Fascinating article on how AI is driving change in SEO, categories of AI and the Law of Accelerating Returns

[Steve Smith]

What a Panopoly of responses (or is it more of a Plethora?) on this topic here.

I can't begin to respond to the many very interesting and thoughtful points
made here.   This general topic (the existential implications of the
co-evolution of humans and technology, the "extended phenotype" as Dawkins
calls it).

Heidegger's (1977?) essay on the topic as provided is quite interesting and
deserves a complete reading, as do several other references here!  

Too bad my queue is overfull and my own extended phenotype (mostly my primary
use laptop) is over-extended.  I'm trying to extend my extended phenotype more
into the cloud (typing this in a webmail client, which I normally loathe!)
while considering a second backup of my system on Google Drive (not just my
in-house Time Capsule)...

Our own local player in the game of Singularity, Stephen Kotler, puts a lot of
interesting ideas out there in his recent books such as "Abundance" and "The
Rise of Superman"...  I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least
"conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights
on many fronts.

That said, I think it is inevitable... short of a global shift in
consciousness, or perhaps at least in the first world (where most of this tech
development is driven from by rampant capitalistic consumerism).  

To counter this pessimism, I am reminded that many natural processes follow
neither a linear nor an exponential growth curve but rather more of a sigmoid
which admits into the situation the idea of saturation.   The long term growth
of many things is less than it's local growth at optimum, as the growth is
characterized by a series of piecewise sigmoidal curves, each with perhaps a
higher slope at optimum than the last, but never the implied exponential when
apprehended before the saturation element takes over.

I think the existential threat of loss of meaning is very acute and many who
lost their "livelihood" in the 2001 dot.bomb or the 2008 banking/real-estate
debacles.  Many of these people (self included by some measure) have had to
reinvent, not only a career, but an identity.  Formal retirement (much of the
list here) has the same challenges except that it is socially integrated and
something we "plan for".   As for myself, while I'm keeping the wolf from the
door financially, I can imagine how hard it is for others to keep not only
financial integrity but also identity integrity.  If I had not started a
business larger than myself and had a hand in sfX "back in the day", I might
have experienced much more dis-integration of self than I actually experience
today.  

I like the idea of universal support up to the issues so aptly pointed out by
REC and others.   I like the idea of leaving people *room* to (re)invent
themselves as creative human beings without the current (archaic?) constraints
of being productive in a consumerist society.   *SO* many things have to
change roughly at the same time for this to come about, I am not confident we
will get there quickly or efficiently.

This brings me to a point about "efficiency".   Evolution has never been
"efficient" by our standards, it seems always to use mass extinctions and
frighteningly short life-spans to drive it's own engine of creativity
(whatever that means)... so I'm not swayed by arguments that suggest we *can*
evolve without outrageous cost to most of the participants.

Not intended to be a bummer here, just appreciating the complexity of this
discussion as well as (I think) of these times!

- Steve

> On 06/06/2016 02:22 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> >
https://medium.com/utopia-for-realists/why-do-the-poor-make-such-poor-decisions-f05d84c44f1a
> > was interesting, vis a vis what happens when you just give poor people
> > money.
>
> Excerpt:
> > So in concrete terms, just how much dumber does poverty make you?
> >
> > "Our effects correspond to between 13 and 14 IQ points," Shafir says.
"That’s comparable to losing a night’s sleep or the effects of
alcoholism." What’s  remarkable is that we could have figured all this out
30 years ago. Shafir and Mullainathan weren’t relying on anything so
complicated as brain scans. "Economists have been studying poverty for years
and psychologists have been studying cognitive limitations for years,”
Shafir explains. “We just put two and two together."

