We already have good broad theories of intelligence

In Taking "Singularity" Apart Stuart Staniford writes:

"The idea that intelligence will accelerate in future does not follow from the possibility of developing human-level machine intelligence. It assumes a completely unproven 'law of intelligence' that the smarter you are, the easier it is to produce an intelligence even greater. Maybe it works the other way altogether - the smarter you are, the more complex and difficult it is to produce an even greater intelligence. Perhaps there's some fundamental limit to how intelligent it's possible for any agent to be. We have no clue. We haven't so far seen even a single generation of intelligences (us) producing a more intelligent entity, so the whole intelligence explosion idea consists of extrapolating from less than one data point. It's utter speculation"

I'd like to make a distinction between the hypothetical 'law of intelligence' Stuart states and the idea that intelligence is lawful, that there are patterns between the makeup of an entity and how good it will be at some particular mental task. In a simplified case, you could put certain properties of an entity's brain into a set of equations and get back scores related to its learning, focus, creativity, and such.

It is this kind of 'Laws of Intelligence', laws as scientific theory, which would lead to higher intelligences being better able to apply those laws. I think there is a vast amount of evidence that intelligence is lawful in exactly this way.

One law of intelligence is that from certain measures you can score higher by using more raw speed or memory. You might not paint a better painting or understand a deeper metaphor, but with a proper architecture you can certainly make more paintings, consider more metaphors, and learn faster. Even with no further understanding of it's own intelligence, if a digital being could copy itself to another system, it could do twice the work.

This alone pushes the questions of lawfulness and improvement via intelligence into the realm of manufacturing. It seems clear that 100 engineers would be better than 1 at designing systems to acquire resources, process them, and finally process the designers themselves faster.

Going back to raw algorithms, the degree to which higher intelligence helps design still higher intelligence is likely to be domain specific. Designing a version of yourself that is better at genetic engineering is not that different than writing an automatic tool that solves certain molecular problems quickly, in that both rely on the lawfulness of the problem. It will probably be much easier to improve an AI's ability to program than to improve it's ability to paint, as coding is very lawful and painting less so.

The best evidence that greater intelligence leads to greater ability to create intelligence is the basis for Stuarts own belief that "while I cannot say it's a certainty, it appears to be more likely than not that machines will gradually approach human levels of intelligence in the present century." It took billions of years for mindless natural selection to produce human level intelligence and perhaps a few thousand for us. Today already it appears that a thinking thing can look a program and find ways to make that smarter, or find whole news ways to solve the same problem. More specifically, it also appears that those with higher scores in certain metrics are better at it than others.

The trends we see and projections of improved future AI's only make sense if intelligence is something that can be figured out and constructed. A predictable explosion of figuring-out is just a natural consequence of this.

Thank You Mr. Brown

Finally, after three years of fits and starts, I have finished my Science Fiction epic, Xenobiology.

I started Xenobiology because I was inspired by the wonderful blognovel Simon of Space. Back when SoS started, it was an episodic story posted to blogger every couple of days, so that's the example I followed. I intended my story to be purely episodic, like the old star trek shows, where every few episodes the Professor would visit a new planet and describe the life forms there, all against a backdrop of a technologically stifled galactic civilization.
I wrote a post a day for the first 30 days. Then I let myself have a break, which I probably never should have done. I never recovered that momentum.
But I received enough compliments to make me think I could actually write, and over the course of getting the Professor to where I wanted him I had laid the foundation for an actual plot. Like with an ending and everything.

So I joined a local writer's group, failed at NaNoWriMo a few times, and ever so slowly developed my story and missed my self imposed deadlines.
And now, with several months of increased discipline, It is done. Every future post is loaded into blogger, and I'm scheduling them for a post a day as I do final corrections.

Of course, there is more to the story, but for now I just wanted to thank the author that really got me started in writing.

Soon I meet The Westboro Baptists

The Westboro Baptist Is coming to Buffalo! "On Sunday at 1:45, they’ll be at St. Joseph’s Church at 3275 Main Street in Buffalo near UB South campus."

Update: Photos - The counter-protest by a variety of Buffalo groups was overwhelming. Only 3 of the Westboro Baptists showed up, and they left after a few minutes of being completely surrounded.

Who Mourns for Corn?

A giant contraption
moves with a dull monotone
incapable of action
they die by the millions; alone.

It is not a sad scene
that they die just now,
if not killed by machine
they'd fall prey to a cow.

They are not complete
or happy at all
until their seeds we eat
picked in a time we call fall.

Perfect contentment
they do enjoy
so do not lament
any plant but for soy.

