Log of my (BMcC[18-11-46-503]) postings
Page #13

Len: 106,318  54.

¶ +2024.08.11. Is there a serious chance that advanced AI technology may displace or make obsolete creative or "image industries" such as artists, actors, and modeling (etc.) or will there always be a need for real humans in these professions? Why or why not?

short answer: Advanced AI will to a large extent displace creative or "image industries" such as artists, actors, and modeling (etc.) for "routine" work. But there will always be a need for real humans in these professions for many reasons including

"Touching up" correcting and modifying the AI images.

Professionals just "playing around with ideas" they have.

I asked the Bing AI about this and it outputted:

"Today's AI is nowhere close to being intelligent, let alone conscious. Even the most impressive deep neural networks, such as DeepMind's AlphaZero or large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3, lack consciousness. They operate purely based on patterns and statistical correlations, devoid of subjective experience. These AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, from playing games to writing essays, but they lack self-awareness or inner life." Key words there are "patterns and statistical correlations".

I think the main ways the AI will replace humans is where people want to save money or speed up or mass produce something. But there will always be a desire, not just a need, for high quality innovative and sensitive "hand" work in all fields. For instance, I use a coffee cup which in the details of its quality made by a master potter could never be equalled by AI.

Here's one example I just thought of: Let's say I have a coffee cup that was very high quality AI product. I drop it and it breaks. A master potter comes along and patches it back together in a sensitive masterful way that AI could not do. There are tea bowls in Japan's national museums that were broken and re"glued" with gold and the breakage and its fixing is part of the pieces' value.

And always keep foremost in mind that we humans are the designers and the ones who decide WHAT to produce and why to produce it. AI is just another tool for helping us make what we want. Like a lathe helps a furniture maker, etc. We must not let the tail wag the dog!

¶ +2024.06.18. I came up with creative words I have came up: Imaginique, Epique, Americanique, Melodique and Enchantique. What do you think of my creative words?

I think your words sound like you are a a lover of things French: Frenchique things. you sound like a Frenchique person.

This is fine. The dictionary is not a book of laws; it is descriptive not prescriptive. The dictionary says how words are generally used. I can't find the reference, but I think that in Alice in Wonderland the Cheshire Cat says that words mean exactly what he intends them to mean, neither more nor less.

If I want to call cat a Fluffique, and if you understand that's what I mean, then we communicate well.

So the issue with your innovative words is what context do you want to use them in and will people understand them? If some school teacher tells you otherwise, unless you are in his course and he is grading you, tell him to be sensibleique or whatever.

I actually made a "mistake" like his in 11th grade and the teacher not only graded me down but humiliated me. I wrote that someone was preparing dinner in the cuisine. That actually is correct in French, I think (?). But I thought I was being kind of cute and the teacher thought to show me how big a bully he was.

¶ +2024.06.18. What if a robot started developing a personality and began to have feelings for a human being?

First, let me quote the response I got from asking the Bing AI about "artificial intelligence", consciousness and that sort of thing:

"Today's AI is nowhere close to being intelligent, let alone conscious. Even the most impressive deep neural networks, such as DeepMind's AlphaZero or large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3, lack consciousness. They operate purely based on patterns and statistical correlations, devoid of subjective experience1. These AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, from playing games to writing essays, but they lack self-awareness or inner life."

So this question is an idle, moot speculation. It's not going to happen. But it's still worth thinking about to help us understand perhaps other things more clearly. If it did happen, wouldn't we have to treat the "creature" as a "moral being" worthy of respect? "What are you doing? You are going to pull the plug on me and kill me when all I want to do is help you and be your friend?" What would you do?

We can in reality confront a somewhat similar issue: our pet animals. You are typing and your pet cat or dog comes over and rubs lovingly against your hand and does other things that seem clearly to indicate he or she ("it") cares about you and wants your attention to play with it. Perhaps "it" cares more about you than many humans do. What is you response. Your pet is getting in the way of your typing. You gently try to nudge him away. If it was a big horsefly buzzing around you you would just swat it.

I recently read a remarkable book about a man's relation with his pet cat. The book's title is a bit odd, so don't be put off by it: "My Beloved Monster: Masha, he half-wild rescue cat who rescued me", by Caleb Carr (Little Brown, 2024). For me it was a heart-rending book. I highly recommend it here.

Back to the original question: I do not think we can answer it "abstractly". I think we'd have to see how we reacted to the particular situation (to repeat: it's not likely to happen to any of us in reality, but who knows what the day will bring?).

There was a Jack Ziegler New Yorker cartoon some years ago of a very depressed lady sitting at her breakfast table, facing the toaster. The toaster says: "You are special: you have a talking toaster." And I will add here: "Please don't pull the plug on me!"

What do you think? feel?