>
> That is a good read.  Thanks.
>
> > On Mon, Jun 6, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> A problem with the
> >> "day jobber" approach is the narrowing of substantial things to what
> >> happens to be in the interest of dominant organizations.    Even in silicon
> >> valley, that's a harsh narrowing of the possible.   So I would say do it to
> >> make the world interesting and not just for humanitarian reasons.
>
> Yep.  We can't be arrogant enough to think we don't need those large hubs of

intention, though.  I can imagine if there's any truth to the scale-free

network concept, then lots of people _should_ sign over their labor to the
interests of some large organization.  But that's a far cry from the current
thinking that everybody should have a "job" and that over simplifies around
unemployment stats.  When I hear politicians say things like "job creator" or
talk about how the people want jobs, I get a little nauseous.  The word "job"
has always had an obligatory tone to it.  Objective-oriented people, in my
experience, tend to talk about things like career paths or in terms of dreams,
roles, achievements, etc.  If they talk about jobs, it's usually in the
context of using a job as a stepping stone toward their objective.  Jobs are
tools, means to an end, not ends in themselves.
>
> I suppose it's kinda like those motorcycle commercials that say things like
"The journey is the destination".  No, the destination is the destination and
the journey is the journey.  Sheesh.  Of course, that doesn't mean you can't
have fun while using your tool.  And some tools are way more fun than others.
 But anyone who talks about creating tools just for the sake of the tool, is
.. well, a bit of a tool.

>
> --
> ☣ glen
>
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>

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

"The problem is this unjustified dichotomy between machine and biology."

There isn't engineering practice in place for developing programmable nanomachines in the way there is for fabricating circuits, but   biology demonstrates it is possible.  It could be we work from the bottom, learning how to build extremely simple machines, atom by atom, and also work from the top, rationalizing how to manipulate proteins in arbitrary ways.    I think we'll find out that our understanding of "programming" is impoverished compared to what living things achieve.  

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/23/8884.abstract

Marcus
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[gepr]

If you meant to say that our conception of programming (as opposed to understanding of programming).  Along the same lines, I just ran across this:

http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/ode/overview.html

"Just as the digital logic gate abstraction allows digital circuit designers to create large analog circuits without doing analog circuit design, we present cryptographic capabilities as an abstraction allowing a similar economy of engineering effort in creating smart contracts."

I can't help but wonder about our conceptual need for "digital" abstractions.  It seems similar to the transition across sequential thinking vs parallel thinking, across procedural vs functional ... or classical vs quantum ... reals vs hyperreals ... proof vs types, etc.  I'm reminded of Steve Smith's reported explanation for the fire-knock-out physics of "Dies the Fire".  If I remember right, the idea was that the solar system had been somehow transported to another region of the universe, where the laws of physics were different.  Does the Mormon god (over there on Kolob) find Haskell or Prolog more intuitively natural?  Or what about the programmers prior to the last Big Crunch?  Were they burdened by discretization problems?

On 06/07/2016 11:39 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> "The problem is this unjustified dichotomy between machine and biology."
>
> There isn't engineering practice in place for developing programmable nanomachines in the way there is for fabricating circuits, but   biology demonstrates it is possible.  It could be we work from the bottom, learning how to build extremely simple machines, atom by atom, and also work from the top, rationalizing how to manipulate proteins in arbitrary ways.    I think we'll find out that our understanding of "programming" is impoverished compared to what living things achieve.
>
> http://www.pnas.org/content/109/23/8884.abstract


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☣ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

``I can't help but wonder about our conceptual need for "digital" abstractions.''

For example, quantum calculations can be performed on digital computer, or by an artificial system made up of superconducting Josephson junctions, or observed in crystal structures.    There are tradeoffs between precision, realism, and scale to make.  I think large scale computational science will increasingly depend on observing phenomena (e.g. natural or constructed atomic systems) in controlled settings and less on digital computers.   Just because the Avogadro scales involved won't be possible even with gigawatt scale digital computers.

Marcus
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[Marcus G. Daniels]

`` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''

Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery

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[gepr]

On 06/08/2016 11:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> `` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''
>
> Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..

The deeper point, I think, is that we not only _must_ outdrive our headlights, we've been doing it for billions of years.  I've been trying to find some spare time to explore the idea that science is a sub-discipline of engineering. It's counter to our normal paradigm where we think engineering is applied science.  But I find it an attractive idea that you can't learn or understand anything without violently destroying/reorganizing some small part of the universe first.  Hence, all knowledge comes through engineering first.  We have to force the ambience through our intentional filter before we can do anything with it ... like playdough through a stencil ... cast some liquid reality into the mold that is your mind, as it were.

