Astral Codex Ten Podcast

The discussion dives into the alarming drop in student proficiency revealed by recent NAEP scores, questioning whether this decline is solely due to COVID-19 lockdowns. The host reflects on their previous optimism about the long-term impacts of missing school years. They explore intriguing trends from 1998 to 2024 and consider whether educational challenges predate the pandemic. Graph analyses reveal that all student groups were affected, indicating potential systemic issues that transcend individual circumstances, prompting deep reflection on the future of education.

I enjoy the yearly book review contest, but it feels like last year’s contest is barely done, and I want to give you a break so you can read more books before we start over. So this year, let’s do something different. Submit an ACX-length post reviewing something, anything, except a book. You can review a movie, song, or video game. You can review a product, restaurant, or tourist attraction. But don’t let the usual categories limit you. Review comic books or blog posts. Review political parties - no, whole societies! Review animals or trees! Review an oddly-shaped pebble, or a passing cloud! Review abstract concepts! Mathematical proofs! Review love, death, or God Himself! (please don’t review human races, I don’t need any more NYT articles) Otherwise, the usual rules apply. There’s no official word count requirement, but previous finalists and winners were often between 2,000 and 10,000 words. There’s no official recommended style, but check the style of last year’s finalists and winners or my ACX book reviews (1, 2, 3) if you need inspiration. Please limit yourself to one entry per person or team. Then send me your review through this Google Form. The form will ask for your name, email, the thing you’re reviewing, and a link to a Google Doc. The Google Doc should have your review exactly as you want me to post it if you’re a finalist. DON’T INCLUDE YOUR NAME OR ANY HINT ABOUT YOUR IDENTITY IN THE GOOGLE DOC ITSELF, ONLY IN THE FORM. I want to make this contest as blinded as possible, so I’m going to hide that column in the form immediately and try to judge your docs on their merit. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/everything-except-book-review-contest 

Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain. Different animals’ intelligence levels track the number of neurons in their cerebral cortices (cerebellum etc don’t count). Neuron number predicts animal intelligence better than most other variables like brain size, brain size divided by body size, “encephalization quotient”, etc. This is most obvious in certain bird species that have tiny brains full of tiny neurons and are very smart (eg crows, parrots). Humans with bigger brains have on average higher IQ. AFAIK nobody has done the obvious next step and seen whether people with higher IQ have more neurons. This could be because the neuron-counting process involves dissolving the brain into a “soup”, and maybe this is too mad-science-y for the fun-hating spoilsports who run IRBs. But common sense suggests bigger brains increase IQ because they have more neurons in humans too. Finally, AIs with more neurons (sometimes described as the related quantity “more parameters”) seem common-sensically smarter and perform better on benchmarks. This is part of what people mean by “scaling”, ie the reason GoogBookZon is spending $500 billion building a data center the size of the moon. All of this suggests that intelligence heavily depends on number of neurons, and most scientists think something like this is true. But how can this be? https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-should-intelligence-be-related

Dive into intriguing societal experiments that juxtapose historical killers with modern public transit initiatives. Explore the provocative blend of AI in job applications and its ethical implications on political commentary. Reflect on Elon Musk’s controversial online persona and the consequences of government spending cuts on public services. Delve into emotional reactions to democracy and innovative solutions for societal challenges. Lastly, dissect trends in deforestation and the media's portrayal of environmental issues.

Conflict theory is the belief that political disagreements come from material conflict. So for example, if rich people support capitalism, and poor people support socialism, this isn’t because one side doesn’t understand economics. It’s because rich people correctly believe capitalism is good for the rich, and poor people correctly believe socialism is good for the poor. Or if white people are racist, it’s not because they have some kind of mistaken stereotypes that need to be corrected - it’s because they correctly believe racism is good for white people. Some people comment on my more political posts claiming that they’re useless. You can’t (they say) produce change by teaching people Economics 101 or the equivalent. Conflict theorists understand that nobody ever disagreed about Economics 101. Instead you should try to organize and galvanize your side, so they can win the conflict. I think simple versions of conflict theory are clearly wrong. This doesn’t mean that simple versions of mistake theory (the idea that people disagree because of reasoning errors, like not understanding Economics 101) are automatically right. But it gives some leeway for thinking harder about how reasoning errors and other kinds of error interact. https://readscottalexander.com/posts/acx-why-i-am-not-a-conflict-theorist 

[Original thread here: Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Arguments For God’s Existence.] 1: Comments On Specific Technical Points 2: Comments From Bentham’s Bulldog’s Response 3: Comments On Philosophical Points, And Getting In Fights https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-tegmarks

Explore the compelling tales of rationalist saints like St. Felix, who faced execution for his beliefs about COVID's origins, demonstrating unwavering integrity. Delight in whimsical stories of AI saints navigating philosophical dilemmas, blending humor with ethics. Witness wit and strategy as St. Michael uses probability to outsmart adversaries, while St. Avi chooses meaningful contributions over power, challenging temptations. These narratives highlight the tension between truth, societal pressures, and the sacrifices made for knowledge.

It feels like 2010 again - the bloggers are debating the proofs for the existence of God. I found these much less interesting after learning about Max Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothesis, and this doesn’t seem to have reached the Substack debate yet, so I’ll put it out there. Tegmark’s hypothesis says: all possible mathematical objects exist. Consider a mathematical object like a cellular automaton - a set of simple rules that creates complex behavior. The most famous is Conway’s Game of Life; the second most famous is the universe. After all, the universe is a starting condition (the Big Bang) and a set of simple rules determining how the starting condition evolves over time (the laws of physics). Some mathematical objects contain conscious observers. Conway’s Life might be like this: it’s Turing complete, so if a computer can be conscious then you can get consciousness in Life. If you built a supercomputer and had it run the version of Life with the conscious being, then you would be “simulating” the being, and bringing it into existence. There would be something it was like to be that being; it would have thoughts and experiences and so on. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/tegmarks-mathematical-universe-defeats

A recent analysis of a federal grant database uncovers that only 40% of projects are truly 'woke,' challenging common assumptions. Topics include the unintended political implications of scientific funding and the ongoing need for rigorous standards in rapidly evolving fields like neurotechnology. The focus also shifts to the balance between advancing scientific innovation and promoting inclusivity, while advocating for research quality over political narratives. Overall, it questions the government's ability to differentiate between valuable research and perceived 'woke' initiatives.

The discussion dives into the challenges of aligning AI with human values, emphasizing the need for moral reflection during training. It highlights the bizarre luck of OpenAI's alignment teams, with tales of mass resignations and tragic events. The conversation also explores the complexities of enhancing AI reasoning to improve understanding of human decisions. Finally, it navigates the future of AI alignment and governance, questioning how varying specifications will impact AI's role in society.