registries—more than the population of Vermont, North Dakota or Wyoming. The number keeps growing partly because in several states registration is for life and partly because registries are not confined to the sort of murderer who ensnared Megan Kanka. According to Human Rights Watch, at least five states require registration for people who visit prostitutes, 29 require it for consensual sex between young teenagers and 32 require it for indecent exposure. Some prosecutors are now stretching the definition of “distributing child pornography” to include teens who text half-naked photos of themselves to their friends.

How dangerous are the people on the registries? A state review of one sample in Georgia found that two-thirds of them posed little risk. For example, Janet Allison was found guilty of being “party to the crime of child molestation” because she let her 15-year-old daughter have sex with a boyfriend. The young couple later married. But Ms Allison will spend the rest of her life publicly branded as a sex offender.

Here we see articles touching on human cognitive biases and irrationality and solutions to problems such as the global energy problem.

Mike Treder blasts Singularitarianism

Over at IEET, Mike Treder compares Singularitarianism - defined on wikipedia as

a philosophy and social movement that is defined by the belief that a technological singularity — the creation of a superintelligence — is a likely possibility within the medium-term future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the technological singularity occurs in a way that is beneficial to humankind.

to birtherism, creationism, and climate science denialism:

So, we have birtherism, creationism, singularitarianism, and climate science denialism. In each case, arguments are marshaled that seem to resemble scientific or legal reasoning but that end up as speculative assertions intended to support fanciful, ideological, or faith-based positions. No doubt some who subscribe to each of those schools of thought would object to being lumped in with the others; they’d loudly proclaim that while the other beliefs may be misguided, theirs is not. I’ve placed them together deliberately, though, because I think they reveal a pattern: a dangerous, insidious compartmentalization of rationality.

Will a friendly machine soon reshape human society into Utopia? It seems highly doubtful, but since we’d like it to be so, let’s develop an argument of apparent certainty.

One would think that in making such a claim, Treder would quote some specific statements by singularitarians or cite some documents associated with the movement that back up his central claim Singularitarianism is a "fanciful, ideological, or faith-based position" and that "when facts and reason lead away from their pre-ordained conclusions, they readily jettison rationality in favor of orthodoxy". One would be wrong.

Ironically, Treder is keen to criticise birtherism, a set of attempts to smear the name and nationality of president Barack Obama which have so far been found to be baseless. Then, in the next breath, he criticises a movement without any evidence to back his claims up. Not to mention labelling Max More as a "climate science denialist" without a quote from More. I would be surprised to find that Max holds any unsupported beliefs on the subject of climate change, and without Treder providing a quote or document I am forced to guess.

Comment on this post on Facebook [You have to create a Facebook account and add me as a friend for this to work, but by doing so you'll be able to network with other people interested in the future of humanity, and you'll help to inform other people on Facebook about what is going on]

Lord Ernest Rutherford on the prospects of atomic energy

HOPE OF TRANSFORMING ANY ATOM

What, Lord Rutherford asked in conclusion, were the prospects 20 or 30 years ahead? High voltages of the order of millions of volts would probably be unnecessary as a means of accelerating the bombarding particles. Transformations might be effected with 30,000 or 70,000 volts. Two methods of attack would be open: one by intensive streams of particles of relatively low voltages, the other by the use of higher voltages up to 5,000,000 volts, which ought to be sufficient to break down any atom on this earth, and he believed that we should be able to transform all the elements ultimately. We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine. But the subject was scientifically interesting because it gave insight into the atoms. Those processes had been going on for thousands of millions of years in our sun and in other hot stars, and the whole problem of the abundance of the different types of the elements, therefore, was probably decided by those pro- cesses of the building up and destruction of atoms, due to the emission of particles at enormous pressures and temperatures. He need hardly say that the subject of atomic trans- formation was the great subject of physics to-day, and there was an ever-increasing attack on this most formidable of problems because it was hoped that we might by solving it get some idea of the way the nuclei of atoms were made and of the way in which the atoms disintegrated.

Readers are encouraged to guess the date of this article without cheating by googling for it. A prize will be awarded to the honest reader who submits the closest guess in the comments.

More insanity

Selection from the list of human cognitive biases on wikipedia.