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[Pamela McCorduck]

I like this idea, Glen. Don't necessarily agree, but it's worth examining.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 9, 2016, at 9:53 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> On 06/08/2016 11:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> `` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''
>>
>> Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..
>
> The deeper point, I think, is that we not only _must_ outdrive our headlights, we've been doing it for billions of years.  I've been trying to find some spare time to explore the idea that science is a sub-discipline of engineering. It's counter to our normal paradigm where we think engineering is applied science.  But I find it an attractive idea that you can't learn or understand anything without violently destroying/reorganizing some small part of the universe first.  Hence, all knowledge comes through engineering first.  We have to force the ambience through our intentional filter before we can do anything with it ... like playdough through a stencil ... cast some liquid reality into the mold that is your mind, as it were.
>
> --
> ☣ glen
>
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[Steve Smith]

On 6/8/16 12:27 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> `` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''
>
> Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..
>
> http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery
I agree and believe that Homo Sapiens has been as "successful" as we
have been *because* of the diversity or our "experimentation"... my
issue probably has something to do with the stakes... I don't think
humanity has been in an "all in" situation before the last 50 years or so?

  I'm not sure what an all out nuclear exchange in the 60's would have
looked like... probably not global extinciton... just a lot of the
northern hemisphere?

Nuclear Armageddon is still possible but it seems like we've (mostly)
missed that window and instead are facing a plethora of unintended
consequences from our less obviously warlike "progress"...  which of
course, we often race headlong forward escalating our tech responses to
mitigate the consequences of the last round.

In major metropolises like New York City, the introduction of the
internal combustion engine cleared the majority of the "disease-causing"
horse manure buildup in the streets (daily!) and it took 50 or more
years for the replacement consequences to come home to roost.

- Steve


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[Marcus G. Daniels]

``In major metropolises like New York City, the introduction of the internal combustion engine cleared the majority of the "disease-causing"  horse manure buildup in the streets (daily!) and it took 50 or more years for the replacement consequences to come home to roost.''

Speaking of which..

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6291/1312.full

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[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I do believe we *will* and *have been* outdriving our headlights, and it
is part of the "manifest destiny" of being human, maybe
mammal/warm-blooded/vertibrate/fauna/life?   It *might be* a necessary
property of evolved life to innovate "grandly"... where "grandly" is a
relative term.   The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is
whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own making
and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the chances
of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the metaphor,  
will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout?  Or perhaps the
best strategy is to punch on through?   Kurzweil is voting for "pedal to
the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for him to erh...
transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting "back off on the
pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague loyalty and
identity with "humans as we are"...

I also agree that Science is a sub-discipline of Engineering in the
sense you mean it...  I think it is mostly a moot distinction.  I happen
to have been trained in Science but practiced primarily in Engineering,
so am familiar with the common view (at least of Scientists) of the
reverse.   I think this point is a nice conundrum...  as a mutual friend
of many of us uses for his tagline: "The Universe is Flux, All else is
Opinion".   It is the nature of "life" to evolve which (so far?)
requires a finite lifetime for the individual...   so who am I to argue
with the end of an individual life, culture or species?


Flux on!

  - Steve

On 6/9/16 12:20 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:

> I like this idea, Glen. Don't necessarily agree, but it's worth examining.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Jun 9, 2016, at 9:53 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 06/08/2016 11:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> `` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on many fronts.''
>>>
>>> Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..
>> The deeper point, I think, is that we not only _must_ outdrive our headlights, we've been doing it for billions of years.  I've been trying to find some spare time to explore the idea that science is a sub-discipline of engineering. It's counter to our normal paradigm where we think engineering is applied science.  But I find it an attractive idea that you can't learn or understand anything without violently destroying/reorganizing some small part of the universe first.  Hence, all knowledge comes through engineering first.  We have to force the ambience through our intentional filter before we can do anything with it ... like playdough through a stencil ... cast some liquid reality into the mold that is your mind, as it were.
>>
>> --
>> ☣ glen
>>
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[Carl Tollander]

Hmm, ok, there's the "gene drive" issue.   You could, say, get rid of
mosquitoes, but there may be side effects, eg malaria finds a different
more effective vector.   One could also imagine other nasty things one
could do to the microbiome (or other fast-reproducing short lived bits
of our Context) of people with whom one presumed to disagree.   So yes,
headlights.

