[FRIAM] Future of humans and artificial intelligence

[Nick Thompson]

Grant, 

 

I think I know the answer to this question, but want to make sure:  

 

What is the difference beween calling a process “stochastic”, “indeterminate”, or “random”?  

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2017 6:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>; glen ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future of humans and artificial intelligence

 

Thanks for throwing in on this one, Glen. Your thoughts are ever-insightful. And ever-entertaining!

For example, I did not know that von Neumann put forth a set theory.

On the other hand... evolution is stochastic. (You actually did not disagree with me on that. You only said that the reason I was right was another one.) A good book on the stochasticity of evolution is "Chance and Necessity" by Jacques Monod. (I just finished rereading it for the second time. And that proved quite fruitful.)

G.

 

On 8/8/17 12:44 PM, glen ☣ wrote:

 
I'm not sure how Asimov intended them.  But the three laws is a trope that clearly shows the inadequacy of deontological ethics.  Rules are fine as far as they go.  But they don't go very far.  We can see this even in the foundations of mathematics, the unification of physics, and polyphenism/robustness in biology.  Von Neumann (Burks) said it best when he said: "But in the complicated parts of formal logic it is always one order of magnitude harder to tell what an object can do than to produce the object."  Or, if you don't like that, you can see the same perspective in his iterative construction of sets as an alternative to the classical conception.
 
The point being that reality, traditionally, has shown more expressiveness than any of our rule sets.
 
There are ways to handle the mismatch in expressivity between reality versus our rule sets.  Stochasticity is the measure of the extent to which a rule set matches a set of patterns.  But Grant's right to qualify that with evolution, not because of the way evolution is stochastic, but because evolution requires a unit to regularly (or sporadically) sync with its environment.
 
An AI (or a rule-obsessed human) that sprouts fully formed from Zeus' head will *always* fail.  It's guaranteed to fail because syncing with the environment isn't *built in*.  The sync isn't part of the AI's onto- or phylo-geny.
 

 

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