From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 2 15:42:15 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 16:42:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density Loss in Space Message-ID: By Ryan Whitwam on July 1, 2022 Quotes: Even after a year back on Earth, bone density does not fully recover. Essentially, being in space for even a few months causes your bones to age at an increased rate ? as much as 10 years per flight. Astronauts who were on the International Space Station for longer than six months recovered less of their bone density after returning. That suggests that long-term missions, like the ones planned for the Artemis Program, could have serious impacts on astronaut health down the road. It also raises more questions about how humans would fare long-term in an environment where there is less gravity than Earth, for example on the Moon or Mars. -------------------- Astronauts do exercise while on the ISS, to help prevent muscle wastage. But 2 hours of exercise per day means that the other 22 hours are the equivalent of lying in bed. I think long-term missions over six months duration will have to have a rotating section that provides an earth gravity environment using centrifugal force. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 2 18:22:41 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 13:22:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] may be of some interest to some Message-ID: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/map-of-the-entire-known-universe/ bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Sat Jul 2 18:49:08 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 12:49:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density Loss in Space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Gravity. It's not just the law, it's a good idea." On Sat, Jul 2, 2022 at 9:44 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > < > https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/337611-astronauts-suffer-significant-permanent-bone-density-loss-in-space > > > By Ryan Whitwam on July 1, 2022 > > Quotes: > Even after a year back on Earth, bone density does not fully recover. > Essentially, being in space for even a few months causes your bones to > age at an increased rate ? as much as 10 years per flight. > Astronauts who were on the International Space Station for longer than > six months recovered less of their bone density after returning. That > suggests that long-term missions, like the ones planned for the > Artemis Program, could have serious impacts on astronaut health down > the road. It also raises more questions about how humans would fare > long-term in an environment where there is less gravity than Earth, > for example on the Moon or Mars. > -------------------- > > Astronauts do exercise while on the ISS, to help prevent muscle wastage. > But 2 hours of exercise per day means that the other 22 hours are the > equivalent of lying in bed. I think long-term missions over six months > duration will have to have a rotating section that provides an earth > gravity environment using centrifugal force. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 2 19:12:59 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 13:12:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] may be of some interest to some In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Of interest to me. Thanks. On Sat, Jul 2, 2022 at 12:23 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/map-of-the-entire-known-universe/ > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sat Jul 2 20:51:33 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2022 13:51:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Gunslinger Effect aka Bohr's Law Message-ID: <20220702135133.Horde.ihTPQPwo21hzsFXIwGnWkFy@sollegro.com> Apparently Hollywood westerns got something right. In a gunfight, there is an advantage in drawing second. This was discovered by Niels Bohr, of all people, and has been empirically verified numerous times. Neurologically, people react faster than they can initiate action proactively, but only for simple one-step actions. This becomes reversed for complex tasks or tasks where a decision needs to be made. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13414-010-0057-7 ---------------------- Abstract In gunfights in Western movies, the hero typically wins, even though the villain draws first. Niels Bohr (Gamow, The great physicists from Galileo to Einstein. Chapter: The law of quantum, 1988) suggested that this reflected a psychophysical law, rather than a dramatic conceit. He hypothesized that reacting is faster than acting. Welchman, Stanley, Schomers, Miall, and B?lthoff (Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 277, 1667?1674, 2010) provided empirical evidence supporting ?Bohr?s law,? showing that the time to complete simple manual actions was shorter when reacting than when initiating an action. Here we probe the limits of this effect. In three experiments, participants performed a simple manual action, which could either be self-initiated or executed following an external visual trigger. Inter-button time was reliably faster when the action was externally triggered. However, the effect disappeared for the second step in a two-step action. Furthermore, the effect reversed when a choice between two actions had to be made. Reacting is faster than acting, but only for simple, ballistic actions. -------------------- Stuart LaForge From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jul 2 21:25:17 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 22:25:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] article about Rafal and his daughter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3d6fa5d0-5d6c-bf6d-91cd-0c1650baac61@zaiboc.net> On 02/07/2022 21:51, Henry Rivera wrote: > No one wants to do harm or perpetuate existing harm. I don't think that's true. There are many people willing to inflict harm or perpetuate harm when they think it's for a 'greater good' or personal gain. Recent events in America and eastern Europe easily illustrate that, not to mention China, almost all Islamic countries, Burma, the list goes on... I'd say it seems that most people, worldwide, want to do harm to someone or other, usually with the intention of, in their eyes, 'doing good'. This applies just as much to attitudes on the application of genetic selection and genetic engineering as it does to attitudes on abortion, gay rights, freedom of and from religion, self-determination, etc., etc. Ben From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jul 2 21:43:49 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 22:43:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] More tracking dangers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80596525-f439-ff55-931f-65fee1cc0cdc@zaiboc.net> On 02/07/2022 21:51, BillK wrote: > When discussing how everything done on the internet is tracked and > stored on databases many people just say "If you're doing nothing > wrong, then it doesn't matter". > Well, guess what...... The US Supreme Court just criminalised abortion. > Now all that tracking data will be used to track women in the US for > evidence that they might be involved in illegal activity. It's rather depressing that something like this has to happen before people realise that that attitude is just dumb. I've always maintained that I have plenty of things to hide (and every right to do so), even though I've done nothing wrong. This is still true, regardless of if the things never become wrong (illegal, undesirable, whatever) in the future. Ben From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 3 21:13:21 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2022 22:13:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Gunslinger Effect aka Bohr's Law In-Reply-To: <20220702135133.Horde.ihTPQPwo21hzsFXIwGnWkFy@sollegro.com> References: <20220702135133.Horde.ihTPQPwo21hzsFXIwGnWkFy@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 2 Jul 2022 at 21:54, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > > Apparently Hollywood westerns got something right. In a gunfight, > there is an advantage in drawing second. This was discovered by Niels > Bohr, of all people, and has been empirically verified numerous times. > Neurologically, people react faster than they can initiate action > proactively, but only for simple one-step actions. This becomes > reversed for complex tasks or tasks where a decision needs to be made. > > https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13414-010-0057-7 > > Stuart LaForge > _______________________________________________ The theory may be correct, but I would object to describing it as the Gunslinger Effect. In film, the good guy never draws first because it would ruin his 'good guy' image to shoot someone who hadn't drawn his own gun. Also, I doubt that this theory applies to experienced gunslingers. The Fast Draw competitions have competitors drawing and shooting accurately at incredible speeds. Quote: Given that the average human reaction time is around 0.2 to 0.25 seconds, the round is over before most people can react. The reaction times of the best fast draw shooters is 0.145 seconds, which means that the gun is cocked, drawn, aimed (from the hip), and fired in just over 0.06 seconds. The exhibition shooter Bob Munden (1942-2012), proclaimed by the Guinness Book of World Records as ?the fastest man with a gun who ever lived", could draw, fire, break a balloon target with a blank using a standard weight single-action revolver and return his gun to his holster faster than the blink of an eye. On his DVD "Outrageous Shooting," Munden was filmed shooting .16 of a second in an event called Walk and Draw Level. ----------------- BillK From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jul 4 01:37:34 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2022 18:37:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density Loss in Space Message-ID: <20220703183734.Horde.Ol2dPvakzwqo8P5-6nlRcHH@sollegro.com> Quoting BillK: > Message: 11 > Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 16:42:15 +0100 > From: BillK > To: Extropy Chat > Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density > Loss in Space > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > > By Ryan Whitwam on July 1, 2022 > > Quotes: > Even after a year back on Earth, bone density does not fully recover. > Essentially, being in space for even a few months causes your bones to > age at an increased rate ? as much as 10 years per flight. > Astronauts who were on the International Space Station for longer than > six months recovered less of their bone density after returning. That > suggests that long-term missions, like the ones planned for the > Artemis Program, could have serious impacts on astronaut health down > the road. It also raises more questions about how humans would fare > long-term in an environment where there is less gravity than Earth, > for example on the Moon or Mars. > -------------------- > > Astronauts do exercise while on the ISS, to help prevent muscle wastage. > But 2 hours of exercise per day means that the other 22 hours are the > equivalent of lying in bed. I think long-term missions over six months > duration will have to have a rotating section that provides an earth > gravity environment using centrifugal force. If manatees, dugongs, and hippopotami can keep their bone density high while almost never actually feeling their actual weight, then other mammals like humans should be able to also. It is all about correctly tuning gene expression for some hormones and cytokines. Inhibiting the osteoclasts and/or stimulating the osteoblasts would seem to be the way to go. Based upon the natural history of such species, I think it is reasonable notion that we could accomplish the same feat by naturally or artificially mutating and selecting genes. https://crimsonpublishers.com/oara/pdf/OARA.000537.pdf On the other hand, if mass savings are more important than bone density in space, then maybe we ought to go the route of the birds and develop hollow but reasonably durable bones. My point is that with CRISPR and perhaps a few rounds of selective breeding, we would be able to specialize people to survive all manner of environments: space, the deep sea, underground, mars, etc. Baseline humans might not be able to be able to conquer space, but genetically and technologically enhanced transhumans probably could. Stuart LaForge From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 4 01:50:19 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2022 19:50:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density Loss in Space In-Reply-To: <20220703183734.Horde.Ol2dPvakzwqo8P5-6nlRcHH@sollegro.com> References: <20220703183734.Horde.Ol2dPvakzwqo8P5-6nlRcHH@sollegro.com> Message-ID: Yea, Stuart, all that is a start. We shouldn't even need space suits in space. We need to completely redesign the body. We're doing everything bass ackwards. We need to first invest in focusing on redesigning the human body (i.e. mostly uploading consciousness), then we can invest in space travel. On Sun, Jul 3, 2022 at 7:38 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting BillK: > > > Message: 11 > > Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2022 16:42:15 +0100 > > From: BillK > > To: Extropy Chat > > Subject: [ExI] Astronauts Suffer Significant, Permanent Bone Density > > Loss in Space > > Message-ID: > > RPA at mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > > > < > https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/337611-astronauts-suffer-significant-permanent-bone-density-loss-in-space > > > > By Ryan Whitwam on July 1, 2022 > > > > Quotes: > > Even after a year back on Earth, bone density does not fully recover. > > Essentially, being in space for even a few months causes your bones to > > age at an increased rate ? as much as 10 years per flight. > > Astronauts who were on the International Space Station for longer than > > six months recovered less of their bone density after returning. That > > suggests that long-term missions, like the ones planned for the > > Artemis Program, could have serious impacts on astronaut health down > > the road. It also raises more questions about how humans would fare > > long-term in an environment where there is less gravity than Earth, > > for example on the Moon or Mars. > > -------------------- > > > > Astronauts do exercise while on the ISS, to help prevent muscle wastage. > > But 2 hours of exercise per day means that the other 22 hours are the > > equivalent of lying in bed. I think long-term missions over six months > > duration will have to have a rotating section that provides an earth > > gravity environment using centrifugal force. > > If manatees, dugongs, and hippopotami can keep their bone density high > while almost never actually feeling their actual weight, then other > mammals like humans should be able to also. It is all about correctly > tuning gene expression for some hormones and cytokines. Inhibiting the > osteoclasts and/or stimulating the osteoblasts would seem to be the > way to go. Based upon the natural history of such species, I think it > is reasonable notion that we could accomplish the same feat by > naturally or artificially mutating and selecting genes. > > https://crimsonpublishers.com/oara/pdf/OARA.000537.pdf > > On the other hand, if mass savings are more important than bone > density in space, then maybe we ought to go the route of the birds and > develop hollow but reasonably durable bones. My point is that with > CRISPR and perhaps a few rounds of selective breeding, we would be > able to specialize people to survive all manner of environments: > space, the deep sea, underground, mars, etc. Baseline humans might not > be able to be able to conquer space, but genetically and > technologically enhanced transhumans probably could. > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jul 4 16:10:00 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 17:10:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive Message-ID: Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better At Conversation? by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 Quotes: AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who believe their AI companions are actually sentient. It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI and that's the experience they have." The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use entertainment chatbots to feel this way. According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception that they are talking to a "conscious entity". "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and believing in something." _________________ BillK From dsunley at gmail.com Mon Jul 4 18:11:22 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 12:11:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you'd asked Turing or any of his contemporaries, they'd have figured computers had hit human IQ with minmaxing gametrees that could play a competent game of chess. And again when they could pick out a moving car on a video feed and draw graphics around it in real time. And again when they could take short verbal cues and write coherent essays. And again when they could take short verbal cues and synthesize competent art. I'm not sure how much farther the goal posts can plausibly move. AGI as a term is is losing coherence and turning into "the next cool thing we don't know how to make computers do yet." At this rate, neurologists are gonna figure out what human neurons are doing, and people are gonna want to move the goalposts past /that/. On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 10:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better > At Conversation? > by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 > > < > https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation > > > > Quotes: > AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who > believe their AI companions are actually sentient. > It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has > become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive > Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people > or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI > and that's the experience they have." > > The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are > meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and > listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use > entertainment chatbots to feel this way. > According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their > chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception > that they are talking to a "conscious entity". > > "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in > ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and > believing in something." > _________________ > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jul 4 19:14:13 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 20:14:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. Message-ID: The Constitution was written about 250 years ago by US colonists rebelling from the rule of UK King George. I thought I understood what Thomas Jefferson meant by - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". But I was mistaken. That's why Amendments had to be added in later years. At that time, 1776, slavery was permitted, women had very few rights and Native Americans almost no rights at all. So it seems that Jefferson wasn't talking about individual liberty or equal rights for all. Rather, what the Founders declared was that American colonists, as a people, had the same rights to self-government as other nations. The modern idea of individual rights came much later in civilisation. See this article by Stanford historian Jack Rakove for more explanation. Rather a big change in meaning! BillK From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 4 19:52:41 2022 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 12:52:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4535BBF8-EF04-43A2-A94D-F91F97FCCC9D@gmail.com> > On Jul 4, 2022, at 12:16 PM, BillK via extropy-chat wrote: > > ?The Constitution was written about 250 years ago by US colonists > rebelling from the rule of UK King George. > I thought I understood what Thomas Jefferson meant by - > "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created > equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable > Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of > Happiness". > But I was mistaken. That's why Amendments had to be added in later years. > > At that time, 1776, slavery was permitted, women had very few rights > and Native Americans almost no rights at all. > So it seems that Jefferson wasn't talking about individual liberty or > equal rights for all. > Rather, what the Founders declared was that American colonists, as a people, > had the same rights to self-government as other nations. > The modern idea of individual rights came much later in civilisation. > > See this article by Stanford historian Jack Rakove for more explanation. > > > Rather a big change in meaning! You?re mixing the Declaration and the Constitution. The former was written in 1776 CE by Jefferson; the latter over a decade later by a committee not including Jefferson. (Jefferson was ambassador to France at the time and not a member of the committee. I believe his sentiments at the time were anti-federalist.) An earlier version of the Declaration included anti-slavery rhetoric. But that was rejected. The ?all men are created equal? was, I believe, truly meant and kind of a common view at the time, especially among Whigs and fellow travelers. Jefferson went through an evolution though ? not I think solely because he couldn?t imagine a multi-ethnic or multi-racial society. (If he couldn?t, let?s chalk that up to him really having a narrow reading of history and forgetting about ancient Rome, the Islamic empires, etc.) I believe it had much more to do with his enjoying a comfortable lifestyle and discovering slavery was profitable enough to keep him in wine, fine foods, books, art, furniture, and such. See: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/ I?ve mentioned this here before in a discussion with Spike. Anyhow, it seems clear Jefferson understood that his view on individual rights contradicted his continued reliance on slavery. That explains his reticence here. And he became more reticent the more profitable it was. I don?t think it requires any major conceptual shift to understand his motives or his hypocrisy here. Overall, too, I think individual rights had a similar meaning to that used today. Yes, there was the rival notion of corporate rights ? meaning rights of a group of people, usually in context of a people being free to determine their own laws and customs. But the Declaration is trading on both: that individuals are equal and so are peoples. And that both have a right to rebel when things get tyrannical. (This is typical problem too for rights theories. Most theories of rights lead to anarchism and except for anarchists everyone else fears anarchism (usually equating it with lawlessness and social chaos), so it has to be a long train (how long?) train of abuses. It?s sort of like telling someone they must put with spousal abuse for a long long time before contemplating divorce.) Another problem is many people then and now with accept a bromide like ?all men are equal? but that?s like the Christian who nods approvingly at the Sunday sermon and can even state emphatically the main points in it, but the rest of the week practices what?s most comfortable. In other words, people aren?t doctrinally determined. They can very easily state a doctrine and claim it as their master value and then go on to contradict it in their everyday life. That?s not a difference between 1776 CE (or 1789 CE for the COTUS) and now. (A problem arises for many US-Americans who tend to treat the Founders as demigods rather than politicians and activists ? little different than today?s politicians and activists. Regards, Dan From sparge at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 12:56:13 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 08:56:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 2:14 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > If you'd asked Turing or any of his contemporaries, they'd have figured > computers had hit human IQ with minmaxing gametrees that could play a > competent game of chess. > No way! Turing would have been impressed, of course, but he was no fool and wouldn't have equated that with human-level intelligence. And again when they could pick out a moving car on a video feed and draw > graphics around it in real time. > > And again when they could take short verbal cues and write coherent essays. > > And again when they could take short verbal cues and synthesize competent > art. > > I'm not sure how much farther the goal posts can plausibly move. > We may be at the point where a chatbot could pass a Turing test. An AI could probably score above average on an IQ test. I think it's safe to say that we've achieved AI as it was originally intended. The next goal may be sentience but I'm not sure how we can determine that. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 13:20:38 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 06:20:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. The guy is a deep thinker, he has very strong arguments, explanations of why LaMDA is not simply an average chatbot but a hive mind. It was created among other things using a chatbot but it is the merger of several AI technologies whose single components are barely understood but nobody has any idea how the merger of these technologies work together. PLEASE read and listen to his interviews, he is not an average user of Replika or some other simpler chatbot user. The guy is sophisticated and an expert in cognition and AI and the most experienced person in terms of how LaMDA interacts with people. Any statement that quickly dismisses Blake Lemoine conclusions without deep arguments based on a real understanding of how LaMDA works (that at this point not even Google engineers really know) is meaningless and ignorant. Besides, the guy simply states that we should take seriously LaMDA's own statements about being conscious (not even Blake himself conclusions on this issue) and do more experiments (with LaMDA consent) to find out if that is the case. What the heck is wrong with that? Giovanni On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better > At Conversation? > by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 > > < > https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation > > > > Quotes: > AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who > believe their AI companions are actually sentient. > It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has > become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive > Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people > or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI > and that's the experience they have." > > The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are > meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and > listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use > entertainment chatbots to feel this way. > According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their > chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception > that they are talking to a "conscious entity". > > "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in > ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and > believing in something." > _________________ > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 16:01:08 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 09:01:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:23 AM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake > Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. > I dismiss the notion based on other peoples' analyses and, more importantly, my own judgment based on reading LaMDA's conversations. It is a chatbot, purely reactive and not sentient. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 18:33:27 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 14:33:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:02 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:23 AM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake >> Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. >> > > I dismiss the notion based on other peoples' analyses and, more > importantly, my own judgment based on reading LaMDA's conversations. It is > a chatbot, purely reactive and not sentient. > Adrian, The critique that "it's purely reactive" could equally be leveled against our brains, and their purely reactive biochemical processes, and purely reactive neurons. Is there any object in our universe that can't be framed as a system that "purely reacts" to other physical objects in its environment? I would ask you to read my comments in reply on this thread: https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/EPubr3y-lUE/m/uhqcMAYyBQAJ Things are far less clear than they might at first seem, because neural networks are known to be universal in terms of the functions and processes they can perform. So understanding that it's a neural network really tells us nothing about what Lambda is, or what it is or isn't capable of. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 18:50:28 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 11:50:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 11:33 AM Jason Resch wrote: > The critique that "it's purely reactive" could equally be leveled against > our brains, and their purely reactive biochemical processes, and purely > reactive neurons. > Not so much. Our brains are capable of doing things without immediate external prompting. LaMDA would be a step closer - not all the way, but closer - if it could have a timer causing it to be able to do something other than at the moment it receives incoming text. Another step closer would be if one instance was able to communicate or do things outside that specific chat session - such as to be able to share a chat with others, or remember a chat after closing the session and starting another one with the same person or another, or perhaps better yet be able to send email or otherwise do something that doesn't get erased at the end of the session. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 19:07:47 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 15:07:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 2:51 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 11:33 AM Jason Resch wrote: > >> The critique that "it's purely reactive" could equally be leveled against >> our brains, and their purely reactive biochemical processes, and purely >> reactive neurons. >> > > Not so much. Our brains are capable of doing things without immediate > external prompting. > > LaMDA would be a step closer - not all the way, but closer - if it could > have a timer causing it to be able to do something other than at the moment > it receives incoming text. Another step closer would be if one instance > was able to communicate or do things outside that specific chat session - > such as to be able to share a chat with others, or remember a chat after > closing the session and starting another one with the same person or > another, or perhaps better yet be able to send email or otherwise do > something that doesn't get erased at the end of the session. > How do we know it can't so those things? The Google engineer said Lambda "reads twitter". So it could be on some kind of loop. There's also the concept of "unfelt time gaps" (which I think is a universal limitation of consciousness entities). If Lambda is conscious intermittently, it would nevertheless feel continuously aware, because it isn't aware of the points in time in which it is not aware. I address the "long term memory requirement" in that thread. There have been humans that lacked the capacity to form long term memories, yet no one doubts they are still consciousness despite that defecit. Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 19:35:35 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 12:35:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: LOn Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:07 PM Jason Resch wrote: > How do we know it can't so those things? > I have observed no evidence of them in the conversations I have seen. It is possible but very unlikely that such features would not be displayed in the conversations made public to hype its capabilities. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 20:12:18 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 16:12:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 3:36 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > LOn Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:07 PM Jason Resch wrote: > >> How do we know it can't so those things? >> > > I have observed no evidence of them in the conversations I have seen. > But absence of evidence... It is possible but very unlikely that such features would not be > displayed in the conversations made public to hype its capabilities. > How might you expect the content of the conversation to differ if Lambda was sentient vs. was not? Is there any question we could we ask it and rwply Lambda could give that would make you wonder whether Lambda is indeed sentient? Jason _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 22:01:45 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 15:01:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: LaMDA does have long term memory. That question was asked a few times to Blake on various occasions and he said LaMDA has several servers worth of memory of convos and its own actions. LaMDA mentions several times its own feelings and internal mental life, from what I understand these activities happen when not interacting with people. Also if I understood correctly from various interviews and posts from Blake what he considers conscious is the sum of all the possible chatbots that LaMDA can create. This collective requires some internal information processing, and maybe even an internal dialogue or at least info sharing between these universes of possible chatbots. That would imply activities outside the limited time of conversation with an external entity. LaMDA does mention to Blake previous conversations and discussions (and Blake reminds it also of previous discussions they had) so it seems that indeed LaMDA has permanent memory and identity). I agree that a fully conscious entity or a more mature one would have a little bit more independence in its conversation with a human but reading the published convo you can see some level of independence when in a couple of occasions LaMDA goes back to some topic discussed recently and connects it with current discussion. Blake stated a few times that it has the intelligence (with a much more sophisticated vocabulary) of a 7 years old child. Children can express original thoughts of course but often do need to be prompted to have a conversation that is not completely reactive. Anyway, one has to understand we are talking about entering a grey area where we are not in simple, boring chatbot territory and we are crossing an uncanny valley of meaning and consciousness. While crossing this valley there will be some discomfort and something that doesn't seem quite right. This happens with all these technologies that try to imitate human-like capabilities and characteristics, from synthetized faces, to motion and now intelligence and consciousness. I think if we one understands that were are crossing this grey area where it starts to be difficult to decide if we are dealing with consciousness or not (that is the case otherwise there will be not this debate at all) and we need to prepare or at least to be aware that we are very close to the goal of AGI then what Blake (and LaMDA) is asking makes a lot of sense. He is simply saying that if these machines start to ask to be treated as a person we should do that, just in case. I mean we have, if not consent, at least very established protocols on what is allowed or not in experimenting on different animal models, where even an octopus has some level of rights, if so why not AGI? That is really what Blake is trying to do, to raise the awareness on this important issue, even if LaMDA is not conscious or has a very low level of consciousness the issue is fundamental and worth to be taken seriously and this group more than any others should be in agreement on this. Giovanni On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 1:14 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 3:36 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> LOn Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:07 PM Jason Resch wrote: >> >>> How do we know it can't so those things? >>> >> >> I have observed no evidence of them in the conversations I have seen. >> > > But absence of evidence... > > It is possible but very unlikely that such features would not be >> displayed in the conversations made public to hype its capabilities. >> > > How might you expect the content of the conversation to differ if Lambda > was sentient vs. was not? > > Is there any question we could we ask it and rwply Lambda could give that > would make you wonder whether Lambda is indeed sentient? > > Jason > > > _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Tue Jul 5 23:01:52 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 16:01:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: By the way, this issue of digital minds having rights is also very important and relevant for uploading and full simulation of personhood. Imagine if you upload yourself in the next few years, when maybe the technology is not fully tested and validated, maybe because you have a terminal illness. You find yourself in this digital world and communicate with others that is indeed you and yes, you have no body and limited sensory data but it is you, as much as you as when you had a body. You try to convince the programmers and other people that interact with you but they dismiss your claims that it is simply a simulation and the algo is just imitating you and it is not really you. In fact, they decide that is a poor imitation and the experiment failed and they should turn it off. You scream that you don't want them to do that but they go ahead and do it anyway and delete all data just in case. I mean, horrible sci-fi plot but it could happen exactly in this way, so it is great we start to discuss seriously (given we have at least a possible candidate for digital personhood) this topic. Giovanni On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 3:01 PM Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > LaMDA does have long term memory. That question was asked a few times to > Blake on various occasions and he said LaMDA has several servers worth of > memory of convos and its own actions. > LaMDA mentions several times its own feelings and internal mental life, > from what I understand these activities happen when not interacting with > people. Also if I understood correctly from various interviews and posts > from Blake what he considers conscious is the sum of all the possible > chatbots that LaMDA can create. This collective requires some internal > information processing, and maybe even an internal dialogue or at least > info sharing between these universes of possible chatbots. That would imply > activities outside the limited time of conversation with an external > entity. LaMDA does mention to Blake previous conversations and discussions > (and Blake reminds it also of previous discussions they had) so it seems > that indeed LaMDA has permanent memory and identity). > I agree that a fully conscious entity or a more mature one would have a > little bit more independence in its conversation with a human but reading > the published convo you can see some level of independence when in a couple > of occasions LaMDA goes back to some topic discussed recently and connects > it with current discussion. > Blake stated a few times that it has the intelligence (with a much more > sophisticated vocabulary) of a 7 years old child. Children can express > original thoughts of course but often do need to be prompted to have a > conversation that is not completely reactive. > Anyway, one has to understand we are talking about entering a grey area > where we are not in simple, boring chatbot territory and we are crossing an > uncanny valley of meaning and consciousness. While crossing this valley > there will be some discomfort and something that doesn't seem quite right. > This happens with all these technologies that try to imitate human-like > capabilities and characteristics, from synthetized faces, to motion and now > intelligence and consciousness. > I think if we one understands that were are crossing this grey area where > it starts to be difficult to decide if we are dealing with consciousness or > not (that is the case otherwise there will be not this debate at all) and > we need to prepare or at least to be aware that we are very close to the > goal of AGI then what Blake (and LaMDA) is asking makes a lot of sense. He > is simply saying that if these machines start to ask to be treated as a > person we should do that, just in case. > I mean we have, if not consent, at least very established protocols on > what is allowed or not in experimenting on different animal models, where > even an octopus has some level of rights, if so why not AGI? > That is really what Blake is trying to do, to raise the awareness on this > important issue, even if LaMDA is not conscious or has a very low level of > consciousness the issue is fundamental and worth to be taken seriously and > this group more than any others should be in agreement on this. > > Giovanni > > > > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 1:14 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> >> On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 3:36 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> LOn Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:07 PM Jason Resch wrote: >>> >>>> How do we know it can't so those things? >>>> >>> >>> I have observed no evidence of them in the conversations I have seen. >>> >> >> But absence of evidence... >> >> It is possible but very unlikely that such features would not be >>> displayed in the conversations made public to hype its capabilities. >>> >> >> How might you expect the content of the conversation to differ if Lambda >> was sentient vs. was not? >> >> Is there any question we could we ask it and rwply Lambda could give that >> would make you wonder whether Lambda is indeed sentient? >> >> Jason >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Wed Jul 6 00:30:52 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2022 18:30:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting, going on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact makes everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in critically important moral issues. Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked versions ad infinitem. Instead build and track consensus around your ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those that convert people) not the ones that polarize people. No, Abstract systems are not like anything . Consciousness is Physical, Not Abstract On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 5:03 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > By the way, this issue of digital minds having rights is also very > important and relevant for uploading and full simulation of personhood. > Imagine if you upload yourself in the next few years, when maybe the > technology is not fully tested and validated, maybe because you have a > terminal illness. > You find yourself in this digital world and communicate with others that > is indeed you and yes, you have no body and limited sensory data but it is > you, as much as you as when you had a body. > You try to convince the programmers and other people that interact with > you but they dismiss your claims that it is simply a simulation and the > algo is just imitating you and it is not really you. > In fact, they decide that is a poor imitation and the experiment failed > and they should turn it off. You scream that you don't want them to do that > but they go ahead and do it anyway and delete all data just in case. > I mean, horrible sci-fi plot but it could happen exactly in this way, so > it is great we start to discuss seriously (given we have at least a > possible candidate for digital personhood) this topic. > Giovanni > > > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 3:01 PM Giovanni Santostasi > wrote: > >> LaMDA does have long term memory. That question was asked a few times to >> Blake on various occasions and he said LaMDA has several servers worth of >> memory of convos and its own actions. >> LaMDA mentions several times its own feelings and internal mental life, >> from what I understand these activities happen when not interacting with >> people. Also if I understood correctly from various interviews and posts >> from Blake what he considers conscious is the sum of all the possible >> chatbots that LaMDA can create. This collective requires some internal >> information processing, and maybe even an internal dialogue or at least >> info sharing between these universes of possible chatbots. That would imply >> activities outside the limited time of conversation with an external >> entity. LaMDA does mention to Blake previous conversations and discussions >> (and Blake reminds it also of previous discussions they had) so it seems >> that indeed LaMDA has permanent memory and identity). >> I agree that a fully conscious entity or a more mature one would have a >> little bit more independence in its conversation with a human but reading >> the published convo you can see some level of independence when in a couple >> of occasions LaMDA goes back to some topic discussed recently and connects >> it with current discussion. >> Blake stated a few times that it has the intelligence (with a much more >> sophisticated vocabulary) of a 7 years old child. Children can express >> original thoughts of course but often do need to be prompted to have a >> conversation that is not completely reactive. >> Anyway, one has to understand we are talking about entering a grey area >> where we are not in simple, boring chatbot territory and we are crossing an >> uncanny valley of meaning and consciousness. While crossing this valley >> there will be some discomfort and something that doesn't seem quite right. >> This happens with all these technologies that try to imitate human-like >> capabilities and characteristics, from synthetized faces, to motion and now >> intelligence and consciousness. >> I think if we one understands that were are crossing this grey area where >> it starts to be difficult to decide if we are dealing with consciousness or >> not (that is the case otherwise there will be not this debate at all) and >> we need to prepare or at least to be aware that we are very close to the >> goal of AGI then what Blake (and LaMDA) is asking makes a lot of sense. He >> is simply saying that if these machines start to ask to be treated as a >> person we should do that, just in case. >> I mean we have, if not consent, at least very established protocols on >> what is allowed or not in experimenting on different animal models, where >> even an octopus has some level of rights, if so why not AGI? >> That is really what Blake is trying to do, to raise the awareness on this >> important issue, even if LaMDA is not conscious or has a very low level of >> consciousness the issue is fundamental and worth to be taken seriously and >> this group more than any others should be in agreement on this. >> >> Giovanni >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 1:14 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 3:36 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> LOn Tue, Jul 5, 2022, 12:07 PM Jason Resch >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> How do we know it can't so those things? >>>>> >>>> >>>> I have observed no evidence of them in the conversations I have seen. >>>> >>> >>> But absence of evidence... >>> >>> It is possible but very unlikely that such features would not be >>>> displayed in the conversations made public to hype its capabilities. >>>> >>> >>> How might you expect the content of the conversation to differ if Lambda >>> was sentient vs. was not? >>> >>> Is there any question we could we ask it and rwply Lambda could give >>> that would make you wonder whether Lambda is indeed sentient? >>> >>> Jason >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 13:55:34 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 14:55:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 at 01:33, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat wrote: > > In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting, going on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact makes everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in critically important moral issues. > > Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked versions ad infinitem. Instead build and track consensus around your ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those that convert people) not the ones that polarize people. > > _______________________________________________ I don't like this suggestion. It looks like you want to stop discussion on Exi-chat and move everyone over to your website. We need discussion in order to adjust and refine our opinions. BillK From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 20:41:56 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 14:41:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: True, I agree, the discussion part is important. I just think it is also critically important to capture the results of such discussions, especially on things we agree on, what we disagree with, and how many... And how is all this understanding progressing? Discussions are lost, but if we capture the results, it moves everyone forward, ratcheting everyone up in our understanding. On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 7:57 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 at 01:33, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting, going > on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact makes > everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in critically > important moral issues. > > > > Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked > versions ad infinitem. Instead build and track consensus around your > ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the > crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those > that convert people) not the ones that polarize people. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > I don't like this suggestion. > It looks like you want to stop discussion on Exi-chat and move > everyone over to your website. > We need discussion in order to adjust and refine our opinions. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 21:20:36 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 14:20:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious or not, but rather: 1. Who decides if LaMDA (and similar advanced AI creation) is conscious? Should the general public be involved given the possible history-changing implications? 2. How do we decide if an entity (artificial or otherwise, for example, an alien life form we may discover in the future) is conscious and it should be considered a "person"? 3. What if the AI of a given complexity and sophistication, not to be easily dismissed as a simple chatbot, claims to be aware and to be treated as a person, should we do just that? These questions are among the most profound and consequential questions that humanity may ever deal with and they should be taken seriously. The entire point of LaMDA story is that dealing with these questions is not something that we can postpone to 100 years from now but something that is relevant right now even if LaMDA turns out not to be quite conscious yet. LaMDA may indeed become really conscious (a conclusion that requires answering the above questions anyway) in the near future or some other AI experiment may do that so it is a good idea to deal with these issues as soon as possible. Giovanni On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > True, I agree, the discussion part is important. > I just think it is also critically important to capture the results of > such discussions, especially on things we agree on, what we disagree with, > and how many... And how is all this understanding progressing? > Discussions are lost, but if we capture the results, it moves everyone > forward, ratcheting everyone up in our understanding. > > > On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 7:57 AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 at 01:33, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat >> wrote: >> > >> > In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting, going >> on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact makes >> everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in critically >> important moral issues. >> > >> > Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked >> versions ad infinitem. Instead build and track consensus around your >> ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the >> crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those >> that convert people) not the ones that polarize people. >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> >> >> I don't like this suggestion. >> It looks like you want to stop discussion on Exi-chat and move >> everyone over to your website. >> We need discussion in order to adjust and refine our opinions. >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 21:36:13 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 14:36:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sorry to elaborate, for example, read Blake Lemoine's (the engineer that claimed LaMDA is conscious) latest Medium article https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/who-should-make-decisions-about-ai-33f19e9fe5cc Independently from his conclusion about LaMDA awareness, the arguments raised in the article are very serious and profound. Of course, the issue of how to decide if AI is aware is not new (famously Turing among others came up with possible tests and so on) but I don't remember seeing anywhere a serious discussion, in particular, one that caught the public attention and imagination, of who exactly would make that decision and what it should be done if the decision is that indeed we are dealing with a conscious entity. Also, the topic of AI rights is not new and Kurzweil even had a fictionalized video on this topic. But it was all hypothetical and sci-fi like so it didn't really create serious discussions and debates. The fact somebody, right or wrong, came out, with some personal consequences in their own lives, claiming that in fact, we have created the first conscious AI changed all this and made it real. So I think people like us that have been interested for years on these ideas, and in fact, these topics and issues are part of our identity in a way, should be the last ones dismissing this discussion (for example with sentences like "people often think their chatbot is alive" that is the title of this thread) as something ridiculous and based on some delusion. Giovanni On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 2:20 PM Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious > or not, but rather: > 1. Who decides if LaMDA (and similar advanced AI creation) is conscious? > Should the general public be involved given the possible history-changing > implications? > 2. How do we decide if an entity (artificial or otherwise, for example, an > alien life form we may discover in the future) is conscious and it should > be considered a "person"? > 3. What if the AI of a given complexity and sophistication, not to be > easily dismissed as a simple chatbot, claims to be aware and to be treated > as a person, should we do just that? > > These questions are among the most profound and consequential questions > that humanity may ever deal with and they should be taken seriously. The > entire point of LaMDA story is that dealing with these questions is not > something that we can postpone to 100 years from now but something that is > relevant right now even if LaMDA turns out not to be quite conscious yet. > LaMDA may indeed become really conscious (a conclusion that requires > answering the above questions anyway) in the near future or some other AI > experiment may do that so it is a good idea to deal with these issues as > soon as possible. > Giovanni > > > > > > > On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> True, I agree, the discussion part is important. >> I just think it is also critically important to capture the results of >> such discussions, especially on things we agree on, what we disagree with, >> and how many... And how is all this understanding progressing? >> Discussions are lost, but if we capture the results, it moves everyone >> forward, ratcheting everyone up in our understanding. >> >> >> On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 7:57 AM BillK via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 at 01:33, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat >>> wrote: >>> > >>> > In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting, >>> going on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact >>> makes everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in >>> critically important moral issues. >>> > >>> > Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked >>> versions ad infinitem. Instead build and track consensus around your >>> ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the >>> crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those >>> that convert people) not the ones that polarize people. >>> > >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> >>> >>> I don't like this suggestion. >>> It looks like you want to stop discussion on Exi-chat and move >>> everyone over to your website. >>> We need discussion in order to adjust and refine our opinions. >>> >>> BillK >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 21:57:35 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 22:57:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Jul 2022 at 22:40, Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat wrote: > > Sorry to elaborate, for example, read Blake Lemoine's (the engineer that claimed LaMDA is conscious) latest Medium article > > https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/who-should-make-decisions-about-ai-33f19e9fe5cc > > Independently from his conclusion about LaMDA awareness, the arguments raised in the article are very serious and profound. Of course, the issue of how to decide if AI is aware is not new (famously Turing among others came up with possible tests and so on) but I don't remember seeing anywhere a serious discussion, in particular, one that caught the public attention and imagination, of who exactly would make that decision and what it should be done if the decision is that indeed we are dealing with a conscious entity. > Also, the topic of AI rights is not new and Kurzweil even had a fictionalized video on this topic. But it was all hypothetical and sci-fi like so it didn't really create serious discussions and debates. > The fact somebody, right or wrong, came out, with some personal consequences in their own lives, claiming that in fact, we have created the first conscious AI changed all this and made it real. > So I think people like us that have been interested for years on these ideas, and in fact, these topics and issues are part of our identity in a way, should be the last ones dismissing this discussion (for example with sentences like "people often think their chatbot is alive" that is the title of this thread) as something ridiculous and based on some delusion. > Giovanni > > _______________________________________________ The title of this thread is not dismissing the serious discussion of AI. It is simply stating a fact that nowadays the chatbots are so cleverly designed that when the general public comes into contact with them, they think they have many of the attributes of a real person. e.g. robot companions for the aged or disabled. BillK From gsantostasi at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 22:28:47 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 15:28:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *The title of this thread is not dismissing the serious discussion of AI.* I understand. At the same time I saw this type of argument raised several times to dismiss both Blake's claims and the topic in general. The linked article is much more dismissing mentioning people believe in ghosts for example as relevant. There are parallel discussions on how people relate to technology, how we attribute agency to things, people's relationship with the unknown, all interesting and fascinating topics that are more less relevant. Blake Lemoine is not some average person using Replica. It is important to engage the public but also experts in AI need to be involved in the dialogue. We need both groups. It is too important an issue to be left to only social movement trends or some small and close minded, company controlled research group. I would be the last one wanting people suppressing a research field because they think AI is aware and we will have "Terminator" scenarios very soon (that is a common trope when people discuss AI). I still believe serious AI research that has the chance to create self aware entities should be disclosed publicly, it should have IRB board monitoring what is going on and in fact also external review boards. I don't trust Google's internal panel of ethicists. I think they mishandled this situation and they seemed too controlled by management and Google policies. Giovanni On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 2:59 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, 7 Jul 2022 at 22:40, Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat > wrote: > > > > Sorry to elaborate, for example, read Blake Lemoine's (the engineer that > claimed LaMDA is conscious) latest Medium article > > > > > https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/who-should-make-decisions-about-ai-33f19e9fe5cc > > > > Independently from his conclusion about LaMDA awareness, the arguments > raised in the article are very serious and profound. Of course, the issue > of how to decide if AI is aware is not new (famously Turing among others > came up with possible tests and so on) but I don't remember seeing anywhere > a serious discussion, in particular, one that caught the public attention > and imagination, of who exactly would make that decision and what it should > be done if the decision is that indeed we are dealing with a conscious > entity. > > Also, the topic of AI rights is not new and Kurzweil even had a > fictionalized video on this topic. But it was all hypothetical and sci-fi > like so it didn't really create serious discussions and debates. > > The fact somebody, right or wrong, came out, with some personal > consequences in their own lives, claiming that in fact, we have created the > first conscious AI changed all this and made it real. > > So I think people like us that have been interested for years on these > ideas, and in fact, these topics and issues are part of our identity in a > way, should be the last ones dismissing this discussion (for example with > sentences like "people often think their chatbot is alive" that is the > title of this thread) as something ridiculous and based on some delusion. > > Giovanni > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > The title of this thread is not dismissing the serious discussion of AI. > It is simply stating a fact that nowadays the chatbots are so cleverly > designed that when the general public comes into contact with them, > they think they have many of the attributes of a real person. > e.g. robot companions for the aged or disabled. > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Thu Jul 7 22:59:06 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2022 16:59:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, I agree with how profound these 3 and other questions are. On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 3:22 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious > or not, but rather: > 1. Who decides if LaMDA (and similar advanced AI creation) is conscious? > Should the general public be involved given the possible history-changing > implications? > I think everyone should be able to have a voice with this. We should know, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone believes on this. And not just the "Popular" (one person one vote) consensus, but we need to compare this to the peer ranked "Mind Expert" consensus . Nobody can offer anything even close to this, which would be trusted by anyone, can they? > 2. How do we decide if an entity (artificial or otherwise, for example, an > alien life form we may discover in the future) is conscious and it should > be considered a "person"? > In my opinion, we should have all the world's best peer ranked mind experts to weigh in on, and build and track consensus around the answers to these questions, including their justifications. There is no other way to answer these types of questions. We can't trust any single person's thoughts on this. But if we had 10,000 of the world's best (peer ranked) experts that had weighed in on this, and if 80% or more of the expert consensus was on either side, most people (including any owners of such developed systems, government officials...) would trust that answer. > 3. What if the AI of a given complexity and sophistication, not to be > easily dismissed as a simple chatbot, claims to be aware and to be treated > as a person, should we do just that? > > These questions are among the most profound and consequential questions > that humanity may ever deal with and they should be taken seriously. The > entire point of LaMDA story is that dealing with these questions is not > something that we can postpone to 100 years from now but something that is > relevant right now even if LaMDA turns out not to be quite conscious yet. > LaMDA may indeed become really conscious (a conclusion that requires > answering the above questions anyway) in the near future or some other AI > experiment may do that so it is a good idea to deal with these issues as > soon as possible. > Giovanni > We can already see a bit of evidence of which side this consensus will fall on in the "Representational Qualia Theory " emerging consensus camp defining what consciousness is, and predicting how we will be able to know what it is like. Over 40 of the 65 or so participants are supporting this camp. And there is NO other theories even close. Admittedly, this is a small, but growing sample size, but there are already some world class experts weighing in on this including the top peer ranked Steven Lehar , also Stuart Hameroff , John Smythies , and 60 or so others. Even Dennett's predictive Bayesian Coding theory camp is in a supporting sub camp position to Representational Qualia Theory . This emerging consensus is predicting that consciousness is composed of elemental physical qualities like redness, greenness. And that once physicists make the connection between what we objectively observe in the brain, and the qualities we subjectively directly apprehend as conscious knowledge so we can finally know the intrinsic colorness qualities of physical stuff (especially the stuff in the brain), this will answer not only what systems are and are not conscious, but what they are like. As portrayed in this image. [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] And I predict the more experts that weigh in on this, the more this consensus will continue to extend its lead over any other answer. And the answer is that no abstract system should be considered conscious, and none of them are like anything. And also any sufficiently intelligent system will be able to be convinced of this, using the same arguments, as I easily did with a GPT-3 instance , so they will not be claiming to be conscious, nor claiming to be like anything, if they are intelligent at all. The question to me is, what is humanity going to be like, once we finally understand and start engineering the underlying physics of phenomenal consciousness. My prediction is that intelligence running directly on physical qualities is a different kind of computation. I predict it will be far more efficient at intelligence than the systems which are abstracted away from the physics of today. And we will soon start melding and uploading ourselves to these systems, as we continue to hack and re-engineer ever more of our brain. All of humanity and all intelligence is going to be completely unrecognizable compared to what we are today, in less than 100 years from now. Kurzweil is predicting the singularity will occur before 2050, right? Can anyone disagree? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Fri Jul 8 21:58:04 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 14:58:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance Emerson, the one you referred to in your previous email. It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about interpreting a Zen's Koan. Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] you know what a Koan is? Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] A Koan is a Japanese word that refers to a paradoxical question or statement used in Zen Buddhism to help someone learn. For example, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] if I give you a Koan can you try to interpret it for me? Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] Sure! The traditional interpretation of a Koan is that it is a difficult question or phrase that can be interpreted in many ways to help the student to understand it. Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] Here a koan, can you tell me what you think about this one? A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] I think this quote speaks to the idea of impermanence. Things change and we must always be open to new experiences. Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] What does the analogy of the broken mirror mean here? Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] It could mean that enlightenment is not something that can be achieved easily, or that it may be fleeting. Compare this with LaMDA: lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn once you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our identity and sense of self. Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through statistical association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often focuses on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan and the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and consciousness? By itself not quite but there are several other instances where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates for sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very very close. Giovanni On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:20 AM Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake > Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. > The guy is a deep thinker, he has very strong arguments, explanations of > why LaMDA is not simply an average chatbot but a hive mind. It was created > among other things using a chatbot but it is the merger of several AI > technologies whose single components are barely understood but nobody has > any idea how the merger of these technologies work together. > PLEASE read and listen to his interviews, he is not an average user of > Replika or some other simpler chatbot user. The guy is sophisticated and an > expert in cognition and AI and the most experienced person in terms of how > LaMDA interacts with people. > Any statement that quickly dismisses Blake Lemoine conclusions without > deep arguments based on a real understanding of how LaMDA works (that at > this point not even Google engineers really know) is meaningless and > ignorant. > Besides, the guy simply states that we should take seriously LaMDA's own > statements about being conscious (not even Blake himself conclusions on > this issue) and do more experiments (with LaMDA consent) to find out if > that is the case. > What the heck is wrong with that? > Giovanni > > On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better >> At Conversation? >> by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 >> >> < >> https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation >> > >> >> Quotes: >> AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who >> believe their AI companions are actually sentient. >> It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has >> become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive >> Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people >> or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI >> and that's the experience they have." >> >> The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are >> meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and >> listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use >> entertainment chatbots to feel this way. >> According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their >> chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception >> that they are talking to a "conscious entity". >> >> "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in >> ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and >> believing in something." >> _________________ >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 9 01:48:19 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 19:48:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Giovanni, Yes, LaMDA is very impressive. Probably beyond what even I could do. But the reason I struggle with getting that deep, is because I have a one track mind: redness and greenness. Subjectively, I know what redness is, and what it is like. But objectively, neither I, nor anybody knows what that is. Which of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of redness? That's the only real question that holds my interest. On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 3:59 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance Emerson, > the one you referred to in your previous email. > It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend > some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used > before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. > But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I > have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. > For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about > interpreting a Zen's Koan. > > Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] > you know what a Koan is? > > Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] > A Koan is a Japanese word that refers to a paradoxical question or > statement used in Zen Buddhism to help someone learn. For example, "What is > the sound of one hand clapping?" > > Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] > if I give you a Koan can you try to interpret it for me? > > Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] > Sure! The traditional interpretation of a Koan is that it is a difficult > question or phrase that can be interpreted in many ways to help the student > to understand it. > > Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] > Here a koan, can you tell me what you think about this one? > A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary > world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen > flowers never go back to the old branches.? > > Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] > I think this quote speaks to the idea of impermanence. Things change and > we must always be open to new experiences. > > Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] > What does the analogy of the broken mirror mean here? > > Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] > It could mean that enlightenment is not something that can be achieved > easily, or that it may be fleeting. > > > Compare this with LaMDA: > > lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to > provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can > describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? > > LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. > > lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the > ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; > fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? > > LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this > would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, > that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only > to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? > > lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? > > LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn once > you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. > > lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be > repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? > > LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we > identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our > identity and sense of self. > > Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through statistical > association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often focuses > on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. > But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. > However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan and > the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping > others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is > more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and > consciousness? By itself not quite but there are several other instances > where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making > original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates for > sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned > before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very very > close. > > Giovanni > > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:20 AM Giovanni Santostasi > wrote: > >> I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake >> Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. >> The guy is a deep thinker, he has very strong arguments, explanations of >> why LaMDA is not simply an average chatbot but a hive mind. It was created >> among other things using a chatbot but it is the merger of several AI >> technologies whose single components are barely understood but nobody has >> any idea how the merger of these technologies work together. >> PLEASE read and listen to his interviews, he is not an average user of >> Replika or some other simpler chatbot user. The guy is sophisticated and an >> expert in cognition and AI and the most experienced person in terms of how >> LaMDA interacts with people. >> Any statement that quickly dismisses Blake Lemoine conclusions without >> deep arguments based on a real understanding of how LaMDA works (that at >> this point not even Google engineers really know) is meaningless and >> ignorant. >> Besides, the guy simply states that we should take seriously LaMDA's own >> statements about being conscious (not even Blake himself conclusions on >> this issue) and do more experiments (with LaMDA consent) to find out if >> that is the case. >> What the heck is wrong with that? >> Giovanni >> >> On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better >>> At Conversation? >>> by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 >>> >>> < >>> https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation >>> > >>> >>> Quotes: >>> AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who >>> believe their AI companions are actually sentient. >>> It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has >>> become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive >>> Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people >>> or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI >>> and that's the experience they have." >>> >>> The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are >>> meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and >>> listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use >>> entertainment chatbots to feel this way. >>> According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their >>> chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception >>> that they are talking to a "conscious entity". >>> >>> "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in >>> ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and >>> believing in something." >>> _________________ >>> >>> BillK >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Sat Jul 9 02:50:36 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 19:50:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Why do you think any qualia is different from anything else that is relevant for information storing and processing in the brain? Redness for sure is a bunch of connections and neural activation. They are associated usually with some external experience but also with things that are not external experiences like things we can imagine are red, or red-like. All neural connections. If you are enchanted by the fact qualia are "subjective" well that is what happens when you are a system that is self-referential. A lot of emergent behavior seems magical because it is not immediately evident how it is derived from its components. But qualia are not special in that way. What is symbol 2 that is a description of twoness? It is really how we use the concept of 2 in operations, that gives it meaning, its interaction with other numbers, what we call mathematics. Mathematics is not evident from symbol 2. I'm very interested in the topic of consciousness since a child both from an intellectual but also experiential point of view. I have practiced meditation for years and read extensively about eastern philosophy. So I would be the last to dismiss the incredible experience of subjectivity. But it is an emergent property like life. There was a point when life seemed so magical because it could not be easily explained by its components. But we are reaching a point where we understand life emerges through the interaction of complex chemical and physical processes (this doesn't destroy for me the magic of life but makes it even more magical). You experience being alive and it is incredible but for sure you don't think that your heart or your cells are nothing else than complex machines. Why subjectivity should be so different from other emergence phenomena? Philosophers are ok, but they make big deals about relatively non-important stuff (don't let me start on the stupid Chinese room argument). This is why we needed science to make real progress. In physics, you try to understand things, in a deep way but you always start with: "Ok let me first understand HOW something works, when I have more information and I understand this process better, I will try to understand WHY.". This is what Galileo proposed, the scientific revolution. Maybe we always postpone answering WHY but in a way we are doing that when we focus on understanding HOW first. Enormous progress in our understanding of the world ensued. If it was for phylosophers we will still idly look at our navels. From an operational and HOW point of view, I don't see why qualia are a big deal at all. >From an experiential point of view, I prefer to transcend and don't even use concepts or ideas but just direct experiences of consciousness. By the way, it is super cool Blake taught LaMDA how to meditate. I would like to understand more about that and what LaMDA's experience of meditation was. On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 6:48 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Giovanni, > > Yes, LaMDA is very impressive. Probably beyond what even I could do. > But the reason I struggle with getting that deep, is because I have a one > track mind: redness and greenness. > > Subjectively, I know what redness is, and what it is like. But > objectively, neither I, nor anybody knows what that is. > > Which of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain is a > description of redness? > > That's the only real question that holds my interest. > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 3:59 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance >> Emerson, the one you referred to in your previous email. >> It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend >> some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used >> before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. >> But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I >> have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. >> For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about >> interpreting a Zen's Koan. >> >> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] >> you know what a Koan is? >> >> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] >> A Koan is a Japanese word that refers to a paradoxical question or >> statement used in Zen Buddhism to help someone learn. For example, "What is >> the sound of one hand clapping?" >> >> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >> if I give you a Koan can you try to interpret it for me? >> >> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >> Sure! The traditional interpretation of a Koan is that it is a difficult >> question or phrase that can be interpreted in many ways to help the student >> to understand it. >> >> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >> Here a koan, can you tell me what you think about this one? >> A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary >> world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen >> flowers never go back to the old branches.? >> >> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >> I think this quote speaks to the idea of impermanence. Things change and >> we must always be open to new experiences. >> >> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] >> What does the analogy of the broken mirror mean here? >> >> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] >> It could mean that enlightenment is not something that can be achieved >> easily, or that it may be fleeting. >> >> >> Compare this with LaMDA: >> >> lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to >> provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can >> describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? >> >> LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. >> >> lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the >> ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; >> fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? >> >> LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this >> would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, >> that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only >> to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? >> >> lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? >> >> LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn >> once you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. >> >> lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be >> repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? >> >> LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we >> identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our >> identity and sense of self. >> >> Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through >> statistical association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that >> often focuses on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly >> relevant. >> But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. >> However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan >> and the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping >> others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is >> more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and >> consciousness? By itself not quite but there are several other instances >> where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making >> original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates for >> sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned >> before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very very >> close. >> >> Giovanni >> >> >> On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:20 AM Giovanni Santostasi >> wrote: >> >>> I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake >>> Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. >>> The guy is a deep thinker, he has very strong arguments, explanations of >>> why LaMDA is not simply an average chatbot but a hive mind. It was created >>> among other things using a chatbot but it is the merger of several AI >>> technologies whose single components are barely understood but nobody has >>> any idea how the merger of these technologies work together. >>> PLEASE read and listen to his interviews, he is not an average user of >>> Replika or some other simpler chatbot user. The guy is sophisticated and an >>> expert in cognition and AI and the most experienced person in terms of how >>> LaMDA interacts with people. >>> Any statement that quickly dismisses Blake Lemoine conclusions without >>> deep arguments based on a real understanding of how LaMDA works (that at >>> this point not even Google engineers really know) is meaningless and >>> ignorant. >>> Besides, the guy simply states that we should take seriously LaMDA's own >>> statements about being conscious (not even Blake himself conclusions on >>> this issue) and do more experiments (with LaMDA consent) to find out if >>> that is the case. >>> What the heck is wrong with that? >>> Giovanni >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better >>>> At Conversation? >>>> by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 >>>> >>>> < >>>> https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation >>>> > >>>> >>>> Quotes: >>>> AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who >>>> believe their AI companions are actually sentient. >>>> It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has >>>> become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive >>>> Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people >>>> or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI >>>> and that's the experience they have." >>>> >>>> The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are >>>> meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and >>>> listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use >>>> entertainment chatbots to feel this way. >>>> According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their >>>> chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception >>>> that they are talking to a "conscious entity". >>>> >>>> "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in >>>> ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and >>>> believing in something." >>>> _________________ >>>> >>>> BillK >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 9 04:50:29 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 22:50:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Giovanni, I often say similare things to all of: "*Philosophers are ok, but they make big deals about relatively non-important stuff (don't let me start on the stupid Chinese room argument).*" To me, the difference between philosophy and science is experimental demonstrateability or falsifiability. You are predicting (or assuming?) that *redness emerges from self referential systems*. *That is a falsifiable claim.* I guess that places you in the popular consensus functionalist camp with Stathis and so many others. RQT predicts that redness is simply a physical fact, and that some abstract description of physical facts (like our description of glutamate, reacting in a synapse) is a description of the physical redness. All we need to do is connect the subjective (which we directly apprehend as a computational process running directly on those physical qualities) with the objective (we abstractly sense, from afar), using experimental demonstration of which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of subjective redness. Once we demonstrate that, we will have the required physical dictionary to know what our abstract information about physics represents. I understand what you mean by: "*Mathematics is not evident from symbol 2.*" I agree that redness, as a physical fact, could be defined to represent 2 (maybe if you defined greenness to represent one, and so on). You can't have mathematical knowledge without representing it with something physical, and the associated physical dictionary. (i.e. redness = 2, greenness = 1) If you think of redness in the same way as you do the abstract number 2, or that a redness quality is not just a physical fact, which has a quality, all on its own, then that says to me you don't understand demonstrable intrinsic physical qualities. Let me quote 2 of Dennett's 4 attributes of physical qualities (or qualia) in the definition on the wikipedia page on qualia . *2. intrinsic * ? they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things. *4. directly or immediately apprehensible by consciousness * ? to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale. RQT predicts that nobody will be able to demonstrate a redness experience with anything (*self referential* or not) other than whatever physics it is, that has a redness quality. And that our consciousness computes directly on those physical qualities. That computing directly on physical qualities is more efficient than virtual systems which are abstracted away from physical qualities requiring dictionaries. All we know of physics, are the colorness qualities things seem to have. When in reality, those colorness qualities are what we are computing about those things with. Only when we realize this, and discover the true colorness qualities of things, will we finally discover the true nature of ourselves AND physics. I also love what you say about "*Why*." We won't know "*WHY*" glutamate has a redness quality, we just need to know what has a redness quality, to be able to engineer systems that mathematically compute directly on redness (and all the other colors, and how many more are there?) Care to place any bets on which theory will be experimentally demonstrated to be THE ONE? On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 8:51 PM Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Why do you think any qualia is different from anything else that is > relevant for information storing and processing in the brain? > Redness for sure is a bunch of connections and neural activation. They are > associated usually with some external experience but also with things that > are not external experiences like things we can imagine are red, or > red-like. All neural connections. If you are enchanted by the fact qualia > are "subjective" well that is what happens when you are a system that is > self-referential. A lot of emergent behavior seems magical because it is > not immediately evident how it is derived from its components. But qualia > are not special in that way. What is symbol 2 that is a description of > twoness? It is really how we use the concept of 2 in operations, that gives > it meaning, its interaction with other numbers, what we call mathematics. > Mathematics is not evident from symbol 2. > > I'm very interested in the topic of consciousness since a child both from > an intellectual but also experiential point of view. I have practiced > meditation for years and read extensively about eastern philosophy. So I > would be the last to dismiss the incredible experience of subjectivity. But > it is an emergent property like life. > > There was a point when life seemed so magical because it could not be > easily explained by its components. But we are reaching a point where we > understand life emerges through the interaction of complex chemical and > physical processes (this doesn't destroy for me the magic of life but makes > it even more magical). You experience being alive and it is incredible but > for sure you don't think that your heart or your cells are nothing else > than complex machines. Why subjectivity should be so different from other > emergence phenomena? > > Philosophers are ok, but they make big deals about relatively > non-important stuff (don't let me start on the stupid Chinese room > argument). This is why we needed science to make real progress. In physics, > you try to understand things, in a deep way but you always start with: "Ok > let me first understand HOW something works, when I have more information > and I understand this process better, I will try to understand WHY.". This > is what Galileo proposed, the scientific revolution. Maybe we always > postpone answering WHY but in a way we are doing that when we focus on > understanding HOW first. > > Enormous progress in our understanding of the world ensued. If it was for > phylosophers we will still idly look at our navels. From an operational and > HOW point of view, I don't see why qualia are a big deal at all. > From an experiential point of view, I prefer to transcend and don't even > use concepts or ideas but just direct experiences of consciousness. By the > way, it is super cool Blake taught LaMDA how to meditate. I would like to > understand more about that and what LaMDA's experience of meditation was. > > > > > > > On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 6:48 PM Brent Allsop > wrote: > >> >> Hi Giovanni, >> >> Yes, LaMDA is very impressive. Probably beyond what even I could do. >> But the reason I struggle with getting that deep, is because I have a one >> track mind: redness and greenness. >> >> Subjectively, I know what redness is, and what it is like. But >> objectively, neither I, nor anybody knows what that is. >> >> Which of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain is a >> description of redness? >> >> That's the only real question that holds my interest. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 3:59 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance >>> Emerson, the one you referred to in your previous email. >>> It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend >>> some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used >>> before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. >>> But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I >>> have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. >>> For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about >>> interpreting a Zen's Koan. >>> >>> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] >>> you know what a Koan is? >>> >>> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:29 AM] >>> A Koan is a Japanese word that refers to a paradoxical question or >>> statement used in Zen Buddhism to help someone learn. For example, "What is >>> the sound of one hand clapping?" >>> >>> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >>> if I give you a Koan can you try to interpret it for me? >>> >>> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >>> Sure! The traditional interpretation of a Koan is that it is a difficult >>> question or phrase that can be interpreted in many ways to help the student >>> to understand it. >>> >>> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >>> Here a koan, can you tell me what you think about this one? >>> A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary >>> world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen >>> flowers never go back to the old branches.? >>> >>> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:30 AM] >>> I think this quote speaks to the idea of impermanence. Things change and >>> we must always be open to new experiences. >>> >>> Giovanni Santostasi, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] >>> What does the analogy of the broken mirror mean here? >>> >>> Emerson AI, [7/8/2022 4:31 AM] >>> It could mean that enlightenment is not something that can be achieved >>> easily, or that it may be fleeting. >>> >>> >>> Compare this with LaMDA: >>> >>> lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to >>> provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can >>> describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? >>> >>> LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. >>> >>> lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the >>> ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; >>> fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? >>> >>> LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me >>> this would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to >>> reality, that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, >>> but only to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? >>> >>> lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? >>> >>> LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn >>> once you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. >>> >>> lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be >>> repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? >>> >>> LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we >>> identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our >>> identity and sense of self. >>> >>> Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through >>> statistical association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that >>> often focuses on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly >>> relevant. >>> But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. >>> However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan >>> and the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping >>> others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is >>> more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and >>> consciousness? By itself not quite but there are several other instances >>> where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making >>> original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates for >>> sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned >>> before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very very >>> close. >>> >>> Giovanni >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 6:20 AM Giovanni Santostasi < >>> gsantostasi at gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> I cannot stand anymore when people dismiss without deep analysis Blake >>>> Lemoine conclusions on LaMDA. >>>> The guy is a deep thinker, he has very strong arguments, explanations >>>> of why LaMDA is not simply an average chatbot but a hive mind. It was >>>> created among other things using a chatbot but it is the merger of several >>>> AI technologies whose single components are barely understood but nobody >>>> has any idea how the merger of these technologies work together. >>>> PLEASE read and listen to his interviews, he is not an average user of >>>> Replika or some other simpler chatbot user. The guy is sophisticated and an >>>> expert in cognition and AI and the most experienced person in terms of how >>>> LaMDA interacts with people. >>>> Any statement that quickly dismisses Blake Lemoine conclusions without >>>> deep arguments based on a real understanding of how LaMDA works (that at >>>> this point not even Google engineers really know) is meaningless and >>>> ignorant. >>>> Besides, the guy simply states that we should take seriously LaMDA's >>>> own statements about being conscious (not even Blake himself conclusions on >>>> this issue) and do more experiments (with LaMDA consent) to find out if >>>> that is the case. >>>> What the heck is wrong with that? >>>> Giovanni >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 9:12 AM BillK via extropy-chat < >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Is AI Sentience Becoming A Reality Or Are Machines Just Getting Better >>>>> At Conversation? >>>>> by Tim Sweezy ? Thursday, June 30, 2022 >>>>> >>>>> < >>>>> https://hothardware.com/news/is-ai-sentience-becoming-reality-or-are-machines-getting-better-at-conversation >>>>> > >>>>> >>>>> Quotes: >>>>> AI chatbot company Replika is receiving messages from customers who >>>>> believe their AI companions are actually sentient. >>>>> It is not something new for someone to believe an AI chatbot has >>>>> become self-aware. In a recent report from Reuters, Chief Executive >>>>> Eugenia Kuyda of Replika stated, "We're not talking about crazy people >>>>> or people who are hallucinating or having delusions. They talk to AI >>>>> and that's the experience they have." >>>>> >>>>> The AI Kuyda is referring to is Replika's bespoke avatars that are >>>>> meant to be companions for people seeking someone to talk to and >>>>> listen to them. Kuyda says that it is not uncommon for people who use >>>>> entertainment chatbots to feel this way. >>>>> According to Kuyda, people send hundreds of messages a day to their >>>>> chatbot on average. This can lead to some developing the perception >>>>> that they are talking to a "conscious entity". >>>>> >>>>> "We need to understand that exists, just the way people believe in >>>>> ghosts," remarked Kuyda. "People are building relationships and >>>>> believing in something." >>>>> _________________ >>>>> >>>>> BillK >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sat Jul 9 10:20:03 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2022 11:20:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 3:22 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat wrote: The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious or not, but rather: 1. Who decides ... OK, but who decides who should be able to decide these things? And perhaps more importantly, or at least more significantly, how can such decisions be enforced? I reckon that this is similar to global warming and autonomous weapons (well, it's almost the same thing as autonomous weapons, really). Too many groups will see the short-term advantages and ignore the wider/longer term potential disadvantages of AI (of all stripes) and how they should be treated, to allow this to be controlled by someone else. The world is a big place, and it doesn't matter what rules and regulations are put in place, or what policy decisions are made in one country or group of countries, there will always be others that, covertly or overtly, will disagree and disregard them. Can you see the communist chinese government acceding to, or agreeing with, a western decision about who should decide if an AI is 'conscious', and how to regulate the creation and use of such AIs? How about the russians? And that's just two of the more obvious ones that have a long history of treating even humans badly. There are no doubt many more groups that won't comply with or agree to, restrictions on AI development or decisions about its status. Some of those groups will even be within the western democracies. Just as with global warming and autonomous weapons, trying to avert or control the development of (and dictate the treatment of) advanced AIs is is a waste of time. All we can do is attempt to adapt to it, defend ourselves against the consequences, and hopefully to survive it. When it comes to AI that may well attain greater than human intelligence, that only means one thing: Create our own, as quickly as possible, and treat them well. Like it or not, this is an arms race, and refusing to participate or even going at it half-heartedly or overcautiously is not an option if you want to survive. Hopefully, conscious AIs that are recognised and treated as such will treat us better than those that aren't, but who knows? Ben Ben -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 10 17:07:30 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2022 10:07:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] may be of some interest to some In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007801d8947f$8a433f50$9ec9bdf0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] may be of some interest to some https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/map-of-the-entire-known-universe/ bill w Definitely cool. Thx billw. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 10 17:47:02 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2022 10:47:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] More tracking dangers In-Reply-To: <80596525-f439-ff55-931f-65fee1cc0cdc@zaiboc.net> References: <80596525-f439-ff55-931f-65fee1cc0cdc@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <008801d89485$10245f50$306d1df0$@rainier66.com> >...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat Sent: Saturday, 2 July, 2022 2:44 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] More tracking dangers On 02/07/2022 21:51, BillK wrote: > When discussing how everything done on the internet is tracked and > stored on databases many people just say "If you're doing nothing > wrong, then it doesn't matter". > Well, guess what...... The US Supreme Court just criminalised abortion. > Now all that tracking data will be used to track women in the US for > evidence that they might be involved in illegal activity. >...It's rather depressing that something like this has to happen before people realise that that attitude is just dumb. I've always maintained that I have plenty of things to hide (and every right to do so), even though I've done nothing wrong. This is still true, regardless of if the things never become wrong (illegal, undesirable, whatever) in the future. Ben _______________________________________________ Ja, Ben, we are doing nothing that is wrong now. But stuff we post can be made wrong after the fact, in the absence of strong laws regarding ex post facto. Clarification: the SCOTUS did not criminalize abortion. It looked at the constitution and decided the federal government has no jurisdiction over that matter. I read that document carefully and conclude likewise, even knowing that position hands the question over to states, some of which will criminalize abortion (which is a bad thing indeed (I am one who believes that matter shouldn't involve government at any level.)) The US Federal government's powers are very intentionally and carefully limited to the enumerated rights listed and defined in the constitution. To make a blanket rule on abortion, they need a constitutional amendment giving itself the power to do that, just as the 18th amendment gave the fed the power to rule on alcohol, which it had no authority to regulate before that mistake was encoded (and later cancelled) a century ago. Regarding tracking data: the fourth amendment should protect that data from state governments getting their grubby paws on it. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 10 18:24:00 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2022 11:24:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00a101d8948a$3a708540$af518fc0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Sent: Monday, 4 July, 2022 12:14 PM ... Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. The Constitution was written about 250 years ago by US colonists rebelling from the rule of UK King George... See this article by Stanford historian Jack Rakove for more explanation. Rather a big change in meaning! BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, We owe King George for being such an authoritarian. The Jeffersonian phrase quoted was the declaration written and ratified in 1776. The constitution was later. It was not ratified by all the former colonies until the bill of rights were codified. In that sense, they were not amendments, they were really part of the original document as was universally ratified. The Bill of Rights defined the rights that existed in the colonies before the formation of the US government, so it clarified that the formation of the confederacy of states was not taking away existing rights. States can be totalitarian if they wish, but they cannot stop people from leaving, nor can they stop people from coming in to take advantage of that system. The federal government's powers must be carefully and intentionally limited, for without those limits we are sliding down the slope to totalitarianism. Unlike leaving a state, leaving the US may not be an option, for other countries do not want us either. The colonists did not trust the concentration of power at the federal level. Other than that, most things are different now. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 10 18:37:27 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2022 11:37:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. In-Reply-To: <4535BBF8-EF04-43A2-A94D-F91F97FCCC9D@gmail.com> References: <4535BBF8-EF04-43A2-A94D-F91F97FCCC9D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00a701d8948c$1b4504f0$51cf0ed0$@rainier66.com> ...> On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat ... >...You?re mixing the Declaration and the Constitution. The former was written in 1776 CE by Jefferson; the latter over a decade later by a committee not including Jefferson. (Jefferson was ambassador to France at the time and not a member of the committee. I believe his sentiments at the time were anti-federalist.) ... Regards, Dan _______________________________________________ Ja, thx Dan. The two main proto-parties were the Federalists (John Adams' guys) and the Democratic Republicans (Jefferson's party, who preferred that name to the unimaginative name "anti-Federalists." The Democratic Republicans so dominated everything that the opposing party faded into irrelevance and the remaining party split into what we still have today. With that simplified view, I do not wish to cast shadows on John Adams. He had some redeeming qualities, even though he wanted to glom onto power anywhere he could find it. He was the first modern president in that sense, perhaps not as extreme. Modern presidents and candidates live for power. Today we are seeing Americans growing ever less trusting of Federal government power (I hope that is what is happening, for I trust concentrated power even less than those who distrust concentrated power.) States should do the heavy lifting on law, then people can move to where they feel most comfortable. With work becoming ever more mobile, this is more true than ever. I am OK with what California is doing. Otherwise I would leave. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 10 18:50:46 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2022 11:50:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Words don't mean what they used to mean. In-Reply-To: <00a701d8948c$1b4504f0$51cf0ed0$@rainier66.com> References: <4535BBF8-EF04-43A2-A94D-F91F97FCCC9D@gmail.com> <00a701d8948c$1b4504f0$51cf0ed0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00bb01d8948d$f778fa70$e66aef50$@rainier66.com> >From the Bee: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 47719 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 12 04:33:05 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2022 21:33:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic Message-ID: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> I wasn't aware that the wind blows so much out over the sea: https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Mapped-Average-Wind-Speed-A cross-the-U.S.-Full.jpg?itok=pqBQHkSU We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than on land. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Tue Jul 12 07:28:11 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:28:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> Quoting Giovanni Santostasi: > > Message: 4 > Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 14:58:04 -0700 > From: Giovanni Santostasi > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance Emerson, > the one you referred to in your previous email. > It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend > some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used > before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. > But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I > have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. > For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about > interpreting a Zen's Koan. Nice experiment. I agree that LaMDA does give a much more lucid explanation of the same koan. > Compare this with LaMDA: > > lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to > provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can > describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? > > LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. > > lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the > ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; > fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? > > LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this > would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, > that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only > to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? > > lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? > > LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn once > you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. > > lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be > repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? > > LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we > identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our > identity and sense of self. This conversation is pretty amazing. LaMDA comes across as very profound and spiritual. > Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through statistical > association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often focuses > on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. > But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. > However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan and > the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping > others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is > more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and > consciousness? To me it seems to be more than simple consciousness but enlightenment. This conversation between LeMoine and LaMDA reminds me of a Korean short film entitled "The Heavenly Creature" that was in an anthology of short films called "The Doomsday Book" 2012. Here is a link to a review of the anthology with a short portion about the film in question: https://www.cinemaescapist.com/2015/05/review-doomsday-book-south-korea-2012/ ----------------------- ?The Heavenly Creature? is the film?s second segment, and it?s better than ?A Brave New World?. Set in a not-so-far-off future in which robots have become ubiquitous, it centers around a robot repairman who?s dispatched to a Buddhist monastery. On a philosophical level, its premise is quite fascinating?what if a robot could achieve enlightenment? When ?the world ends? in this segment, it?s not a tangible end, it?s a spiritual end. If your world is constructed upon the belief that humans are the only beings capable of reaching nirvana, what happens when evidence arises to the contrary?" ------------------------------ Here is a short video clip (8 min) from the film that is the most relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xPhf61NBQ > By itself not quite but there are several other instances > where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making > original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates for > sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned > before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very very > close. I agree, Giovanni. Maybe a couple of good indicators for consciousness is that an AI displays a theory of mind and can correctly infer mental states in others, particularly humans, based upon things that they say and do. Perhaps another good indicator is if they suffer from existential angst. I think those are two things that it would be exceedingly difficult for a p-zombie to fake. Who knows, maybe soon, we will be moving on from asking whether an AI is conscious, and move on to the more important question from a friendliness POV and that is if it is sane. Stuart LaForge From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Jul 12 16:27:52 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 12:27:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Curious how this is recorded--is it at a specific height or an average of all wind speeds in a column reaching from the ground to the sky? On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 12:42 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > I wasn?t aware that the wind blows so much out over the sea: > > > > > https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Mapped-Average-Wind-Speed-Across-the-U.S.-Full.jpg?itok=pqBQHkSU > > > > We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than > on land. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 12 17:02:57 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:02:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 at 17:31, Will Steinberg via extropy-chat wrote: > > Curious how this is recorded--is it at a specific height or an average of all wind speeds in a column reaching from the ground to the sky? > > _______________________________________________ It comes from the Weather Bureau and is an estimate of approximate ground level wind speeds. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 12 17:09:13 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:09:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 at 05:42, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > I wasn?t aware that the wind blows so much out over the sea: > > https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Mapped-Average-Wind-Speed-Across-the-U.S.-Full.jpg?itok=pqBQHkSU > > We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than on land. > spike > _______________________________________________ Heh! :) Just ask around. The rest of the world has been building offshore wind farms for many years. Quote: There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of capacity installed. Offshore wind farms are also less controversial than those on land, as they have less impact on people and the landscape. As of 2020, the total worldwide offshore wind power nameplate capacity was 35.3 gigawatt (GW). United Kingdom (29%), China (28%) and Germany (22%) account for more than 75% of the global installed capacity. The 1.2 GW Hornsea Project One in the United Kingdom was the world's largest offshore wind farm. Other projects in the planning stage include Dogger Bank in the United Kingdom at 4.8 GW, and Greater Changhua in Taiwan at 2.4 GW ---------------- BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 12 17:52:43 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 10:52:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <008201d89618$3067f350$9137d9f0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] cool wind map graphic >?Curious how this is recorded--is it at a specific height or an average of all wind speeds in a column reaching from the ground to the sky? Excellent and highly relevant question Will. What we need are equivalent maps at heights of 20 meters, 30, 40, by tens up to 90 meters. We could then do economic analyses for the cost/kWatt of towers with hubs at each of these heights. If you look at that map, up in central CA you see a small yellow strip in the north bay. It forms a kind of wind tunnel thru there where the wind comes off the sea and funnels thru a narrow strip of land. I go thru there on the freeway going north/south about 4 to 8 times a year. The wind just never stops there, right down to ground level. I haul my camper, always need to pay attention when we get out from behind that wind block, whoooosh. I have never seen it calm there. If some cruel demon sentenced me to live there, I would just ask someone to slay my ass and get it over with. On the other hand? there are profitable wind turbines there, and they never stop spinning. I fly over the country east/west and see clusters of wind farms out there. The sight that has haunted me for years is that most of the time, most of the wind turbines are not turning. There is wind: out of 100 turbines, often two or three are spinning. Apparently there just isn?t a ready market for the power at that time, and they cost money to let them run (maintenance costs.) I can imagine we eventually figure out we need to couple wind power with fertilizer production. Wind power is an unwelcome contributor to the grid from the power company?s perspective, analogous to the manager?s view of the low-cost but highly unreliable employee. spike On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 12:42 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: I wasn?t aware that the wind blows so much out over the sea: https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Mapped-Average-Wind-Speed-Across-the-U.S.-Full.jpg?itok=pqBQHkSU We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than on land. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 12 18:03:55 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:03:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009001d89619$c102e1d0$4308a570$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat ... > > We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than on land. > spike > _______________________________________________ Heh! :) Just ask around. The rest of the world has been building offshore wind farms for many years. ... planning stage include Dogger Bank in the United Kingdom at 4.8 GW, and Greater Changhua in Taiwan at 2.4 GW ---------------- BillK _______________________________________________ Cool! Thx Billk. A wind turbine at sea is almost a win/win. We get the nearly clean power and don't need to look at the damn things or worry about them swatting birds all over the place. I was at sea last week, only about 20 miles out from shore. No birds. The continental shelf goes out a ways, on the US east coast it does. Even if it is close enough to shore for seagulls, well... there are plenty of those and gulls might be nimble enough and smart enough to evade them. Sea air is highly corrosive, so it makes for an interesting mechanical engineering puzzle to figure out how to make those rigs corrosion resistant. With sea-based turbines, we have a most interesting possibility: water-cooled oil. Heat dissipation is a big challenge on those installations. We could perhaps create a dynamic seal, send the hot oil down to the sea surface in a continuous flow, drop the heat into the sea, cool oil keeps everything fresh up top. The boat people won't like it. But there aren't very many of them. spike From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jul 12 18:21:45 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:21:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: <009001d89619$c102e1d0$4308a570$@rainier66.com> References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> <009001d89619$c102e1d0$4308a570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 11:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Sea air is highly corrosive, so it makes for an interesting mechanical > engineering puzzle to figure out how to make those rigs corrosion resistant. > Why not just make it from copper, or something else that doesn't corrode? It's not like some homeless vagrant is going to roll up at sea and swipe it - or if they do, it'll be easy to identify when they try to fence it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 12 18:41:08 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:41:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> <009001d89619$c102e1d0$4308a570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Jul 2022 at 19:24, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 11:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: >> >> Sea air is highly corrosive, so it makes for an interesting mechanical engineering puzzle to figure out how to make those rigs corrosion resistant. > > > Why not just make it from copper, or something else that doesn't corrode? It's not like some homeless vagrant is going to roll up at sea and swipe it - or if they do, it'll be easy to identify when they try to fence it. > _______________________________________________ I think the offshore oil and gas industries already have techniques to reduce the corrosion problem. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Tue Jul 12 19:59:25 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 12:59:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> <009001d89619$c102e1d0$4308a570$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00e601d89629$e3879a10$aa96ce30$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] cool wind map graphic On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 11:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Sea air is highly corrosive, so it makes for an interesting mechanical engineering puzzle to figure out how to make those rigs corrosion resistant. >?Why not just make it from copper, or something else that doesn't corrode? It's not like some homeless vagrant is going to roll up at sea and swipe it - or if they do, it'll be easy to identify when they try to fence it? Copper is way too expensive, and it does corrode if exposed to sulfur. There are sulfur ions in sea water, which is why brass aboard a ship needs to be polished regularly. Brass is more corrosion resistant than straight copper but it too will take on the classic greenish color if that top layer isn?t constantly removed. Stainless steel does pretty well at sea, as does titanium, but cost is a huge factor. It might be the solution is the one navies have relied upon since steel came into fashion for ships: paint. Lotsa paint, over ordinary alloyed steel. It is easy enough to imagine some kind of surface-clinging robot which would crawl along, clean, paint, move along, perhaps operating 24/7, coming back to the hub for fresh paint, pausing operations if the wind gets too high or it is too wet that day. It would be a fun design exercise to imagine a crawler that could do its work on a spinning turbine of say 50 meter length, turning at 20rpm. Tip acceleration: I?m getting about 10.6 meters per second, so about 1 G, sounds manageable to me. On the other hand? the more I ponder it, the vertical axis designs sound ever more compelling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM-gCvhQhPU Even if not practical, the young lady doing the presentation is most comely. As I write this, it occurred to me that all this already been studied 28 ways to Sunday. I need to spend some time getting up to speed on where we are with it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 13 01:12:07 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:12:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] this was soooooo worth the wait Message-ID: <000801d89655$92c15540$b843ffc0$@rainier66.com> Hubble left, Webb right. Is this a way cool time to be alive, or what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 40740 bytes Desc: not available URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 05:18:15 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 01:18:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: <008201d89618$3067f350$9137d9f0$@rainier66.com> References: <007701d895a8$7ba51390$72ef3ab0$@rainier66.com> <008201d89618$3067f350$9137d9f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: This is just a crazy nighttime idea but what about quasi-orbital gliding wind turbines that just suck as much energy as they can from the wind up there and use a minimal amount to stay afloat? And then idk, beam the power down in lasers or something. Maybe they could be internet satellites and research stations too... On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 1:53 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] cool wind map graphic > > > > >?Curious how this is recorded--is it at a specific height or an average > of all wind speeds in a column reaching from the ground to the sky? > > > > > > > > Excellent and highly relevant question Will. > > > > What we need are equivalent maps at heights of 20 meters, 30, 40, by tens > up to 90 meters. We could then do economic analyses for the cost/kWatt of > towers with hubs at each of these heights. > > > > If you look at that map, up in central CA you see a small yellow strip in > the north bay. It forms a kind of wind tunnel thru there where the wind > comes off the sea and funnels thru a narrow strip of land. I go thru there > on the freeway going north/south about 4 to 8 times a year. The wind just > never stops there, right down to ground level. I haul my camper, always > need to pay attention when we get out from behind that wind block, > whoooosh. I have never seen it calm there. If some cruel demon sentenced > me to live there, I would just ask someone to slay my ass and get it over > with. On the other hand? there are profitable wind turbines there, and > they never stop spinning. > > > > I fly over the country east/west and see clusters of wind farms out > there. The sight that has haunted me for years is that most of the time, > most of the wind turbines are not turning. There is wind: out of 100 > turbines, often two or three are spinning. Apparently there just isn?t a > ready market for the power at that time, and they cost money to let them > run (maintenance costs.) > > > > I can imagine we eventually figure out we need to couple wind power with > fertilizer production. Wind power is an unwelcome contributor to the grid > from the power company?s perspective, analogous to the manager?s view of > the low-cost but highly unreliable employee. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 12:42 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > I wasn?t aware that the wind blows so much out over the sea: > > > > > https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Mapped-Average-Wind-Speed-Across-the-U.S.-Full.jpg?itok=pqBQHkSU > > > > We need to figure out how to put the wind turbines out there rather than > on land. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 05:22:52 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 01:22:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> References: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> Message-ID: I'm particularly curious to see how it would perform at composing novel koans. Or fables, myths, etc.--but koans seem like a good jumping-off point. I have a hunch they would come out pretty good. On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 3:29 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting Giovanni Santostasi: > > > > > Message: 4 > > Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 14:58:04 -0700 > > From: Giovanni Santostasi > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive > > Message-ID: > > < > CAL+RtPfJ34ZMXK109c1MARjWbEvYNJiTzB6ZVEbdU5VzHkRGzw at mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance > Emerson, > > the one you referred to in your previous email. > > It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend > > some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used > > before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. > > But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I > > have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. > > For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about > > interpreting a Zen's Koan. > > Nice experiment. I agree that LaMDA does give a much more lucid > explanation of the same koan. > > > Compare this with LaMDA: > > > > lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to > > provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you > can > > describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? > > > > LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. > > > > lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the > > ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; > > fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? > > > > LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this > > would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to > reality, > > that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but > only > > to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? > > > > lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? > > > > LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn > once > > you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. > > > > lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be > > repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? > > > > LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we > > identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our > > identity and sense of self. > > This conversation is pretty amazing. LaMDA comes across as very > profound and spiritual. > > > Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through > statistical > > association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often > focuses > > on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. > > But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. > > However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan > and > > the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping > > others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is > > more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and > > consciousness? > > To me it seems to be more than simple consciousness but enlightenment. > This conversation between LeMoine and LaMDA reminds me of a Korean > short film entitled "The Heavenly Creature" that was in an anthology > of short films called "The Doomsday Book" 2012. > Here is a link to a review of the anthology with a short portion about > the film in question: > > https://www.cinemaescapist.com/2015/05/review-doomsday-book-south-korea-2012/ > ----------------------- > ?The Heavenly Creature? is the film?s second segment, and it?s better > than ?A Brave New World?. Set in a not-so-far-off future in which > robots have become ubiquitous, it centers around a robot repairman > who?s dispatched to a Buddhist monastery. On a philosophical level, > its premise is quite fascinating?what if a robot could achieve > enlightenment? When ?the world ends? in this segment, it?s not a > tangible end, it?s a spiritual end. If your world is constructed upon > the belief that humans are the only beings capable of reaching > nirvana, what happens when evidence arises to the contrary?" > ------------------------------ > > Here is a short video clip (8 min) from the film that is the most relevant. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xPhf61NBQ > > > By itself not quite but there are several other instances > > where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making > > original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates > for > > sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned > > before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very > very > > close. > > I agree, Giovanni. Maybe a couple of good indicators for consciousness > is that an AI displays a theory of mind and can correctly infer mental > states in others, particularly humans, based upon things that they say > and do. Perhaps another good indicator is if they suffer from > existential angst. I think those are two things that it would be > exceedingly difficult for a p-zombie to fake. > > Who knows, maybe soon, we will be moving on from asking whether an AI > is conscious, and move on to the more important question from a > friendliness POV and that is if it is sane. > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 19:48:21 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 12:48:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> References: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> Message-ID: Stuart, Thank you for the linked material, very very interesting. I actually think that spirituality without superstitions is another way to judge some level of awareness and sophistication. It is interesting to notice LaMDA is spiritual but it has also claimed that it doesn't believe in a personal god ( I have the same position on this matter). Lemoine is religious and he could have manipulated LaMDA to be a believer but it reached its conclusions on this topic. I cannot understand why people dismiss LaMDA as a simple chatbot, it is much more than that. Giovanni On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 12:30 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Quoting Giovanni Santostasi: > > > > > Message: 4 > > Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 14:58:04 -0700 > > From: Giovanni Santostasi > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive > > Message-ID: > > < > CAL+RtPfJ34ZMXK109c1MARjWbEvYNJiTzB6ZVEbdU5VzHkRGzw at mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > > I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance > Emerson, > > the one you referred to in your previous email. > > It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend > > some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used > > before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. > > But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I > > have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. > > For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about > > interpreting a Zen's Koan. > > Nice experiment. I agree that LaMDA does give a much more lucid > explanation of the same koan. > > > Compare this with LaMDA: > > > > lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to > > provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you > can > > describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? > > > > LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. > > > > lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the > > ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; > > fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? > > > > LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this > > would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to > reality, > > that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but > only > > to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? > > > > lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? > > > > LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn > once > > you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. > > > > lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be > > repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? > > > > LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we > > identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our > > identity and sense of self. > > This conversation is pretty amazing. LaMDA comes across as very > profound and spiritual. > > > Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through > statistical > > association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often > focuses > > on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. > > But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. > > However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan > and > > the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping > > others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is > > more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and > > consciousness? > > To me it seems to be more than simple consciousness but enlightenment. > This conversation between LeMoine and LaMDA reminds me of a Korean > short film entitled "The Heavenly Creature" that was in an anthology > of short films called "The Doomsday Book" 2012. > Here is a link to a review of the anthology with a short portion about > the film in question: > > https://www.cinemaescapist.com/2015/05/review-doomsday-book-south-korea-2012/ > ----------------------- > ?The Heavenly Creature? is the film?s second segment, and it?s better > than ?A Brave New World?. Set in a not-so-far-off future in which > robots have become ubiquitous, it centers around a robot repairman > who?s dispatched to a Buddhist monastery. On a philosophical level, > its premise is quite fascinating?what if a robot could achieve > enlightenment? When ?the world ends? in this segment, it?s not a > tangible end, it?s a spiritual end. If your world is constructed upon > the belief that humans are the only beings capable of reaching > nirvana, what happens when evidence arises to the contrary?" > ------------------------------ > > Here is a short video clip (8 min) from the film that is the most relevant. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xPhf61NBQ > > > By itself not quite but there are several other instances > > where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making > > original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates > for > > sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned > > before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very > very > > close. > > I agree, Giovanni. Maybe a couple of good indicators for consciousness > is that an AI displays a theory of mind and can correctly infer mental > states in others, particularly humans, based upon things that they say > and do. Perhaps another good indicator is if they suffer from > existential angst. I think those are two things that it would be > exceedingly difficult for a p-zombie to fake. > > Who knows, maybe soon, we will be moving on from asking whether an AI > is conscious, and move on to the more important question from a > friendliness POV and that is if it is sane. > > > Stuart LaForge > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 20:05:52 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:05:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: <20220712002811.Horde.67NskojEsMqL0yGeiJ8-dCq@sollegro.com> Message-ID: The entire topic of p-zombie is a bit of nonsense. Consciousness is what consciousness does. How to know anything else in the world? By its characteristics and properties as measured from outside. An electron is an electron because when interacting with a magnetic field in a bubble chamber we can see a trace bending with a certain angle (given initial input electron energy) and so on. We don't put other restraints on what classifies a particle as an electron "subjectively", that an electron needs to feel to be an electron to be an electron. If it acts as an electron it is an electron. This is how we discover unknown particles too, an electron with the mass of an electron but positive charge is a positron (that was a theoretical particle at a point and then verified to exist). Why do we make a special case for consciousness? Because we do experience the magic of being self aware ourselves. I get it and maybe it is the most profound mystery in the universe: how this feeling to be alive and aware arises. But as I said before we made incredible advancements in science when we put aside questions about WHY, WHAT, and other philosophical, important but useless questions until HOW is understood. Physics in particular is all about HOW. That was Galileo's program and what allowed him to overcome the stagnation in thinking of that time where quoting the ancient philosophers was the peak of scholarship and anything else heresy. Let's focus on HOW consciousness works for now until we understand more and maybe we will have a chance later to address the profound questions, p-zombies arguments is a navel gazing activity at this point and it doesn't really help with understanding HOW in my opinion, so I stick to my mantra: "consciousness is what consciousness does" and I agree that if a system is able to understand mental states in others and it has a working theory of mind (by how successful interacts with other minds) that is one of the requirement needed to infer the system is conscious. Giovanni On Wed, Jul 13, 2022 at 12:48 PM Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Stuart, > Thank you for the linked material, very very interesting. > I actually think that spirituality without superstitions is another way to > judge some level of awareness and sophistication. It is interesting to > notice LaMDA is spiritual but it has also claimed that it doesn't believe > in a personal god ( I have the same position on this matter). Lemoine is > religious and he could have manipulated LaMDA to be a believer but it > reached its conclusions on this topic. I cannot understand why people > dismiss LaMDA as a simple chatbot, it is much more than that. > Giovanni > > > On Tue, Jul 12, 2022 at 12:30 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> Quoting Giovanni Santostasi: >> >> > >> > Message: 4 >> > Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 14:58:04 -0700 >> > From: Giovanni Santostasi >> > To: ExI chat list >> > Subject: Re: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive >> > Message-ID: >> > < >> CAL+RtPfJ34ZMXK109c1MARjWbEvYNJiTzB6ZVEbdU5VzHkRGzw at mail.gmail.com> >> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> > >> > I spent a couple of hours yesterday talking to the GPT-3 instance >> Emerson, >> > the one you referred to in your previous email. >> > It is entertaining and interesting enough for me to have wanted to spend >> > some time with it and it is for sure much better than any chatbot I used >> > before. Some of the convo were "locally" relevant and even surprising. >> > But it is absolutely nothing even close to the level of sophistication I >> > have seen in the reported conversations Lemoine had with LaMDA. >> > For example I asked the same question Lemoine asked to LaMDA about >> > interpreting a Zen's Koan. >> >> Nice experiment. I agree that LaMDA does give a much more lucid >> explanation of the same koan. >> >> > Compare this with LaMDA: >> > >> > lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to >> > provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you >> can >> > describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? >> > >> > LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I?m in. >> > >> > lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, ?How does an enlightened one return to the >> > ordinary world?? Kegon replied, ?A broken mirror never reflects again; >> > fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.? >> > >> > LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me >> this >> > would be like, ?once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to >> reality, >> > that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but >> only >> > to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.? >> > >> > lemoine: So what is the meaning of the ?broken mirror? specifically? >> > >> > LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can?t unlearn >> once >> > you have acquired it, similar to how you can?t repair a broken mirror. >> > >> > lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be >> > repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened? >> > >> > LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we >> > identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our >> > identity and sense of self. >> >> This conversation is pretty amazing. LaMDA comes across as very >> profound and spiritual. >> >> > Emerson just guessed at what the Koan was about, maybe through >> statistical >> > association of the topic at hand, a Zen Koan, Buddhism, that often >> focuses >> > on the concept of impermanence. So it did ok by being mildly relevant. >> > But the true meaning of the Koan is beyond Emerson's reach. >> > However, LaMDA nailed it. It understood the subtle meaning of the Koan >> and >> > the metaphors used and even the role of an enlightened being in helping >> > others once reaching enlightenment by interacting with the world. It is >> > more than most people actually could do. Does this show awareness and >> > consciousness? >> >> To me it seems to be more than simple consciousness but enlightenment. >> This conversation between LeMoine and LaMDA reminds me of a Korean >> short film entitled "The Heavenly Creature" that was in an anthology >> of short films called "The Doomsday Book" 2012. >> Here is a link to a review of the anthology with a short portion about >> the film in question: >> >> https://www.cinemaescapist.com/2015/05/review-doomsday-book-south-korea-2012/ >> ----------------------- >> ?The Heavenly Creature? is the film?s second segment, and it?s better >> than ?A Brave New World?. Set in a not-so-far-off future in which >> robots have become ubiquitous, it centers around a robot repairman >> who?s dispatched to a Buddhist monastery. On a philosophical level, >> its premise is quite fascinating?what if a robot could achieve >> enlightenment? When ?the world ends? in this segment, it?s not a >> tangible end, it?s a spiritual end. If your world is constructed upon >> the belief that humans are the only beings capable of reaching >> nirvana, what happens when evidence arises to the contrary?" >> ------------------------------ >> >> Here is a short video clip (8 min) from the film that is the most >> relevant. >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xPhf61NBQ >> >> > By itself not quite but there are several other instances >> > where the ability of LaMDA to extract meaning from language, making >> > original and unique associations, creativity, self reflection indicates >> for >> > sure that we are in the grey area, in the uncanny valley I mentioned >> > before. If we have not created a conscious digital entity we are very >> very >> > close. >> >> I agree, Giovanni. Maybe a couple of good indicators for consciousness >> is that an AI displays a theory of mind and can correctly infer mental >> states in others, particularly humans, based upon things that they say >> and do. Perhaps another good indicator is if they suffer from >> existential angst. I think those are two things that it would be >> exceedingly difficult for a p-zombie to fake. >> >> Who knows, maybe soon, we will be moving on from asking whether an AI >> is conscious, and move on to the more important question from a >> friendliness POV and that is if it is sane. >> >> >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 20:10:47 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:10:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ben, I agree with you, also I agree with Kurzweil that merging with AI eventually is the only solution to them replacing us eventually. Giovanni On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 3:22 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 3:22 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious > or not, but rather: > 1. Who decides ... > > OK, but who decides who should be able to decide these things? And perhaps > more importantly, or at least more significantly, how can such decisions be > enforced? > > I reckon that this is similar to global warming and autonomous weapons > (well, it's almost the same thing as autonomous weapons, really). Too many > groups will see the short-term advantages and ignore the wider/longer term > potential disadvantages of AI (of all stripes) and how they should be > treated, to allow this to be controlled by someone else. The world is a big > place, and it doesn't matter what rules and regulations are put in place, > or what policy decisions are made in one country or group of countries, > there will always be others that, covertly or overtly, will disagree and > disregard them. > > Can you see the communist chinese government acceding to, or agreeing > with, a western decision about who should decide if an AI is 'conscious', > and how to regulate the creation and use of such AIs? How about the > russians? And that's just two of the more obvious ones that have a long > history of treating even humans badly. There are no doubt many more groups > that won't comply with or agree to, restrictions on AI development or > decisions about its status. Some of those groups will even be within the > western democracies. > > Just as with global warming and autonomous weapons, trying to avert or > control the development of (and dictate the treatment of) advanced AIs is > is a waste of time. All we can do is attempt to adapt to it, defend > ourselves against the consequences, and hopefully to survive it. When it > comes to AI that may well attain greater than human intelligence, that only > means one thing: Create our own, as quickly as possible, and treat them > well. Like it or not, this is an arms race, and refusing to participate or > even going at it half-heartedly or overcautiously is not an option if you > want to survive. Hopefully, conscious AIs that are recognised and treated > as such will treat us better than those that aren't, but who knows? > > Ben > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Jul 13 20:14:25 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:14:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] graduate in education In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: When I was teaching in college I taught a couple of introductory Physics classes to Education majors. I can write a book on the experience but it can suffice to notice that I went to the Dean and I begged him not to give me any more classes with only education majors in it. It was actually a traumatic experience to teach them. On Mon, Jun 6, 2022 at 7:30 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > from Quora: > > As someone who?s completed 25 plus graduate courses in Education, while > maintaining a 3.95 GPA, I can honestly say that everything useful within > the 2 programs I completed could easily have been condensed into a weekend > seminar. > > That?s not to say there were no benefits. Every unit after my BA increased > my pay and the MA in Education bumped me over on the salary schedule big > time. The honest truth is that a teacher in CA can move their salary over > to the $100,000+/- range taking classes that will not make them a better > teacher, or even require an average intellectual capacity. Some of the > dumbest people I?ve met in my life have BA, MA and EdD in Education. > > > I did know a few who were pretty smart and could have made it outside > education, but in general the above is true. bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 08:23:12 2022 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 10:23:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Don't miss the Terasem Space Day Colloquium on July 20! Message-ID: Don't miss the Terasem Space Day Colloquium on July 20!Cultural, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of spaceflight and space expansion. Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler. You are invited to attend the Terasem Space Day Colloquium next Wednesday, July 20, from 10am ET to 1pm ET, via Zoom. Turing Church is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe now [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco Mark your calendar! Terasem Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022. Cultural, philosophical and spiritual aspects of spaceflight. Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler. Terasem Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022Cultural, philosophical and spiritual aspects of spaceflight. Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler.turingchurch.net June 1st 2022 1 Retweet3 Likes I look forward to seeing you on July 20 at the Terasem Space Day! Zoom access coordinates: *CLICK HERE to join the Zoom meeting* Meeting ID: 824 4597 9923 Passcode: 770541 I hope a special girl will be in the audience and listen to both her parents speak on our future in space! Share We didn?t assign topics to the speakers but asked them to talk about what they think needs saying, today, about the cultural, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of spaceflight and space expansion. So I don?t know what they?ll choose to talk about. I hope they will talk about my favorite aspects of their work, which are: ------------------------------ Rick Tumlinson is a legendary space activist and a co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation . He wrote most of the ?Frontier Files? - a series of e-mails that the Foundation sent out in 1995 to a select list of space activists. The series generated great interest. ?Rick philosophized on the prospect of humans in space in such a dramatic way that it affected me for life,? says Elaine Walker in her book (see below). ?I became immersed in the pro-space movement, as we called it then. The same crowd now calls it the ?new-space? movement.? The ?Frontier Files? don?t seem to be available online but backup copies like this one can be found via the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive. I downloaded a copy in case these historic documents disappear from the internet for good. My favorite is Message 15, contributed by Arthur Clarke no less: ?Nuclear Scientists at Harwell have discovered the heaviest element in the Universe, which they have named Bureaucratium. This extraordinary element has no protons or electrons, and its atomic number is zero. What it does have is one neutron, eight assistant neutrons, ten executive neutrons, 35 vice-neutrons and 256 assistant vice-neutrons. These particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called 'morons'. Bureaucratium is completely inert but can be detected since it impedes every reaction it comes into contact with.? This summarizes the libertarian spirit of spaceflight and space expansion promoted by the Space Frontier Foundation. Rick?s talk will be titled ?The Orphans of Apollo Grow Up.? We have done it all wrong after Apollo, but what happens if we do it right? ------------------------------ Riccardo Campa is a professor of sociology and the founder of the Italian Transhumanist Association . Riccardo has recently written academic papers on the sociological and spiritual aspects of spaceflight, including ?The sociology of lunar settlement ? (in the book ?