threebeornothreebe

How we improve a chatbot today? instead of creating a model of the mind, just use the universe to test the answers: the reaction of one person, a thousand, a million.. that’s how a reinforcement learning chatbot would learn today. Now, let’s apply the ergodic principle. Suppose that instead of learning over time , you learn over zillions of simultaneous trials. Now suppose on top of that, that you can try an answer not over a million, not over a googolplex of people, but on an infinity of individuals. All the individuals that compose the multiverse.  Suppose that the chatbot don’t even CARE about the “meaning” of the conversation, but instead of making the person smile, and be happy, and think the chatbot is intelligent - and not only right after its answer, but on all the multiverses that emerge from that interaction (perhaps also towards the past.. but I digress).  The point is: meaning may emerge by a blind measure of a single quantity , the purpose of the co...

Estamos empezando a aceptar que la información que ponemos en la nube somos nosotros - un poco nosotros mismos, bastante nosotros en realidad.  De la misma forma que hoy en dia se defiende el derecho a la privacidad, es muy probable que en el futuro también sea obligatorio para las compañías proteger ese avatar inmortal: nuestra memoria, las fotos, nuestros recuerdos de todo tipo (incluso nuestras tendencias como consumidor).  Las empresas que se dedican a guardar nuestros datos van a estar en problemas en el futuro, porque será un derecho el que no nos borren, el que no nos “modifiquen”, incluso si dejamos de pagar, borrar nuestros datos sera un crimen semejante a un asesinato.  

On the way to the Space Elevator, an improbable view pop ups through the hyperloop oval window. It is the fleeting mirage of a floating ocean - or a gargantuan aquarium - stealing an entire city block. For a fraction of a second I can hear it, smell it, taste it... that is, I feel the seashore with all my senses. It was late afternoon, and a kaleidoscopic (virtually out-of-this-world) sunset had transfixed me, so it takes me a moment to realize that such experience was anything but real. These were not whales, dolphins and fish - just holographic projections rendered in a carefully crafted simulation (kids these days probably don’t mind the distinction; I guess I am too old not to feel cheated).  Dancing voxels of light: not a single flying fish. A short multimedia choreography took my senses by surprise, prompting that primitive part of my brain always eager to believe. These were fish - these were somehow fish - claims an inner voice rapidly gaining ground in my mind [1]. ...

Le rôle des monuments à la mémoire des morts est d'honorer ceux-ci, mais aussi d'éviter que les horreurs de reproduisent.  Au fait, peut être que le rôle de l'Honneur et la Mémoire (dans le sens honorifique du terme) est justement le résultat de l'évolution naturelle pour éviter que ces erreurs ne se reproduisent pas.   L'inverse positif est vraie aussi: mémoire et honneurs pour ceux qui réussissent, aidant ainsi toute la société (consciemment ou inconsciemment, malgré eux ou pas).  

La plupart des bouquins sont aujourd'hui des gros Twitters qu'il faut lire car c'est ce que tout le monde lit, et  que n'importe qui peut ecrire d'ailleurs.  Le contenu est secondaire: on a peut être tout dit deja, tout ce qui est important au moins. L'important c'est d'etre au courant, et d'alimenter ce courant.  (Bien sur, toutes les combinaisons de mots et de faits n’ont pas été épuisés, mais d'un point de vue des sentiments évoqués par ceux-ci, les différences ne sont plus vraiment significatives: le cerveau humain n'a pas suffisament de “résolution” emotionnelle à ce niveau)

La pub est une insulte que l’on peut lire par example dans cette rue près de Jussieu. Je me met un instant à la place des publicitaires, juste pour voir. Ils vivent dans un monde de concurrence, certainement difficile a supporter, mais bien construit et parfaitement encadre: il y a des calculs, des choix a faire aussi, mais un chiffre, un objectif, un prix qu’on ne peux pas cacher (enfoui quelque part en petits ou grands caractères). Je me dis: c’est un art, mais aussi de l’Art . Un art dégénère, un art prostituée, mais de l'Art. La recherche du choc, de l'esthétique, du message.  Il y en a pire dans les musées.

Real intelligence or artificial cognitive enhancement will soon be indistinguishable. Reasoning takes some effort of course, but the elements and pieces that compose it are like “qualia of the thought”: they are ineffable and you cannot break it into more elemental pieces (unless you are using a formal language, and try to solve the puzzle without “thinking” but following some algorithm (like the Chinese room)).  I mean, working memory, speed of thought, all contribute to the feeling that one is thinking and one can direct one’s attention to a problem , but the thinking itself is happening under the hoods.  One can direct focus and attention to pieces of the problem, based on previous knowledge - something you can explain verbally - but intuition and even the elemental pieces of inference are mostly unconscious processes.  Higher IQs are like better natural athletes: they can maybe work to improve some aspects of their body, but then, when performing t...

