Well, if you don't think money is maldistributed, that's your opinion, but it is widely disagreed with. Which was my point; I was just suggesting that could be one reason prediction markets haven't been so popular, despite their not-bad track record of accuracy. People just don't think one-disposable-dollar-one-vote is a good formula. Especially given how easy it would be for an interested and well-heeled party to tip the scale.

Hi Ti,

The Lucifer story is profound, but it's about human minds. I know Omohundro and others have argued that any sufficiently advanced intelligence will share certain "basic drives" or characteristics that we might summarize as egoism. I'm not sure that's true. I think we might be able to build very powerful AI tools that aren't modeled after humans (or any animals), don't think or experience as we do, and don't have any tendencies to want to take over. I think the creation of eogistic or human-like AI should be absolutely forbidden, precisely because we would never be able to predict or control what it would do. So it isn't a matter of cajoling AGIs to be virtuous, it's a matter of maintaining human control and using AI as a tool only. If that makes sense.

best reasonable wishes,

Mark

Hello Michael,

Yes, you may offer, and I'll reciprocate, but I've learned the hard way that people really do not want sincere criticism, even if they think they do. Perhaps you are an exception. As for myself, I find it hard to imagine that anyone would be more critical of my own essay than I am. They might be more dismissive, but that is not the same thing.

best reasonable wishes,

Mark

Mark,

In response to your first point, I can't understand why you are so bewitched by mere superficial behaviours and external appearances of machines: you are talking about mere simulacrums of intelligence and consciousness. Despite any seeming complexity, a computer/robot is a deterministic mechanism that does what its told (so to speak). But a micro-organism, an animal or other living thing is self-directing, non-deterministic, and creates unpredictable, but non-random, outcomes for itself in response to circumstances.

In response to your second point, I think you should look more closely at the nature of information. I'm using the word "information" in the sense of "knowledge communicated" or "knowledge gained" (i.e. perception/awareness/experience/consciousness). Something that was once a in person's conscious experience (e.g. some words in the French language) might, after typing at a keyboard, end up represented as a string of zeroes and ones in a computer. But the particular string depends on the character encoding system used. So this string of zeroes and ones is NOT information to a computer/robot UNLESS it happens to have a code book handy. But actually there are no strings of zeroes and ones in a computer - there is only physical hardware with appropriate properties that can REPRESENT zeroes and ones. So for the physical hardware of a robot/computer to correspond to information (consciousness), the robot/computer would need not only a code book, it would need to know that this physical hardware state represents "0" and that physical hardware state represents "1", and it would need to speak the French language!

Computer circuits have voltage levels, neurons have spiking action potentials. Either can be considered an encoding of information, which you may take in the engineering or physics rather than philosophy sense.

It is not true that computers are necessarily deterministic; one can easily introduce randomness from environmental noise or quantum sources.

You did not engage my point that if we could (and I do not see the reason why in principle we could not) create a machine composed of units which have input-output functions isomorphic to those of neurons in a human brain, it would behave like a brain, and we would be able to have philosophical conversations with it about the nature of consciousness. Do you think that such a machine would be a zombie, that says it is conscious but actually is not? Or do you think such a machine is impossible? If the latter, what hitherto unknown principle of physics would intervene to prevent it from being realized?

Mark,

You make a rather large assumption that we "could ...create a machine composed of units which have input-output functions isomorphic to those of neurons in a human brain". Though humans are extremely capable and clever and knowledgeable etc etc, we cannot make such a machine because of the nature of reality.

Clearly, I have a totally different view of the fundamental nature of reality to you (described in my essay in which I describe 3 invalid assumptions of physics).

Cheers,

Lorraine

Lorraine, you may wish to leave the conversation at that, but if so, I will just point out that you have not explained what aspect of the nature of reality would prevent the realization of a a machine composed of units which have input-output functions isomorphic to those of neurons in a human brain. It seems to me that, whatever that aspect of reality might be, it would not be consistent with known physics and would therefore entail a modification of physics. While that is logically possible, I do not expect that it will turn out to be true. best, Mark

translate.google.com attempts to consolidate language. But two different people speaking the same language understand things differently, even though they are reading identical written works.

