Comments on: Chaos Patch (#17)

By: an inanimate aluminum tube

an inanimate aluminum tube — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:28:14 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, your new aristocracy:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685918/Prostitute-injected-married-Google-executive-lethal-dose-heroin-board-yacht-coldly-stepping-dying-body-finish-glass-wine.html

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:54:49 +0000

+1, except the vitalism.

You should separate intelligence and consciousness, though. Intelligence seems to be merely bit manipulation. Learning, reasoning and creativity is just gathering, processing, and (random?) generation, respectively.

While I suspect biological consciousness employs bits of DNA, it’s just a handy component with any number of possible silicon substitutes. However, to find those substitutes you have to respect consciousness qua consciousness, not pretend it has no existence.

(The blood-brain barrier is DNA privileging, and the gonads have the same privilege. Why would the brain need to be DNA privileged? It does in fact have shards of DNA floating around in it. Doing something, presumably. Conveniently they match a requirement for my consciousness machine.)

By: "qjfjk"

"qjfjk" — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:07:13 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning A little more relevant for these purposes these days.

Also recommend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vShMxxqtDDs

and

http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2990 (very interesting IMO)

Still a long, long ways off, but some interesting developments at least.

By: Aeroguy

Aeroguy — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 04:47:21 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_programming

By: Doctor Poo

Doctor Poo — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 03:20:06 +0000

@Doctor PooFundamentally, what makes sentience, and a being that is even ‘capable’ of programming a computer, does not actually require the ability to produce mathematical calculations on the fly. An intelligent person undoubtedly is better at producing mathematical calculations on the fly than an unintelligent person, or non-human primate, but even if they weren’t able to do that, their capabilities for problem solving, analysis, and creative capacities, will still be light years ahead of any computer. The reason, as I have made clear, is that computers don’t actually solve problems, humans program them to engage in functions that they are capable of with higher efficiency, in the end it is the humans who create the solutions. Computers, fundamentally, are more compact mechanical devices – think of it like a more complex abacus. No one claims that an abacus solved a mathematical problem, that is just a designation, or description, of the activities done by the human to the abacus that does not apply to the abacus itself.

Non-human primates are infinitely more sentient than any machine. They weren’t programmed the solve the problems they do, or make tools – they figured it out themselves. No machine can make that claim. It is simply not something that machines will be able to do, because they can’t come to life. It’s not a question of doing a larger number of calculations per second, it’s a question of biological vs. abiological. Without DNA, they’re hopeless dullards.

By: Aeroguy

Aeroguy — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 02:06:16 +0000

We’ve all heard the god of the gaps argument, now we get the humanity of the gaps argument.

Personally I’m of the opinion that if we get around to defining who and who isn’t sentient, apes shouldn’t count as sentient since we’re reliant on heuristic thinking (how many bugs in human thinking have psychologists alone discovered with their limited techniques) and possess rational thinking so limited and impaired such that we have enormous difficulty deriving basic things like calculus entirely from logic without having it programmed into our brains let alone independently deriving the entirety of mathematics entirely from logic like a rational being should theoretically be able to do. Apes are self aware and can communicate well enough with each other to facilitate status posturing, but to call us rational, let alone sentient, seems like self flattery.

Strong Intelligence is hard to come by, I agree, after all, none currently exists.

By: Docs

Docs — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 01:04:47 +0000

Might be in your spam. Can you email me at the address in this sig?

By: Shalmaneser

Shalmaneser — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 23:04:33 +0000

@Blogospheroid
I cannot imagine getting to nuclear power without easily available fossil fuels with a healthy ERoEI bootstrapping you there. If someone wants to argue otherwise, they will have to lay out a plausible, detailed technoeconomic path – handwaving is just whistling past the graveyard. The same goes for solar – it may prevent the collapse of Civ 1, but Civ 2 will not be able to reach that tech level.

@nyan_sandwich
No. Matter matters. The growth of systems is always constrained by the availability of the rarest vital resource. Now, sometimes intelligence allows you to substitute one resource for another but sometimes you can’t, no matter how smart you are. Cornucopian thinking should always be regarded with utmost suspicion.

By: Doctor Poo

Doctor Poo — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 22:29:55 +0000

I’ve simply not seen any evidence that it is being built into a reality by anyone. Computers don’t do intelligence, they do programmed computing.

It is fun. It’s fun because everyone loves a story about a sentient robot.

By: Hurlock

Hurlock — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 22:26:59 +0000

Your time horizon is very short.
Yes, computers will not surpass humans in your lifetime, neither will they do in your children’s lifetime. That is not the point. The point is that the computers ARE in fact getting smarter and quite observably so. Of course belief in the Singularity is something like a religious belief and people who believe in it happening any time soon are similar to the medieval christians who for ages thought that Judgment Day is just around the corner. But while the christians were not able to observe any factual signs of Judgment Day coming closer, we actually do observe the fact that computers are getting consistently smarter. And that’s already a big difference.
And if you haven’t realized already, civilizations are fragile things who are largely built upon and advance through seemingly ridiculous fantasies.
The belief in the singularity and of AI surpassing humans is not just some “fun” fantasy. And it’s not just the superstitious belief of a bunch of nerds. Because those nerds are actually making it into a reality it’s more than that, it’s a hyperstition.
Fantasies can build the future and actualize themselves. They have, they do, and they will.