The Orion constellation is perhaps the easiest to recognise star configuration in the sky; it is visible from both the south and north hemispheres as it lies near the celestial equator (it can be seen at latitudes between +85° and -75°), meaning that migrating human populations would have been able to continuously observe it for hundreds thousands, perhaps millions of years. Also, the magnitude of the stars make it very visible (Rigel is the sixth brightest star in the sky). It is visible even for the modern city dweller. Since the shape of a constellation change extremely slowly (in particular stellar drift is minimal for far away stars, which is the case for the main stars of Orion constellation), it is conceivable this shape / pattern is imprinted in the genetic memory of our species (as well as others species of course). Since today's human populations living in cities generally ignore the sky (least use it for navigation!), it would be possible to run an interesting exp...

“Undo" exist only in the virtual world (well not only).  But what a big difference... We write, think, knowing we can correct . This is new.  I just wrote a long email, and by mistake I pressed cancel instead of sending or saving, and it was deleted. I felt betrayed, fundamentally betrayed by the world, when in fact I should known better: throwing things at a fire always burn them in the real world and this is no betray: it is the way it works.  The digital world has created new expectations in an old reality - not a new reality. We feel cheated and find abnormal things that are just natural facts. 

I was talking more about the a esthetics and culture, how it is "calcified" as Kevin Slavin says, into algorithms. In fact this is not new: since we invented means of "externalizing minds" (print, etc), we suffered unintentionally form that process of "calcification".  At first the intention is good: to crystallize, computerize and automate what you like - so as to discover or enhance automatically the things you like most about the world you live in. But then.. there is no space for change, control or exploration (here I totally agree with Kevin). Kevin talks a lot about the financial world, and I think this is a good (important) example with profound consequences. I was thinking more about very subtle "differences" that at the end make huge cultural shifts (perhaps even more important consequences after all). For instance, take language and speech. Think what the word-processor has done to writing. From the XVI century onwards, b...

Las llanuras de Marte apenas se dejaban ver por las ventanas sucias del diminuto vehiculo.    - “Lo que me extrana es porque no recuerdo el haber sido psico-clonado” – dice Allen.        - “Es normal. Retiramos juntos ese recuedo por precaucion” - replica Carl. “Disminuye el riesgo de una psicosis psolipsita  que terminaria convenciendote de que todo es un sueno tuyo. Pero no es asi; esta simulacion que compartimos, este sueno si prefieres llamarlo asi, esta interactuando con la realidad alli afuera . Eso lo sabe tu verdadero yo alli en la Tierra. Lo sabiamos todos. No lo recuerdas, pero decidimos que yo no lo olvidaria por si algo como lo que esta sucediendo ahora tuviese lugar. Fue al fin y al cabo una decision acertada; como lo demostraron los examenes previos a mi psico-clonado, mi psiquis puede aceptar lo que sucedera cuando volvamos – es decir, algo similar a una muerte, puesto que nos dormiran para siemplre al apagar esta simulacion. P...

Even if we are not synesthete nor have perfect pitch, it is possible to learn (for a while, for a long time actually) to be synesthete: obvious example: the alphabet. If I see an A, I have trouble not thinking about the sound "A".  It is even possible to prove that the same way we prove syntesthetes have trouble sometimes because of the interference of symbols, for instance by writing BLUE in red - it takes more time to read it. Now, come the interesting idea: why do we use only black and white and SHAPES to create this sound-to-shape synesthesia? Because it is obvious that producing different colors was more difficult than creating different shapes; but now, we could easily control, say, an RGB light by, say, waving a magic stick like the sony controller in the air and exploring the RGB or VHS space.  Then, the question is: could we create a solid color-to-sound synesthesia, and more particularly, a colour to LETTER or syllabe synesthesia? that would mean ...

En 100 anos (y seguramente en mucho menos), cuando la tecnología haya avanzado lo suficiente, no tendremos ninguna excusa para hacer las cosas mal o sin ganas, pero tampoco ninguna responsabilidad en nada .  Si me agarro una cirrosis por tomar demasiado, se podra trazar el camino de las culpas, hasta llegar a alguien o algo que no sea yo mismo - algo molecular, despersonalizado.  Y condenarlo, y corregirlo.  Bueno o malo, este futuro de (i)responsabilidad infinitamente compartida no deja de ser perturbador.

