Let's say that we want to understand if a certain system or phenomenon is exhibiting human-level intelligence. What would we then look for? There are multitudes of such tests, and they look for a great variety of things. One catalogue of such tests is BIG-bench, a battery of task tests that is aimed at understanding… Continue reading The role of play
Here is a common thought model: artificial intelligence will become more and more intelligent, and reach human capability. At that point it becomes something like an artificial general intelligence and some time after that it will use that intelligence to bootstrap itself into an artificial super intelligence. The model then is one-dimensional: [AI-AGI-ASI] Now, there… Continue reading Artificial Strange Intelligence
In considering the potential for an ethology of artificial intelligence (AI), we are venturing into uncharted territory. The idea of observing and studying AI behavior as we would an animal’s seems, at first glance, to be an attempt to anthropo- or biomorphize technology. However, as AI systems like large language models become increasingly complex, the… Continue reading On the possibility of model ethology
One of the most common, yet unexamined, concepts in technology policy is the idea of a "pace of technical development". Usually, it is described as "fast" and taken to mean that we need to make interventions in a timely manner. This is all good and well, but what does it mean to say that the… Continue reading A note on the pace of technical development
I picked this book up in a bookstore I adore - Walden Books in Camden. It is an angry defence of phrenology as a science and works as a great reminder of how far we will go to defend our beliefs, but it is also a challenge to we think about mind and brain. Williams… Continue reading Book note: A Vindication of Phrenology (1894) by W Matthieu Williams
How does an information society collapse? Is it in information overload, as some people seem to believe? If so - what does that mean? Remember the key value chain model for information: [data - information - knowledge - wisdom] - so where does the collapse occur? Herbert Simon pointed out that there is one point… Continue reading Not with a bang but with noise
Here is a thought experiment: what happens when the cost of imitating a person reaches zero? Assume that we can create synthetic media that looks like X, speaks in X voice with X's mannerisms etc etc -- and deploy that in any channel or persistently available across all channels for anyone who wants to communicate… Continue reading The ethics and economics of presence
Speculation. If we assume, for the sake of argument (it is a big assumption), that human and artificial intelligence both are neural networks and that if trained on the same data, will both produce the same intelligence, we still are left with the question of whether humans and machines can be trained on the same… Continue reading Is embodiment embedded in language?
Here is an argument that I have been noodling on lately. I am not sure I agree entirely with it, but I think it is worth considering. It is easy to believe that you are a machine, and it gets easier the more complex the machine is. If the machine can also mimic some part… Continue reading The metaphorical trap
One increasingly complex problem within utilitarianism is that it puts such emphasis on the individual. The idea that utility is individually felt and assessed may miss something important about utility - the fact that it is a concept that is deeply relational. Or put differently: if you were the last human on Earth you would… Continue reading Network concepts