Hacker News Reader

craiguson The new science of “emergent misalignment”

"New science" phooey.

Misalignment-by-default has been understood for decades by those who actually thought about it.

S. Omohundro, 2008: "Abstract. One might imagine that AI systems with harmless goals will be harmless. This paper instead shows that intelligent systems will need to be carefully designed to prevent them from behaving in harmful ways. We identify a number of “drives” that will appear in sufficiently advanced AI systems of any design. We call them drives because they are tendencies which will be present unless explicitly counteracted."

https://selfawaresystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ai_d...

E. Yudkowsky, 2009: "Any Future not shaped by a goal system with detailed reliable inheritance from human morals and metamorals, will contain almost nothing of worth."

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GNnHHmm8EzePmKzPk/value-is-f...

craiguson Elon Musk recommends that the International Space Station be deorbited ASAP

  Tesla is losing money hand over fist

No, it's not. Its 2024 operating income was $7B.

  SpaceX is losing money

No, it's not. It reached profitability in 2023 and has substantially grown revenue since then.

  (and would be hemorrhaging money if not for US government spending)

No, it wouldn't. Most of SpaceX's revenue is from Starlink. https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/02/10/its-official-starl...

  The Boring company is bankrupt

No, it's not.

Stop spreading misinformation. Check your facts before you post them.

  Neuralink is losing money

What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say about an early stage startup, working diligently on creating a valuable new medical technology, with significant publicly visible progress. Especially ridiculous to say on this platform.

craiguson DOGE employees don't understand the basics of SQL

Exactly, just like SpaceX did in launch vehicles, and Tesla did in car manufacturing.

craiguson EURISKO Lives

"... I’m sure I remember a much younger Eliezer Yudkowsky cautioning that Doug Lenat should have perceived a non-zero chance of hard takeoff at the moment of its birth."

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rJLviHqJMTy8WQkow/recursion-...

craiguson What makes quantum computing so hard to explain?

The Many-worlds Interpretation explains the subjective randomness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

craiguson Learning by playing

Hi Tobias, thanks for dropping into the thread.

When this kind of software becomes mature enough that a consultant can install a robotic arm on a factory line, and quickly (several hours) train it to do the job of a factory line worker, there will be a massive economic incentive to do so.

How far do you think we are from this level of maturity? What are the remaining steps required to reach that level?

craiguson To save on weight, a detour to the moon is the best route to Mars

From the 4th paragraph:

>They found the most mass-efficient path involves launching a crew from Earth with just enough fuel to get into orbit around the Earth. A fuel-producing plant on the surface of the moon would then launch tankers of fuel into space, where they would enter gravitational orbit. The tankers would eventually be picked up by the Mars-bound crew, which would then head to a nearby fueling station to gas up before ultimately heading to Mars.

TLDR, the main Mars vehicle wouldn't land on the moon.