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The Slipstream

Not fundedGrant
$0raised

Project summary

The really big issues facing us involve a failure of cooperation. Formal models can facilitate shared narratives by moving parties beyond sound-bites of an issue to a complex and subtle co-understanding. This can work even among people who do not understand each other or even like each other. But formal modeling is hard and expensive. Our software will bring this power to the masses who can make models in natural language and share them on a peer-to-peer network. These models can then be used to cooperate with the rest of the world on personal, national and global issues even in the face of finite shared resources.


We have written protocols for these interactions and are in alpha testing of a reference implementation of the software.

Project goals

We have completed the design phase and the main coding phase of the project.

The next steps are to finish alpha testing, construct a demonstration / video that can be understood by non-technical people and prepare for the next phase which involves facilitating the creation of foundation models, porting to phones and Windows/Mac and ensuring the user experience is easy enough for everyone.

How will this funding be used?

The funding will allow us to work on the project full-time for 3 months. This will be enough time to finish the demonstration and do the networking and presenting needed to jump-start the next phase.

What is your (team's) track record on similar projects?

We never stop. I have been a professional software developer and have done full product life-cycles for medical devices. Our team is very dedicated and our design has no "magic" code areas. We are reasonably certain that there are no remaining surprises in the design or code.

How could this project be actively harmful?

This software can use models to rapidly make good decisions and automate many things. We have spent a lot of time and planning to ensure that it is safe on many levels. But if a single entity were to have access to it and somehow keep everyone else from using it, or if a powerful entity could control the models it uses, they could control the narrative and act selfishly faster than others. They could become really powerful. It is important that the big-roll out and the P2P network are done correctly so that this doesn't happen.

What other funding is this person or project getting?

We currently get about $500/month from supporters on Patreon.

xBruce avatar

Bruce Long

over 1 year ago

Thanks for looking at it!

Yes, a lot of people are excited about using it! For example, some people I have spoken with, who, like me, do not want to die, see that by modeling biological systems and medicine we could speed distributed science exponentially. That's because by knowing the causal structure of the biological systems it will instantly "peer review" theories or studies thereby taking months or years off the the time it takes to ask a question and get an answer. If you model your theory or study results it will be fairly easy for it to check if the model coheres with other models and with (models of the) evidence. But it can model anything. So many people are excited about modeling their country's legal system. One (American) person's idea is to model the contents of the Constitution. Even if we cannot agree on such a model (that is, perhaps we converge on 2 or 3 versions of the model) we could still instantly determine if a new law or action is constitutional if all the competing models agreed on the case. My personal favorite use-case is modeling the news to see if various outlets are spreading propaganda.

.

>>"it seems at a first sight like a lot of work has been done to have "perfect"

>>fundamentals (like developing a new programming language), but I worry a

>>lot of it is uncessecary for an MVP."

Quite possibly you are right. But does it matter? The code is largely done. We are seeking $2500 to finish Phase 1 which involves removing bugs and creating enough models that you can see how it works, and a video demonstrating how to use it. The video is to recruit the people needed for Phase 2. Phase 2 will be about using it to make the foundational models; like a Wikipedia that is written in our modeling language 'Proteus' instead of English.

By the start of Phase 2 it will be easily demonstrated that this will work. Currently it can be demonstrated but the examples are technical and it takes a lot of explaining how the parts will create the whole.

If you would like a long video call where I demonstrate it and answer all your questions I am open to that. But funding any project takes a leap of faith doesn't it? The most responsible people might get sick and not be able to finish. In our case it's not a huge leap because why would our team of smart people work on this for years if there was a possibility that it wouldn't work?

We won't quit if we don't receive this funding, but it would make us happy and speed things up considerably and our video will be better because we will be able to use the Adobe suite.

Thanks for doing Manifund! It's amazing that people want to support other people's projects!

Fingers crossed!

Bruce

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Edo Arad

over 1 year ago

Do you have some examples of users for Slipstream who have expressed interest in using the final product? Going over the Github repo (https://github.com/BruceDLong/Slipstream) it seems at a first sight like a lot of work has been done to have "perfect" fundamentals (like developing a new programming language), but I worry a lot of it is uncessecary for an MVP.

xBruce avatar

Bruce Long

over 1 year ago

Thanks for the feedback! I can see that parts of the Project Summary and possibly the "Is it harmful?" section use trendy and vague language. I could describe it as a "truth engine" instead of talking about "shared narratives", which may sound political. A Truth Engine helps people cooperate because they can more easily trust each other when they know lies or propaganda will be exposed. Truth (or accurate information) is politically neutral. Our project is definitely not vague or undefined, we have specific design requirements and have already coded all the hard parts.

Regarding the demonstration video, perhaps I should have mentioned that the video is for recruiting people from various fields to enter the low level models needed to jump-start the more complex models such as models of medicine or law. It isn't a fund-raising demo. Nevertheless, if you want to see it, why not fund it?

Austin avatar

Austin Chen

over 1 year ago

Hi Bruce! I'm a fan of software projects and modeling, and appreciate the modest funding ask. I'm not going to be funding this at this time, but hope you continue to make progress and would love to see what your demo/video looks like when it's ready!