If everyone shares the same perspectives, then there are very much limited opportunities to discover new relationships.

Diverse interactions spawn greater numbers of Moments of Inspiration.

Ideally, we would each speak a different language and our brains would be able to correlate the vast systems of relationships of all languages and related written works; correction, all works. Living from moment to moment immersed in moments of inspirations.

Perhaps parallel processing of quantum computers will make this possible.

    Thanks for your comments, James. As a practical matter, in order to steer the future at all, let alone intelligently, we need to be able to understand one another and overcome differences. No doubt there are many ways to approach this problem in addition to the ones discussed in my essay.

    Mark, a most excellent essay. You have a facility for penetrating to the rotting roots of our human condition; there are few essays that engage me from beginning to end like yours. Kudos.

    We have a very similar worldview, though my own contribution focuses pretty narrowly on the content of your endnote (10).

    I look forward to more dialogue.

    Best,

    Tom

      Mark,

      your views, and views like yours about "artificial intelligence", are of concern to me. This is because, according to my estimation, you see reality in an invalid light. And as I try to explain in my essay this year, the invalid assumptions underlying (the equations of) physics (though I'm not in any way implying that there is anything invalid about the equations themselves), are major contributors to the attitudes that are destroying our planet home.

      You ask me to explain my view about "what aspect of the nature of reality would prevent the realization of a a machine composed of units which have input-output functions isomorphic to those of neurons in a human brain". As I have tried to explain in my essay, and in my posts to you above, reality is NOT 100% mechanism, and where reality is not mechanism, it is not random. Also, reality is inherently subjective and experiential.

      So the subjects that comprise reality (e.g. particles, molecules, plant cells and other living things) are totally unlike deterministic machines. As I contend in my essay "the subjects that comprise the universe are wild and free, within the context of a mechanism that gives the necessary structure to the freedom".

      As I said, I was impressed by your essay, but I disagreed with the bit that started on page 7 about "artificial intelligence". The essence of where our views differ is in our views about the underlying fundamental nature of reality.

      Cheers,

      Lorraine

      Dear Mark,

      You are certainly right that our inability to talk with and understand each other is a key to resolving most of our problems as a human race, and that the Tower of Babel story signifies just that. Your use of the Bible as an atheist as at least on occasion, good literature is admirable, and right to your point of engaging with "the other side".

      I take the other view, that the Bible tells us the truth about both worldview and good news. I do not think the Bible is infallible, it just gets worldview and good news right - in a way that nothing else does. And the Biblical story is in its main lines historically correct. I think that can be shown by the evidence of reason and fact to be the case. Being in the ranks of this group of scholars, etc., to present the Biblical case is a roller coaster experience, and lots of fun.

      You say on page 2 that "it does not seem that the bulk of evil is the result of purposeless malevolence." You might take a look at www.hawaii.edu on the purposeFUL malevolence all through the 20th century, most of which was not in war time but viciously secular governments destroying their own people (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, et al).

      I argue in my paper (How Shall We Then Live?) that it was specifically the Judeo-Christian West that began to turn around the grinding tyranny and poverty almost everywhere, and to give honor to every human being. Three things in Biblical religion did that: 1. the theme that all men are created equally in the image of God; 2. that God is sovereign over all things, including kings and other potentates (they no longer get a pass because they are big and powerful); and 3. that all human beings are bound by the law of God, to love God and to love each other just like we love ourselves. Seems to me a way of life hard to beat, and one which we will never do on our own, only with the help of God.

      I trace some of the broad steps through Western history leading to the growing freedom of the lower classes, the development of a free-market of ideas leading to universities, and then to science itself. Add to that a limited government for a free people. None of that, I think, could have happened apart from the Biblical culture as it slowly found its way into modernity. It indeed produced modernity.

      Then Christians betrayed themselves and God, rejecting the very science they had founded - for fear that science might disprove the Christian faith. Many Christians opposed reason to revelation, and so made Christianity irrelevant to modern culture which, then under the auspices of secularism was seeking to operate scientifically.

      You point to the collapse of unity among us all, an effect of the Tower of Babel. The essential unity among the Hebrews and Christians was the moral unity generated by the law of God - Decalogue and the Two Great Commandments. People agreed on the difference between right and wrong. When moral consensus collapses, the culture collapses. No more consensus on "how things are done", or on "where are we going?" Precisely the problem of our topic.

