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.  

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...

“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. 

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...

Study robot behavior (individual or "social") as one would study human behavior: using the tools of social sciences.  Now, since we may have access to the routines that generate their programmed intentionality, the results of this "robological" (anthropo-logical) study can be confronted with predictions from a more reductionistic, bottom-up approach to complex systems analysis.  And even if one does not have access to these routines, the approach can be interesting: the intuition here is that when a system (animal or computer) becomes extremely complex, there are emergent behaviors that cannot be captured or understood by the bottom-up analysis. The tools of social sciences may be needed anyway (for asking the right questions and answering in the same non reductionistic language). Alvaro Cassinelli Tokyo, 17.9.2009 ps: Idea paper for IACAP? (International Association for Computing And Philosophy)