Looking for a fun but unusual and somewhat boundary-pushing activity to do with a small group of friends that requires almost no preparation? I made a little collaborative scavenger hunt designed to be done in any city. I completed it recently with friends, and it went well! Depending on the city, it may be more difficult or less difficult, but we did it in Manhattan. It's designed so that no on-...

I've seen seven main viewpoints on AI and the future from those who spend a lot of time thinking about it: (1) Superintelligence Doomers - they believe we are likely to build AI that's superintelligent (i.e., that surpasses human intelligence in all respects) and that once we do, it will kill or enslave humanity. See: Eliezer Yudkowsky "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love ...

Merlin was cradled in Julie's arms like a baby while I gently stroked his head and whiskers. I had figured out (through 6 years of trial and error) the way he most enjoyed it. An hour went by this way, and my shoulder ached from the repetitive motion of stroking, but I kept at it because I knew he liked it. He even started to purr.   We knew that, at any time, we could push the button on the w...

This piece was cross-posted on the Transprent Replications blog. A significant and pretty common problem I see when reading papers in social science (and psychology in particular) is that they present a fancy analysis but don’t show the results of what we have named the “Simplest Valid Analysis” – which is the simplest possible way of analyzing the data that is still a valid test of the hypoth...

You obviously only have a certain number of hours in your life - but what's slightly less obvious is that you have a limited number of moments of attention in your life. When you pay attention to one thing, there is an opportunity cost - you could be paying attention to something else, like one of your loved ones, a meaningful project, your source of income, or a hobby you love. When you ge...

The most common kind of critiques I get of my theory of human intrinsic values are: 1) "But I only care about well-being (in the sense of happiness, pleasure, or lack of suffering) - that's my ONLY intrinsic value." 2) "People may THINK they value other things, but everything that matters bottoms out in well-being." Here's my response: First of all, I want to say that I really app...

I think that big problems in the world (like chronic homelessness, loneliness, depression, poverty, underrepresentation of groups, risks from A.I., global warming, etc.) are ridiculously complex - way more complex than the narratives about them suggest. The only approach I know of that I think has a meaningful shot to help solve such huge problems, which you might call “Scientific Entrepreneur...