Original Lesswrong thread here.
Original tweet here:
Related questions
I created a new market for this that (I at least believe) is better worded to capture the possible outcomes of the UFO debate and which does not rely on Yudkowsky's opinions, statements of particular people, or arbitrary timetables.
There currently exists a significant arbitrage opportunity; if unprecedented fraud is one of the outcomes that Yudkowsky would be surprised by, then this market is far overvalued at 95%.
@SteveSokolowski Yudkowsky probably would not be surprised by unprecedented fraud, he has written on the failings of our species.
@SteveSokolowski This market here does not rely on Eliezer's opinion, see the LessWrong post
@SteveSokolowski It relies on the broader opinion of rationalists though, which you might think is not a good metric
Regardless of origin, if they break the laws of physics as we know them today it’s world shattering even if someone built the fucking thing in their garage.
@BTE criteria for anyone who didn't click through:
Merely advanced "normal" human tech would NOT count (+2 gens stealth aircraft/drones, advanced holograms/spoofing, etc)
...
I hereby forfeit any "gotcha" cases.
I'm not trying to be slick or capitalize on technicalities. A world in which I win is one where the community would broadly agree that I won.
I think "physics-breaking" would need to be in a sense other than the discovery of quantum physics or whatever. My world model allows new physics to be discovered.
I think discovering new physics that is far beyond what we know about (not just quantum, we know about quantum) and using it to build UFOs and keeping it secret for decades would be quite surprising. The resolution criteria says:
Merely advanced "normal" human tech would NOT count (+2 gens stealth aircraft/drones, advanced holograms/spoofing, etc)
What WOULD count is if the story is significantly weird enough to cause ontological shock.
example: Secret Manhattan style project with beyond next gen physics, that we had back in the 60's
@JonasVollmer It's interesting how the odds there are dramatically improving as more information comes out about this.
I would never consider a real money bet in these circumstances because all of the bets, including Yukowsky's, are unsecured credit. For $150,000, I would want a first lien on real estate, so that I could quickly foreclose if the bet wasn't paid, and none of the bettors have done that.
@SteveSokolowski The odds are improving as people are running out of money / risk aversion kicks in.
Fair point regarding unsecured credit; I'd add that a fair amount of trust is also required given there's no formal legal agreement securing the bet.
@JonasVollmer Or, it's because 20:1 is getting closer to the actual odds. If I could afford to and someone was willing to give me a lien, I would take 5:1.
I think I said elsewhere on a comment on manifold or maybe reddit or twitter: I don't know of anyone who has actually spent a lot of time researching the topic who comes out less convinced of the existence of NHI. If you haven't done so, spend 50 hours reading books and reviewing evidence and come back and say whether you believe it's all made up.
Everything is shockingly consistent. The AARO itself just yesterday said there are now 800, up from 140, reports of objects it can't explain - and over 85% of them are either the black and glass spheres, radar images like the spheres, or lights that move like the spheres at night. Everything Grusch says is consistent with the basic allegations throughout the years, except for the obviously debunked scams like crop circles. There isn't "no evidence" - the evidence something is going on is overwhelming.
It's just weird to me that Chuck Schumer puts 52 pages about non-human intelligence in the NDAA this year, Michio Kaku now thinks the burden is on the government, and you've got those who are saying this is all people having visions? I challenge someone to read for tens of hours about this topic and then come up with a more likely explanation for the 700 spheres, the sphere sightings throughout history, and the fact that 40 people made under-oath statements this year.
@SteveSokolowski I have no explanation, other than time and time again reality has proven underwealming
I would probably take 20:1 on no If I had the free money to handle it.
@BTE yeah true. Might revisit this when I have some free mana. Right now I just bet 1 on yes from my "I will bet on all your markets if you bet on this one" challenge. Still, there's more rediculous long term bets, like https://manifold.markets/Tripping/will-ai-wipe-out-humanity-before-th-6d1e8126d974?r=Zg
@f Note though that even though I'm up to 20% on the existence of non-human intelligence on a bet with a random person, I wouldn't actually bet 5:1 on this market. I would stop at 90% on this market (with current disclosure levels.)
