Thanks for a take on AGI that I haven’t run across before. Many, including me, have worried more about superintelligence and Bostrom’s idea of a dominating, all-powerful singleton AI. If we build approximately human-level AI first then, you are right, the social dimension is critical to a good outcome. But…
Sifting the Truth from World Zero, the Imagined, and the Mediated
Imagine a fantasy realm where nobody is content to live a single life at a time. Everybody is conscious of multiple worlds that are like twisted skeins of truth, a roiling rope of realities. What kind of planet would you use as a setting?
I would use Earth, because we…
A Sci-Fi Allegory of Our Political Alienation
Kate, a police detective investigating a multiple murder, wakes up to find a strange man in bed with her and a strange thing in her infant son’s bed. The substitutions weren’t even human, they were some kind of revolting and soulless copies. …
Nature enchants us with novelty but engages us with familiarity
My friend Joe S, our lab manager, had a lot to teach me. A dark-haired American Irishman with, I gathered, IRA connections, he was all about rough justice. When I asked how you decide what judges to vote for he said to always vote them all out. …
Massively hegemonizing, wickedly indifferent aliens are on their way here
“Advanced aliens really are out there, and we have enough data to say roughly where they are in space and time, and when we will meet or see them.” Robin Hanson, grabbyaliens.com
The Paradox
There is no consensus here on Earth that we have detected ET aliens, either near us or greatly…
They are rare and arbitrary
“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
— A Course in Miracles
The contemplation of miraculous events often leads to fruitless disagreement about big deals like the nature of reality. …
The right attitude solves everything
“No need to ask, He’s a Smooth Operator” — Sade Adu
A free man doesn’t worry about vaccines. If there’s an epidemic, somebody will make a vaccine and sell it to him. Won’t take any time at all without government interference. Somebody else will test it, make sure it works…
Brenden, I find this approach to myth unhelpful. First of all, “myth” seems to be used for anything that you believe in. So why not just call it “belief”? This confusion leads to statements like this pull quote from Gabriel: “Whereas fire is sacred for the Brahmans, the scientific approach…
We are wired to detect reality; sometimes we err high or low
“This feels so unreal.” — Nearly all of us, sometime during the pandemic
Each of us has a brain that constructs realities for us, using our senses and memory boxes of dusty debris from the unconscious attic. Our biological survival depends on our discerning base reality from our imaginings and…
A public company has less incentive for good behavior
The personal genetic information service, 23andMe, just announced that it will merge with a Virgin Group shell corporation to become a public company. The purpose is a “more personalized and proactive approach to healthcare … [via] innovation and disruption.” This might not be a completely good thing.
Ted Wade @SentientArtifact
3 life phases. Monkey sociobiology. Medical data search/AI. Now = Sentience: its limits and artifacts. https://medium.com/sentient-artifact
