(Warning: frivolous.) It’s not obvious what properties of games determine whether they are easy or hard. Poker has imperfect information while Sokoban can have very long solutions; which is harder? Could the lack of communication between teammates in Bridge make the game more difficult? This post explores the computational complexity of natural classes of games, … More On the complexity of games
The Elephant in the Brain is the most cheerfully cynical book I have read. It argues for a simple core claim: Our brains are built to act in our self-interest while at the same time trying hard not to appear selfish in front of other people. And in order to throw them off the trail, our brains … More The Elephant in the Brain
If we humans manage to kill ourselves, we may not take all life on Earth with us. That leaves hope for another intelligent civilization to arise; if they do, we could potentially help them by leaving carefully chosen messages. In this post I’ll argue that despite sounding kind of crazy, this could potentially compare favorably to … More Sending a message to the future
I enjoyed season 1 of Westworld; I’ve been watching season 2, but regret how little sense it seems to make. That said, if you are willing to speculate enough about what’s happening offscreen, you can make almost anything consistent. If you have trouble with fiction that doesn’t make sense, I hope you find that this FAQ … More Westworld apologetics: an FAQ
Post-apocalyptic 1. Hundreds of millions of years after civilization destroys itself and all complex life on Earth, human-level intelligence emerges again and sophisticated civilizations begin to form. Told as alternate history in which humans actually evolved in the shadow of a much more ancient alien civilization. The protagonist is an archaeologist and intellectual living in the … More Eight unusual science fiction plots
My computer has a problem. I can either send it in for repairs or try to fix it myself. If I send it in for repairs, it will definitely cost me 1 hour. If I try to fix it myself I’m not sure how long it will take. I decide to try to fix it … More On getting unlucky
My phone is protected by a 4-digit PIN. I’d like to make it hard for an attacker to read information from my phone without knowing the PIN. Unfortunately, there are only 10,000 4-digit PINs, so it won’t take long to guess the right one. What to do? The standard solution involves tamper-resistant hardware. A trusted … More Locking phones with quantum bits
Previously I’ve assumed that the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI) is irrelevant to altruists. On further reflection I think that’s probably right, but it’s not obvious as I’d assumed. In this post I’ll argue: If SETI rules out 50% of the possible places aliens could be, you shouldn’t conclude that searching the other 50% is a … More On SETI
Futurists have argued for years about whether the development of AGI will look more like a breakthrough within a small group (“fast takeoff”), or a continuous acceleration distributed across the broader economy or a large firm (“slow takeoff”). I currently think a slow takeoff is significantly more likely. This post explains some of my reasoning … More Takeoff speeds
Someone walking around stabbing people can cause a lot of damage before anyone stops them. That’s a bummer, but some technologies make the situation much worse. If we don’t want to ban dangerous technologies outright (because they have legitimate purposes, or because we really love guns), we could instead expand liability insurance requirements. In the case of … More Liability insurance