@EliezerYudkowsky is not open-minded enough to consider that he could be wrong about anything. He's at 95%+ on the destruction of the world by AI, which is ridiculous because we have no idea how the first AGI will actually work. It's not a rational position to be so certain when we don't know what type of software will run computers that could destroy the world.
To me, it's sad that someone who is obviously extremely intelligent is so hardheaded that I end up writing off almost everything he says because there is no nuance in his statements about AI or anything else. With this topic, it's clear from his counterarguments about AI and superintelligence taking over the universe which miss the point, that he has not actually thoroughly researched what the claimed facts are, because the valid counterarguments are different. It's a shame.
@MartinRandall This is a very complex topic, but the gist is the following:
Almost nobody - not the government, not researchers, not even "abductees" whose stories are doubtful - states that there are "aliens" flying in from outer space. ET is a story created for Star Trek and even Speilberg later stated he knew the following paragraphs are more realistic but he produced what would sell his movies. That's why the term "non-human intelligence" is being standardized now in Congress. Any Manifold market created with the word "aliens" is an immediate giveaway that the person doesn't know what they're talking about.
After reading about this, if I were asked to choose a word that we already use that is most accurate to describe their conclusions, I would choose "God" instead of "aliens."
The widely held theory is that the intelligence is located in a higher dimension that we don't understand enough to describe right now, that it has been present throughout history, has influenced humanity's development, and that it is being detected this century because the military only recently developed the capabilities to understand how obvious and widespread the phenomenon is (> 1.5 million spheres per decade estimated with 2000-era technology alone.) These people do not believe that "time" has meaning when talking about it, given that it exists in more than four dimensions.
Because of that, the argument of Yudkowsky and others that once one civilization reaches superintelligence the entire Universe will be filled with paperclips doesn't validly refute the existence of the non-human intelligence in question. It would still be possible for us to "use up" almost everything we know about in this Universe to expand for all of "eternity," bother nobody, and find we're "alone" because we are simply wrong about how reality works.
The related argument, that any intelligence that visits us must be more advanced than us because the odds of existing at the same time are so slim, also fails for the same reason - that the people researching this do not believe time is fundamental to reality. In fact, the whistleblowers believe that we may actually be more advanced than them except for the technology they use to get here.
This is a vastly simplified explanation.
@SteveSokolowski You almost had me going until you got to "higher dimensional beings existing outside of time". I don't care what craft the military has supposedly seen, that kind of wild speculation is completely unjustifiable.
@jonsimon You've hit upon what my main issue with the research is. I think that part of it - the UAPs not being created by humans and the sensors detecting a huge number of encounters - is actually pretty likely. We know the UAPs are everywhere and we know the military has sensors we can't even dream about.
By the way, you can extrapolate a lot about why there is a coverup just from those two very likely statements. If both are true, then it's also true that something is present on Earth for an unknown reason, and their lack of knowledge would not be able to disprove that "abductions" are occurring, creating panic.
As to your reservations about the topic, they are very similar to mine, and we've hit upon the more nuanced counterargument Yudkowsky should also be using: it's implausible that the military possesses the technology to determine anything more about the phenomenon other than that it exists and has existed for some time.
The problem for him is that this is not a complete defense.
I briefly contemplated two scenarios in what I think people imagine as the impacts for their daily lives: ET regularly interacting with human society versus AGI/super intelligence interacting with human society. And I feel that AGI impacts are more familiar and seems easier to extrapolate (something derived in part from human effort) than alien impacts (since aliens would be derived from alien evolution/alien engineering) so I believe it’s natural for people to assign aliens a lower probability.
@parhizj This is something that I considered as well.
If this stuff about aliens were happening 10 years ago, it would indeed have been earth-shattering. But 10 years from now, there will be genetically modified humans, superintelligent AIs, and probably aliens too. How are all of these forms of intelligence different?
To me it doesn't seem all that different to be talking to an "alien" compared to a computer. The world is going through a phase change right now, and, given that the aliens haven't declared war on the Earth in over 80 years, whether there are aliens here or not doesn't seem to impact much in the big picture.