One note on your application, it does use a lot of jargon which makes it harder to understand what you're going to do, reminding me of this passage from Scott:

Another personā€™s application sounded like a Dilbert gag about meaningless corporate babble. ā€œWe will leverage synergies to revolutionize the paradigm of communication for justiceā€ - paragraphs and paragraphs of this without the slightest explanation of what they would actually do. Everyone involved had PhDs, and theyā€™d gotten millions of dollars from a government agency, so maybe Iā€™m the one whoā€™s wrong here, but I read it to some friends deadpan, it made them laugh hysterically, and sometimes they still quote it back at me - ā€œare you sure we shouldnā€™t be leveraging synergies to revolutionize our paradigm first?ā€ - and I laugh hysterically.

I think concrete examples (or the demo/video you mentioned) would help!

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Tiffany Lawrence

over 1 year ago

Hi Austin! I've been working with Bruce on The Slipstream since I was an intern and have written about half the code. I would very much like to learn more about writing grants and what is going to be the most effective at communicating our project. Were there any specific areas you had questions about?

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Tiffany Lawrence

over 1 year ago

Austin, to be clear I was trying to ask for some more specific, constructive feedback. You made the claim that the grant proposal uses a lot of jargon. I've read it several times and don't see it. So it would be nice to have some specifics to clarify your point. As it stands you quoted a Dilbert passage instead of backing up your claims. This just feels icky and like your trolling, especially when the end of the passage says "I laugh hysterically."

Rachel avatar

Rachel Weinberg

over 1 year ago

@K-Tiffany I see how quoting that could have come off kind of mean, though I don't think Austin was intending to be mean or trollingā€”I think that passage is just parodying a very extreme version of a problem that's common in grant proposals, though I do agree with Austin that it's present here to some extent.

A really concrete thing is that I'd like to know in the very first sentence of the summary what the product literally does. Later in that paragraph its kind of explained, but I'm still not sure exactly what "formal models" means in this context: can you give some examples of what's being modeled?

More broadly, the style at times feels marketing-speak-y, which I think most VCs and grantmakers are wary of. For example, the second sentence uses lots of big/rare words where simpler ones would suffice. I think it's trying to say that "formal models help people understand each others' point of view," and the fancy language makes me both not understand it as quickly and feel like I'm being manipulated or something. Or from the next sentence, what does "peer-to-peer network" mean? Why not just say they're sharing the models with other people?

My general advice:

  • be really concrete

  • use fewer and shorter words when possible

  • lead with the most important things I need to know to evaluate the project

Also here's a comment I left on someone else's proposal with overlapping advice which you might find helpful.

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Tiffany Lawrence

over 1 year ago

@Rachel l, thank you very much for the constructive feedback. Apologies for not replying sooner I have been sick. @xBruce did not lead with the most important aspect of this project. This is transparent AI research, and in many ways transparent AI is safe AI. I think Bruce has decided it's more effective to work contracts and wage labor to support this project. I feel that if this is the go-to mode of supporting transparent AI research is of paramount importance. I've recently encountered another transparent AI researcher with similar struggles. So going forward I guess I would like to explore some options to help this sort of grid lock that is happening. As people who code we are strong at abstract thinking and aren't exactly known for our communication skills. Is there some support with writing grants available? Also, there seems to be a lot of group-think around the idea that neural networks are the way forward, to the exclusion of research in other areas like ours. This isn't just about my project, but all the projects that are bootstrapped and struggling for support while neural networks enjoy an acceleration. I'm confident that having more tools in our AI toolbox will lead to safer AI and I don't feel it's necessary for any one tool to do every job. And even if some of these techniques lead to a dead end, we will have learned something from the research. Do you think there are ways we can explore to help support the advancement of transparent AI?

GavrielK avatar

Gavriel Kleinwaks

over 1 year ago

@K-Tiffany Hey Tiffany, I'm a random regrantor. I agreed that this proposal is hard to parse and thought Rachel had good feedback, but I'm chiming in now since the connection between this proposal's current phrasing and transparent AI research is really unclear to me AND I watched Bruce's entire YouTube video explaining the project (from a few years back), so the proposal could do with even more clarification than I thought when I first read it. Really sorry if that sounds harsh, trying to explain my context.

What does transparent AI mean and how is it related to distributed models? If "transparent AI" is "AI whose motives you can totally understand," I get why it would be safe but not how this proposal gets there. But if it means "open-source AI," I don't get why it would be safe. Can you get into that a bit more?

I can't speak to formal grant-writing support, but I can help out with more detailed feedback if you're redrafting.

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Tiffany Lawrence

over 1 year ago

@GavrielK Thank you so much for taking the time to look at our project and offering to help. We seldom have people offer to give feedback so I really appreciate it. How do you suggest we coordinate redrafting? Can we email you directly or do you have other suggestions?

GavrielK avatar

Gavriel Kleinwaks

over 1 year ago

@K-Tiffany Go ahead and email me, gavriel.kleinwaks@1daysooner.org (and share relevant docs with that email, of course).

xBruce avatar

Bruce Long

over 1 year ago

Our web-site is https://theSlipstream.com. From there you can access a blog, some technical material, and the github repositories with our code.