[ExI] Benchmarking the Singularity

[Dylan Distasio]

MInd of the Raven is a great read:

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Raven-Investigations-Adventures-Wolf-Birds/dp/0061136050


On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 3:15 PM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  I believe if one
> > wishes to study the nature of intelligence then crows and ravens would be
> > ideal candidates, compared with other animals their brains would be more
> > elegantly designed and have less spaghetti code and hard to understand
> > kludges.  john clark
>
> There is a book called, I thought, The Secret Life of Garden Birds, but I
> can't find it.  Last time I looked it was very expensive.  It showed me the
> incredible intelligence of crows, among others.  In any case, there are
> several books in the subject.  Here is a page with some interesting info:
>
>  https://www.beautyofbirds.com/crowintelligence.html
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 2:00 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> > Hi Stuart, thanks for an absolutely first rate post, it was detailed yet
>> > clear. Really really good.
>>
>> That's high praise coming from a skeptic like you so I appreciate it.
>>
>> >> *The hilarious irony of the situation is that if my theory is correct,
>> >> then a human brain has to subconsciously perform tensor analysis in
>> order
>> >> to reach the conclusion that it is lousy at math.*
>> >
>> > Damn, I wish I'd said that!
>>
>> It's not too late. You can still say it. If the word gets out, then
>> maybe math literacy will increase.
>>
>>
>> >> *> In other words, in terms of total number of neurons, the  human
>> brain
>> >> is some 4 million times larger than AlphaGo's. In terms of  synapses
>> it is
>> >> likewise on order 10^6 times smaller than the human  brain.*
>> >>
>> >
>> > I doubt a computer would  need a million times more synapses to beat us
>> at
>> > all intellectual tasks, for one thing the average informational signal
>> in
>> > our brain moves about as fast as a car does on a turnpike while the
>> > informational signal in a computer moves at close to the speed of light.
>> > And I would bet money that the artificial neurons in AlphaGo's brain are
>> > organized in a more efficient less buggy way than the neurons in our
>> brain
>> > are.
>>
>> For playing go, perhaps . . . for figuring out new and creative ways
>> to dodge predators while finding food and mates, probably not.
>> Airplanes might fly better than birds, but they are not yet smarter.
>> The human brain is not so much a single neural network as it is
>> multiple interconnected neural networks built on top of one another.
>> Like cities in Europe being built on top of ancient Roman forts.
>>
>> >
>> > A raven's brain is only about 17 cubic centimeters, a chimpanzees brain
>> is
>> > over 400, and yet a raven is about as smart as a chimp. And the African
>> > Grey Parrot has demonstrated an understanding of human language at
>> least as
>> > deep as that of a chimpanzee and probably deeper, this despite the fact
>> > that the chimp's brain is about 25 times as large.
>>
>> Yes. Birds in general are marvels of evolution. Ravens and Parrot-kind
>> including the kia, have some of the densest brains known. They have as
>> many neurons in their much smaller skulls as ungulates like horses do.
>> I imagine the trade off was fewer glial cells or something.
>>
>> > I suppose that when
>> > there was evolutionary pressure to become smarter a flying creature
>> > couldn't just develop a bigger, heavier more energy hogging brain;
>> instead
>> > of the brute force approach it had to organize the small light brain it
>> > already had in more efficient ways.
>>
>> The adaptations of birds are incredible, especially their extended
>> respiratory system. The air sacs in their hollow bones operate like a
>> second set of lungs. Every time a bird exhales, it is exhaling air it
>> inhaled 2-3 breaths earlier and every last bit of oxygen has been
>> pulled out of it.
>>
>> > Our brains are about 1400 cm, but I'll
>> > bet centimeter by centimeter ravens are smarter than we are. Being
>> called a
>> > birdbrain may not be an insult after all. For this reason I believe if
>> one
>> > wishes to study the nature of intelligence then crows and ravens would
>> be
>> > ideal candidates, compared with other animals their brains would be more
>> > elegantly designed and have less spaghetti code and hard to understand
>> > kludges.
>>
>> Very possibly.
>>
>>
>> Stuart LaForge
>>
>>
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