Justice vs. strict constructionism

My response to this:
The constitution is not an end, it is a means. As a means, it has several ends. One of its stated ends is to ‘establish justice’. Rights are not granted by the constitution, but some are recognized by it explicitly.
If the constitution fails to bring justice, or to recognize a right, the courts still have a responsibility to be just, because justice is the goal, not legalism.

Do not Question!!!

Measured Against Reality has a post on meaningless questions, questions that are unanswerable because they are poorly formed. Like 'What is outside of the universe?'.

He uses a lot of examples from the debate over evolution and the big bang. When people disagree on a complex subject, they often challenge the other side with questions. They find something that the theory doesn't seem to explain. Sometimes it's a good challenge, sometimes it has an answer, and sometimes it's gibberish.

The problem is that such questions don't have a place in rational discourse, at all.

When you make an argument, you start with premises, follow a logical pattern, and reach a conclusion. If your premises are true and your logic valid, then your conclusion must be true.
For someone to attack your claim, they should make an argument that one or more of your premises are false, or that your logic is invalid. Their argument should also have premises and logic, and be subject to the same style of attack.

Challenge questions sidestep all that. They attack a conclusion without attacking the premises or logic that lead up to it. They make an argument, but make it difficult to criticize by obscuring its implied premises, which may be gibberish. It is this easy and hard to counter attack that makes them popular rhetoric, but bad argument.

Questions for clarification or knowledge are fine. I am only against questions used to attack structured arguments.

We should not ask 'Well then who did Cain marry?'. It provides no premises, and disproves nothing. We should make assertions about who would have been available for Cain, and those assertions can be rationally discussed.

Conversely, we should not answer challenge questions, whether they are meaningful or not. We should put it upon the challenger to make a good argument against our premises or logic. We have no obligation to be sniped at, and if our arguments are good, then theirs will fall flat.

A Thwarted Creation Myth

"Rolos are one of the seven perfect candies God created at the beginning of the world."

"That's stupid, I remember when Rolos came out."

Voynich Manuscript

Now you can download Hi-res scans of the Voynich Manuscript.

Happy Day!

Do not Fear the Gods

In my research on Epicurus, I found this

The Epicurean Blog: This same double-standard operates when Dawkins links creed and behavior. If religion in practice fueled the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the sectarian wars of the 15th and 16th centuries would not atheism in practice be responsible for the 20th Century European charnel houses created by Hitler and Stalin? Orr criticizes the distinctions that Dawkins cites to avoid that conclusion, differences that Dawkins will not allow when considering religion.

I responded:
Dawkins does not link Hitler's and Stalin's atrocities to atheism because his premise is that atheism is not a false belief. We should not believe Christianity because it is false, and we should not be respectfully deferential to it because it is dangerous.

If we assume that a person with no false beliefs would commit no such atrocities, and that atheism is true, then we must attribute atrocious actions of atheists to other, false beliefs they hold. I don't know what distinctions Orr criticized, but truth is the one that matters.

That an idea is dangerous is not an argument that it is false, but that a idea is dangerous and false is an argument that it should be confronted.

He didn't write a book about the tooth fairy because belief in the tooth fairy hasn't shown itself to be very dangerous.

-A new fan of Epicurus

This is How Network Neutrality Should Be Framed

The Register: "'That's absolutely what you are asking for!' he shouted to counter-shots of 'no!' and 'there is no market place!', referring to the fact a handful of phone and cable companies control the lion share of broadband internet access and service in the US."

At every step, present the telecom carriers with the dictate: As long as you are getting access to the public space to run your lines, we as citizens have a right to those lines under reasonable terms.

This pushes the debate into an area that they dare not risk, their special government privileges. I would be happy to allow packet shaping if it meant I could run my own fiber down the street, but that's not going to happen.

They are not part of a market, and cannot possibly be in a true market, as long as we are giving them special permission to exist. Neither the telephone or cable companies would survive long if we didn't give them their monopolies on the infrastructure. Never let them forget that they owe us.

If you can, hint at it in every paragraph. They will fold.

The Power of Negative Thinking

This Article from Slate introduces a book called Never Saw It Coming as a counterpoint to The Secret. It appears to be a book about the need for contingency planning, and what happens when you don't look at and prepare for possible disasters.
This interests me in particular because it touches on the wider themes of how to establish policy, prevent intelligence failures, and how to think in general.

I need a wishlist.

The design of a cat dish

Imagine a food and water dish with a port to screw in a water bottle. The bottle refills the water dish whenever the water level drops below the mouth of the bottle. To refill the bottle, you have to turn the dish upside down, which would cause any leftover food to spill out. The solution is to keep the food dish as a separate item, a detachable bowl that nests into a cavity next to the water dish. It keeps all the functionality of independent items, but appears as a single unit.

It came.

