Hi Mark,
You've got me confused with the esteemed University of Oklahoma zoologist Thomas S. Ray (also known more commonly as Tom Ray), inventor of the TIERRA artificial life program. I have high regard for Dr. Ray's research -- and I sign my work T.H. Ray to try and avoid the confusion, though many do it anyway. :-) Our fields are pretty closely related, on the level of abstract modeling.
Best,
Tom
Mark,
Thank you for a very interesting essay.
I think you raise a lot of important points:
1. That if humanity is made of many communities with conflicting interests, it becomes very difficult to identify global future goals that humanity should steer towards.
2. That a lot of the evil in the world could arise through the pursuit of good, instead of purposeful evil action.
3. That, in any debate, reaching certainty and "closure" is a sign that you have become a "partisan", which is counterproductive.
4. That, for a debate to be fruitful, the receiver of the message must do some work, must take the time to receive the information and to understand it... which is, unfortunately, not often the case.
5. That ordinary citizens sometimes argue passionately about scientific issues (GMOs, energy policy), but that they often preselect the sources of their information through their personal motives and prejudices (even when they are not aware of the fact).
To address, among other things, the "problems" no. 4 and 5, I proposed in my essay that we try to identify collectively the most important basic knowledge that is useful to have a debate about the future, and that we refocus education (formal and lifelong) to ensure that the greatest number of citizens are made to participate in a worldwide "conversation" about the future: I call this endeavour the "Futurocentric Education Initiative".
The Futurocentric Education Initiative is a possible way to address the "Babel Problem": we could call it an "Augmented Intelligence" approach, which could complement the "Artificial Intelligence" approach that you tentatively suggest. While we wait for truly general artificial intelligence to appear (some people believe it is imminent, some think that it can never happen), maybe we can pool our human natural intelligence resources, augmented and coordinated through the Internet, to steer education, in order to eventually steer the future!
Your essay is one of the most on-topic that I have read, and I hope that it does well in the competition. Several essays in this contest emphasize that better communication and education is essential if we want humanity to successfully steer the future, and I hope your essay makes it to the finals so this point of view can be represented. (I have nothing against the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity, but I think that this year's question deserves other approaches than just "let's unify QM and GR so we can save the world"!)
Marc
Dear Mark,
Your Babel and Beyond article is fantastic and held my interest through out. I wish you an astounding reward in this competition.
I am particular happy for a new concept which allow fresh ideas. I will also employ you to read my article STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM For easy access considering the enormous entries it is here. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020
Your comments and rating will be appreciated.
However before I leave your wall, I wish to draw your attention to your end note where you make a reference to yourself as being an atheist. Are you not contradicting yourself because your great idea of babel was taken from the Bible as you rightly quoted? Expecting your reply here and on my article.
Regards
Gbenga
Marc,
Thank you for such thoughtful comments, and excellent summaries of some of my main arguments.
I agree that what you are calling "augmented intelligence" is essentially what I had in mind by suggesting that the key to making artificial intelligence a useful and positive force is to keep it under the control of individual users, so that it is a tool they can use rather than a tool of others to control them.
I'm all for pursuing the ground truth of fundamental physics but I agree it doesn't really answer the question of how to steer the future except in one way: it is kind of a glorious thing for humanity to pursue, an embodiment of what the Tower itself symbolized. The Tower that may never be finished - but we can all marvel at it, take pride in it, try to contribute a brick or two. That brings people together, and it's a lot better than building killer robots or inventing crazy conspiracy theories...
Mark
Oops, sorry for the mixup. Now I really owe you a review!
Bit by the "anonymous" bug, but it was me.
Dear Gbenga,
Thanks for your kind remarks.
Does quoting a Bible story, with great respect for the wisdom it relates yet not agreeing with its negative moral message - that humanity was (or would be) wrong to build a great tower, to challenge heaven and raise itself above the earth; that such arrogance should be struck down by the LORD - necessarily make me a believer in that LORD?
I do believe in humanity, and I do think there is a flaw in arrogance and a virtue in humility, yet I would like us to overcome Babel, and to build great towers, while also respecting and preserving the Nature from which we came.
I do agree that we need to strike that balance; I'll have a look at your essay and comment soon.
best wishes,
Mark
Dear Mark,
An excellent thesis, persuasively argued. Only at the conclusion...hopeful. And I think of itself inadequate. Consider already the problem of net neutrality.
Humanity has a common interest to preserve its habitat, this earth. Its survival, and comfort. Yet each person has a divisive reason to exploit it as much as he can. His own survival, and comfort. As you said, it is interest which divides.