@parhizj I predicted NO because I think that if there are aliens, we will know one way or the other before AGI is achieved, and AGI is very close. I doubt the aliens would sit back and allow an AGI aligned to human interests to consume their resources - or, the AGI would be able to infer that aliens exist. This should be at 90%.
Nothing about this market makes sense to me. You mean the guy who thinks we are on the brink of a worldview-shattering breakthrough in AI dismisses physics shattering phenomena with actual mutlisensor evidence if it’s existence as probably lame?!?! Why is this guy so smart again?
@BTE The AI breakthrough would be worldview-shattering because of its extreme effects, whereas the aliens would be worldview-shattering because of the assumptions needed for them to appear in this way and in no other way. One is about very different things becoming true in the future; the other is about very different things having already been true.
@BTE If something you expect to happens, happens (AI), that is not worldview-shattering, but quite the opposite.
We also don't have any "multisensor evidence". We have single-sensor evidence (i.e. blurry videos) with witness testimony.
If you'd bother to read the tweet in the description, it explains exactly why he believes what he believes regarding UAP's. If you have any convincing counterarguments to his reasoning, you should share them.
@MetallicDragon So I expect there to be aliens. This this is not world shattering regardless of origin. I still don’t get the point.
@BTE Care to share this multi-sensor evidence?
Edit: Also, the "worldview-shattering" part of this is about whether it's worldview-shattering to Eliezer, not you.
@MetallicDragon it isn’t hard to google these things.
“When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it’s not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection,” said Ratcliffe. “Usually we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things.”
https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/unidentified-aerial-phenomenon-uap.705132/
@MetallicDragon I find it remarkable that someone who thinks humans are capable of building digital gods doesn’t believe there could be aliens. Is he religious or something?? He seems pretty clearly to be a clever grifter to me. I would take his bet but I am almost certain he will manipulate the outcome based on the use of the made up standard of “world shattering according to him”. Like what kinda of fucking idiot thinks this is a clever point he is making???
@BTE the resolution of the bet doesn't rely on Eliezer's opinion at all; the other guy came up with the resolution criteria
@JonasVollmer Sorry I was told differently above. Still think it’s stupid and he is a grifter.
@BTE So, WE (as in, you and I and the public in general) do not have multi-sensor data. We have witness testimony or hearsay that multi-sensor data exists, somewhere. There is a huge HUGE difference between "I have data that proves this is real" and "Here's the data that proves this is real". In particular, we cannot analyze it ourselves and see if perhaps they have misinterpreted the data.
As to your other comment: Eliezer does not believe UFO's can't be aliens. Quote: "I don't promise that [UFOs aren't aliens.] absolutely, of course. I'm no superintelligent alien myself, to know things like that". He also explains pretty clearly why he believes the things he does, you don't need to sit here wondering how he came about those beliefs.
Furthermore, the resolution criteria are pretty clearly lined out in the original post (also linked in this market's description): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t5W87hQF5gKyTofQB/?commentId=rsKjPAPqeFwQuNibD - I apologize if my previous comment about the resolution criteria was misleading.
@MetallicDragon I appreciate the more detailed explanation. Answer me this, presuming the UAP and their characteristics are not phantom data but actually what they appear to be, and it turns out some dude is making them in his garage, wouldn’t that be like even more world shattering since That would mean one person or very small team is more technologically capable than the entire rest of humanity combined?
@BTE That sounds like it would count, considering this example outlined in the original post:
"Merely advanced "normal" human tech would NOT count (+2 gens stealth aircraft/drones, advanced holograms/spoofing, etc)
What WOULD count is if the story is significantly weird enough to cause ontological shock.
example: Secret Manhattan style project with beyond next gen physics, that we had back in the 60's"
By my own judgement that sounds "significantly weird enough to cause ontological shock", if the tech were something sci-fi like a large drone with extremely high acceleration and no externally visible propulsive mechanism. If it was just a big weird drone using off-the-shelf parts, or technically more advanced than currently known tech, but still using mundane technology (jet engines, props) then I would not count that.