I got a tube in the mail today, inside was my print of Minus 37. Woohoo! It's signed on the back! I looked at it and it is awesome, but I put it back into the tube until I can get it framed.

Moment of Humor

I am watching Red Eye on Fox news at 2 in the morning. They are talking about the palestinian Mickey Mouse teaching Muslim expansion. The host questions whether such a silly figure teaching hate can be taken seriously. A guest responds, and she is identified on screen as a Playboy centerfold.

This is why I don't watch Fox News.

Anarchy, Equality, Humility, Charity, Community

Five Qualities

Anarchy
Anarchy is the natural and optimal state. We have no authority over one another, and we owe no one. Controlling influences rob people of their will. Without rulers, you develop a knowledge of:
Equality
No one is better or worse than anyone else. We are all in this together. When you know that your worth is the same no matter who you are, what you believe, or what you've done, you are led to:
Humility
Arrogance and Pride are invariably harmful. The Humility that is required to develop friendship also provides:
Charity
A willingness to give what you have for the benefit of all, charity is a recognition of the true nature of property. When charity is extended without discrimination, you create:
Community
People can only come together as one when they choose to not consider their differences important. Living united, a community is commanded by only:
Anarchy


Entered into problogger's Top 5 writing project.

Movie reviews

I've had a recent uptick in the number of new movies I've been watching. I'll do quick reviews in bulk:

TMNT - This is everything I'd hoped it would be. I feel like I've found something that was missing in my life. This is how the Turtles are supposed to be. Not cartoons, and definitely not rubber suits. If the turtles weren't ingrained into your mind as a child, you can probably pass.

300 - Good Action, Lots of controversy. I thought Xerxes represented Christ/Christianity.

Epic Movie - This was just a mistake. Not good, not even by stupid parody movie standards. Six full seconds of entertainment.

Eragon - Good, cute dragons. Star Wars rip off. I know it's all meta myth but this is ridiculous. I could see someone redubbing the audio from either movie into the other and the result still being perfectly watchable, perhaps even better.

Children of Men - Very Good. A bit slow in the beginning, but worth it for the character development.

Arrogant and Rude

I try to be outgoing in social situations because other people would benefit immensely from my understanding and insight, other people want to hear what I have to say!

No, I didn't say it, but my personality test said I should. But what does that even mean? If the test is based on self reporting of what I think of myself and what I think others think about me, then isn't it still me saying that about myself? Or is the test actually smart enough to filter out people who just think their opinions are awesome from people who are actually insightful?
On the one hand it seems to have reached this conclusion because I don't tend to jump on other people's so-called flaws, but maybe it just doesn't expect a narcissist to showcase their awesomeness by being forgiving. How can I take seriously an analysis that offers no explanation whatsoever of why I am "somewhat shy and reserved at times"?

The network is the computer

Matt Posted This criticism of YouOS that I think misses some key points of why YouOS and it's Open Source competition eyeOS are important and useful. Matt complains about adding two layers of abstraction between the application and the user, but he misses another that make all the difference. Web based operating systems also add the network layer between the system and the end user.

That is the key appeal of Web apps in general, they are accessible from any browser. Networked OS's are as old as UNIX, but networked Gui's usually depend on software that is not universally installed. EyeOS/YouOS is not competing with Windows as a platform, it's competing with with Windows plus Windows Terminal Services plus having a compatible client plus praying it works plus vendor lock in. In that context Web based applications are a clear winner in most cases, and have been for a while.

Another thing I think Matt misses is that these OS's are not tied to JavaScript for anything other than basic window operations. Application back ends run on the server, can be written in any language, and can run at native speeds. If an app needs more graphical power, the front end can use Flash or Java and still tie into the API's for file access. There will be a network bottleneck, but that's inevitable for any remote access solution. Matt is right that JavaScript wasn't made for systems programming, but the only part of Web OS's that is strictly tied to JavaScript is lightweight user interface programming, which is exactly what JavaScript was designed for.

Vista is Shit

Windows Vista is the worst version of Windows I have ever used. I've had it for about a week now and that's about enough.
This is the most powerful computer I've ever owned, and it is crawling. Even after I cleared out the bloatware it came with, it stalls for seconds at a time. Video playback stutters whenever the mouse cursor goes over the video.
There have been some improvements, but most of those are basic things that should have been fixed years ago.

I tried it, I gave it a fair hearing. Now I'm shopping for a flavor of Linux to install.

It takes a village to keep a marriage together

Chris Rock on the Late Show said something like: "If you're married, you've been in therapy. There's no way you're going to keep that together naturally. It takes a village to keep a marriage together."

This is the perfect way to frame so many discussions on child rearing, family values, and society in general.