I think this can be overcome only by leading by example, by living humbly and taking action against the degradation of the earth. Deeds speak louder than words, and deeds might have the power to overcome Babel. I believe it is only through the communication of and enabling of deeds that information technology may serve as you hope.
Living humbly yet in the comfort to which we have become accustomed may require a reorganization of our society into more efficient economic units.
Good luck in the competition.
Charles
Hi Mark,
I really enjoyed your essay from beginning to end. I think it is very intelligent and well crafted. I like the way you have taken the simple observation that people often fail to understand each other and built it into a consideration of the vast array of problems facing mankind, and disagreements about them, including AI and automated weapons systems. If I have a criticism it is that when you talk about Russia and the Ukraine you are giving a particular perspective which of course others will disagree with, the occupying Russians and the ethnic Russians who want Crimea to be a part of Russia again. I also wonder whether the peaceful occupation of Crimea has prevented a larger civil war in the region that would have left many dead. I suppose it highlights how easy it is to disagree about something even when one is trying to be open minded and tolerant.
Good luck, Georgina
Dear Charles, thank you for reading my essay, and for thoughtful comments.
On the inadequacy of my conclusion, or prescription, I agree! Most of the essay was about the problem, and the claim that it is the main, perhaps even only real problem. As to the solution, I think I pointed in a potentially productive, also potentially perilous direction; the details of how that works or doesn't remain to be developed.
I did say interests divide, but even common interests divide, and also unite. I argued that it is not fundamentally conflicting interests that divide us; people think so, but this is more due to the Babel problem.
You are right about leading by example; deeds are more powerful than words. Deeds also have the power to attract attention, without which words are powerless.
best reasonable wishes,
Mark
Hi Georgina,
Thanks for your comments, and may I say I found your essay also very interesting and attention-holding from start to finish; but I already commented.
On Ukraine, I realized I was playing with dynamite (to say the least), but I fully understand and respect the point of view you express, which is widely but far from unanimously held in Russia and Crimea. I don't think we have an accurate read on the latter, certainly not from Putin's claim of "97%"; pre-crisis polls showed less than majority support for union with Russia. However, I also noted in my essay that the annexation was achieved nearly bloodlessly, in comparison with US actions since 1990 and especially since 2001. So, yes, there are different aspects and views of this. You should understand, also, that lots of Americans believed, and many still do, that Iraq and Afghanistan were justified, even necessary. They have their reasons for that, just as Russians have theirs for believing there was something more important at stake than world peace.
best reasonable wishes,
Mark
Mark --
I'm glad to find another essay in the contest on communication, and yours is excellent. Both successes and failures of communication have always been central to the evolution of our species, and you give a very good overview of our situation as it stands today. I like your summary of the problem:
"Even the most lucid speech requires some effort of the listener... one cannot make stones understand merely by speaking very clearly. So I want to suggest a more general understanding of Babel as the failure of communication, or of community itself... entwined with conflict, anger, arrogance and impatience, as well as distance and cognitive limits."
My own essay tries to provide some historical and conceptual background on this issue. We very easily take it for granted that we know pretty much how human communication works -- after all, this is technology we all use all the time, even when we're just talking to ourselves. But it's only in the last century that we've begun to recognize the depth and many-layered complexity of human connection. I argue that this "rediscovery" of communication is related to the emergence of electronic media, and that the cultural impact of these media is only beginning to be felt today.
Your "tentatively hopeful conclusion" is very reasonable. If you haven't already, you might look at Ray Luechtefeld's essay, which is also very good, dealing with a kind of AI support for collective understanding. I see you've already commented on Sabine Hossenfelder's essay.
Unfortunately it seems almost inevitable that "super-intelligent systems" will be controlled by the only entities capable of creating such things, namely global corporations and (not to sound too cynical), the governments they also more or less control. On the other hand, I think it's possible that the decentralized kinds of communication we now see in a fairly trivial form in "social media" might turn out to play a powerful role in transforming global culture. Our future may possibly be less dependent on what large institutions and super-powerful computers can do for us, than on what we learn to do with and for each other, given these newly-emerging dimensions of connectivity.
Thanks for a fine piece of work -- Conrad
Dear Mark,
Glad to see your reply. Although your saying as "preserving the Nature from which we came" is beyond the scope of this forum otherwise I would demanded for a proof! Your name as "Mark" has its root from the Bible you claimed as the book of wisdom. Many atheists I know hardly make reference to Bible as their basis of philosophy but your theory and even the name revolve round that book of wisdom. Anyway back to business!
I wish to read your comments on my article. It will ever refresh minds even after this contest is all over. However comments without rating will not complete. I anticipate you. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020
Wishing you the very best in this competition.
