[ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 12:18 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:
> But yeah, there's a definitely a serious professed lack of imagination happening there that is barely credible, coming from such smart people.

Sadly, an all too believable lack of imagination.  Here's the thing:
they've been basically ordered to imagine narrowly, so that's what
they're used to.  They've been ordered to confine their dreams to
simple stuff that is obviously and directly profitable, rather than
chasing ideas that have no immediate connection to corporate profits -
even if some of them might almost transcend profits, making FaceBook
truly indispensable (and able to charge larger rents, accordingly).

One cure is for someone to ask those who give said orders (Zuckerberg,
in this case) to dare to imagine, in a public forum where the question
itself will get reported on until it is not practically ignorable.
Perhaps dream for them, and bring up those dreams as examples - but
only examples, noting that there are more applications.

(To go just a small step from what they have proposed: what about
creating ads?  If these machines can read minds, can they accurately
capture pictures, sound, and animation that we try to envision clearly
enough for the machines to pick up?  What would happen if, instead of
a master spending hours to precisely reproduce mental imagery, anyone
skilled with this machine could do it within minutes of daydreaming
the creative?  Lots of us can dream of things far beyond our ability
to express, so let these machines do all, or almost all, the
mechanical parts of expressing for us.)

Dreams can indeed be quite wild - but only if allowed.

> It'll literally be Friendship is Optimal, only without the ponies.

Ah, good, I'm not the only one here who's at least heard of that.
Sometimes the best fanfiction explores what more mainstream fiction
dares not.