[FRIAM] what is Gertrude thinking?

Sun Aug 30 00:59:32 EDT 2020

I think internal encoding and decoding is important part of improving my ideas, even if it is in a private, evolving language.   Sometimes I feel like I basically understand something, but I haven’t rationalized it in a way that is easily reproducible in a public language;  it’s boring and tedious to find that public language.  That said, the possibility of watching these processes unfold with different people would be fascinating.   (If it were possible to experience in some way, which is not clear is possible.)

1024 signals out of tens of billions of neurons isn’t going to be an adequate data stream to draw many conclusions about consciousness or relative efficiencies in human reason and creativity.   But basic apps like heads-up display or repair of the peripheral nervous system would already be transformative technology.

Super-interesting people as far as I’m concerned.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2020 7:22 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] what is Gertrude thinking?

And next, I think we need to start the debate over what serialization language "conceptual telepathy" will be based on.

Somehow I doubt it will be JSON except maybe for the biggest geeks who already think in JavaScript or PostScript ( ala NeWS<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS> circa 1988?), more likely whatever Haskell systems developers use for serialization?

Has anyone developed an "ethics filter or lens" for Haskell - Streams?
On 8/29/20 6:22 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
Marcus/Jon/MotherChurchers -

Do you believe him?

I believe that what he is demonstrating is a roughly accurate  presentation of what NL has achieved to date.

Am I astounded by:

  1.  How much progress has been made in the field in my life
  2.  How casual Musk and his fanbois/goils are about this
  3.  How Musk implies that the (truly significant) level of thoughtful safety required for Tesla cars is similar to what is required here.

I know I often render here as a neo-luddite, and perhaps that is what I am.   I was raised on scientific progress and science fiction and experienced a lot of engineering marvels coming to fruit right in front of me.   I have participated in and dreamed of a wide range of human-experience-enhancement projects, both professional and private, industrial and ad-hoc.    My "inner child" wants to live forever, have my physicality, my intellectuality, and if possible, my spirituality enhanced in any and every way it might be.   That could mean various modes of personal behaviour from diet to exercise/activity to meditation, etc.   Technologically it could be everything from chemistry to electronic to computational to physical.

As I age (clumsily) it is easy for me to think of ways NL might extend/improve my life.   When I allow myself to fantasize I can go *all over the place*.   If I were younger and healthier I might be *even more* jazzed at imaginings of *enhancing* myself, not just mitigating losses.   Driving a car or motorcycle (or flying a plane) by "thought", extending my physiome more *directly* even than those kinds of devices do is fairly simple/appealing.   Taking the functions currently mediated through computers with screens/keyboards/mice, moble phones, fitness bands/rings, etc and making them more transparent are appealing.   I expect to be able to listen to music/podcasts/audiobooks without earbuds long before I can have a virtual Heads-Up display but I see both of those out there on the horizon.  Variations on telepresent robotics seem like excellent fusions of many of these features.   Seems like I might be living instead of dreaming my orbital mechanics as a telepresent-waldo-spaceship is my proxy (yes, comm lags are big issues, but there *are* ways to mitigate and work around some of that) And it goes on and on and on from there.   The sky is (not) the limit?

The biggest problem with/challenge to all of this in MY opinion is the one the Amish apparently ask themselves when they are considering whether to adopt a new (to them) technology:  "who do I become when I have this technology?"

I have already danced a little above with some of the "things I could do, and implied that i could be" with this technology and on the surface, it seems like mostly upside.   At best, it looks (like much of our current technology-of-personal-convenience) like a mixed bag.   I think many of us recognize that our discovery of the energy that is embedded in fossil fuels and the myriad ways we have learned to harness that energy has some unintended consequences that *might* have us wanting to roll it all back and proceed into our modern industrial revolution a bit more thoughtfully (however one does that).   Similarly, our widespread adoption of digital computation/storage/communication technologies might also fit that description.   Most of us agree that "screen time" is a challenge for most demographics...  Some may feel that "modern medicine" has become a significant "double-edged scalpel" for us... and modern agri-industry... and ...  and ...

This leads to the reality that even if I or you, or all of FriAM resists this direction of development, or tries to overlay a strong review and regulation on it, it is going to happen, it is going to grow and spread.   I recognize that simply being *negative* about all progress rarely serves to help that progress be more human/humane... if anything it pushes it into the darker corners and it ends up emerging with kinks and twists from those dark corners shaping it more than it needs to.

I'm ambi-valent on this technology...  stoked at the possibilities, but also very leery of unbridled optimism and (ab)uses flying off in all directions at once (inevitable?).   This is another example of Kauffman's "Adjacent Possible" space and bifurcation points.     I don't *like* the dreams of Kurzweil and other Singularians but I am believing that something resembling it is more likely and Musk might be a significant driver of that.   I know he speaks cautionarily against General AI, but I don't here him speak much about the (overwhelming?) problems of myriad other "unintended/anticipated consequences".

Pedal to the metal!

 - Steve

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