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-fast-moving-science-gene.html

One might do well to remember that we are symbionts (a Good Thing), so,
transcendence for who or what?

On 6/9/16 6:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> Glen -
>
> I do believe we *will* and *have been* outdriving our headlights, and
> it is part of the "manifest destiny" of being human, maybe
> mammal/warm-blooded/vertibrate/fauna/life?   It *might be* a necessary
> property of evolved life to innovate "grandly"... where "grandly" is a
> relative term.   The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is
> whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own
> making and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the
> chances of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the
> metaphor,  will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout?  Or
> perhaps the best strategy is to punch on through?   Kurzweil is voting
> for "pedal to the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for
> him to erh... transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting
> "back off on the pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague
> loyalty and identity with "humans as we are"...
>
> I also agree that Science is a sub-discipline of Engineering in the
> sense you mean it...  I think it is mostly a moot distinction.  I
> happen to have been trained in Science but practiced primarily in
> Engineering, so am familiar with the common view (at least of
> Scientists) of the reverse.   I think this point is a nice
> conundrum...  as a mutual friend of many of us uses for his tagline:
> "The Universe is Flux, All else is Opinion".   It is the nature of
> "life" to evolve which (so far?) requires a finite lifetime for the
> individual...   so who am I to argue with the end of an individual
> life, culture or species?
>
>
> Flux on!
>
>  - Steve
>
> On 6/9/16 12:20 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
>> I like this idea, Glen. Don't necessarily agree, but it's worth
>> examining.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Jun 9, 2016, at 9:53 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 06/08/2016 11:27 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>> `` I'm pretty much a luddite myself, or at least "conservative" in
>>>> the sense of believing that we are outdriving our headlights on
>>>> many fronts.''
>>>>
>>>> Experiments can be risky but sometimes they pay off..
>>> The deeper point, I think, is that we not only _must_ outdrive our
>>> headlights, we've been doing it for billions of years. I've been
>>> trying to find some spare time to explore the idea that science is a
>>> sub-discipline of engineering. It's counter to our normal paradigm
>>> where we think engineering is applied science.  But I find it an
>>> attractive idea that you can't learn or understand anything without
>>> violently destroying/reorganizing some small part of the universe
>>> first.  Hence, all knowledge comes through engineering first. We
>>> have to force the ambience through our intentional filter before we
>>> can do anything with it ... like playdough through a stencil ...
>>> cast some liquid reality into the mold that is your mind, as it were.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ☣ glen
>>>
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>
>
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[gepr]

On 06/09/2016 08:26 PM, Carl wrote:
> One might do well to remember that we are symbionts (a Good Thing), so, transcendence for who or what?

Excellent question!  It's pretty easy to trash faith in various contexts.  I do my best to hunt it down and eradicate it in my own world view.  But one article of faith I'm having a hard time killing is that if _we_ go anywhere (including across some abstract singularity as well as to Mars), we'll _all_ have to go, or at least some kernel of us with a chance of growing into a robust ecosystem.

One of the better senses of the concept of "machine" comes (basically) down to a machine is that which can be adequately sliced out of its environment.  Life cannot be so sliced out ... or at least I have yet to eliminate my faith in our systemic/social nature.  We are a film, a lumpy, gooey, sticky, mess.

> On 6/9/16 6:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own making and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the chances of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the metaphor,  will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout?  Or perhaps the best strategy is to punch on through?   Kurzweil is voting for "pedal to the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for him to erh... transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting "back off on the pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague loyalty and identity with "humans as we are"...

