Ben Mann Monthly March: life pivot to AI research, bad cough, reading and writing
Purpose
An index for my memory
An menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable
If there’s anything you want to see more or less of, please let me know!
Experiments and experiences
Published post on my journey to identifying as an Effective Altruist
Two new solid soylent ideas
1. savory curry using rice, beans, coconut milk, sweet potatoes and chickpeas
2. oats, peanut butter, and coconut milk
Both were very filling but not quite ready for prime time. I’ll iterate a bit more before publishing specifics.
Super Smash tournament
I haven’t played regularly since 2011 and played ultimate only once. I still managed to do ok! It was an interesting exercise in long term skill retention (8 years) and transfer learning (Brawl -> Ultimate).
Emerging ideas dinner
Each person came with an idea that they think is neglected, high risk, and high impact. The group’s job is to “yes and” the idea and find ways to make it work. Highlights: high temperature superconductors, full stack real estate development, conversational nukes generated by language models fine-tuned on reddit data
Peter Norvig talk on “practical AI"
Not impressed, cf Clarke’s first law. When I asked him about his thoughts on the AI alignment problem, he completely dodged the question.
Study retreat in Yosemite
Went with 4 friends to a cabin in the woods. It was great to detach and have time to focus in a beautiful environment far from civilization. Cooked simple food, took long walks in the mountains, had some great conversations.
Caught a cough
Peak intensity for ~10+ days, took DXM to suppress, felt really depressed and lethargic. As soon as it wore off, the cough came back and the lethargy disappeared. Catch-22, but I chose the DXM+depression since I couldn’t function otherwise.
Life updates
Still working on enterprise sales! Light is now visible at the end of the tunnel.
Got a term sheet offer from an investor, but I decided I didn’t want to work on auto insurance, so I conducted a search for a replacement CTO, managed contractors until the interim CTO took over, and became an angel investor
Lots of reading about AI Safety and Effective Altruism, esp 80,000 hours podcast (sorry, didn’t take notes)
Enrolled in in-person fast.ai part 2 aka “impractical deep learning for coders” at USF. It’s great!
Started trying to improve on modern deep learning language models with Yaroslav Bulatov to reskill
Getting back into meditation and running
Content
5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted
This is the perfect response to Objectivism I never found 12 years ago
You should care because you want the world to be different than it is right now.
Care because it’s the antidote to the millennial Listless Guilt
You don’t have to care, but you could
If you think the world could be better, what do you focus on?
Emotional investment is not a good proxy for real importance since it’s a byproduct of evolution, which doesn’t care if people suffer or not
Trick: increase benevolence by viewing people as a product of their environment
You need to understand whether a feeling comes from your chosen values or your tribal defaults. If it’s the latter, do you want to live your life by it?
When you feel lost, immerse yourself in reality. Really look.
Hero Licensing 4/5
Fermi estimates are horrible - it assumes everything is conjunctive and overweights highly uncertain estimations
Reference class forecasting is horrible - for new things, it’s relatively easy to be outside a reference class
People overestimate the importance of status and reputation. Einstein was nobody in 1905. Why did he think he could make fundamental contributions to physics?
Going off calibrated gut instinct is often the best we can do
I’ve known about the link between cortical neurons and intelligence for years now, but I didn’t know that birds broke the density law: 10X greater than humans due to evolutionary pressure to conserve weight!
Imagine using CRISPR to change primate brain density to bird brain density. Scary stuff.
More Dakka 4/5
Another inspiring piece explaining that most people self-defeat before they ever really try to change the world because they overweight the risks.
A good argument for benevolence: if you don’t understand something, it could be because it’s so far beneath you as to not make sense, or to be out of reach above you
Scott shares his experience of not realizing he didn’t experience emotions for 5 years due to strong SSRIs
Reminds me of a 4 month period where I forgot what it felt like to be well-rested due to an intense polyphasic sleep experiment
Competitive Hormone Supplementation Is Shaping America’s Future Business Titans 3/5
Semi-conspiracy theory that all the execs are taking testosterone supplements
Claims of widespread testosterone decreases backed up by this 2007 study showing 1% decline per year for the last 20 years
I love that this list exists.
The causal influence of brain size on human intelligence 3/5
More intra-cranial volume apparently _causes_ increased general intelligence
IMO there's big headroom :wink: for improvement in human intelligence now that we have c-sections!
An industry insider explains where the real opportunities are and which are media hype
Idea: software to match patients with clinical trials
Idea: monitor deltas between standard of care and best treatment, then find ways to fix (hard to scale)
Idea: n=1 translational medicine by recruiting more excellent doctors and biologists
Argues that the biggest factor determining our creative output is our emotional state
If you want to increase productivity, either find a task that is compatible with your current mind, or use some triggering (eg cathedral effect) to change your mind
This advice seems obvious once you hear it. I’m not sure how actionable it is, but seems worth testing.
Well made, but a bit slow and drawn out
A good cautionary tale that many companies really are smoke and mirrors up to and including bold faced lies. If you get bad answers to hard questions, don’t pass it off on the reputation of the people involved. Henry Kissinger knows nothing about blood test technology.
Amazing how when the show was filmed in 1980, we didn’t know about RNA or have a good theory of what wiped out the dinosaurs! What will we know 40 years from now that we don’t today?
His sense of wonder, curiosity and and excitement are contagious
A Star Is Born 3/5
Great acting, complex characters
The musical interludes were generally good
Classic message: “don’t lose yourself because of pressure from society”
Incredible animation, lacking plots
Felt similar to Animatrix
Favorite episode: Lucky 13 for animation and character development
Low density content
100% summarized by “You can’t learn just from watching. You have to try it yourself"