      This is a long-winded way of saying that perhaps, as the Tower of Babel story points to the problem of the human race, so God's answer to that problem might just be the real one, the restoration of His law and grace among us.

      Computers can give us tons of information, but I think they are not capable, as you believe, of giving us wisdom. There is a break of kind between information and wisdom.

      Best wishes, Earle

        Lorraine,

        If I may guess what you are getting at, it seems you may not believe that animal behavior can be fully explained in terms of the input-output functions of neurons. It might turn out, for example, that those functions are nondeterministic and the way in which neurons act to control our muscles (such as those of my fingers typing this message) can only be explained in terms of interactions with some unknown entity which we might call "spirit" or some other name. However, this would mean that we could, in principle, observe brain matter behaving in a way that contradicts known physics. Again, this is logically possible, but I expect it will not turn out to be the case.

        Cheers,

        Mark

        Tom, thanks for your comments. I remember from years ago your fascinating work on artificial evolving ecologies - classic stuff. Your paper here is also very interesting. I think it addresses much more than the napkin sketch in my endnote, but I do see the connection. I'll comment on your paper when I've had a chance to reread and think about it a bit.

        best,

        Mark

        Dear Earle,

        Thanks for engaging an unbeliever. At least I'm not an evangelical atheist - I only thought that some people might dismiss me reflexively for quoting the Bible.

        I don't expect computers to give us wisdom, but I do hope they can help us to overcome barriers to communication and understanding, and dispel a great deal of foolishness.

        best reasonable wishes,

        Mark

        Mark,

        I'm not talking about spirits, "entities" or gobbledegook.

        I'm talking a bout a different view of the nature of reality. I'm daring to assume that the models of physics as they stand are NOT the last word on the subject for ever and for all time.

        As I have just posted to the "How Should Humanity Steer the Future?" blog:

        "The physical reality we observe is both dependable and regular. I think that it is NOT an "illusory belief that anything can be represented by a system of physical laws" - surely there is too much evidence of physical laws and the regularity of nature to just throw laws out?

        But reality ALSO involves real creativity i.e. the new.

        I don't mean a physical outcome that just appears on the surface to be new e.g. because of complexity, but underneath surface appearances is actually entirely the result of old pre-existing deterministic law-of-nature rules.

        What I mean by "new" is something truly new: a new law-of-nature rule; a new unpredictable to observers, but non-random, physical outcome; a new injection of information into the universe.

        Where the models of physics are wrong is where physics has assumed that nothing truly new ever happens in the universe; but if something truly new DOES happen, then it is just a purely random outcome.

        As they stand, the models of physics cannot cope with a creative universe."

        Cheers,

        Lorraine

        Still it remains that "a new injection of information into the universe" implies observable behavior of matter which would be inconsistent with known physics. It would be either something that is forbidden to occur, or some deviation from predicted statistics. Either way, it would be observable. Now, you might accept that, and say, after all, perhaps we will observe that. I rather think that we will be able to understand how the brain works, and why we have experience and apparent free will, on the basis of neuron input-output functions which we can understand in terms of biology. I rather expect that we will be able to demonstrate animal-like and human-like artificial intelligence in nonbiological systems. In fact, I expect the day when we can do this is not so far off, mere decades. But I might be wrong. You might be right. I just don't think so.

        best reasonable wishes,

        Mark

        Thanks Mark - Solo critique is tough, but it seems you've mastered it. Your cautious, explanatory style inspires the confidence of a sure-footed guide. By page 3, I'm thinking (unlike Margarita) that it'll be a near perfect essay, one whose flaws, even, are admirable. You end with a hopeful gesture in which the possibility of personal AI assistance figures - something I don't understand, and which I suspect there's no room to explain - but you offer it only as a tentative example, and it succeeds in any case by underlining the sincerity of the gesture. Throughout, your thesis is well supported: our steering capacity is limited by bottlenecks in intersubjective communication and therefore we should steer by addressing those bottlenecks. For me (unlike John), that's a clear enough strategy. And your essay (unlike mine) has no apparent faults. - Mike