[ExI] i got friends in low places

[BillK]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 at 13:54, spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> As I pondered it yesterday I realized this optimization process lacks one of the critical components we think of as human level intelligence: inventiveness.  The software goes thru a few thousand observable metrics and calculates which are the top 50 most relevant ones.  But we must give it the few thousand metrics from which to choose before it can begin.  It doesn’t have the capacity to think of new ideas or new approaches.
>
> Eventually we get a really competent boss pross that knows how to calculate a lot of things but can’t invent anything.  I know plenty of humans in that category: highly competent people, intelligent, disciplined, great accountants for instance, but they are not inventors.  I have never seen a CPA invent a new way to do accounting.
>
> Regarding the quiet period in the Atlantic, finally we are getting some activity out there.  According to the NOAA site there is about a 70 percent chance we will get a named storm in the next five days out of that red area shown in the map below:
>
> https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php
>
> If it doesn’t happen in four days, then 2022 becomes the second quietest Atlantic hurricane season since 1966 and if that storm doesn’t form for 6 days, then 2022 sets a record.  I like setting records, but I suspect the drought in Europe is correlated with this lack of storms, so to hell with the record, I hope the sea will let er rip soon.
>
> spike
> _______________________________________________



I think that your conclusion is what Ben Goertzel and many others are saying -
Quote -
due to the fundamental lack of ability to innovate, abstract or
generalize, would be incapable to address difficult unsolved science
and engineering problems, or to perform the self-modification and
self-improvement needed to serve as seed AIs and launch a Singularity.
End Quote.

AccuWeather says -
A vast area of dry air and stiff breezes, known as wind shear has
persisted much of this summer from the central Caribbean to the
central and eastern Atlantic. These conditions have created an
environment too hostile for tropical development of the disturbances,
known as tropical waves, that routinely move west off the coast of
Africa.
Earlier in August, Kottlowski noted that conditions less hostile for
tropical waves were developing over Africa and that these "friendly"
conditions for tropical development would drift over part of the
western Atlantic next week. Once this occurs, tropical waves that have
been suppressed thus far may begin to show more vigor due to less dry
air and lower wind shear.
----------------

I don't know whether the forecasters language about dry air and
tropical disturbances moving west off the coast of Africa are a result
of European drought conditions. The European droughts are caused by
increased heat (i.e. greater evaporation) and reduced rainfall as
shifts in the jet stream bring hotter, drier air up from Africa. If
Africa is going to be sending wet hurricanes across to the USA, then
Europe may also get thunderstorms and rain up from Africa.

BillK