Author Archives: Paul Crowley

EDIT 2017-10-28: DO NOT DO THIS! Dropbox have changed their API, and Netmemo has failed to update to use the new one. I emailed the developer and got no response. Don’t use Netmemo Plus. I want a button on my Android phone that drops voice notes into my GTD inbox. I want the raw audio, not theContinue reading “OBSOLETE: Voice notes for your Todoist inbox”

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. Crown; 352 pages; $8.14. Random House; £6.49. This book is essential reading for all thinking people. I’m not going to write a new review here—I think the existing reviews do it justice—I just wanted to add my voice to the recommendations. You don’t alreadyContinue reading ““Superforecasting””

Big life change ahead: in March, I, Jess, and our two cats will be renting out our London flat and moving to California’s San Francisco Bay Area for two years! I love the time I spend in the Bay and my wonderful friends there, and Jess and I have long said we wanted to spend some ofContinue reading “Moving to the Bay Area in March”

[Epistemic status: not serious. Mostly.] In my nightmares, even the rise of machine superintelligence isn’t enough to wipe out technical debt. Suppose the seed to the first true superintelligent agent is based on some fiendish numerical algorithm for supercomputers. Like so many fiendish numerical algorithms for supercomputers, the agent is written in FORTRAN to take advantageContinue reading “The technical debt of the millennia”

I will pause to note how fantastical all of this sounds. Because even I can’t help but help but think that as I write. But it is not that implausible. Usually the people plotting hard core crimes, the people tinkering in their garages with arduino boards, the people trying to think of a good start-up,Continue reading “As an aside, something should be done about drones”

Rationality: From AI to Zombies, by Eliezer Yudkowsky, Machine Intelligence Research Institute, suggested price $5, 1813 pages Christmas 1982, aged eleven, I gave my Dad a copy of Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach, and immediately borrowed it and read it myself. Like so many readers, I was captivated, and changed. Martin Gardner said of it:Continue reading “Rationality: From AI to Zombies”

I have a plan, but some of the plan is probably wrong, so I’m posting here before executing in the hope that you can set me straight. Thanks! I’m self-taught in most of the maths that I know. This has advantages, but it’s hard work; I can make a lot of progress by myself butContinue reading “Paying someone to help me learn degree-level maths”

As always, laws aren’t named after the people who invent them. In 2011 I remarked: Watching @frasernels use the word “thoughtcrime” to @GeorgeMonbiot, I think there needs to be an Orwell version of Godwin’s Law. — Paul Crowley (@ciphergoth) December 1, 2011 “@frasernels” refers to Fraser Nelson who is now @FraserNelson on Twitter. @palmer1984 immediatelyContinue reading “Crowley’s Law”

The way that utilitarianism is normally stated is a terrible way to think about it which leads to real errors. Wikipedia: Utilitarianism [holds] that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes utility This idea strikes terror into people’s hearts: this is a standard that no-one could possibly live up to. Even Toby OrdContinue reading “The long scale of utility”

I’m sometimes sarcastic, but I’m trying to give it up altogether. It’s bad to be sarcastic because civility over disagreements is a good idea, and sarcasm is uncivil. But there’s another reason to avoid it. There are mistaken arguments that sound vaguely persuasive when cloaked in sarcasm whose flaws would be obvious if you triedContinue reading “Never be sarcastic”