Regards
Gbenga
Dear Mark,
Good analysis. Of course the same bible that tells of Babel does predict much later the emergence of what it calls an impostor. Now assume for a while that the LORD in the Babel story foresaw and was actually trying to prevent the emergence of an impostor/AGI. So now when it does finally come (as you hope and the bible predicts) then are we confronted with the real danger of an actual operational pseudo "LORD". This in my opinion is the moral of the Babel story; the Lord (authentic) which did scatter Babel must remain the Lord absolute. I see this as the reign of uncertainty principle as against the reign of an entity i.e. authority principle.
I see any authority principle (e.g. AGI) ultimately as a hidden variable theory and the "lord authentic" as the core uncertainty principle (of which we individuals must remain the prime example for it said somewhere "in the image of God made He man..." and in another place also speaking to man it says: "ye are gods".
The Lord at Babel does not pretend to be an ontology. Just as the today the uncertainty principle of quantum physics does not pretend (a la Copenhagen) to be an ontology. And I have actually tried to show that man is his own very uncertainty/quantum.
I agree with you that the fundamental question about AIG is, "Who will control it? If governments, corporations, and wealthy individuals determine the use of super-intelligent systems, they will likely use them as instruments of warfare and competition. Worse, if technological systems themselves are allowed to be in control, they may do things no human being would choose."
Of course they were made in the first place (even according to you) to do things no human being could do!
Really the question is: by what extent is this prospect avoidable anymore?
I will appreciate your candid critique of Between Uncertainty and Entity .
Regards,
Chidi
LOL! It's no insult, that's for sure.
Best,
Tom
P.S., I will use the following rating scale to rate the essays of authors who tell me that they have rated my essay:
10 - the essay is perfection and I learned a tremendous amount
9 - the essay was extremely good, and I learned a lot
8 - the essay was very good, and I learned something
7 - the essay was good, and it had some helpful suggestions
6 - slightly favorable indifference
5 - unfavorable indifference
4 - the essay was pretty shoddy and boring
3 - the essay was of poor quality and boring
2 - the essay was of very poor quality and boring
1 - the essay was of shockingly poor quality and extremely flawed
After all, that is essentially what the numbers mean.
The following is a general observation:
Is it not ironic that so many authors who have written about how we should improve our future as a species, to a certain extent, appear to be motivated by self-interest in their rating practices? (As evidence, I offer the observation that no article under 3 deserves such a rating, and nearly every article above 4 deserves a higher rating.)
PS - I predicted correctly, though it's still underrated. I'll be rating it myself, Mark (and all the others on my review list) some time between now and May 30. Thanks again for reviewing my own essay. All the best, and bye for now, - Mike
Mark, very interesting, well researched essay. Very believable perspective on AI.
Thank you for writing your essay!
Brent Pfister
Mark,
The Babel problem stands out in solving the climate change problems, especially considering the different perspectives of developed and developing countries. Then as you point out, there is the technology and who controls it. For an advanced country, the US has not set a very good example regarding technology's use, choosing war and competition.
Like you I speak of the common good, serving interests of all. My essay speaks of monolithic corporations focusing on their own agendas rather than that of common good and a viable future. "Looking beyond" orthodox science and "within," using th e minds capabilities, a sort of neural universe, are my solutions.
I would like to see your comments on my essay.
Jim
Mark,
Great essay and important points, well made. I vastly agree that communication is horrendously poor. As an Englishman I also consider English an often poor and incomplete language for science. When we understand nature the vocabulary will surely be vastly different. But you rightly point out that even in the SAME language we rarely understand each other. I also think we're in danger of loosing different 'cultures' of thinking. The far eastern/african view is far less self-centric than the western so I think has greater potential.
I pointed out last year that not only are we but every 'thing' is different, so a fundamental error in understanding nature is forgetting that. I've also suggested that our disparity it at once our greatest strength as well as greatest weakness. Do you agree?
You deal well with AI, which I think may further entrench us in the scientific and academic dogma's which as you say; "are infamous for suppressing new thought." I agree Academia is a highly flawed cradle for advancement. (My own essay agrees and explores an escape from such thinking.) This competition shows you correct that;
"People disagree, often violently, about which way the good lies, what it looks like, and how to get there. the mother of all problems, the most difficult for humanity to tackle and the one that we must overcome if we are to have any hope of solving other problems." There is great reliance on maths as a language, which I think massively detracts from rational intelligent analysis and problem solving.
Very well done. Good score coming. My own essay addresses the issue in showing that with freer thinking methods the most confusing of science can be understood coherently by all. Fundamental advances in understanding nature have always driven our own route ahead. I suggest what holds us back is belief in dogma.
Very well done. I hope you may perhaps get to read and score mine, written as an allegorical tale, by the deadline.
Best wishes
Peter