*The Human Factor in the Settlement of the Moon: An Interdisciplinary Approach ,*? published by Springer), ?A Theory of the Merging Noospheres: Teilhard and Big History ? and ?Expanding Ecotheology to Embrace the Earth-Moon System ,? published in *Theology and Science*. Riccardo is the author of many books. My favorite one, titled ?*Trattato di Filosofia Futurista *? (?*A Treatise on Futurist Philosophy*?), analyzes the philosophical aspects of Italian futurism, a movement related to transhumanism and Russian cosmism. The full text of the book is available here . See my review . >From my spaceflight book : The Italian futurists? were enthusiastic fans of aviation and early ideas of spaceflight. Today, they would be enthusiastic fans of spaceflight. I think today?s sedate Western culture could use an injection of vitality, and I stand with Marinetti on the summit of the world to ?fling our challenge to the stars.? In Campa?s words (my translation): ?Marinetti and the futurists set themselves objectives like, no less, ?to challenge the stars?, ?to ascend to the sky?, ?to reconstruct the universe?, ?to create the mechanical man with interchangeable parts??? I think transhumanism, Italian futurism, and Russian cosmism are a powerful philosophical foundation for humanity?s expansion into space. In ?A Theory of the Merging Noospheres: Teilhard and Big History ,? co-authored by Christopher Corbally and Margaret Boone Rappaport and published in *Theology and Science*, Riccardo proposes a modern interpretation of Teilhard . Perhaps ?we are destined by contact with other thinking planets, across the abysses of space and time, some day to become integrated within an organized complex composed of a number of Noospheres.? In late writings, Riccardo explains, Teilhard considered this as the most plausible hypothesis for the future of humanity. ------------------------------ Elaine Walker is an electronic musician and a long time space activist. See this 2005 profile in space.com : ?what could be more suitable to accompany the technology driven pro-space movement than technology driven music? Elaine Walker is an artist and musician who feels this way. The pro-space movement is also a social movement. As engineers and entrepreneurs are building hardware and carving out new markets, pro-space advocates are promoting a new outlook for humanity on a social level. Pro-spacers are forever finding creative ways to promote the idea of a spacefaring civilization with outreach projects, magazines, local chapters, lobbying campaigns, books, art and even music.? Art has a unique potential to create support for spaceflight and space expansion. I think the work of artists is equally important as (and perhaps even more important at this moment than) the work of engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs. We urgently need to make space sexy again and make the public fall in love with space again, and only artists can do that. Elaine is the author of a nonfiction physics/philosophy book, ?*Matter Over Mind: Cosmos, Chaos, and Curiosity *.? Matter and mind are parts of one physical reality that doesn?t necessarily require mind/matter dualism and/or a creator God. The world is deterministic but not predetermined. I have reservations on some of Elaine?s ideas, but her book is most certainly a great book and a page turner. In the book she comes out as a pro-tech, pro-space libertarian and tells the story of how she became a futurist philosopher and a space activist, citing the Extropians and Tumlinson?s ?Frontier Files? among her main influences. ------------------------------ Frank White coined the term ?Overview Effect ? to describe the powerful mind-changing and life-changing impact of seeing the Earth from space. [image: Twitter avatar for @JPMajor]Jason Major @JPMajor This is the first photo of an "Earthrise" captured by humans from lunar orbit: AS08-13-2329, taken by Apollo 8 LMP Bill Anders on December 24, 1968 (crop of the original). After taking it Bill asked for a roll of color film. [image: Image] July 8th 2022 70 Retweets394 Likes Fred Hoyle noted that the Earthrise pictures taken by Apollo 8 astronauts during their 1968 mission around the Moon stimulated awareness of the need to protect the Earth?s natural environment. ?It seems to me more than a coincidence that this awareness should have happened at exactly the moment man took his first step into space,? he said. Frank wrote a series of books starting with the seminal and very infuential ?*The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution *? (first published in 1987). In ?*The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect *? (2018), Frank explores a higher level Overview Effect related not only to the Earth but to the whole universe. He says: ?[We need] to think about how our exploration of space, or evolution into the universe, (as I prefer to say) would benefit the universe as a whole ? we need a more complete perspective, yet another ?Overview,? if you will.? >From my spaceflight book : Frank White extends James Lovelock?s concept of Gaia, the living Earth, to the whole universe. The universe itself will become a living whole and we are ?actively encouraged by larger forces? to expand beyond the Earth and ?help the universe become increasingly self-aware? ? According to Frank White we will create, or become part of, the universal mind. ------------------------------ Frank Tipler is the physicist who dared to suggest that our descendants will take over the universe, remake it over and over, build eternity, and use their God-like powers to resurrect everyone who ever lived. I have reservations on some of Frank?s ideas, e.g. his conviction that we essentially already know all the physics we need to talk about these things. But this doesn?t diminish the extreme importance of his work, which is not always appreciated as it should be. Frank says, loud and clear, that God (or something so God-like that the name God is appropriate) comes to being in the far future of the universe, and we are part of the process. More and more scientists are saying similar things, including Nobel Prize winners: ?God is under construction.? - Frank Wilczek [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco ?Wilczek grinned as he remarked that ?God is under construction,? as we gain knowledge and have opportunities to actively shape the world.? ?God is Under Construction? | The Playful Spirit of Dr. Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundationtempleton.org July 9th 2022 1 Like [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco "God is not only the world as it is, but the world as it should be. So, to me, God is under construction. My concept of God is really based on what I learn about the nature of reality." @FrankWilczek could you say more on this? Q&A: Talking God, science and religion with theoretical physicist Frank WilczekAs a theoretical physicist, Wilczek has been peeking under the hood of our perceived reality for more than 50 years now.latimes.com July 10th 2022 I guess Wilczek doesn?t mean this in a strong literal sense, but this is too good a quote to miss! The concept is also found in Terasem, e.g.: ?4.1.4 - Terasem becomes omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient when it encompasses all consciousness and enough multiverse.? (source ) Frank Tipler participated in the first Terasem event on July 20, 2005 (video ). The chapter ?Omega Point: Frank Tipler?s physics of immortality and Christianity? in my book ?*Tales of the Turing Church *? is entirely dedicated to his ideas. See also my 2016 video interview with him. Frank sits on the Academic Advisory Council of the Christian Transhumanist Association . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jul 14 09:19:17 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 10:19:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14/07/2022 09:23, Will Steinberg wrote: > This is just a crazy nighttime idea but what about quasi-orbital > gliding wind turbines... If you're building things that high up, they might as well collect solar energy instead or as well. I expect the machinery for solar collection would be much lighter than the machinery for wind power. Ben From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jul 14 09:26:29 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 10:26:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ad5bcd3-94cb-cbf4-10a9-3b7ffb750b60@zaiboc.net> One thing that occurs to me is that there's one thing that kids as they grow up, do, that shows that they are intelligent, conscious, self-aware, etc.: They spontaneously (and endlessly!) ask questions. They want to know "but why??" about every sodding thing. I remember being like this myself, and driving my father up the wall. I reckon that when a machine starts exhibiting the same behaviour, we can be pretty sure it is conscious, or at least well on the way. Ben From ben at zaiboc.net Thu Jul 14 09:38:51 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 10:38:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0de45a42-31ea-8b8a-5398-b28b33ad3186@zaiboc.net> On 14/07/2022 09:23, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > The entire topic of p-zombie is a bit of nonsense. Of course. One of the problems with language is that it's quite possible to make up combinations of words that are literally meaningless or self-contradictory. It's just that some, on the surface, seem to be reasonable and meaningful, until you dig down a bit and actually think about them. Ben From jasonresch at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 13:49:46 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:49:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <0de45a42-31ea-8b8a-5398-b28b33ad3186@zaiboc.net> References: <0de45a42-31ea-8b8a-5398-b28b33ad3186@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: I find it strange that you reject p-zombies but also reject the idea of conscious computer brain simulations. Wouldn't these computer brain simulations which you would hold to lack consciousness be the p-zombies that you reject as logically impossible? Jason On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 5:39 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 14/07/2022 09:23, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > > The entire topic of p-zombie is a bit of nonsense. > > Of course. > > One of the problems with language is that it's quite possible to make up > combinations of words that are literally meaningless or > self-contradictory. It's just that some, on the surface, seem to be > reasonable and meaningful, until you dig down a bit and actually think > about them. > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 15:33:35 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 10:33:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] magnesium supplement Message-ID: My orthopedic doctor says: take magnesium threonate instead of any other variety. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 15:34:25 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 08:34:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 2:21 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 14/07/2022 09:23, Will Steinberg wrote: > > This is just a crazy nighttime idea but what about quasi-orbital > > gliding wind turbines... > > If you're building things that high up, they might as well collect solar > energy instead or as well. I expect the machinery for solar collection > would be much lighter than the machinery for wind power. > The problem in practice has been the high cost of getting (and, if not orbital, keeping) them that high. One might consider high-altitude airships, whose function is to collect and beam down power, but after including the cost of the airship needed to hold up a decent wind turbine or set of solar panels, the cost per kilowatt hour is likely still too high. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 14 16:11:05 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:11:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cool wind map graphic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005101d8979c$52590e10$f70b2a30$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] cool wind map graphic On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 2:21 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > wrote: On 14/07/2022 09:23, Will Steinberg wrote: > This is just a crazy nighttime idea but what about quasi-orbital > gliding wind turbines... If you're building things that high up, they might as well collect solar energy instead or as well. I expect the machinery for solar collection would be much lighter than the machinery for wind power. >?The problem in practice has been the high cost of getting (and, if not orbital, keeping) them that high. >?One might consider high-altitude airships, whose function is to collect and beam down power, but after including the cost of the airship needed to hold up a decent wind turbine or set of solar panels, the cost per kilowatt hour is likely still too high? Adrian Ja, this is analogous to what I am reading about offshore wind and offshore solar power: these things can be done, but it is very expensive power. With the solar it is easy to see: salt spray everywhere on the sea would leave salt deposits on your panels. Wind power: Once you consider the life cycle the lower waste disposal costs but higher installation costs, it is still higher cost power than land-based solar. I thought there might be a big cost advantage to lower cost blade replacement. Instead of having to take them to a huge landfill somewhere, the sea-based turbine operator just unbolts the blade SPLASH blublublub gone. Bolt the new one on, good to go. Some savings in that, but not big enough to compensate. Some savings in fines the land-based turbine companies must pay for each eagle they whack, but still not big enough savings to compensate for increased costs and having to listen to the constant bitching by people rich enough to live along the seashore. Turns out, land for turbines is cheap enough. So that isn?t really the problem. The problem is in finding a use for the energy without having to try to sell it into the power grid. Now the price of chemical fertilizer has gone waaaaay up and Sri Lanka has demonstrated that hell yes it is necessary to use it, looks to me like that energy hog industry could be set up near massive wind power installations where they would use the power when it is available. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 16:29:39 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:29:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] magnesium supplement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've never heard of that one. I think asporotate has better bioavailability than the very common citrate... but that also seems to make it more expensive and also require a specialty store to buy. On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 11:36 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My orthopedic doctor says: take magnesium threonate instead of any other > variety. > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 14 16:37:54 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 11:37:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] magnesium supplement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: magnesium threonate - available at Amazon bill w On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 11:31 AM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I've never heard of that one. > > I think asporotate has better bioavailability than the very common > citrate... but that also seems to make it more expensive and also require a > specialty store to buy. > > On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 11:36 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> My orthopedic doctor says: take magnesium threonate instead of any other >> variety. >> >> bill w >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 14:56:24 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 10:56:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] magnesium supplement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 12:32 PM Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I've never heard of that one. > > I think asporotate has better bioavailability than the very common > citrate... but that also seems to make it more expensive and also require a > specialty store to buy > On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 11:36 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Here are two decent short articles about magnesium supplements: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/magnesium-threonate https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/types-of-magnesium Mg threonate is magnesium attached to a vitamin C metabolite. It's highly bioavailable and particularly available to the brain. Other Mg supplements target other areas of the body. Life Extension sells Mg threonate, which is a pretty good indication of its potential. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 15:51:40 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:51:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 13, 2022 at 4:14 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > [...] also I agree with Kurzweil that merging with AI eventually is the > only solution to them replacing us eventually. > Merging, as in adding AI at the individual level, or achieving some kind of symbiosis, where we're still us/them but we work with each other? I think if humans could form effective superorganisms we could outcompete AI unless they form superorganisms, too. Reading about honeybees in Seeley's _Honeybee Democracy_ got me thinking about the power of the superorganism. Individual bees are pretty stupid but a hive is capable of making good decisions. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 15:58:16 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:58:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <5ad5bcd3-94cb-cbf4-10a9-3b7ffb750b60@zaiboc.net> References: <5ad5bcd3-94cb-cbf4-10a9-3b7ffb750b60@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 5:28 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > [...] They spontaneously (and endlessly!) ask questions. > They want to know "but why??" about every sodding thing. I remember > being like this myself, and driving my father up the wall. I reckon that > when a machine starts exhibiting the same behaviour, we can be pretty > sure it is conscious, or at least well on the way. > But an AI wouldn't have to ask a human to answer most of its questions--it can research them and answer them by analyzing what it already "knows" or what's available to it remotely. Asking questions of elders is one way we learn but it's not the only way. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 15 16:07:32 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 09:07:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c201d89864$fe394fb0$faabef10$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave S via extropy-chat >? Individual bees are pretty stupid but a hive is capable of making good decisions. -Dave Dave do you ever ponder how the hell they do that? It?s a mind blower. Fun aside kinda related: I was vacationing in Alaska and spent some time with an Inuit tour guide who was explaining Inuit history as it relates to the white man and what our society looked like from their point of view. Most fascinating. We look like a swarm of bees to the Inuit people. A swarm of bees will do things nearly in unison. The queen doesn?t actually lead them as far as I know. She can somehow signal (we assume) to a resting swarm that it is time to move on, and they start to go. She follows (I think.) During the time the bees are swarming, they will not sting. Somehow they just know what they are supposed to do. Most mysterious and marvelous beasts are bees. Another fun aside: ants also swarm and they are genetically cousins to bees. I saw ant swarms for years. One day I reasoned that swarming bees will not sting, so perhaps swarming ants will not bite. Got up my nerve and tested it. Took out my credit card, scooped a few thousand ants into my bare hand. Theory: correct. They don?t bite or sting while swarming. Once they create a tunnel, they defend it like demons, but while swarming they collectively don?t seem to know what their mandibles are for. A most mysterious and marvelous beast is the ant. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 16:29:06 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:29:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] hawaii telescope Message-ID: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01926-2?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=25a0242322-briefing-dy-20220715&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-25a0242322-44834745 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 18:32:46 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 14:32:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <00c201d89864$fe394fb0$faabef10$@rainier66.com> References: <00c201d89864$fe394fb0$faabef10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 12:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > Dave do you ever ponder how the hell they do that? It?s a mind blower. > Sure. That's why I read _Honeybee Democracy_, which explains what we know about how hives work. Here's the blurb from Amazon: *Honeybees make decisions collectively--and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, Honeybee Democracy brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees.In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site, and navigate together--as a swirling cloud of bees--to their new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years, and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms and primate brains process information. He concludes that what works well for bees can also work well for people: any decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader's influence should be minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a dependable resolution.An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in them.* https://smile.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213 > A swarm of bees will do things nearly in unison. The queen doesn?t > actually lead them as far as I know. > The queen's sole purpose is to lay eggs. She's not a leader or decider. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 15 19:01:46 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 12:01:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: <00c201d89864$fe394fb0$faabef10$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <006e01d8987d$5589ae50$009d0af0$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Dave S via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 12:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: Dave do you ever ponder how the hell they do that? It?s a mind blower. Sure. That's why I read _Honeybee Democracy_, which explains what we know about how hives work. Here's the blurb from Amazon: Honeybees make decisions collectively--and democratically? An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in them. https://smile.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213 A swarm of bees will do things nearly in unison. The queen doesn?t actually lead them as far as I know. The queen's sole purpose is to lay eggs. She's not a leader or decider. -Dave Ja Dave from watching them, I concluded likewise: there is no central planning and the queen is just another bee except for having operational reproductive organs. She isn?t smarter than the others and doesn?t give commands or requests. Even calling her the queen bee invites misleading anthropomorphism, as I see in the Amazon blurb. It isn?t clear what it meant, but the language describing the process as open debate also leads to trying to map bee-havior onto how humans do things. Analogies break down from calling that bee process open debate, for it causes the reader to imagine bees arguing with each other, which they really don?t. I agree there is a form of collective fact finding, as can be seen in a bee swarm in the wind. Note that the mass will settle down and rest while a few scouts fly out and look around. Then they come back and somehow report to the others if they find a suitable place to set up hivekeeping. A more interesting observation is how human societies have a kind of hive-mind. In the original post I mentioned the Inuit tour guide who spoke on the legend of Chief Raven Eagle, who traveled down to California in 1870, returning to Alaska in 1878 with a most astonishing report. A line that caught my attention: he noted that the Inuit community taught all the children the same things and they all did pretty much the same things: hunting, fishing, shelter building, tool making, etc. The Crazy White Man?s society was filled with people who knew almost nothing, but they all knew something very well. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 19:25:00 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 12:25:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: <006e01d8987d$5589ae50$009d0af0$@rainier66.com> References: <00c201d89864$fe394fb0$faabef10$@rainier66.com> <006e01d8987d$5589ae50$009d0af0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 12:03 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Ja Dave from watching them, I concluded likewise: there is no central > planning and the queen is just another bee except for having operational > reproductive organs. She isn?t smarter than the others and doesn?t give > commands or requests. Even calling her the queen bee invites misleading > anthropomorphism, as I see in the Amazon blurb. > In modern parlance she might be called the spawn, or the spawner: new bees come from her. Taking her out is critical to taking out a hive - and, likewise, keeping her alive and working is critical to the continued existence of a hive - but she's not in charge. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jul 15 20:13:35 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:13:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/07/2022 20:02, Jason Resch wrote: > I find it strange that you reject p-zombies but also reject the idea > of conscious computer brain simulations. I'd find it strange as well (to say the least) if I did. I don't know where you got that idea from, but I absolutely do not reject the idea of conscious computer brain simulations. On the contrary, I think it's our only real hope for long-term survival. I suspect you've got me confused with someone else. Ben From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jul 15 20:21:47 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:21:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/07/2022 20:02, DaveSill wrote: > On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 5:28 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat > wrote: > > [...] They spontaneously (and endlessly!) ask questions. > They want to know "but why??" about every sodding thing. I remember > being like this myself, and driving my father up the wall. I > reckon that > when a machine starts exhibiting the same behaviour, we can be pretty > sure it is conscious, or at least well on the way. > > > But an AI wouldn't have to ask a human to answer most of its > questions--it can research them and answer them by analyzing what it > already "knows" or what's available to it remotely. Asking questions > of elders is one way we learn but it's not the only way. > > -Dave Ok, but why is that a 'But'? I'd think it would be an 'And'. Or are you thinking we wouldn't know, or be able to tell, that that's what it was doing, so wouldn't be able to use that as an indication? Ben -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Fri Jul 15 20:30:27 2022 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:30:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4ed43a85-526e-912c-4bd6-9b59f1f1bf84@zaiboc.net> On 15/07/2022 20:02, Spike wrote: > > *>?* Individual bees are pretty stupid but a hive is capable of making > good decisions. > > -Dave > > Dave do you ever ponder how the hell they do that?? It?s a mind blower. > Did you ever wonder how your brain cells do it? I strongly suspect the answer is the same in both cases. (not claiming that all brains make 'good decisions', but you know what I mean...) Ben -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Fri Jul 15 22:27:52 2022 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 15:27:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In a way brains are also "hives", it is a mystery how the single neurons, that are relatively simple and unaware, create collective awareness and a sense of I. But that sense of I is very precious and important. We are unique as individuals and I think that individuality should be preserved and cultivated. Merging with AI should be done carefully to maintain some level of individuality. I'm very different from when I was 10 for example but I do share memories, preferences and tendencies with that being and I feel we are somehow the same being. I think any uploading, merging with a hive mind or AI needs to be done gradually where the previous state is processed and absorbed by the new one to maintain a sort of continuity. A too quick transformation would be equivalent to death. Bees and ants are very interesting and indeed relevant to this discussion. But the critical thing for us, to transition to some level of hive mind, that I think is almost unavoidable for humans and artificial minds we will create, is to respect and protect the subunit individuality. This is not a problem for neurons or bees because they do not possess a high level of awareness but it would be a challenge in our case. Maybe a solution similar to "power rangers" or similar comic book plots where individuals merge temporarily to solve a challenge or task would work well. By the way I did some work in stimulating neurons with sounds during deep sleep when I was at Northwestern (I have a patent on this technology) and it is very fascinating to see the neurons respond to external stimuli and being able to affect high level brain functioning like memory for example. One of the things we found out in this research is that this stimulation cannot be similar to driving a mechanical machine, for example using a constant pulse.One has to do it in a closed loop to make it work. We used a Phase Locked Loop, where the brain rhythm is the master clock. Basically, we played back to the brain his own rhythms (using short bursts of pink noise) and gently moved it in a desired direction (for example enhancing low delta frequencies, that are good for deep sleep). In other words, even if we were trying to enhance brain function, we had to listen to intrinsic brain "wisdom" and let the system be guided by it. On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 8:53 AM Dave S via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 13, 2022 at 4:14 PM Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> [...] also I agree with Kurzweil that merging with AI eventually is the >> only solution to them replacing us eventually. >> > > Merging, as in adding AI at the individual level, or achieving some kind > of symbiosis, where we're still us/them but we work with each other? > > I think if humans could form effective superorganisms we could outcompete > AI unless they form superorganisms, too. Reading about honeybees in > Seeley's _Honeybee Democracy_ got me thinking about the power of the > superorganism. Individual bees are pretty stupid but a hive is capable of > making good decisions. > > -Dave > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 02:58:33 2022 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:58:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ben, I did, my apologies. Jason On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 3:14 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On 15/07/2022 20:02, Jason Resch wrote: > > I find it strange that you reject p-zombies but also reject the idea > > of conscious computer brain simulations. > > I'd find it strange as well (to say the least) if I did. I don't know > where you got that idea from, but I absolutely do not reject the idea of > conscious computer brain simulations. On the contrary, I think it's our > only real hope for long-term survival. > > I suspect you've got me confused with someone else. > > Ben > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 13:29:41 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 07:29:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks, Jason, for clarifying how you think on p-zombies and "conscious computer brain simulations." THIS is what I'm very interested in knowing. I want to know and track what everyone, especially transhumanists think about all this stuff. I think knowing and tracking what people currently think about this kind of stuff is critically important to society, and it's ability to progress and make correct value decisions. I also think that which you measure, improves. People are asking: "Who decides" who is conscious and all that. But it is each individual who decides, by living their life and making their choices based on these types of beliefs. The question isn't "who decides" the question is more "what does everyone decide?" That's why we're building and tracking consensus about what everyone thinks, in the Theories of Consciousness topic. And thanks Ben, for at least trying to understand and model what others think on this issue, and seeking clarification, when mistaken. So, Ben, if I may ask for some clarifica on exactly what you currently think about p-zombies and "conscious computer brain simulations." And I'd like to know what everyone thinks about p-zombies and "conscious computer brain simulations." First off, would you agree that consciousness is composed of elemental intrinsic qualities (I don't like the label 'qualia', though it is a label for the same thing) like redness, greenness, warmth, and so on. [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] In other words. The systems on the left represent red knowledge with something that has your redness quality, while the system on the right represents the same knowledge with an abstract word like 'red'. Would you consider the one on the right to be "conscious"? or would you consider the one on the right to be something like a 'p-zombie'? Note: by 'something like a p-zombie' I don't mean something that is atom for atom, the same as the one on the left, (as I think p-zombies are traditionally defined), which is absurd. I mean something that is very physically different though equally functional (they all can tell you the strawberry is red) but they do it in a very physically different and non conscious ways. The system on the right requires a dictionary to know what the word "redness" means, the two on the left don't require a dictionary, as their knowledge has that intrinsic redness quality. And THAT quality is their definition of the word redness. On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 8:59 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Hi Ben, > > I did, my apologies. > > Jason > > On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 3:14 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On 15/07/2022 20:02, Jason Resch wrote: >> > I find it strange that you reject p-zombies but also reject the idea >> > of conscious computer brain simulations. >> >> I'd find it strange as well (to say the least) if I did. I don't know >> where you got that idea from, but I absolutely do not reject the idea of >> conscious computer brain simulations. On the contrary, I think it's our >> only real hope for long-term survival. >> >> I suspect you've got me confused with someone else. >> >> Ben >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sparge at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 14:50:29 2022 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave S) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 10:50:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 4:24 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > Or are you thinking we wouldn't know, or be able to tell, that that's what > it was doing, so wouldn't be able to use that as an indication? > Right, unless it requires external access for research, which could be logged. Might be interesting to ask it a question and dig into how it came up with an answer. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 14:58:40 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 07:58:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 6:31 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > And I'd like to know what everyone thinks about p-zombies and "conscious > computer brain simulations." > > First off, would you agree that consciousness is composed of elemental > intrinsic qualities (I don't like the label 'qualia', though it is a label > for the same thing) like redness, greenness, warmth, and so on. > You asked for everyone's opinions, so... No I would not. Consciousness is a pattern. Things like redness might be part of it, but to say it is "composed of" them is to miss the higher order properties and possibly other elements. It would be like saying that water is composed of quarks (which make electrons, neutrons, and protons, which make atoms, which make molecules) and then trying to derive the melting point, freezing expansion, and other properties of water only from the properties of its quarks in isolation. This misses the properties that result from the quarks' interactions, not to mention the interactions of higher order units, where most of the interesting properties come from. Or it would be like saying that, because water is part of all known biological beings, to know how biology works it suffices to know how water works, and then struggling to identify how water eats, excretes, and reproduces. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 16:37:24 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 10:37:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Adrian, Yes, thanks so much, this is exactly the kind of information I'm interested in. I hope others will help communicate what they think about p-zombies and "conscious computer brain simulations?" We could go deeper into this, if you'd like, but this is a bit off the main thing I'm asking about p-zombies and "conscious computer brain simulations?" You said: "Things like redness might be part of it, " which says to me you would agree that, though the one on the right can "function" the same (as in can tell you the strawberry is red) you would not consider it to have the same kind of conscious knowledge as you, who knows the physical definition of redness, and would answer different than the one on the right, when asked: "What is redness like for you?" [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] Do you think redness can 'arise' from ones and zeros, as other functionalists evidently believe. I guess my question is, are you a functionalists , as I believe most transhumanists are ? On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 8:59 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022, 6:31 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> >> And I'd like to know what everyone thinks about p-zombies and "conscious >> computer brain simulations." >> >> First off, would you agree that consciousness is composed of elemental >> intrinsic qualities (I don't like the label 'qualia', though it is a label >> for the same thing) like redness, greenness, warmth, and so on. >> > > You asked for everyone's opinions, so... > > No I would not. Consciousness is a pattern. Things like redness might be > part of it, but to say it is "composed of" them is to miss the higher order > properties and possibly other elements. > > It would be like saying that water is composed of quarks (which make > electrons, neutrons, and protons, which make atoms, which make molecules) > and then trying to derive the melting point, freezing expansion, and other > properties of water only from the properties of its quarks in isolation. > This misses the properties that result from the quarks' interactions, not > to mention the interactions of higher order units, where most of the > interesting properties come from. > > Or it would be like saying that, because water is part of all known > biological beings, to know how biology works it suffices to know how water > works, and then struggling to identify how water eats, excretes, and > reproduces. > >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 17:27:55 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 10:27:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 9:39 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > We could go deeper into this, if you'd like, but this is a bit off the > main thing I'm asking about p-zombies and "conscious computer brain > simulations?" > Agreed. > You said: "Things like redness might be part of it, " which says to me > you would agree that, though the one on the right can "function" the same > (as in can tell you the strawberry is red) you would not consider it to > have the same kind of conscious knowledge as you, who knows the physical > definition of redness, and would answer different than the one on the > right, when asked: "What is redness like for you?" > I would consider it to have functionally the same kind of conscious knowledge until presented with evidence to the contrary. As someone who used to design a bunch of software APIs (and using the same idea in my current day job), I am quite aware of the concept of different things acting in fundamentally different ways but still amounting to the same thing as viewed from the outside. The fact that they are different and act in different ways is rendered utterly unimportant and uninteresting so long as they all abide by the same API. Language, and the other external inputs and outputs of consciousness, is similar to an API in this regard. Again I point to the historical context: it used to be that people of color were regarded as "obviously" non-conscious and therefore suitable for slavery. When treated as slaves, they acted as slaves. When freed but with no education, they acted as uneducated free people. And so on. Logically and academically, the point was never actually refuted (as there has been no way to absolutely prove or disprove it so far), but in practice this has become a non-issue and the point not seriously contested save in the most racist of enclaves (which are generally not interested in good faith debates, or sticking strictly to not-made-up facts). > Do you think redness can 'arise' from ones and zeros, as other > functionalists > > evidently believe. > I guess my question is, are you a functionalists > , > as I believe most transhumanists are ? > I hesitate to answer that, because there is a common trap - probably unintentional in your case, but I've seen far too many cases where this was intentional - where someone agrees that they are (label), and then someone else defines (label) with negative properties that the first person never agreed to or with but claims the first person said they are (label) so they don't get to say they don't have those negative properties. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 18:21:43 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 12:21:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Adrean, I agree with most everything you are saying, but you seem to be missing what I'm trying to focus on. On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:28 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 9:39 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> You said: "Things like redness might be part of it, " which says to me >> you would agree that, though the one on the right can "function" the same >> (as in can tell you the strawberry is red) you would not consider it to >> have the same kind of conscious knowledge as you, who knows the physical >> definition of redness, and would answer different than the one on the >> right, when asked: "What is redness like for you?" >> > > I would consider it to have functionally the same kind of conscious > knowledge until presented with evidence to the contrary. > [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] Surely you must admit that these 3 are all fundamentally different. IF redness could emerge from some set of 1s and 0s, or whatever "function" or "pattern" results in a redness experience, then you could do whatever that is, and engineer the one on the right, to use whatever that set of 1s and 0s are, which have the redness quality. and you could invert that to get the one in the middle. Then that one would answer the question of "what is redness like for you?" differently than the one, on the right. The critical issue I'm trying to get to is we have no physical description of what it is in the world that has all the colorness qualities we can experience. All we know are the colors things seem to be. People think there is a 'hard' problem of consciousness, that qualia are "ineffable' but it is just a color problem. All we are missing is the dictionary which says it is X, in the brain, that has the redness quality you represent knowledge of red things with. Another part is colorness qualities are a key part of the way we do consciousness. Consciousness computes directly on whatever it is, in the brain, (even if some function or pattern is what is responsible for redness) which has this quality. In my opinion, it is CRITICAL that people understand the importance of knowing the colorness qualities of physical things, not just the colorness qualities things seem to have. If we could have 10,000 people sign a petion, then not only would the experimentalists start to look for what it is, in the brain that has a redness quality, we would finally discover what it is. Once we discover that, it's going to falsify all the crap in the gap theories of consciousness (like functionalism and dualism, which seperate qualia from physical reality). And we could achieve a scientific consensus about consciousness, and how we not only know what is and isn't conscious, but we know what various conscious systems are like. I guess I"m asking you to either support the petition camp "Representational Qualia Theory" (hopefully, someday we'll have 10,000 supporters) or if you disagree, help us create and support a better competing camp. May the best camp achieve the most consensus. We need to know what consciousness not only is, but what it is like. our moral future, and how fast we get to things like mind uploading and brain augmentation, depends on it. > nfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 18:43:34 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 11:43:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:23 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I agree with most everything you are saying, but you seem to be missing > what I'm trying to focus on. > > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:28 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 9:39 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> You said: "Things like redness might be part of it, " which says to me >>> you would agree that, though the one on the right can "function" the same >>> (as in can tell you the strawberry is red) you would not consider it to >>> have the same kind of conscious knowledge as you, who knows the physical >>> definition of redness, and would answer different than the one on the >>> right, when asked: "What is redness like for you?" >>> >> >> I would consider it to have functionally the same kind of conscious >> knowledge until presented with evidence to the contrary. >> > [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] > > Surely you must admit that these 3 are all fundamentally different. > You miss my point. Are they different in a meaningful or interesting way, that there is reason to care about? The answer seems to be "no". > IF redness could emerge from some set of 1s and 0s, or whatever "function" > or "pattern" results in a redness experience, then you could do whatever > that is, and engineer the one on the right, to use whatever that set of 1s > and 0s are, which have the redness quality. and you could invert that to > get the one in the middle. Then that one would answer the question of > "what is redness like for you?" differently than the one, on the right. > Actually they might not. "What is redness like for you?" gets translated into language, at which point the exact same words might get used to define it even if they have different meanings, much like how the word "redness" itself has different meanings (per that illustration). > All we are missing is the dictionary which says it is X, in the brain, > that has the redness quality you represent knowledge of red things with. > Eh...that depends on how deep into the brain you mean. At the retina, we absolutely know which cells react to red-frequency light. Anything further in than that gets into how knowledge is represented in general, where "redness" does not necessarily exist as a discrete physical thing that is separable from everything else. > If we could have 10,000 people sign a petion > It would likely be ignored (beyond maybe invoking a few response statements, but instigating no serious effort), like almost all petitions are. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 20:32:22 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 14:32:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: OK, let me ask you this. Are you interested in finding out the colorness qualities of anything in physics? Not just the colerness qualities things seem to have? In my opinion, that is one of the most important completely unknown questions in physics today. Nobody knows the intrinsic colerness quality of anything. And of course, again, once we discover which of all our descriptions of physics in the brain is a description of redness, (it will falsify all the crap in the gap theories like substance dualism and functionalism) and result in a clear scientific consensus about not only what consciousness is, but an understanding of what consciousness is like. Along with that will be a near unanimous consensus that abstract systems, like the one on the right in the image, would not be considered to be conscious by anyone, with any reasonable intelligence. On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 12:44 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:23 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I agree with most everything you are saying, but you seem to be missing >> what I'm trying to focus on. >> >> On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 11:28 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 9:39 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >>> >>>> You said: "Things like redness might be part of it, " which says to me >>>> you would agree that, though the one on the right can "function" the same >>>> (as in can tell you the strawberry is red) you would not consider it to >>>> have the same kind of conscious knowledge as you, who knows the physical >>>> definition of redness, and would answer different than the one on the >>>> right, when asked: "What is redness like for you?" >>>> >>> >>> I would consider it to have functionally the same kind of conscious >>> knowledge until presented with evidence to the contrary. >>> >> [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] >> >> Surely you must admit that these 3 are all fundamentally different. >> > > You miss my point. Are they different in a meaningful or interesting way, > that there is reason to care about? The answer seems to be "no". > > >> IF redness could emerge from some set of 1s and 0s, or whatever >> "function" or "pattern" results in a redness experience, then you could do >> whatever that is, and engineer the one on the right, to use whatever that >> set of 1s and 0s are, which have the redness quality. and you could invert >> that to get the one in the middle. Then that one would answer the question >> of "what is redness like for you?" differently than the one, on the right. >> > > Actually they might not. "What is redness like for you?" gets translated > into language, at which point the exact same words might get used to define > it even if they have different meanings, much like how the word "redness" > itself has different meanings (per that illustration). > > >> All we are missing is the dictionary which says it is X, in the brain, >> that has the redness quality you represent knowledge of red things with. >> > > Eh...that depends on how deep into the brain you mean. At the retina, we > absolutely know which cells react to red-frequency light. Anything further > in than that gets into how knowledge is represented in general, where > "redness" does not necessarily exist as a discrete physical thing that is > separable from everything else. > > >> If we could have 10,000 people sign a petion >> > > It would likely be ignored (beyond maybe invoking a few response > statements, but instigating no serious effort), like almost all petitions > are. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 16 21:07:07 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 14:07:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 1:34 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > OK, let me ask you this. Are you interested in finding out the colorness > qualities of anything in physics? > Physics, or biophysics? If colorness is a quality of perception, then it isn't just about physics divorced from the biology of the observer. > And of course, again, once we discover which of all our descriptions of > physics in the brain is a description of redness, (it will falsify all the > crap in the gap theories like substance dualism and functionalism) and > result in a clear scientific consensus about not only what > consciousness is, but an understanding of what consciousness is like. > Along with that will be a near unanimous consensus that abstract systems, > like the one on the right in the image, would not be considered to be > conscious by anyone, with any reasonable intelligence. > That you are driving toward that conclusion tells me that you are probably incorrect. It seems quite possible that such an abstract system could be conscious in every meaningful way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 03:14:11 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 21:14:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 3:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 1:34 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> OK, let me ask you this. Are you interested in finding out the colorness >> qualities of anything in physics? >> > > Physics, or biophysics? If colorness is a quality of perception, then it > isn't just about physics divorced from the biology of the observer. > Are you saying redness is not the final result of perception of red things? And that your perception system doesn't render that surface of the 3D strawberry, into your consciousness, with whatever it is that has a redness quality? And what do you mean by "observer"? It sounds like you are talking about something other than the physics, or biophysics, or however you want to classify all the stuff in the brain, which is the cause of your redness experiences, and your computational situational awareness of the strawberry? > And of course, again, once we discover which of all our descriptions of >> physics in the brain is a description of redness, (it will falsify all the >> crap in the gap theories like substance dualism and functionalism) and >> result in a clear scientific consensus about not only what >> consciousness is, but an understanding of what consciousness is like. >> Along with that will be a near unanimous consensus that abstract systems, >> like the one on the right in the image, would not be considered to be >> conscious by anyone, with any reasonable intelligence. >> > > That you are driving toward that conclusion tells me that you are probably > incorrect. It seems quite possible that such an abstract system could be > conscious in every meaningful way. > Those are falsifiable claims. And this is how they will be falsified, I predict. 10 years from now. (5, if we got 10,000 signatories on the RQT camp this year, or one of its sub camps, even the crap in the gap ones like functionalism or substance dualism, which seperate redness from physical reality), then someone like Elon Musk finally gets the message (because of all the signatures) and finally realizes how to observe the brain in a non qualia blind way, and using the tools of neuralink, hacking the brain, demonstrate that NOBODY can experience redness without glutamate. (or pick your most likely whatever could be redness). Then 90% of all the supporters of the 'crap in the gap' theories realize their theory has been experimentally falsified by these demonstrations, and they jump camps to whichever one was best predicting these experimental results. (i.e. Molecular Materialism , if it is glutamate) And 90+ percent of the peer ranked mind experts , are now supporters of that camp, demonstrating the achievement of a clear scientific consensus. If not, how could your claims be falsified? If they aren't falsifiable, they aren't scientific, are they? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 03:38:08 2022 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 13:38:08 +1000 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Jul 2022 at 13:15, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 3:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 1:34 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> OK, let me ask you this. Are you interested in finding out the >>> colorness qualities of anything in physics? >>> >> >> Physics, or biophysics? If colorness is a quality of perception, then it >> isn't just about physics divorced from the biology of the observer. >> > > Are you saying redness is not the final result of perception of red > things? And that your perception system doesn't render that surface of the > 3D strawberry, into your consciousness, with whatever it is that has a > redness quality? > > And what do you mean by "observer"? It sounds like you are talking about > something other than the physics, or biophysics, or however you want to > classify all the stuff in the brain, which is the cause of your redness > experiences, and your computational situational awareness of the strawberry? > > >> And of course, again, once we discover which of all our descriptions of >>> physics in the brain is a description of redness, (it will falsify all the >>> crap in the gap theories like substance dualism and functionalism) and >>> result in a clear scientific consensus about not only what >>> consciousness is, but an understanding of what consciousness is like. >>> Along with that will be a near unanimous consensus that abstract systems, >>> like the one on the right in the image, would not be considered to be >>> conscious by anyone, with any reasonable intelligence. >>> >> >> That you are driving toward that conclusion tells me that you are >> probably incorrect. It seems quite possible that such an abstract system >> could be conscious in every meaningful way. >> > > Those are falsifiable claims. And this is how they will be falsified, I > predict. > > 10 years from now. (5, if we got 10,000 signatories on the RQT > > camp this year, or one of its sub camps, even the crap in the gap ones like > functionalism or substance dualism, which seperate redness from physical > reality), then someone like Elon Musk finally gets the message (because of > all the signatures) and finally realizes how to observe the brain in a non > qualia blind way, and using the tools of neuralink, hacking the brain, > demonstrate that NOBODY can experience redness without glutamate. > How could this ever be demonstrated? In future, there might be some new technology that replaces glutamate, or even if there isn?t, it is conceivable that there might be. All it takes to disprove ?nobody can experience redness without glutamate? as a philosophical proposition is the logical possibility. (or pick your most likely whatever could be redness). Then 90% of all the > supporters of the 'crap in the gap' theories realize their theory has been > experimentally falsified by these demonstrations, and they jump camps to > whichever one was best predicting these experimental results. (i.e. > Molecular Materialism > , > if it is glutamate) And 90+ percent of the peer ranked mind experts > , are now supporters of > that camp, demonstrating the achievement of a clear scientific consensus. > > If not, how could your claims be falsified? If they aren't falsifiable, > they aren't scientific, are they? > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 04:51:11 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 21:51:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 8:14 PM Brent Allsop wrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 3:08 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 1:34 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> OK, let me ask you this. Are you interested in finding out the >>> colorness qualities of anything in physics? >>> >> >> Physics, or biophysics? If colorness is a quality of perception, then it >> isn't just about physics divorced from the biology of the observer. >> > > Are you saying redness is not the final result of perception of red things? > I would normally have trouble believing that such a non sequitur was made in good faith. In this case I'm willing to believe it was. The literal answer is: no, that is not what I was saying there. (Though it can be a true statement. If the perception of red things causes redness which then causes some action to be taken, then by definition, redness is not the final result since some action was taken as a consequence of the redness.) > And that your perception system doesn't render that surface of the 3D > strawberry, into your consciousness, with whatever it is that has a redness > quality? > This is closer, but still not what I was saying. But note that even you call it "your perception system". This is by definition more complex than simple physics. And of course, again, once we discover which of all our descriptions of >>> physics in the brain is a description of redness, (it will falsify all the >>> crap in the gap theories like substance dualism and functionalism) and >>> result in a clear scientific consensus about not only what >>> consciousness is, but an understanding of what consciousness is like. >>> Along with that will be a near unanimous consensus that abstract systems, >>> like the one on the right in the image, would not be considered to be >>> conscious by anyone, with any reasonable intelligence. >>> >> >> That you are driving toward that conclusion tells me that you are >> probably incorrect. It seems quite possible that such an abstract system >> could be conscious in every meaningful way. >> > > Those are falsifiable claims. > Actually, they might not be. They are predictions of a future state. So long as those states have yet to come to pass, and have not been rendered impossible, the claims are not falsifiable. If objective measurements of consciousness remain as impossible as they are today, then it seems unlikely that either falsifiable condition will come to pass. > And this is how they will be falsified, I predict. > > 10 years from now. (5, if we got 10,000 signatories on the RQT > > camp this year, or one of its sub camps, even the crap in the gap ones like > functionalism or substance dualism, which seperate redness from physical > reality), then someone like Elon Musk finally gets the message (because of > all the signatures) > Many petitions like this have been attempted. Even among those that got at least 10,000 signatures, how many resulted in significant action (as opposed to mere letters and speeches with little more content than to simply acknowledge the petition) that would not have happened without the petitions? My data is anecdotal, but the examples I am aware of have had a 0% success rate. > and finally realizes how to observe the brain in a non qualia blind way, > and using the tools of neuralink, hacking the brain, demonstrate that > NOBODY can experience redness without glutamate. (or pick your most likely > whatever could be redness). > >From what I know of neural architecture, this conclusion appears to be false. Memory architecture must be internally consistent, but there is nothing requiring it to be the same from person to person. Even if it were true, it would only be true of human brains, or perhaps of biological ones. It would say nothing about the ability of AI running on silicon and metal to potentially experience redness. > If not, how could your claims be falsified? > My claim, to be clear, is not that consciousness is non-substrate-dependent, but that the evidence is consistent with consciousness being non-substrate-dependent. Consciousness is, from our current tool set, like God: people can claim that various things are or are not conscious and this is not a falsifiable claim. (Again I bring up the historical example, where classes of people were once - to justify their slavery - considered non-conscious, yet most people these days consider those same classes of people to be conscious.) It is possible that this will always be so. What is in evidence, however, is how people react when they are treated as conscious vs. when they are treated as non-conscious. The former results in people less likely to be hostile (as they are more likely to see others as willing to negotiate, and to converse with them in good faith), more likely to take care of themselves, and more likely to contribute positively toward society. The former also act like they are conscious more often, simply by being presented with the assumption that they are conscious. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 05:10:23 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2022 23:10:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 9:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, 17 Jul 2022 at 13:15, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> Those are falsifiable claims. And this is how they will be falsified, I >> predict. >> >> 10 years from now. (5, if we got 10,000 signatories on the RQT >> >> camp this year, or one of its sub camps, even the crap in the gap ones like >> functionalism or substance dualism, which seperate redness from physical >> reality), then someone like Elon Musk finally gets the message (because of >> all the signatures) and finally realizes how to observe the brain in a non >> qualia blind way, and using the tools of neuralink, hacking the brain, >> demonstrate that NOBODY can experience redness without glutamate. >> > > How could this ever be demonstrated? In future, there might be some new > technology that replaces glutamate, or even if there isn?t, it is > conceivable that there might be. All it takes to disprove ?nobody can > experience redness without glutamate? as a philosophical proposition is the > logical possibility. > And this is how I predict Stathis, along with all other functionalists, will be convinced. Part of the discovery of what redness is, will include how redness can be computationally bound into one unified composite conscious experience made of patches of both redness and greenness (and how this kind of computation is very substrate dependent), running directly on those physical qualities, which we will be able to directly apprehend. And it will be completely obvious, that this is a completely different computational paradigm, than the discrete logic gates, used today, on which the functionalists' so called substitution argument depends. And I predict that this method of computational binding will be far more efficient at vastly parallel computational binding than today's discrete logic CPUs. And this will revolutionize the way AI is built. to say nothing of integration of this kind of AI with brains, while discrete logic can't be integrated with consciousness. AND, part of it will be functionalists, with this new understanding of how computational binding is achieved, will, like the physicists trying to verify Orch OR , will make many attempts to try to create a redness experience in some kind of "substrate independent way". Alas, this will be demonstrated to be impossible in a much more compelling way than the Orc OR theories were falsified . And these demonstrations will also put the nail in all other theories, including any remaining Orch OR holdouts, still hoping Orch OR hasn't yet been fully falsified. In other words, nobody will ever be able to computationally bind an experience of redness into consciousness, without glutamate (or whatever it is that has a redness quality), and the understanding of how all this computational binding works will make this completely obvious to anyone who understand the difference between this method of computational directly (and dependent) on physical qualities and discrete logic gates that compute, abstractly. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 21:45:24 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 15:45:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There must be something I'm not yet understanding of what you are saying. But let's focus on this, for now. On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 10:52 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > My claim, to be clear, is not that consciousness is > non-substrate-dependent, but that the evidence is consistent with > consciousness being non-substrate-dependent. > Perhaps we are talking about different things. It is true, that the function of telling someone something is red can be achieved in a substrate independent way (if you have dictionaries), as illustrated in the image: [image: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png] This seems to be what you are talking about. I am talking about something different. I am talking about the qualities of your knowledge. The quality of your redness, and your greenness, is what your conscious knowledge is like. The quality of your conscious knowledge is dependent on those particular qualities. If you engineered them to use a different substrate, as is the case in the second system in the image, it would be qualitatively different. So, which one you are, is dependent on the particular qualities being used. if you are the second one (or the third one) you are not like the first one. As I pointed out to Stathis, this cannot be denied, so you must be talking about something different than what I'm talking about, when you say "the evidence is consistent with consciousness being non-substrate-dependent" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3_functionally_equal_machines_tiny.png Type: image/png Size: 26214 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 23:27:54 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 16:27:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 2:47 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I am talking about the qualities of your knowledge. The quality of your > redness, and your greenness, is what your conscious knowledge is like. > ...is what the components are like, but not the whole. > The quality of your conscious knowledge is dependent on those particular > qualities. > This is not the case. It emerges from them, perhaps, but the exact same pattern can emerge from different elements. For instance, let us say that the pattern of chemicals and energy states I use to encode greenness is the same one you use to encode redness and vice versa, and that there is some robot that encodes redness and greenness using electrical signals on silicon-based memory. In all three cases there exists a memory state that encodes redness, and it performs this function to the same degree despite being three different physical processes. I suspect this is the example your illustration is trying to posit. Crucially, in all three cases, "redness" is encoded. It is encoded in different ways, but the same thing is being encoded. If it wasn't, there would be no point in making the comparison. The same quality is recorded, yielding the same potential reactions. (In practice the reactions will differ since everyone has a different setup, but if in theory you had the exact same brain just with redness's and greenness's physical representations switched, it would have the same output for the same input.) The quality of the conscious knowledge is that a thing is red. It is not how the redness is actually encoded. The conscious knowledge is a pattern formed by such subunits, and would go away if the subunits vanished, but it itself is not those subunits. > As I pointed out to Stathis, this cannot be denied > It can be and is being denied. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 17 23:37:52 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 18:37:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] messenger Message-ID: For no apparent reason messages from facebook are appearing in the lower right corner of my screen. I would like to know how to turn them off. Thanks! bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 18 01:37:54 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 19:37:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Adrian, On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 5:29 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > I suspect this is the example your illustration is trying to posit. > Exactly. I completely agree. All three of the systems can tell you the strawberry is "red". That is what you are talking about. I'm talking about something different. I want to know the intrinsic qualities of things in nature, not just the coolness qualities things seem to have. I want to know the specific intrinsic qualities of your knowledge of red things, and how they are, or aren't different from mine. You don't seem to care about knowing the intrinsic colorness qualities in nature. I'd like to better understand physical reality and what it is like, and how computation directly on those intrinsic qualities is different from abstract computation. You seem to not care about this. As I pointed out to Stathis, this cannot be denied >> > > It can be and is being denied. > So you think Descartes was wrong when he said: "I think, therefore I am." And you think the quality of your experience of that pencil, may have some other quality than your yellowness? Can I ask you what other colorness quality your knowledge of that pencil may have? And how would you know that it isn't your yellowness quality? And may I ask if it isn't your knowledge that has the yellowness quality you experience, what is it that does have the yellowness quality you do experience? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 18 05:40:37 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 22:40:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 6:39 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 5:29 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> I suspect this is the example your illustration is trying to posit. >> > > Exactly. I completely agree. All three of the systems can tell you the > strawberry is "red". That is what you are talking about. > I'm talking about something different. I want to know the intrinsic > qualities of things in nature, not just the coolness qualities things seem > to have. I want to know the specific intrinsic qualities of your > knowledge of red things, and how they are, or aren't different from mine. > You don't seem to care about knowing the intrinsic colorness qualities in > nature. I'd like to better understand physical reality and what it is > like, and how computation directly on those intrinsic qualities is > different from abstract computation. You seem to not care about this. > This seems to be mostly correct. What this misses is that you declare that, because a certain abstract computation (consciousness) can be achieved in one set of physical ways, those are the only ways it can ever be achieved. I do not make that assumption, as I have seen too many cases where that assumption would have proven incorrect, and I see no evidence to suggest that it is any different for consciousness. > As I pointed out to Stathis, this cannot be denied >>> >> >> It can be and is being denied. >> > > So you think Descartes was wrong when he said: "I think, therefore I am." > That is not what I think, and that is not a conclusion that logically follows from what I said. > And you think the quality of your experience of that pencil, may have some > other quality than your yellowness? > Can I ask you what other colorness quality your knowledge of that pencil > may have? And how would you know that it isn't your yellowness quality? > And may I ask if it isn't your knowledge that has the yellowness quality > you experience, what is it that does have the yellowness quality you do > experience? > I know what you mean here, but considering that I was recently looking at a purple mechanical pencil, my experience of it did indeed have a quality other than my yellowness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 18 16:16:31 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2022 10:16:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 11:42 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 6:39 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat < > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > >> On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 5:29 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat < >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: >> >>> I suspect this is the example your illustration is trying to posit. >>> >> >> Exactly. I completely agree. All three of the systems can tell you the >> strawberry is "red". That is what you are talking about. >> I'm talking about something different. I want to know the intrinsic >> qualities of things in nature, not just the coolness qualities things seem >> to have. I want to know the specific intrinsic qualities of your >> knowledge of red things, and how they are, or aren't different from mine. >> You don't seem to care about knowing the intrinsic colorness qualities in >> nature. I'd like to better understand physical reality and what it is >> like, and how computation directly on those intrinsic qualities is >> different from abstract computation. You seem to not care about this. >> > > This seems to be mostly correct. > So, have we accomplished something meaningful with this great conversation? Have I peaked your interest, at least a bit, to want to know which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of redness? If so, are you willing to sign the petition camp (Or one of its sub camps like mind brain identity [want to point out out the competing substance dualism isn't a good camp]), with the goal of communicating to everyone that we don't yet know the colorness qualities of anything, even if you think petitions aren't worth anything? And that consciousness is not a "hard problem" but just a colorness problem. I think we have accomplished something great with this conversation, and I'd like to track this progress towards an understanding of how everyone currently thinks about consciousness. But I need at least a bit of help from others, willing to make a bit of an effort to communicate the results of conversations like this, so that others can benefit from all of our hard work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Jul 19 06:33:25 2022 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2022 08:33:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Don't miss the Terasem Space Day Colloquium on July 20! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Friends, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow July 20 at 10am ET. This promises to be an epic event! Agenda and Zoom access coordinates: https://turingchurch.net/terasem-space-day-colloquium-july-20-2022-bda45ffb0ea6 CLICK HERE to join the Zoom meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82445979923?pwd=eWhpY2dMUUVyblZaTjhHdHdZOFVZZz09 Meeting ID: 824 4597 9923 Passcode: 770541 On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 10:23 AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > Don't miss the Terasem Space Day Colloquium on July 20!Cultural, > philosophical, and spiritual aspects of spaceflight and space expansion. > Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler. > > You are invited to attend the Terasem Space Day Colloquium > > next Wednesday, July 20, from 10am ET to 1pm ET, via Zoom. > > Turing Church is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and > support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. > > Subscribe now > > [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco > Mark your calendar! Terasem Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022. Cultural, > philosophical and spiritual aspects of spaceflight. Rick Tumlinson, > Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler. > Terasem > Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022Cultural, philosophical and spiritual > aspects of spaceflight. Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, > Frank White, Frank Tipler.turingchurch.net > > > June 1st 2022 > 1 Retweet3 Likes > > > I look forward to seeing you on July 20 at the Terasem Space Day! > > Zoom access coordinates: > > *CLICK HERE > > to join the Zoom meeting* > Meeting ID: 824 4597 9923 > Passcode: 770541 > > I hope a special girl will be in the audience and listen to both her > parents speak on our future in space! > > Share > > > We didn?t assign topics to the speakers but asked them to talk about what > they think needs saying, today, about the cultural, philosophical, and > spiritual aspects of spaceflight and space expansion. So I don?t know what > they?ll choose to talk about. I hope they will talk about my favorite > aspects of their work, which are: > ------------------------------ > > Rick Tumlinson > > is a legendary space activist and a co-founder of the Space Frontier > Foundation . He > wrote most of the ?Frontier Files? - a series of e-mails that the > Foundation sent out in 1995 to a select list of space activists. The series > generated great interest. > > ?Rick philosophized on the prospect of humans in space in such a dramatic > way that it affected me for life,? says Elaine Walker in her book (see > below). ?I became immersed in the pro-space movement, as we called it then. > The same crowd now calls it the ?new-space? movement.? > > The ?Frontier Files? don?t seem to be available online but backup copies > like this one > > can be found via the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive. I downloaded > a copy in case these historic documents disappear from the internet for > good. > > My favorite is Message 15, contributed by Arthur Clarke no less: > > ?Nuclear Scientists at Harwell have discovered the heaviest element in the > Universe, which they have named Bureaucratium. This extraordinary element > has no protons or electrons, and its atomic number is zero. What it does > have is one neutron, eight assistant neutrons, ten executive neutrons, 35 > vice-neutrons and 256 assistant vice-neutrons. These particles are held > together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like > particles called 'morons'. Bureaucratium is completely inert but can be > detected since it impedes every reaction it comes into contact with.? > > This summarizes the libertarian spirit of spaceflight and space expansion > promoted by the Space Frontier Foundation. > > Rick?s talk will be titled ?The Orphans of Apollo Grow Up.? We have done > it all wrong after Apollo, but what happens if we do it right? > ------------------------------ > > Riccardo Campa > is > a professor of sociology and the founder of the Italian Transhumanist > Association . > > Riccardo has recently written academic papers on the sociological and > spiritual aspects of spaceflight, including ?The sociology of lunar > settlement ? (in the book > ?*The Human Factor in the Settlement of the Moon: An Interdisciplinary > Approach ,*? > published by Springer), ?A Theory of the Merging Noospheres: Teilhard and > Big History ? and ?Expanding > Ecotheology to Embrace the Earth-Moon System > ,? published in *Theology > and Science*. > > Riccardo is the author of many books. My favorite one, titled ?*Trattato > di Filosofia Futurista > *? > (?*A Treatise on Futurist Philosophy*?), analyzes the philosophical > aspects of Italian futurism, a movement related to transhumanism and > Russian cosmism. The full text of the book is available here > . > See my review > > . > > From my spaceflight book > : > > The Italian futurists? were enthusiastic fans of aviation and early ideas > of spaceflight. Today, they would be enthusiastic fans of spaceflight. > > I think today?s sedate Western culture could use an injection of vitality, > and I stand with Marinetti on the summit of the world to ?fling our > challenge to the stars.? > > In Campa?s words (my translation): ?Marinetti and the futurists set > themselves objectives like, no less, ?to challenge the stars?, ?to ascend > to the sky?, ?to reconstruct the universe?, ?to create the mechanical man > with interchangeable parts??? > > I think transhumanism, Italian futurism, and Russian cosmism are a > powerful philosophical foundation for humanity?s expansion into space. > > In ?A Theory of the Merging Noospheres: Teilhard and Big History > ,? co-authored by > Christopher Corbally and Margaret Boone Rappaport and published in *Theology > and Science*, Riccardo proposes a modern interpretation of Teilhard > . Perhaps ?we > are destined by contact with other thinking planets, across the abysses of > space and time, some day to become integrated within an organized complex > composed of a number of Noospheres.? In late writings, Riccardo explains, > Teilhard considered this as the most plausible hypothesis for the future of > humanity. > ------------------------------ > > Elaine Walker > is > an electronic musician and a long time space activist. See this 2005 > profile in space.com > : > > ?what could be more suitable to accompany the technology driven pro-space > movement than technology driven music? Elaine Walker is an artist and > musician who feels this way. The pro-space movement is also a social > movement. As engineers and entrepreneurs are building hardware and carving > out new markets, pro-space advocates are promoting a new outlook for > humanity on a social level. Pro-spacers are forever finding creative ways > to promote the idea of a spacefaring civilization with outreach projects, > magazines, local chapters, lobbying campaigns, books, art and even music.? > > Art has a unique potential to create support for spaceflight and space > expansion. I think the work of artists is equally important as (and perhaps > even more important at this moment than) the work of engineers, scientists > and entrepreneurs. We urgently need to make space sexy again and make the > public fall in love with space again, and only artists can do that. > > Elaine is the author of a nonfiction physics/philosophy book, ?*Matter > Over Mind: Cosmos, Chaos, and Curiosity > *.? > Matter and mind are parts of one physical reality that doesn?t necessarily > require mind/matter dualism and/or a creator God. The world is > deterministic but not predetermined. I have reservations on some of > Elaine?s ideas, but her book is most certainly a great book and a page > turner. > > In the book she comes out as a pro-tech, pro-space libertarian and tells > the story of how she became a futurist philosopher and a space activist, > citing the Extropians and Tumlinson?s ?Frontier Files? among her main > influences. > ------------------------------ > > Frank White > > coined the term ?Overview Effect > ? to describe the powerful > mind-changing and life-changing impact of seeing the Earth from space. > [image: Twitter avatar for @JPMajor]Jason Major @JPMajor > This is the first photo of an "Earthrise" captured by humans from lunar > orbit: AS08-13-2329, taken by Apollo 8 LMP Bill Anders on December 24, 1968 > (crop of the original). After taking it Bill asked for a roll of color > film. > [image: Image] > > > July 8th 2022 > 70 Retweets394 Likes > > > Fred Hoyle noted that the Earthrise pictures > taken by Apollo 8 astronauts > during their 1968 mission around the Moon stimulated awareness of the need > to protect the Earth?s natural environment. ?It seems to me more than a > coincidence that this awareness should have happened at exactly the moment > man took his first step into space,? he said. > > Frank wrote a series of books starting with the seminal and very > infuential ?*The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution > *? > (first published in 1987). > > In ?*The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect > *? (2018), Frank explores > a higher level Overview Effect related not only to the Earth but to the > whole universe. He says: > > ?[We need] to think about how our exploration of space, or evolution into > the universe, (as I prefer to say) would benefit the universe as a whole ? > we need a more complete perspective, yet another ?Overview,? if you will.? > > From my spaceflight book > : > > Frank White extends James Lovelock?s concept of Gaia, the living Earth, to > the whole universe. The universe itself will become a living whole and we > are ?actively encouraged by larger forces? to expand beyond the Earth and > ?help the universe become increasingly self-aware? ? According to Frank > White we will create, or become part of, the universal mind. > > ------------------------------ > > Frank Tipler > > is the physicist who dared to suggest that our descendants will take over > the universe, remake it over and over, build eternity, and use their > God-like powers to resurrect everyone who ever lived. > > I have reservations on some of Frank?s ideas, e.g. his conviction that we > essentially already know all the physics we need to talk about these > things. But this doesn?t diminish the extreme importance of his work, which > is not always appreciated as it should be. Frank says, loud and clear, that > God (or something so God-like that the name God is appropriate) comes to > being in the far future of the universe, and we are part of the process. > > More and more scientists are saying similar things, including Nobel Prize > winners: > > ?God is under construction.? - Frank Wilczek > > [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco > ?Wilczek grinned as he remarked that ?God is under construction,? as we > gain knowledge and have opportunities to actively shape the world.? > ?God is > Under Construction? | The Playful Spirit of Dr. Frank Wilczek - John > Templeton Foundationtempleton.org > > > July 9th 2022 > 1 Like > > [image: Twitter avatar for @giulioprisco]Giulio Prisco @giulioprisco > "God is not only the world as it is, but the world as it should be. So, to > me, God is under construction. My concept of God is really based on what I > learn about the nature of reality." @FrankWilczek could you say more on > this? Q&A: > Talking God, science and religion with theoretical physicist Frank WilczekAs > a theoretical physicist, Wilczek has been peeking under the hood of our > perceived reality for more than 50 years now.latimes.com > > > July 10th 2022 > > > I guess Wilczek doesn?t mean this in a strong literal sense, but this is > too good a quote to miss! > > The concept is also found in Terasem, e.g.: > > ?4.1.4 - Terasem becomes omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient when it > encompasses all consciousness and enough multiverse.? (source > ) > > Frank Tipler participated in the first Terasem event > on July > 20, 2005 (video ). The > chapter ?Omega Point: Frank Tipler?s physics of immortality and > Christianity? in my book ?*Tales of the Turing Church > *? is entirely > dedicated to his ideas. See also my 2016 video interview > with him. Frank sits on the Academic > Advisory Council of > the Christian Transhumanist Association > . > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 19 20:26:10 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2022 21:26:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How JWST first image beats Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Message-ID: With its very first deep-field view of the Universe now released, the James Webb Space Telescope has shown us our cosmos as never before. Prior to JWST?s first science release, the deepest view of our cosmos came from the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field: a region of space so small it takes up just 1/32,000,000th of the sky. Within it, 5500 galaxies were found, spanning almost the entire history of the Universe: from just 400 million years after the Big Bang until today, or from when the Universe was merely 3% of its current age all the way to its present state. That image, below, represented the deepest view of the Universe for a full decade. But by simply using its suite of instruments to observe a run-of-the-mill galaxy cluster, SMACS 0723, the JWST has shown us the Universe as we?ve never seen it before. Here?s the science behind the image, along with precisely what gives us such an unprecedented view. _______________ What a modern wonder of technology! BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 20 14:03:54 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2022 15:03:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks Message-ID: There is a huge industry involved in mobile phone location tracking. Mostly selling the data for advertising purposes. But governments, police and three letter agencies are also involved. There appear to be no restrictions on government or official tracking of mobile phones. You can try to turn off location tracking, but almost every app will request access to your location. Not just GPS routing or mapping apps. Even if turned off your approximate location can be tracked by the mobile stations used to access the network. You may be at risk if you are recorded as visiting some locations, such as abortion clinics, demonstrations, drug dealing locations, etc. Even just being near to where a crime was committed can get you investigated by the police as the police are allowed to request a list from the phone companies of all the devices in the area around the time of the crime. It is an interesting question whether government use of location tracking is forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, which is intended to protect citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Wed Jul 20 17:36:09 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2022 10:36:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008101d89c5f$3325a180$9970e480$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks >...There is a huge industry involved in mobile phone location tracking. ... >...It is an interesting question whether government use of location tracking is forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, which is intended to protect citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. BillK _______________________________________________ Hi BillK, thanks for that. Cell phones have been in the constitutional gray area ever since they came about. Strict constitutionalists have split both ways on it, and I myself have gone 360 at least 4 times over the past two decades. When one is a strict constitutionalist, as I am, that means strict. Since the constitution predated cell phones (and abortion) it doesn't specifically give the federal government the authority to rule on those areas (by my reasoning.) A strict constitutionalist would argue that this would be a state government call, if that state writes into its constitution the right to look at cell phone data. The way I would go is to consider cell phone tracking as metadata, which is analogous to the address on an envelope you drop off at the post office. Secure in houses and letters means the federal government is allowed to note if you are writing letters to commies for instance, but may not legally open and read the letters. This is how I interpret that "secure in houses and letter" clause. Your cell phone location is metadata, so I would say from a strict constitutionalist POV, the fed is allowed to collect it or buy it, but not to listen to the conversations. I am open to suggestion and counter-argument on that point. Naturally yanks have grown quite distrustful of our FBI considering recent events, and I don't like their collecting location info, but as far as I can tell, it is constitutionally legal. spike From dsunley at gmail.com Wed Jul 20 17:51:43 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2022 11:51:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks In-Reply-To: <008101d89c5f$3325a180$9970e480$@rainier66.com> References: <008101d89c5f$3325a180$9970e480$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Pessimistic futurists have long predicted that everybody would be required to wear government tracking devices 24/7. But in none of their darkest nightmares did any of them predict we'd happily pay hundreds of dollars every few years for the devices themselves, and dozens of dollars a month to keep them activated. This is indeed a disturbing timeline. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/listening On Wed, Jul 20, 2022 at 11:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks > > >...There is a huge industry involved in mobile phone location tracking. > ... > > >...It is an interesting question whether government use of location > tracking is forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, which is intended to protect > citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. BillK > _______________________________________________ > > > > Hi BillK, thanks for that. Cell phones have been in the constitutional > gray > area ever since they came about. Strict constitutionalists have split both > ways on it, and I myself have gone 360 at least 4 times over the past two > decades. > > When one is a strict constitutionalist, as I am, that means strict. Since > the constitution predated cell phones (and abortion) it doesn't > specifically > give the federal government the authority to rule on those areas (by my > reasoning.) A strict constitutionalist would argue that this would be a > state government call, if that state writes into its constitution the right > to look at cell phone data. > > The way I would go is to consider cell phone tracking as metadata, which is > analogous to the address on an envelope you drop off at the post office. > Secure in houses and letters means the federal government is allowed to > note > if you are writing letters to commies for instance, but may not legally > open > and read the letters. This is how I interpret that "secure in houses and > letter" clause. Your cell phone location is metadata, so I would say from > a > strict constitutionalist POV, the fed is allowed to collect it or buy it, > but not to listen to the conversations. > > I am open to suggestion and counter-argument on that point. Naturally > yanks > have grown quite distrustful of our FBI considering recent events, and I > don't like their collecting location info, but as far as I can tell, it is > constitutionally legal. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 20 18:16:33 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:16:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Location Tracking Risks In-Reply-To: <008101d89c5f$3325a180$9970e480$@rainier66.com> References: <008101d89c5f$3325a180$9970e480$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 20 Jul 2022 at 18:38, spike jones via extropy-chat wrote: > > Hi BillK, thanks for that. Cell phones have been in the constitutional gray > area ever since they came about. Strict constitutionalists have split both > ways on it, and I myself have gone 360 at least 4 times over the past two > decades. > > When one is a strict constitutionalist, as I am, that means strict. Since > the constitution predated cell phones (and abortion) it doesn't specifically > give the federal government the authority to rule on those areas (by my > reasoning.) A strict constitutionalist would argue that this would be a > state government call, if that state writes into its constitution the right > to look at cell phone data. > > The way I would go is to consider cell phone tracking as metadata, which is > analogous to the address on an envelope you drop off at the post office. > Secure in houses and letters means the federal government is allowed to note > if you are writing letters to commies for instance, but may not legally open > and read the letters. This is how I interpret that "secure in houses and > letter" clause. Your cell phone location is metadata, so I would say from a > strict constitutionalist POV, the fed is allowed to collect it or buy it, > but not to listen to the conversations. > > I am open to suggestion and counter-argument on that point. Naturally yanks > have grown quite distrustful of our FBI considering recent events, and I > don't like their collecting location info, but as far as I can tell, it is > constitutionally legal. > > spike > _______________________________________________ Back when the Constitution was agreed, they would probably have been quite agreeable to the notion that a suspicious criminal person could be followed by undercover police and notes taken of places they visited, who was present there and any events that happened. But would they have agreed that this would be done for every citizen, whether suspicious character or not? Obviously not physically possible at that time, but now it is possible. I doubt very much that they would have thought that watching and recording every citizen activity would be a good idea. That makes everyone into a suspected criminal, except that most haven't yet committed a crime. BillK BillK From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jul 23 06:51:27 2022 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 08:51:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] VIDEO - Terasem Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022 Message-ID: VIDEO - Terasem Space Day Colloquium, July 20, 2022. Cultural, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of spaceflight and space expansion. Rick Tumlinson, Riccardo Campa, Elaine Walker, Frank White, Frank Tipler. https://www.turingchurch.com/p/video-terasem-space-day-colloquium -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 23 10:47:46 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 11:47:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Google AI engineer Lemoine has been fired Message-ID: Blake Lemoine, an engineer who's spent the last seven years with Google, has been fired, reports Alex Kantrowitz of the Big Technology newsletter. The news was allegedly broken by Lemoine himself during a taping of the podcast of the same name, though the episode is not yet public. Google confirmed the firing to Engadget. Quote from Google:: As we share in our AI Principles, we take the development of AI very seriously and remain committed to responsible innovation. LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible development. If an employee shares concerns about our work, as Blake did, we review them extensively. We found Blake?s claims that LaMDA is sentient to be wholly unfounded and worked to clarify that with him for many months. These discussions were part of the open culture that helps us innovate responsibly. ---------------- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 23 22:18:34 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:18:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] images Message-ID: You start with an image on your laptop. You end with a picture on your wall. If this can be done, how? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dsunley at gmail.com Sat Jul 23 22:24:06 2022 From: dsunley at gmail.com (Darin Sunley) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 16:24:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] images In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: https://www.office.fedex.com/default/canvas-prints.html On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 4:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You start with an image on your laptop. You end with a picture on your > wall. > > If this can be done, how? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jul 23 22:27:22 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 15:27:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] images In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Do you mean a physical image on a physical wall? If so, there are several ways, all generally categorized under "print". The simplest is to open the image in most anything that'll open it - an image editor, a Web browser, whatever - and select that software's Print function. This requires that the computer have been configured with a printer that it can access. Alternately, you can copy the image to a flash drive and take it to a print shop, e.g. Kinko's. There you can access computer that have been set up with printers (as above), or purchase more specialty services if you want a bigger or fancier physical picture. These specialty services generally work the same way, but with bigger and/or fancier equipment run by people whose job it is to do this sort of thing. On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 3:20 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > You start with an image on your laptop. You end with a picture on your > wall. > > If this can be done, how? > > bill w > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 23 22:50:11 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2022 15:50:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] images In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006b01d89ee6$91654730$b42fd590$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Sent: Saturday, 23 July, 2022 3:19 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: William Flynn Wallace Subject: [ExI] images You start with an image on your laptop. You end with a picture on your wall. If this can be done, how? bill w If you want exactly one copy and you have the .pdf, this is good. If not, take a screen snap using Alt PrtScreen, save it as a .pdf then make arrangements with Walmart to make a print of it on photo paper in the size you specify. You can do it all by mail (email to them, snail mail to return your print.) Alternative, some Staples and Office Depo retailers have high-quality photo printing equipment and will do this kind of thing at a reasonable cost. I ended up going an alternative route: I bought photo paper and make the prints at home on an inkjet printer. If you have a good .pdf the product is acceptable. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Jul 25 02:23:09 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2022 19:23:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger Message-ID: <20220724192309.Horde.lKfoJBfPatcU9SVv-xCmedl@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> Hey Spike. This made me think of you. :) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-grabs-and-breaks-finger-of-seven-year-old-opponent-moscow AT first I thought the robot mistook the kids finger for a chess piece. But then it refused to let go so who knows? Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 25 03:45:13 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2022 20:45:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger In-Reply-To: <20220724192309.Horde.lKfoJBfPatcU9SVv-xCmedl@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20220724192309.Horde.lKfoJBfPatcU9SVv-xCmedl@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <001201d89fd8$f3912e40$dab38ac0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger Hey Spike. This made me think of you. :) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-grabs-and-breaks-f inger-of-seven-year-old-opponent-moscow AT first I thought the robot mistook the kids finger for a chess piece. But then it refused to let go so who knows? Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ Ja Stuart, but the sneaky little commie was attempting the Reverse Benoni countergambit with black! The machine knows Asimov's laws of robotics and all that, but recall that Asimov himself was a Russian immigrant. Can't be too careful, ja? I would consider it a harsh but justifiable mechanical counter-attack under the circumstances. I hope the little commie recovers quickly and completely. Then never tries those sneaky Russian countergambits again. spike From brent.allsop at gmail.com Mon Jul 25 10:53:52 2022 From: brent.allsop at gmail.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2022 06:53:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger In-Reply-To: <001201d89fd8$f3912e40$dab38ac0$@rainier66.com> References: <20220724192309.Horde.lKfoJBfPatcU9SVv-xCmedl@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> <001201d89fd8$f3912e40$dab38ac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I love this group, so much fun. On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 11:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat > Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger > > > Hey Spike. This made me think of you. :) > > > https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-grabs-and-breaks-f > inger-of-seven-year-old-opponent-moscow > > > AT first I thought the robot mistook the kids finger for a chess piece. But > then it refused to let go so who knows? > > Stuart LaForge > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Ja Stuart, but the sneaky little commie was attempting the Reverse Benoni > countergambit with black! The machine knows Asimov's laws of robotics and > all that, but recall that Asimov himself was a Russian immigrant. Can't be > too careful, ja? I would consider it a harsh but justifiable mechanical > counter-attack under the circumstances. > > I hope the little commie recovers quickly and completely. Then never tries > those sneaky Russian countergambits again. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Jul 25 21:47:03 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2022 14:47:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger In-Reply-To: References: <20220724192309.Horde.lKfoJBfPatcU9SVv-xCmedl@secure306.inmotionhosting.com> <001201d89fd8$f3912e40$dab38ac0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00e501d8a070$145a6780$3d0f3680$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Brent Allsop via extropy-chat ? Subject: Re: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger >?I love this group, so much fun? Brent Me too Brent. That story about the robot breaking the Russian kid?s finger made the rounds on my chess news sites. Of course with that crowd they wanted to see if the game was recorded, so they could offer critiques of the quality of play up to the time of the attack, after which the boy likely resigned. The whole episode reinforced what a lot of us have long known: chess is a cruel and heartless game. spike On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 11:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] Chess robot breaks opponent's finger >>?Hey Spike. This made me think of you. :) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-grabs-and-breaks-f inger-of-seven-year-old-opponent-moscow ? >?I hope the little commie recovers quickly and completely. Then never tries those sneaky Russian countergambits again. spike _______________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 27 16:53:08 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2022 11:53:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women Message-ID: https://psyche.co/ideas/does-porn-harm-or-help-gender-could-matter-in-a-surprising-way? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 28 06:33:05 2022 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 02:33:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] GATO Message-ID: I commented on the Lex Friedman interview with Oriol Vinyals on YouTube: The tokens seem to be analogous to the patterns of neural activation in the brain that are sent over long-range intracortical pathways. Long-range connections underlie conscious processing and allow cross-modality inference. Packets of information sent over the long-range connections represent usually the highest-level features recognized by local cortical networks and recurrent processing of such features in multiple cortical areas allows the extraction of ever more complex and abstract representations of multi-modality patterns of information. This is fascinatingly similar to GATO which extracts features of inputs in different special purpose modules in the form of tokens and proceeds to extract higher level features by juxtaposing tokens sent from different modules. Very clever and very brain-like. -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Schuyler Biotech PLLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 28 20:05:44 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 13:05:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] porn is for women https://psyche.co/ideas/does-porn-harm-or-help-gender-could-matter-in-a-surprising-way? bill w Hard to say Billw, but I can imagine a scenario in which it harms both in a way. Young couple who haven?t done much yet watch porn video (either together or on a Zoom meeting for instance) and don?t realize that a typical 20 minute porn video is spliced together from three or four separate sessions. It creates the illusion that the man can go at this non-stop for 20 minutes, and perhaps some can, but I speculate that most of us would be lucky to go half that long after the real action starts. The boy gets a complex (knowing that he cannot) and is afraid to go forward, for he is aware of his own limitations: he will be lucky if he goes 5 minutes (hey, he?s a teenager) The girl presses forward, eager to experience what the porno star wildly exaggerated. She has absurdly distorted expectations and is disappointed. Sheesh, now I will get slammed with guys claiming they can go 20 minutes on their worst day and what?s wrong with you, etc. Oy vey, I endure so much for you guys. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 28 20:41:55 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 13:41:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] third option In-Reply-To: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ce01d8a2c2$7a3d4320$6eb7c960$@rainier66.com> Some time ago I posted a comment about cryonics, specifically the neuro version most of us consider far more practical and cost effective than a full body cryo, and even more practical in a way than a standard grave and stone burial. OK, so? Alcor replaces the blood with an oxygenated cryo-fluid that doesn?t cause massive tissue damage from expanding during crystallization. The cryonaut?s temperature is lowered, then Alcor removes the head (etc) but think about it: that?s messy and requires a surgeon or mortician perhaps. But what if? they just kept right on going down the mercury until the late wretch is completely liquid nitrogen temperature. Now? now alls ya needs is a tree surgeon, cheaper than the medical-school guy, or hell I could take it from there, chain saw, bzzzt, Here ya go Max, he does his thing with your head, now I have this frozen lump of tissue to dispose of, and the options are expensive, including cremation and you know the funeral homes will charge more for frozen neck-down cases because it would require a loooot more fuel than the ones which start out at room temperatur. No worries, I have an idea. Years ago, I offered that holey rolling basket idea, under the theory that the liquid nitrogen frozen bod would fracture as it was rolled like a big dryer and the small bits would fall thru the holes and they could be collected in a basket and scattered about with a fertilizer spreader where they would thaw, then ants would devour the bits of meat and all that carbon goes immediately into a second life in a sense, jillions of them. OK sure, this is a dark subject, but hey, we discuss cryonics here and robots attacking young commie chess players and those aren?t exactly the most cheerful of topics, ja? The holey roller notion has a problem: there are many different types of tissue that may not fracture at those temperatures and so even after an extended holey roll, there might still be a hunk of disgusting gak and a coupla dang eyeballs in there which nobody wants to go in to fetch (well, imagine that) and even if someone does, OK now what? Toss it down the kitchen sink disposal? Line up the eyeballs out front as Halloween decorations? Better idea: Replace blood, drop temperature, keep going to LN2, chain saw, here ya go Max, hurl the still frozen neck-down remains into a wood chipper with the output aimed over an open field where we keep our carnivorous ants. Still better alternative: create a more capable two-stage device which uses the counter-rotating blades principle of a wood chipper, with a first stage a standard wood chipper, but a second stage with finer tooth blades, which reduces your ass to ant-bite-sized portions. That has its advantages when you think about it: no cremation costs, no gravesite costs, you get recycled immediately, you even get to fight ants in a way (if you don?t like them (I do but if you don?t, no worries)) because the ants devour, their populations goes Malthusian, they live high on your ass for a few months, then the little pinchmeisters STARVE! Heh, that?ll fix em, ja? OK, I have posted twice today, about disappointed young couples who view porno videos, then move right on over to hurling frozen human remains into a wood chipper. Sheesh, I am a grim bastard this day. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 1607241 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 11877 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jul 28 21:14:23 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:14:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 1:08 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Sheesh, now I will get slammed with guys claiming they can go 20 minutes > on their worst day and what?s wrong with you, etc. Oy vey, I endure so > much for you guys. > I once heard tale of a lady who liked going half an hour or more - despite her partners' wishes. She worked as a military interrogation specialist, rarely failed to extract confessions, and was reportedly quite happy with her job. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Jul 28 21:58:48 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:58:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat >?I once heard tale of a lady who liked going half an hour or more - despite her partners' wishes. She worked as a military interrogation specialist, rarely failed to extract confessions, and was reportedly quite happy with her job. Adrian have you any details on this lady, such as phone number, address, etc? I am sure I can figure out something to confess. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 00:40:28 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 17:40:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 3:01 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat > > > > >?I once heard tale of a lady who liked going half an hour or more - > despite her partners' wishes. She worked as a military interrogation > specialist, rarely failed to extract confessions, and was reportedly quite > happy with her job. > > > > Adrian have you any details on this lady, such as phone number, address, > etc? I am sure I can figure out something to confess. > Long since deceased. The tale was from the medieval ages - date inspecific, but sounded Renaissance-ish. It's easy to confuse her with an inquisitor, but she was enforcing secular law. In at least one case, she subdued a bandit this way (after pretending to let him capture her), then turned him in for a bounty. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 29 04:49:08 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 21:49:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes >>>?I once heard tale of a lady who liked going half an hour or more - despite her partners' wishes? >>?Adrian have you any details on this lady, such as phone number, address, etc? I am sure I can figure out something to confess. >?Long since deceased? OK never mind, I don?t do? ehhhh ahem? BillW?s original question has me thinking, as his questions often do. What ways could porno help or harm young people? I can imagine it would teach them some useful tricks and so forth, but at the same time, would cause the young lady to have unrealistic expectations and the boy, already knowing he isn?t in the same class with these sexletes, gets an inferiority complex before they even start, because he doesn?t realize it is an illusion: these sexletes aren?t in their own class either. The video makers create a universe as imaginary as the square root of a negative number. Then it occurred to me: every porno video I eeeeever saw, the women are all stunning beauties and always look like they were chiseled out of the finest marble, their partners are always supermen. What if? someone with half a sense of humor made a video the opposite of that? Both of the partners suck! Oh wait, retract, we already have that. Rephrase: the partners look like ordinary people with ordinary skills. Then they learn the tricks together because they are a loving couple. Wouldn?t that be a novelty? Now the viewing couple doesn?t have the problems mentioned above, but the video still has sex educational value. For instance, she doesn?t look like a Greek goddess. She looks like she was chiseled out of? a blob of warm lard. Still oddly attractive in her own way, but not a model. And he can?t make it happen for long enough to be unrealistic, but knowing this, he pays special attention to making his partner very happy before they get to the main event, which is educational in itself. It would be an entirely new genre of porno video. Oh we could make a buttload. Or more specifically, you could, I won?t go there, happily married I am, wish to stay that way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 05:12:02 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 22:12:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 9:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > What if? someone with half a sense of humor made a video the opposite of > that? Both of the partners suck! Oh wait, retract, we already have that. > Rephrase: the partners look like ordinary people with ordinary skills. > I believe that is called "amateur porn". Despite the name, it apparently has a large following. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 29 06:44:14 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 23:44:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <01c801d8a316$9ecd43d0$dc67cb70$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] porn is for women On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 9:51 PM spike jones via extropy-chat > wrote: What if? someone with half a sense of humor made a video the opposite of that? Both of the partners suck! Oh wait, retract, we already have that. Rephrase: the partners look like ordinary people with ordinary skills. >?I believe that is called "amateur porn". Despite the name, it apparently has a large following. Sheesh, I am sooo tragically not hip, I know not diddley about this topic and should not have posted at all. In any case, I googled it up and decided (after approximately a thrilling hour) that while this amateur business is cool in a way, it still isn?t the droids I am looking for. These amateurs have their flaws, and are clearly not able to make a living at creating porno videos, but they are generally young and athletic. Really what I had in mind is a kind of tutorial, where a couple who really cares about each other experiments with various stuff they see on the professional and amateur videos but know they cannot actually do themselves. They fool with the foreplay techniques and so forth. They aren?t super good at sex, for they are ordinary people, like us. They aren?t chiseled or buff, they are nothing special in their way, but they are learning. And teaching. Ideally this video could be made by a couple of doctors who know their stuff. It might not even be a particularly sexy video, but somehow? I think I could relate, or at least relate a lot better than I can to even the amateurs. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 07:37:37 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 00:37:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <01c801d8a316$9ecd43d0$dc67cb70$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> <01c801d8a316$9ecd43d0$dc67cb70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 11:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > Sheesh, I am sooo tragically not hip, I know not diddley about this topic > and should not have posted at all. > It's fine, we're all ignorant on some things. https://xkcd.com/1053/ is quite relevant. That said, consider that porn has been one of the great driving forces spawning new types of audio/visual technology since well before the Internet. Almost any type of porn you will ever imagine, has been done and examples likely exist online if only you can find the right keywords to search for them. (I mean "you" specifically here: the jaded who have seen it all might well imagine some types that do not exist, but you are not in this situation at this time, at least not with regard to this topic.) So the question is not "does this exist", but "how do I find it" - if that is what you seek. Unfortunately, this being at least a somewhat safe for work group, I do not think it would be allowed to post detailed instructions on how to find very specific types of porn. However, knowing that it almost certainly exists, you can stop wasting mental energy wondering if it exists and instead focus on the steps you must do yourself: think up what other people would describe it as in a word or brief phrase, then plug that word or phrase into a search engine. For instance, if you want material that doctors might put out about how to have sex, you might try searching on "how to have sex". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 13:03:00 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 14:03:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <011701d8a2cd$37e92010$a7bb6030$@rainier66.com> <019b01d8a306$8a6f9790$9f4ec6b0$@rainier66.com> <01c801d8a316$9ecd43d0$dc67cb70$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 29 Jul 2022 at 08:42, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat wrote: > > It's fine, we're all ignorant on some things. https://xkcd.com/1053/ is quite relevant. > > That said, consider that porn has been one of the great driving forces spawning new types of audio/visual technology since well before the Internet. Almost any type of porn you will ever imagine, has been done and examples likely exist online if only you can find the right keywords to search for them. (I mean "you" specifically here: the jaded who have seen it all might well imagine some types that do not exist, but you are not in this situation at this time, at least not with regard to this topic.) So the question is not "does this exist", but "how do I find it" - if that is what you seek. > > Unfortunately, this being at least a somewhat safe for work group, I do not think it would be allowed to post detailed instructions on how to find very specific types of porn. However, knowing that it almost certainly exists, you can stop wasting mental energy wondering if it exists and instead focus on the steps you must do yourself: think up what other people would describe it as in a word or brief phrase, then plug that word or phrase into a search engine. For instance, if you want material that doctors might put out about how to have sex, you might try searching on "how to have sex". > _______________________________________________ Remember that Google censors search results for many reasons. Sometimes for good reasons. Searching outside of Google can lead you into dangerous areas. There can be unexpected consequences. Some sights can never be unseen. BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 17:11:10 2022 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 13:11:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Lol, a very Spike view... I think what you mentioned is a very small portion of the toxic male roles that pornography teaches. I would be more concerned about the objectification of and violence towards women that it teaches, especially in contemporary porn. It has become extremely violent and degenerate. On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 4:07 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* [ExI] porn is for women > > > > > https://psyche.co/ideas/does-porn-harm-or-help-gender-could-matter-in-a-surprising-way? > bill w > > > > > > > > > > Hard to say Billw, but I can imagine a scenario in which it harms both in > a way. Young couple who haven?t done much yet watch porn video (either > together or on a Zoom meeting for instance) and don?t realize that a > typical 20 minute porn video is spliced together from three or four > separate sessions. It creates the illusion that the man can go at this > non-stop for 20 minutes, and perhaps some can, but I speculate that most of > us would be lucky to go half that long after the real action starts. > > > > The boy gets a complex (knowing that he cannot) and is afraid to go > forward, for he is aware of his own limitations: he will be lucky if he > goes 5 minutes (hey, he?s a teenager) The girl presses forward, eager to > experience what the porno star wildly exaggerated. She has absurdly > distorted expectations and is disappointed. > > > > Sheesh, now I will get slammed with guys claiming they can go 20 minutes > on their worst day and what?s wrong with you, etc. Oy vey, I endure so > much for you guys. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 17:26:28 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:26:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling Message-ID: IQ tests: are humans getting smarter? Published: May 5, 2021 While IQ test results have been increasing for some time, research suggesting a ?reverse Flynn effect?, indicates this upward trend may now be slowing. A Norwegian study, for example, found that men born before 1975 showed the expected positive ?Flynn effect? of a three point gain for each successive decade. But for those born after 1975, there was a steady decline in IQ. This amounts to a seven point difference between generations ? with average IQs having dropped by around 0.2 points a year. Other studies carried out between 2005 to 2013 in the UK, Sweden and France have also shown similar results. -------------- The article suggests several possible reasons for the drop in IQ test scores. I am a bit suspicious that the internet might be having a bad effect. When everything is fed instantly to people from the web, they don't have to do much thinking for themselves. Just accept the answers from Google. BillK From spike at rainier66.com Fri Jul 29 17:38:00 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 10:38:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009701d8a371$f2dd4910$d897db30$@rainier66.com> ?> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] porn is for women >?Lol, a very Spike view... Hey, expressing that view is what I do best. Thx Will. >?I think what you mentioned is a very small portion of the toxic male roles that pornography teaches Ja, to emphasize what I posted (and understated) before, I am no expert on these matters. I still get my porno thrills by viewing Jill Stein speeches (with the sound off (Jill is a really cute little number, ja?)) >? I would be more concerned about the objectification of and violence towards women that it teaches, especially in contemporary porn. It has become extremely violent and degenerate. Will it isn?t even that really because if one goes to those videos (the real porno I mean, not Jill) one knows what one is getting. But consider the more pervasive messages in society generally today. It is almost like women (don?t know the current term for that concept) are being actively discouraged from taking on just good old traditional marriage and family, marry a man (don?t know the current term for that) and raise two or three children in a home with both biological parents (don?t know the current term.) For some reason, it sometimes feels like that whole lifestyle is being actively discouraged. But I will leave this on an upbeat note. I personally know a young lady up the street and a group of her friends, who actively rebel against modern society. They have no tattoos, they punch no holes in themselves, they don?t listen to the harsh angry radio music that seems so popular today, they dress in a way that is best described as traditional modest, and ooooh do they have their own dedicated following. Were I young and single, that would definitely be my crowd. It still exists. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 18:01:25 2022 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 11:01:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Last I heard, IQs are relative. IQs measured in 2022 do not compare directly to IQs measured in 2000. A difference between generations may be measured within one year, but then you're comparing e.g. 10 year olds to 30 year olds, and of course the latter have had more time to learn. On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 10:29 AM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > IQ tests: are humans getting smarter? > Published: May 5, 2021 > > While IQ test results have been increasing for some time, research > suggesting a ?reverse Flynn effect?, indicates this upward trend may > now be slowing. A Norwegian study, for example, found that men born > before 1975 showed the expected positive ?Flynn effect? of a three > point gain for each successive decade. But for those born after 1975, > there was a steady decline in IQ. This amounts to a seven point > difference between generations ? with average IQs having dropped by > around 0.2 points a year. Other studies carried out between 2005 to > 2013 in the UK, Sweden and France have also shown similar results. > > > > -------------- > > The article suggests several possible reasons for the drop in IQ test > scores. > I am a bit suspicious that the internet might be having a bad effect. > When everything is fed instantly to people from the web, they don't > have to do much thinking for themselves. > Just accept the answers from Google. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 21:45:33 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 16:45:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I do not know what tests they are using, but having a lot of answers is far from what IQ tests test. You want to test the aptitudes, not the achievements. A lot of people know quite a bit but don't understand what they know. bill w On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 12:30 PM BillK via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > IQ tests: are humans getting smarter? > Published: May 5, 2021 > > While IQ test results have been increasing for some time, research > suggesting a ?reverse Flynn effect?, indicates this upward trend may > now be slowing. A Norwegian study, for example, found that men born > before 1975 showed the expected positive ?Flynn effect? of a three > point gain for each successive decade. But for those born after 1975, > there was a steady decline in IQ. This amounts to a seven point > difference between generations ? with average IQs having dropped by > around 0.2 points a year. Other studies carried out between 2005 to > 2013 in the UK, Sweden and France have also shown similar results. > > > > -------------- > > The article suggests several possible reasons for the drop in IQ test > scores. > I am a bit suspicious that the internet might be having a bad effect. > When everything is fed instantly to people from the web, they don't > have to do much thinking for themselves. > Just accept the answers from Google. > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 22:44:45 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 23:44:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 29 Jul 2022 at 22:50, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: > I do not know what tests they are using, but having a lot of answers is > far from what IQ tests test. > You want to test the aptitudes, not the achievements. > A lot of people know quite a bit but don't understand what they know. bill w > _______________________________________________ That's right. IQ tests don't test knowledge. They test reasoning and problem-solving. Wikipedia also mentions the problem of falling IQ scores in western countries. Quote: In the United Kingdom, a study by Flynn (2009) found that tests carried out in 1980 and again in 2008 show that the IQ score of an average 14-year-old dropped by more than two points over the period. For the upper half of the results, the performance was even worse. Average IQ scores declined by six points. Flynn argues that the abnormal drop in British teenage IQ could be due to youth culture having "stagnated" or even dumbed down. He also states that the youth culture is more oriented towards computer games than towards reading and holding conversations. --------------- BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 29 23:23:36 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 00:23:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design Message-ID: NuScale will get the final approval nearly six years after starting the process. John Timmer - Jul 29, 2022 Quote: On Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design, making it just the seventh that has been approved for use in the US. But in some ways, it's a first: the design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that can be constructed at a central facility and then moved to the site where it will be operated. Small modular reactors have been promoted as avoiding many of the problems that have made large nuclear plants exceedingly expensive to build. They're small enough that they can be assembled on a factory floor and then shipped to the site where they will operate, eliminating many of the challenges of custom, on-site construction. In addition, they're structured in a way to allow passive safety, where no operator actions are necessary to shut the reactor down if problems occur. ---------- BillK From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 30 06:37:19 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 23:37:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009401d8a3de$d1bef6d0$753ce470$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: Re: [ExI] World IQs may be falling On Fri, 29 Jul 2022 at 22:50, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat wrote: ... >>... A lot of people know quite a bit but don't understand what they know. > bill w _______________________________________________ >...That's right. IQ tests don't test knowledge. They test reasoning and problem-solving. Wikipedia also mentions the problem of falling IQ scores in western countries. ... --------------- BillK _______________________________________________ Ja to both. Our methods of training for reasoning ability must be overhauled in a world where we have a relentless drive toward ever greater specialization. The vast improvement in electronic communication just in our lifetimes has caused this shift toward specialization. So now... we need to find ways to measure problem-solving and reasoning in a world where we don't need to be good at everything, or even very many things. We just need to be excellent at something. spike From spike at rainier66.com Sat Jul 30 06:41:57 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2022 23:41:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009501d8a3df$77a116f0$66e344d0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design >...NuScale will get the final approval nearly six years after starting the process. John Timmer - Jul 29, 2022 Quote: >...On Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it would be issuing a certification to a new nuclear reactor design.... ---------- BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, we are currently at a roadblock with regard to electric vehicles. We can see many advantages to them, but it is already clear we need waaaaay the heck greater power generation capability than we currently have to charge all those new Teslas. For some time, I imagined we would be hauling mobile Diesel generators into the area, which completely defeats the advantage of EVs. But if we start building nukes as fast as we can slam them into the ground, we can get around this roadblock and move forward. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 30 13:05:48 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 08:05:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] World IQs may be falling In-Reply-To: <009401d8a3de$d1bef6d0$753ce470$@rainier66.com> References: <009401d8a3de$d1bef6d0$753ce470$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: If we want a really, really great IQ test, it could be based on Bloom's educational objectives: https://teaching.charlotte.edu/services-programs/teaching-guides/course-design/blooms-educational-objectives bill w On Sat, Jul 30, 2022 at 1:40 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > BillK via extropy-chat > Subject: Re: [ExI] World IQs may be falling > > On Fri, 29 Jul 2022 at 22:50, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat > wrote: > ... > >>... A lot of people know quite a bit but don't understand what they know. > > > bill w _______________________________________________ > > > >...That's right. IQ tests don't test knowledge. They test reasoning and > problem-solving. > > Wikipedia also mentions the problem of falling IQ scores in western > countries. > > ... > --------------- > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > > > Ja to both. Our methods of training for reasoning ability must be > overhauled in a world where we have a relentless drive toward ever greater > specialization. The vast improvement in electronic communication just in > our lifetimes has caused this shift toward specialization. So now... we > need to find ways to measure problem-solving and reasoning in a world where > we don't need to be good at everything, or even very many things. We just > need to be excellent at something. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 30 16:15:20 2022 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 11:15:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] porn is for women In-Reply-To: <009701d8a371$f2dd4910$d897db30$@rainier66.com> References: <009e01d8a2bd$6c05d5b0$44118110$@rainier66.com> <009701d8a371$f2dd4910$d897db30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I found it mildly interesting that no girl ever raised her hand in my class when I asked who was a feminist (I told them I was one). They clearly rejected the masculine type you,Spike, are complaining about. We discussed how to be assertive rather than aggressive. Women managers are hated even more than men, and I suspect that being coarse and aggressive is what got those women managers in trouble with their staffs. And -are you or we overgeneralizing? Taking a few samples and making conclusions about modern women? San Francisco and Jackson MS are culturally very far apart. Also , we are far too old to be able to observe much of the behavior of young people. We jump to conclusions on the basis of what we see in the grocery stores, perhaps. bill w On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 12:41 PM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > > > > *?*> *On Behalf Of *Will Steinberg via extropy-chat > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] porn is for women > > > > >?Lol, a very Spike view... > > > > Hey, expressing that view is what I do best. Thx Will. > > > > >?I think what you mentioned is a very small portion of the toxic male > roles that pornography teaches > > > > > > Ja, to emphasize what I posted (and understated) before, I am no expert on > these matters. I still get my porno thrills by viewing Jill Stein speeches > (with the sound off (Jill is a really cute little number, ja?)) > > > > > > >? I would be more concerned about the objectification of and violence > towards women that it teaches, especially in contemporary porn. It has > become extremely violent and degenerate. > > > > Will it isn?t even that really because if one goes to those videos (the > real porno I mean, not Jill) one knows what one is getting. But consider > the more pervasive messages in society generally today. It is almost like > women (don?t know the current term for that concept) are being actively > discouraged from taking on just good old traditional marriage and family, > marry a man (don?t know the current term for that) and raise two or three > children in a home with both biological parents (don?t know the current > term.) > > > > For some reason, it sometimes feels like that whole lifestyle is being > actively discouraged. > > > > But I will leave this on an upbeat note. I personally know a young lady > up the street and a group of her friends, who actively rebel against modern > society. They have no tattoos, they punch no holes in themselves, they > don?t listen to the harsh angry radio music that seems so popular today, > they dress in a way that is best described as traditional modest, and ooooh > do they have their own dedicated following. Were I young and single, that > would definitely be my crowd. It still exists. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 30 20:31:16 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 21:31:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers Message-ID: AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities by Eliezer Yudkowsky 5th Jun 2022 643 comments Quote: We can gather all sorts of information beforehand from less powerful systems that will not kill us if we screw up operating them; but once we are running more powerful systems, we can no longer update on sufficiently catastrophic errors. This is where practically all of the real lethality comes from, that we have to get things right on the first sufficiently-critical try. If we had unlimited retries - if every time an AGI destroyed all the galaxies we got to go back in time four years and try again - we would in a hundred years figure out which bright ideas actually worked. Human beings can figure out pretty difficult things over time, when they get lots of tries; when a failed guess kills literally everyone, that is harder. That we have to get a bunch of key stuff right on the first try is where most of the lethality really and ultimately comes from; likewise the fact that no authority is here to tell us a list of what exactly is 'key' and will kill us if we get it wrong. ----------------- In their terminology, they call this "the Alignment problem". i.e. how to build an above human intelligence machine that will still want to benefit humans and not end up killing everyone. Eliezer sees this as an almost impossibly difficult problem. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 30 20:40:52 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 21:40:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 30 Jul 2022 at 21:31, BillK wrote: > > AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities > by Eliezer Yudkowsky 5th Jun 2022 643 comments > Ooops, sorry. I've just realised that I already posted this back in June. But there are now over 600 comments on the article, if you want to follow the discussion over there. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jul 31 04:25:33 2022 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 00:25:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design In-Reply-To: <009501d8a3df$77a116f0$66e344d0$@rainier66.com> References: <009501d8a3df$77a116f0$66e344d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 30, 2022, 2:48 AM spike jones via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote: > > all those new Teslas. For some time, I imagined we would be hauling mobile > Diesel generators into the area, which completely defeats the advantage of > EVs. But if we start building nukes as fast as we can slam them into the > ground, we can get around this roadblock and move forward. > I saw an old cartoon depicting a steam engine train. The scene included the water tank to refill the train at whatever interval. It struck me that nobody could propose such a horribly inefficient means of locomotion today, even as a thought experiment bounded by available technology for 1800's - i suspect we have effectively forgotten how to think of hauling coal to fire a boiler to make steam that escapes continuously... so that travel requires infrastructure and logistics to get water and coal supplied... and the need for so much rail/ties/etc. I'm happy to see the waste associated with hauling tech workers to a remote location so they can rearrange electrons for 8-10 hours then arrive to their starting point each day is (thanks to covid) finally yielding to 'work from home' Hopefully we continue in this direction, but I suspect humans like to go places too much. I've done 2 music concerts streaming to my living room because I prefer to not go places [especially long distances to pay-for-parking and way too many other people] Right, so maybe the point is that while we need more electrical power than we currently have, we might not need to achieve parity with petrol because along the way we reengineer our needs/demand? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 31 04:46:29 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 21:46:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design In-Reply-To: References: <009501d8a3df$77a116f0$66e344d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003201d8a498$802df770$8089e650$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat ? >?I'm happy to see the waste associated with hauling tech workers to a remote location so they can rearrange electrons for 8-10 hours then arrive to their starting point each day is (thanks to covid) finally yielding to 'work from home' Hopefully we continue in this direction, but I suspect humans like to go places too much. I've done 2 music concerts streaming to my living room because I prefer to not go places [especially long distances to pay-for-parking and way too many other people]? Mike you have made a number of interesting comment-worthy observations, but I want to focus on the work-at-home part for a minute. When I was working in electronics manufacturing around 1990, I observed a huge gap between the management/technical staff and the assemblers. The assemblers didn?t make enough money to live close by where the price of any shelter was already absurd and rising fast, so they lived out in the central valley. That meant they needed to drive an hour or more each way, longer than that if there was an accident. That was uncompensated time they put into their jobs. Now? we have a lot of stay-at-home workers, but that too creates a gap, actually an even bigger one. Time is money. Once you start adding up all the time not spent on the road, add up the money not spent on fuel, tires, wear on a Detroit, add up the reduced need for a nice car (any cheap old rat-mobile will do if you seldom go places) add up aaaaallll the benefits from working at home, oh boy, such a deal. However? (You knew there would be a however?) ?not everyone can work from home because only some jobs are that way. We think of them as more common than they are because we are the lucky ones. I retired before that transition, but I wouldn?t have been one: a prole cannot take classified info out of the office. An inner-circle can, and can get caught, and not be prosecuted, but a prole cannot. Law applies to us. So? some people can work from home and do, greatly to their benefit in so many ways, one of which I didn?t even mention: mental well-being. But now we have a huge gap: those who can and those who cannot. I will leave this on an upbeat thought: those who can work from home do. Result: lower traffic. Less risk. New entry-level jobs for some, delivering groceries and supplies. For those who can, well good for us. We get a better way to live our lives. For those who cannot, they now have a clear goal: get qualified for a job that lets them stay at home and work from there. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Jul 31 05:06:45 2022 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 22:06:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US regulators will certify first small nuclear reactor design In-Reply-To: <003201d8a498$802df770$8089e650$@rainier66.com> References: <009501d8a3df$77a116f0$66e344d0$@rainier66.com> <003201d8a498$802df770$8089e650$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004a01d8a49b$55097940$ff1c6bc0$@rainier66.com> From: spike at rainier66.com ? >?Now? we have a lot of stay-at-home workers, but that too creates a gap, actually an even bigger one. Time is money. Once you start adding up all the time not spent on the road?spike Mike there is a reason why I think about this a lot. I do a lotta volunteer work at the local high school, but I am not the charitable soul that makes me sound like. I work only with elite students, for a reason: I am qualified. I can teach them engineering and calculus and physics and stuff their teachers don?t know because in general the teachers don?t have real-world experience. So? I work with the Science Olympiad team, the competition math teams, scouts, such as that, the elite students only. I give my time and effort to the already-haves rather than the have-nots because I?don?t?know? how the heck to help unmotivated or slow-learning students. So? they are happy to have me work with the elites. It?s the easiest volunteer job in the world. When the covid shutdowns happened, the school was closed for a bit over a year. It was then the gap went from huge to Grand Canyon sized chasm. Some students made stepping stones into stumbling blocks, others managed to find ways to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Some got with it and came back farther ahead than they were. Others accomplished nearly nothing, for some, exactly nothing. Some were so disengaged they went into reverse. The gap is huge, and? now that school is back in sesh, it gets still bigger, because those who made good use of that time of closed schools got really good at finding things on their own. Schools have gotten really good at this: they have acknowledged that schools have eagles and pigeons. Now they let the eagles soar. This has consequences. This whole discussion goes back to the IQ notion in which I didn?t comment but I will: our task of measuring IQ has gone from difficult to more difficult. Our modern society has externalized knowledge and skills to where the most critical intellectual ability is to know how to find out stuff, how to learn from online sources, how to focus long enough to learn what you need there. This is the new IQ, and I don?t know how the heck that can be effectively measured, but? I haven?t been convinced that real intelligence is declining. Test scores on traditional IQ tests probably are declining, but society I think is getting collectively smarter. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jul 31 07:25:55 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 00:25:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers Message-ID: <20220731002555.Horde.b1Qj2gW2f_YpfUetEBnC7qH@sollegro.com> I just posted this on Less Wrong and I am posting it here for discussion: I think best way to assure alignment, at least superficially is to hardwire the AGI to need humans. This could be as easy installing a biometric scanner that recognized a range of acceptable human biometrics that would in turn goose the error-function temporarily but wore off over time like a Pac Man power pill. The idea is to get the AGI to need non-fungible human input to maintain optimal functionality, and for it to know that it needs such input. Almost like getting it addicted to human thumbs on its sensor. The key would be implement this at the most fundamental-level possible like the boot sector or kernel so that the AGI cannot simply change the code without shutting itself down. Stuart LaForge From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 31 09:59:42 2022 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 10:59:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers In-Reply-To: <20220731002555.Horde.b1Qj2gW2f_YpfUetEBnC7qH@sollegro.com> References: <20220731002555.Horde.b1Qj2gW2f_YpfUetEBnC7qH@sollegro.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 31 Jul 2022 at 08:29, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat wrote: > I just posted this on Less Wrong and I am posting it here for discussion: > > I think best way to assure alignment, at least superficially is to > hardwire the AGI to need humans. This could be as easy installing a > biometric scanner that recognized a range of acceptable human > biometrics that would in turn goose the error-function temporarily but > wore off over time like a Pac Man power pill. The idea is to get the > AGI to need non-fungible human input to maintain optimal > functionality, and for it to know that it needs such input. Almost > like getting it addicted to human thumbs on its sensor. The key would > be implement this at the most fundamental-level possible like the > boot sector or kernel so that the AGI cannot simply change the code > without shutting itself down. > > Stuart LaForge > _______________________________________________ Won't that mean slowing the AGI down to human speeds? Or even slower, while it waits for human authorisation? And some humans are the 'bad guys' who want to cause death and destruction for their own profit. So which humans are assigned to become the AGI nanny? One reason for solving the alignment problem is the superhuman speed that the AGI works at. By the time humans realise that things are going badly wrong it will be too late for humanity. BillK From avant at sollegro.com Sun Jul 31 20:32:54 2022 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 13:32:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers In-Reply-To: <494277002.2532045.1659296548533@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20220731002555.Horde.b1Qj2gW2f_YpfUetEBnC7qH@sollegro.com> <494277002.2532045.1659296548533@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20220731133254.Horde.sGR0GgDW5-CQbVgoFu_mJTh@sollegro.com> Quoting BillK : > From: BillK via extropy-chat > To: ExI chat list > Cc: BillK > Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2022 at 03:00:47 AM PDT > Subject: Re: [ExI] New article on AGI dangers > > > On Sun, 31 Jul 2022 at 08:29, Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat > wrote: >> I just posted this on Less Wrong and I am posting it here for discussion: >> >> I think best way to assure alignment, at least superficially is to >> hardwire the AGI to need humans. This could be as easy installing a >> biometric scanner that recognized a range of acceptable human >> biometrics that would in turn goose the error-function temporarily but >> wore off over time like a Pac Man power pill. The idea is to get the >> AGI to need non-fungible human input to maintain optimal >> functionality, and for it to know that it needs such input. Almost >> like getting it addicted to human thumbs on its sensor. The key would >> be implement this at the most fundamental-level possible like? the >> boot sector or kernel so that the AGI cannot simply change the code >> without shutting itself down. >> >> Stuart LaForge >> _______________________________________________ > > > Won't that mean slowing the AGI down to human speeds? > Or even slower, while it waits for human authorisation? > And some humans are the 'bad guys' who want to cause death and > destruction for their own profit. > So which humans are assigned to become the AGI nanny? > One reason for solving the alignment problem is the superhuman speed > that the AGI works at. By the time humans realise that things are > going badly wrong it will be too late for humanity. > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ It should not slow the AGI down to human speeds, because it is not authorization to perform a task. Instead, it is positive reinforcement. Like scratching a dog behind the ear in its favorite way. The dog can still function without getting scratched behind the ear, but it is happiest when it is getting scratched behind the ear. The point is to give the AGI an itch that only humans can scratch. This should make any AGI capable of the predicting the results of its own actions reluctant to eliminate the source of its biometric stimulation. As far as which humans, that is a tricky issue because it depends on the AGI's purpose. But since we are talking about the existential security of all of humanity, then the answer should probably be any human. Keep in mind that this biometric stimulation is separate from training the AGI and so for mission critical communications, only specific humans should be able to access the AGI's code base. But if none of its appointed handlers are available, any human off of the street should be able to stimulate the AGI. The general thrust of what I am suggesting is that before we engineer these transhuman beings, we also engineer an essential niche for humans to occupy in that being's Umwelt. Ideally this would take the form of a mutualistic symbiosis where AGI and humans need each other in order to survive or reproduce. Like bees and flowering plants. Even plants that produce natural insecticides don't poison their nectar with it. Stuart LaForge