Question: assuming one day we know the exact laws of the physical universe, and assuming we have enough computing power, is it possible to simulate a part of the universe (even a tiny one like a molecule) with perfect accuracy (i.e, indistinguishable form the real thing for EVERY experiment we can imagine) but faster than the real process?  Or does a perfect simulation require at least exactly the same duration (and/or physical space, energy, etc)?  The question may seem stupid but it's more complicated that it appears at first thought. Think about this: assuming a classical, newtonian universe, and a perfectly isolated particle, we can easily compute at any time, say, the position by using a simple mathematical formula. Then the "simulation" does not need approximating the behavior of the system using any sort of time step: the computation time may be much less than the time required by the real particle to actually reach the position. But as soon as we introduce r...

 Cuando uno se emborracha o se divierte demasiado y mal y sin cuidado, gastando asi una energía preciosa, acortando el tiempo de vida; cuando uno se envicia y no piensa en el futuro y fuma un puro o lo que sea; cuando alguien hace eso nos sentimos mal, algo esta mal, el que lo hace se siente muchas veces culpable.  Pero de que se trata? se trata de lograr un estado de felicidad inmediato, el pecado es ser impaciente. Se trata de robarle al mundo un poco de felicidad, a costa de la salud. Pero la salud esta para que? para disfrutarla? Vivir, incluso no haciendo nada o lo mínimo, sin ningún tipo de placer nos consumiria igual - envejecemos.  Cualquier movimiento que hagamos, incluso no muy exagerado gasta energías, vuelve romos los ángulos de las moléculas y produce desechos que al final terminan destruyendo a toda la maquinaria. Asi que no hay diferencia, o mas bien solo de grado.  Vivir es un vicio : si quedes dejarlo, congelate al cero absoluto. Pero si abres...

This may be obvious to a evolutionary scientist, but the other day I was thinking that perhaps evolution is not just about random mutations that are "selected" by environmental pressure: perhaps a mutation provides only a slight phenotypical advantage, but this mutation may have other  phenotypical  effects, perhaps visible but not providing any advantage (or disadvantage).  Now, the interesting thing is this: such phenotypical expression may end up being associated (in the minds of the animals) to the fact that the individual does have a true  phenotypical  advantage. Then, an unrelated expression will effectively have some reproductive advantage, and genes that enhance this feature (even if these are not the ones providing a direct advantage) will end up being selected for.  I am thinking for instance about the colored shapes of a peackok's tail... to generate a form in the shape of an "eye", there must be a complex process of diffusion during th...

Vos pensa: si yo te pregunto por ejemplo cual es la velocidad ideal a la cual se debe correr bajo la lluvia para mojarse menos, vas a perderte en cálculos mas o menos aproximados, y probablemente no integres toda la complejidad del problema. Incluso haciendo un montón de hipótesis simplificadoras, el problema sigue siendo una cosa que no se resuelve mentalmente (por lo menos algo que el común de los mortales no puede resolver así nomas). Y sin embargo todos opinamos en seguida sobre problemas complejisimos de la sociedad y el mundo; hay gente - escritores - que escriben como si nada mamotretos de 500 paginas sobre filosofía o política (tengo adelante mio "L'infini dans la paume de la main. Du Big Bang a l'Eveil", de Matthieu Ricard y Trinh Xuan Thuan: exactamente 471 paginas sobre temas en principio muchísimo mas complejos que el que expuse arriba). COMO PUEDE SER ESTO??? Lo único que se me ocurre, es que el mundo de las palabras esta completamente desconectado de la ...

  Subliminal User Interfaces - Computer Applications as Agents of the Mind Alvaro Cassinelli — University of Tokyo, Ishikawa Hashimoto Laboratory, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan — alvaro@k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Originally written circa 2001 as an unpublished research proposal. This version has been lightly formatted and edited for online publication. Introduction From graphical interfaces to perceptual user interfaces (PUI) Perceptual Human Interfaces (PUIs) may well be the future of graphical user interfaces if they succeed in making communication with machines natural enough. However, I believe there is more to human-computer interaction than simply giving computers the capacity to understand—or reply by mimicking—a human face, a gesture, or even complex attitudes and other less codified forms of human communication. My guess is that, sooner or later, there will be a paradigm shift in how we understand human-computer interaction: in the future, it may not rely on...