Thomas Sepulchre

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Find Hot French Food Near Me: A Follow-up — LessWrong

Sep 6, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Charlie Steiner |Thomas Sepulchre

On Zvi's recent post about French food I posted an inflammatory comment (saying in essence that French food is so bad American capitalism hasn't even bothered stealing it). I got challenged to provide evidence supporting this, and particularly to back up my claim that there were more German than French restaurants near me. Right. Yes. Evidence. I am a reasonable adult who understands that beliefs must be supported by evidence. So. Here we go.
A Golden Age of Building? Excerpts and lessons from Empire State, Pentagon, Skunk Works and SpaceX — LessWrong

Sep 1, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Richard Horvath |Thomas Sepulchre

Patrick Collison has a fantastic list of examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together since the 19th Century. It does make you yearn for a time that feels...
Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin — LessWrong

Jun 6, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Evan Murphy |Thomas Sepulchre |Ben Pace |Daniel Kokotajlo

There are a few videos taken from fighter-jet sensor packages floating aroundThe military released some videos but there's plenty of reporting that it didn't released their best-quality videos precisely for the reasons you listed. Having the best quality videos that are taking by fighter jets would reveal information about the fighter jets that the US military does not want out on the open so those high-quality videos are classified in a way the videos we have aren't.
How Many Bits Of Optimization Can One Bit Of Observation Unlock? — LessWrong

Apr 26, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Yair Halberstadt |Thomas Sepulchre

Eliminating GThe standard definition of channel capacity makes no explicit reference to the original message G; it can be eliminated from the problem. We can do the same thing here, but it’s trickier. First, let’s walk through it for the standard channel capacity setup. Standard Channel Capacity SetupIn the standard setup, A cannot depend on O, so our graph looks like… and we can further remove O entirely by absorbing it into the stochasticity of Y. Now, there are two key steps.
No, really, it predicts next tokens. — LessWrong

Apr 18, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Steven Byrnes |Thomas Sepulchre |David Bolin |Roman Leventov

OK, I think I'm now seeing what you're saying here (edit: see my other reply for additional perspective and addressing particular statements made in your comment): In order to predict well in complicated and diverse situations the model must include general-purpose modelling machinery which generates an internal, temporary model. The next token can then be predicted, perhaps, by simply reading it off this internal model.
The salt in pasta water fallacy — LessWrong

Mar 27, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Steven Byrnes |Thomas Sepulchre |Charlie Steiner |Richard Korzekwa

There is a particular fallacy I encounter often, and I don't know if it has a name already. I call it the salt in pasta water fallacy. In this post I will present the fallacy, discuss why I believe it is a fallacy, and give a concrete example of it happening. Salt in pasta waterThe archetypical example of the fallacy is the following claim: Adding salt to pasta water reduces cooking time.
"Liquidity" vs "solvency" in bank runs (and some notes on Silicon Valley Bank) — LessWrong

Mar 12, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Brendan Long |Thomas Sepulchre

Epistemic status: Reference post, then some evidenced speculation about emerging current events (as of 2023-03-12 morning). A "liquidity" crisisThere's one kind of "bank run" where the story, in stylized terms, starts like this:A bank opens up and offers 4%/ann interest on customer deposits. 100 people each deposit $75 to the bank. The bank uses $7,500 to buy government debt that will pay back $10,000 in five years.
No Room for Political Philosophy — LessWrong

Feb 21, 2023 | lesswrong.com | Arturo Macías |Thomas Sepulchre

I was recently asked about my opinion on various schools of Political Philosophy (vg. classical liberalism, neoliberalism and Ayn Rand's Objectivism). I refused to engage with any of them in detail, because my position is that there is no room for different schools of “Political Philosophy”. Ethics and Science (mainly Social Science) are enough to completely determine the best public action.