03 October 2017

more misc notes on the biological path to strong ai


agree that this is looking like the best path to strong AI. don't agree that the biological is the only potential path.

the biological path is only the best path while we share fundamental constraints with the brain.

SDRs are a great example of evolution solving a problem working against limiting constraints. In the the case of SDRs the constraints are those of computing power, storage space and access times in the brain.

The reliance on SDRs is likely linked to one of the bugs in our intelligence - the bias toward equivalence (the "IS A" bias). A hypothetical predictive system implemented without SDRs or with less dependence on SDRs might also be an intelligence that suffers less from the is-a bias.

31 July 2017

keyword shortcuts in chrome

The following works by typing a keyword into the address bar (omnibar) and pressing enter to jump to a specific url. In Google's Chrome (as of version 59.0), this isn't available through the bookmark manager like it is in Firefox, but you can easily use the Search Engine Shortcuts feature in Chrome to work the same way.

How to create a keyword shortcut in Chrome

  1. Right click the address bar (omnibar)
  2. Select edit search engines...
  3. Click on 'ADD' - which appears after the default search engines section
  4. In the dialog that pops up:
    • in the search-engine field - name your bookmark
    • in the keyword field - enter your keyword shortcut string (what you will need to type in the omnibar to quickly jump to this 'bookmark'
    • In URL field - type in the url you want to associate with the keyword

Placeholder for additional text

The url can contain a special placeholder: '%s' (without the quotes) that will serve as a placeholder for additional text that you can enter if you press tab after typing the keyword shortcut.

For example, I use a keyword shortcut that jumps to list of bookmarks on https://pinboard.com by given tag. For that:
  • I use 'pint' (without quotes) as keyword,
  • and https://pinboard.in/u:jaysen/t:%s/ as url.
Then to access all my bookmarks on pinboard that is tagged with 'todo' as example
  • I type 'pint' in omnibar,
  • press TAB
  • type the tag I want to visit - in this example 'todo'
  • and ENTER This takes me to https://pinboard.in/u:jaysen/t:todo/

21 July 2017

growing pains

"The tribes and clans of early man never left us, they just expanded outward like ripples in a pond, becoming more intricate." - without losing too much of their easy use of violence and coercion.

We can reshape - build networks of decentralized public power using smart tools for communication and knowledge-sharing, decision-making and organisation.

But then again, we should never underestimate the potential  for things to get very much worse instead (or first?), as the priests and warlords - now corporations and politicians - steadily turn up the manipulation and violence to keep things running in their favour.


22 February 2017

octobrains



Did the 100s of smelling, tasting, feeling suckers on the 8 legs of an octopus do a similar thing for the octopus brain as the evolution of hands did to ours  ?... and did the decentralised architecture of the octopus brain reduce the impact the 8 arm rich information stream had on evolving a complex central brain?

Or was it that without the single repeated architecture of the mammalian neocortex as general intelligence engine, gains made in complexity in those sensory streams were not as reusable toward the evolution of a more general intelligence ??


12 February 2017

mr robot guess #254


The world is simulation. The Facility has detected existence of the real world - one level up from the sim. Mr Robot is not Elliot’s father, but from one level up - and runs as an instance in Elliot’s brain from time to time — sometimes sharing.
...
Naah . I withdraw this guess - It doesn't account for the time trickery ... possibly.

---
UPDATE: I withdraw that withdrawal. It could account for the time trickery.

take the lead and run with it

how funny would it be if all the lunacy of colonialism was a result of lead plumbing for the aristocracy . NOT

lead is a neurotoxin with evidence showing loss of executive discretion, btw
...

but of course lead doesn't quite so neatly explain all the current day pathologies
....
except for maybe by ... sheer inertia

....
like if you inherit a system with lunatic aggression providing you all sorts of crazy power, a understandable reaction might be to simply continue in that vein.

'run with it'

Take the lead and run with it - a lunatic theory for the early anthropocene