¶ +2024.06.17. Can you describe the experience of being in the flow state or 'the zone' while working on something creative or difficult, such as mathematics?

This kind of question is difficult to answer. Experiences generally need to be experienced to be understood. Try to explain colors to a congenitally blind person.

So the best one can do is generally to give instructions how to have the experience. "The experience of being in the flow state or 'the zone'" sounds like something strange to daily life, something foreign that only "geniuses" experience. And this is to a certain extent true. Few persons have "great ideas" such as "seeing" the structure of the atom.

But any "Aha!" experience is a "small time" experience of being in the flow state or 'the zone' while working on something creative or difficult for you.

[ light bulb ]

Learning to ride a bicycle and you keep falling off until "suddenly" you start to be coordinated and you're riding. Or solving a puzzle, where you keep failing to figure it out and then suddenly "Oh, now I see!". Find a word that uses only the following 7 letters: "A u b h t i l" (the answer can be found somewhere in this posting). You keep trying all different combinations but none of them forms a word. Now let me give you a clue: A given letter may be used more than once in the word. You still may keep trying and not succeeding.

Suppose you finally see the word: "Aha!" You've had a little experience of being in the flow state or 'the zone' while working on something creative or difficult.

That's all there is to it, except that the experience may go on for some time working out the details, etc. But our habitual approach to such little "Aha!" experiences is to focus on the problem we are trying to solve, not what it feels like when we actually do solve it. So we remember having found the answer but forget the brief experience of how we got to it. If the solution does take some time, then you may have time to also notice how the process of solving it feels.

If this question interests you, try to be on the lookout for "Aha!"s. Does this help?

¶ +2024.06.17. Is excessive gaming, particularly on mobile devices, harmful to one's brain and overall health? If so, how many hours per day is considered excessive?

That one asks this question indicates concern about the possible answer.

When a person does gaming instead of activities that are more relevant and important to their life, it's excessive and unhealthy.

I am not a neurologist, so I don't know what effects this has on a person's brain, but clearly is it having negative impact on their MIND and their LIVING.

There are many different kinds of excessive behavior. We often call them an "addiction". There are even recovery groups similar to Alcoholics Anonymous: "Gaming Addicts Anonymous: A Fellowship and Recovery Program for Compulsive Video Gamers"

https://www.gamingaddictsanonymous.org/

¶ +2024.06.14. Can we imagine that in the very distant future, on Earth we'll be a collective consciousness, a single "being", a giant energy, as a form of super intelligence?

This kind of question arises from gluing together superficial ideas that don't make sense.

Consciousness is always singular. I (or you, or somebody else) are conscious of something, such as that the earth has one moon. or that you have a toothache. Or whatever. We can imagine the things we are conscious of in all sorts of configurations. For Instance we can imagine that the moon splits in half and henceforth shows up as two moons until we imagine that at some future date we imagine it puts itself back together again...

"Collective consciousness" is something else we can imagine. I think tht I am conscious, and I think that you are conscious, I can glue these two ideas together and produce the fantasy of a collective consciousness". But who is CONSCIOUS in this imagined ""Collective consciousness"? Maybe I imagine being conscious of communicating with you without speaking, just "magically". ???

If there are 8 billion persons on earth, we can imagine them all as one "superperson". But what have we imagined thereby? I propose instead, imagining a world in which each of us communicates with the others thoughtfully and respectfully in Socratic discussion instead of quarrelling and competing and bossing others around....

[ Socratic discussion ]

I would suggest something: Instead of imagining things which are either nonsensical or impossible such as "collective consciousness" or "super intelligence", no matter what your religious beliefs or lack of same, study The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. It describes a peaceful, enjoyable social life for each of us. Since there are no wars where we kill each other ot other such bad things between persons, why not call is supercivilization, or something like that? Or just savor it?

¶ +2024.06.12. Can humanity surpass superintelligence?

Where do these kind of questions come from? Sci-fi puerile fantasies? High-IQ young males who have studied math and computer science but nothing in the "humanities" and have no emotions? And who have given no thought to life as lived?

May I urge reading something pretty short and thinking about it, no matter what one's religious orientation or lack of same: The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

What is "superintelligence" and whatever it is, what might it matter to anyone's living their mortal life here on earth? The mathematician John von Neumann may in a way be considered to have had "superintelligence": The other geniuses at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies were in awe of his mathematical ability. But so what? He died from cancer. He must have SUFFERED humanly a lot, yes? What did his superintelligence matter to his pain and suffering?

Humanity can surely surpass what it mostly seems to be: People doing and believing what their parents and teachers told them to do and believe as children and in adult life. Buy a house on a quarter acre of land and grill hamburgers on the Fourth of July for the family. If we understand this kind of existence as "humanity", then we can develop a different kind of superintelligence or superhumanity that has nothing to do with science fiction or computers.