You already know I agree with you.  But it helps to repeat it.  The "pedal to the metal" guys sound the same (to me) as climate change deniers.  There are 2 types: 1) people who believe the universe is open enough, extensible enough, adaptive enough, to accommodate our "pedal to the metal" and settle into a (beneficial to us) stability afterwards and 2) those who think we (or the coming Robot Overlords) will be smart enough to intentionally regulate stability.

It's not fear that suggests an agile foot.  It's open-minded speculation across all the possibilities.  But the metaphor falls apart.  It's not out-driving our headlights so much as barely stable bubbles of chemicals, which is what we are.  And it only takes a slight change in, say, medium pH to burst all of us bubbles ... like wiping your finger on your face and sticking it into the head on your beer ... add a little skin oil and it all comes crashing down.

>> so who am I to argue with the end of an individual life, culture or species?

Hear, hear.  Besides, death is a process.  And it may well feel good:

  http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/brain-metrics/could_a_final_surge_in


--
☣ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

``But one article of faith I'm having a hard time killing is that if _we_ go anywhere (including across some abstract singularity as well as to Mars), we'll _all_ have to go, or at least some kernel of us with a chance of growing into a robust ecosystem.''

That "we" entered into the discussion is arbitrary (Steve started with that, I think), and further the statement is tautological.
For example, I'm quite confident I don't need the Trump or ISIS people in my life at all.    I am not a willing symbiant.   If there were other ways to live / other forms to take / other planets or non-terrestrial locations to inhabit, and life were longer than it is, I would certain consider them.

Marcus
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[gepr]

On 06/10/2016 08:41 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> That "we" entered into the discussion is arbitrary (Steve started with that, I think), and further the statement is tautological.

Heh, no, it's not tautological.  It relies on the ambiguity of the word (perhaps concept) "we".  You're right that it's technically fallacious.  But the fallacy isn't that it's tautological.  Fallacy can be used to good effect in the same way paradox can.

> For example, I'm quite confident I don't need the Trump or ISIS people in my life at all.    I am not a willing symbiant.   If there were other ways to live / other forms to take / other planets or non-terrestrial locations to inhabit, and life were longer than it is, I would certain consider them.

I think we'll be surprised.  I'll not only consider them.  I'll be in the front of the line ... as long as they let lower middle class morons like me in the line at all.  I suspect it'll be packed with Trumps, Musks, Thiels, and Bransons.

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

`` I'll not only consider them.  I'll be in the front of the line ... as long as they let lower middle class morons like me in the line at all.  I suspect it'll be packed with Trumps, Musks, Thiels, and Bransons. ''

They wouldn't do a Mars One (one way) trip.   They are thriving in this environment.   Only `weird' people would do that.  There are  other options for people that are willing to take risks.   But in Elysium case, yes.

Marcus
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[gepr]

On 06/10/2016 09:05 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> They wouldn't do a Mars One (one way) trip.   They are thriving in this environment.   Only `weird' people would do that.  There are  other options for people that are willing to take risks.   But in Elysium case, yes.

That's a good point.  But it gets a bit muddied when considering other forms of "leaving", like installing more memory in your head, cognitive enhancing drugs, designer babies, etc.  "Organic" food is similar.  I suspect the Trumps, Thiels, etc. _will_ do everything they can to leave the rest of us behind, because they see us as parasitic parts of the "we".  Even if some of them (Gates, Musk, Branson) have a more generous bent, their attention is limited in the same way everyone else's is.  They simply won't spend the time required to understand, say, the role an oxy-addicted instagram addict plays in the "we".  My main point with the machine vs. life severability concept was that, in any of these types of "leaving", if we don't take the whole system, then it will go wonky.

A great example of "taking all of us when we go" is ISIS.  Social media has (I think) transformed us quite a bit.  And we brought ISIS right along with us on the transition.  The alt-right and neo-reactionaries are the same.  What would otherwise be an obvious (small) collection of morons without social media has become part of the existential threat (in part, provided with a recruitment pathway to/through Trump):

  http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/09/3786370/students-for-trump-psu/

Like it or not, those jerks are part of us and we will take them with us as we evolve.

--
☣ glen

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[Carl Tollander]

I was thinking of symbiont in terms of mitochondria, gut biomes, HERVs,
etc.   I'm also rather increasingly fond of 1G, so if I am to give that
up, it doesn't seem to me that some long-term fractional G is going to
be worth it.

You are of course familiar with Golgafrincham?

On 6/10/16 9:23 AM, glen ☣ wrote:

> On 06/09/2016 08:26 PM, Carl wrote:
>> One might do well to remember that we are symbionts (a Good Thing), so, transcendence for who or what?
> Excellent question!  It's pretty easy to trash faith in various contexts.  I do my best to hunt it down and eradicate it in my own world view.  But one article of faith I'm having a hard time killing is that if _we_ go anywhere (including across some abstract singularity as well as to Mars), we'll _all_ have to go, or at least some kernel of us with a chance of growing into a robust ecosystem.
>
> One of the better senses of the concept of "machine" comes (basically) down to a machine is that which can be adequately sliced out of its environment.  Life cannot be so sliced out ... or at least I have yet to eliminate my faith in our systemic/social nature.  We are a film, a lumpy, gooey, sticky, mess.
>
>> On 6/9/16 6:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own making and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the chances of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the metaphor,  will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout?  Or perhaps the best strategy is to punch on through?   Kurzweil is voting for "pedal to the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for him to erh... transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting "back off on the pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague loyalty and identity with "humans as we are"...
> You already know I agree with you.  But it helps to repeat it.  The "pedal to the metal" guys sound the same (to me) as climate change deniers.  There are 2 types: 1) people who believe the universe is open enough, extensible enough, adaptive enough, to accommodate our "pedal to the metal" and settle into a (beneficial to us) stability afterwards and 2) those who think we (or the coming Robot Overlords) will be smart enough to intentionally regulate stability.
>
> It's not fear that suggests an agile foot.  It's open-minded speculation across all the possibilities.  But the metaphor falls apart.  It's not out-driving our headlights so much as barely stable bubbles of chemicals, which is what we are.  And it only takes a slight change in, say, medium pH to burst all of us bubbles ... like wiping your finger on your face and sticking it into the head on your beer ... add a little skin oil and it all comes crashing down.
>
>>> so who am I to argue with the end of an individual life, culture or species?
> Hear, hear.  Besides, death is a process.  And it may well feel good:
>
>    http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/brain-metrics/could_a_final_surge_in
>
>

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

If some subset of humanity build a general artificial intelligence, and that intelligence takes over, or leaves, I don't see what gut biomes or ISIS matter.   Nor do I see why wonkiness (w.r.t. Glen's last e-mail) must occur within a (sub)population of cybernetic or genetically engineered super-intelligent humans that separate themselves from (or control) a legacy human population -- either for biological or sociological reasons.   Sure it could occur.    Why must it occur?    (Here I am assuming that `wonky' isn't just a word with a purposely ambiguous meaning, but is meant to suggest some sort of systemic pathology.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 10:59 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Fascinating article on how AI is driving change in SEO, categories of AI and the Law of Accelerating Returns

I was thinking of symbiont in terms of mitochondria, gut biomes, HERVs,
etc.   I'm also rather increasingly fond of 1G, so if I am to give that
up, it doesn't seem to me that some long-term fractional G is going to be worth it.

You are of course familiar with Golgafrincham?

On 6/10/16 9:23 AM, glen ☣ wrote:

> On 06/09/2016 08:26 PM, Carl wrote:
>> One might do well to remember that we are symbionts (a Good Thing), so, transcendence for who or what?
> Excellent question!  It's pretty easy to trash faith in various contexts.  I do my best to hunt it down and eradicate it in my own world view.  But one article of faith I'm having a hard time killing is that if _we_ go anywhere (including across some abstract singularity as well as to Mars), we'll _all_ have to go, or at least some kernel of us with a chance of growing into a robust ecosystem.
>
> One of the better senses of the concept of "machine" comes (basically) down to a machine is that which can be adequately sliced out of its environment.  Life cannot be so sliced out ... or at least I have yet to eliminate my faith in our systemic/social nature.  We are a film, a lumpy, gooey, sticky, mess.
>
>> On 6/9/16 6:50 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>> The question I suppose, that I feel is in the air, is whether we are accelerating toward an extinction event of our own making and whether backing off on the accelerator will help reduce the chances of it being total or if, as with the source domain of the metaphor,  will backing off too fast actually *cause* a spinout?  Or perhaps the best strategy is to punch on through?   Kurzweil is voting for "pedal to the metal" (achieve transhuman transcendence in time for him to erh... transcend personally?) and I suppose I'm suggesting "back off on the pedal gently but with strong intent" with some vague loyalty and identity with "humans as we are"...
> You already know I agree with you.  But it helps to repeat it.  The "pedal to the metal" guys sound the same (to me) as climate change deniers.  There are 2 types: 1) people who believe the universe is open enough, extensible enough, adaptive enough, to accommodate our "pedal to the metal" and settle into a (beneficial to us) stability afterwards and 2) those who think we (or the coming Robot Overlords) will be smart enough to intentionally regulate stability.
>
> It's not fear that suggests an agile foot.  It's open-minded speculation across all the possibilities.  But the metaphor falls apart.  It's not out-driving our headlights so much as barely stable bubbles of chemicals, which is what we are.  And it only takes a slight change in, say, medium pH to burst all of us bubbles ... like wiping your finger on your face and sticking it into the head on your beer ... add a little skin oil and it all comes crashing down.
>
>>> so who am I to argue with the end of an individual life, culture or species?
> Hear, hear.  Besides, death is a process.  And it may well feel good:
>
>    
> http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/brain-metrics/could_a_final_surge_
> in
>
>

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[gepr]

Heh, I'd forgotten about Golgafrincham.  It's funny because it's true!

The problem lies with the permeable and dynamic boundaries of all these things.  And "symbiont" captures the fuzziness of the boundaries quite well.  As we've argued till we're blue, _general_ intelligence may well be illusory.  It's possible (if not likely) that the only general intelligence we can build will be just as symbiotic with the milieu as we are.  Maybe the AI won't rely directly on gut microbes.  Maybe it will rely on some other huge population of nanomachines that requires an entire earth to maintain ... perhaps the robot overlords will need promechanic pills to keep their gut nanomachines in healthy proportions.  I have no idea, which is why I called it "faith" and hand-waved toward the inadequate closures of our current machines.

Yes, I used "wonky" in order to prevent my email text from ballooning out of control.  But "pathology" has (almost) a worse type of ambiguity to it because it implies an assumed state of health or normality that wonky doesn't imply.  It's fine to adapt to wonky things if one is adaptable enough, like learning to ride a backwards brain bicycle http://www.instructables.com/id/Reverse-steering-bike/.  Pathology is almost universally considered bad.)


On 06/10/2016 10:12 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> If some subset of humanity build a general artificial intelligence, and that intelligence takes over, or leaves, I don't see what gut biomes or ISIS matter.   Nor do I see why wonkiness (w.r.t. Glen's last e-mail) must occur within a (sub)population of cybernetic or genetically engineered super-intelligent humans that separate themselves from (or control) a legacy human population -- either for biological or sociological reasons.   Sure it could occur.    Why must it occur?    (Here I am assuming that `wonky' isn't just a word with a purposely ambiguous meaning, but is meant to suggest some sort of systemic pathology.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Carl
> Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 10:59 AM
>
> I was thinking of symbiont in terms of mitochondria, gut biomes, HERVs,
> etc.   I'm also rather increasingly fond of 1G, so if I am to give that
> up, it doesn't seem to me that some long-term fractional G is going to be worth it.
>
> You are of course familiar with Golgafrincham?

--
☣ glen

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

`` I have no idea, which is why I called it "faith" and hand-waved toward the inadequate closures of our current machines. ''

Bah.  I'll see your "You kids get off my lawn" and raise you a "Save it just keep it off my wave" ..  In particular David Brooks can save it..

Marcus
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