The physicist Richard Feynman at least said he had an IQ of 125 –- not "stupid" but not a "genius", either. But he was an amazingly creative person. How did he do it?

Of course we cannot be sure, but he said that his father was always asking him questions and challenging him to solve them. Even "better": His father encouraged him to think up more questions for himself and solve them.

Contrast with parents who tell their children: "Believe [whatever]." "Why, mommy?" "Because I say so." "Yes, mommy"

Parents and teachers need to encourage young persons to question what they tell them, not to just accept it." They need to encourage the young person to think for themself, and let them know that what they –- the parents –– believe may not be right, and even if it is good for them –– the parents –– it might not be so good for them –- the children.

That's how to make humanity surpass itself, not with technology.

The physicist Niels Bohr told his students: "Take every statement I make as a question not as an assertion." There is your superintelligence / superhumanity.

¶ +2024.06.12. Why do most people think so simple and scripted taught by their parents, teachers, professors, society, and political figures as compared to harnessing the full potential of the internet to do great, extraordinary, and impossible things?

Is this question on target? Is the problem that persons do not take advantage of the potential of the internet? Or is the problem that persons do not take advantage of the potential of civilization in general, for example, printed books before the internet?

The physicist Richard Feynman at least said he had an IQ of 125 –- not "stupid" but not a "genius", either. But he was an amazingly creative person. How did he do it?

Of course we cannot be sure, but he said that his father was always asking him questions and challenging him to solve them. Even "better": His father encouraged him to think up more questions for himself to work on.

[ boss ]

Contrast with parents who tell their children: "Believe [whatever]." "Why, mommy?" "Because I say so." "Yes, mommy."

Parents and teachers need to encourage young persons to question what they tell them, not to just accept it." They need to encourage the young person to think for themself, and let them know that what they –- the parents –- believe may not be right, and even if it is good for them –- the parents –- it might not be so good for them –-; the children.

The physicist Niels Bohr instructed his students (long before the internet): "Take every statement I make as a question not as an assertion.

As for the Internet and all other innovations:

The history of science and technology of the post-war [post-1945] era is filled with examples of reckless and unreflective "progress" which, while beneficial or at least profitable to some in the short run, may yet devastate much life on this planet. Perhaps it is too much to hope, but I hope nonetheless that as our discipline matures our practitioners will mature also, that all of us will begin to think about what we are actually doing and ponder whether, whatever it is, it is what those who follow after us would want us to have done. (Joseph Weizenbaum, Professor of Computer Science, MIT)

¶ +2024.05.12. THIS WAS A RESPONSE TO A VERY IMPORTANT QUERY BUT I'M NOT SURE I sent it (Was th original posting a hoax?)

I got the neuralink and now I'm getting NordVPN advertisements in my dreams. What do I do?

I am not competent to answer your question, so ignore what I say if you wish. But this sounds very serious.

I suggest you go at once to your nearest hospital emergency room.

¶ +2024.05.12. Is the concept of "two sides" in issues often created by marketing campaigns rather than being a genuine representation of differing opinions?

I certainly am not an expert here, but it's an obvious ploy to build product excitement and brand loyalty.

In the heyday of Detroit automobile production some people were loyal Buick owners and others were die-hard Oldsmobile enthusiasts. Of course the two makes of automobile were the same except for the sheet metal. But the competition stimulated sales.

Is the concept of "two sides" in issues often created by marketing campaigns rather than being a genuine representation of differing opinions?

Profile photo for Bradford McCormick

Bradford McCormick

Independent Researcher (2018–present)24m

I certainly am not an expert here, but it's an obvious ploy to build product excitement and brand loyalty.

In the heyday of Detroit automobile production some people were loyal Buick owners and others were die-hard Oldsmobile enthusiasts. Of course the two makes of automobile were the same except for the sheet metal. But the competition stimulated sales.

Then too the 1858 model had all exciting styling so you wouldn't want to keep driving the boring old 1957 model around.

Isn't the whole athletic industrial complex of professional team sports the same thing? All the teams are pretty much the same, but marketing makes them arch competitors so people get all excited about spending money to support their favorite team.

Divide and publicize! Encourage people to spend money comby competing with each other!

In their book "monopoly Capital", two economists Paul Sweezy and Paul A. Baran computed that if basic automobiles from 1948 to about 1964 had only mechanical improvements and no styling changes, the 1964 model could sell for less then $1,000 – a huge price reduction. But since there would be no new model bravura, people would not be motivated to buy a new car. And the economy would suffer.

Competition artificially increases sales by tantalizing people to want to have the newest and "greatest" even though not much may be different except the decoration.

Then too the 1858 model had all exciting styling so you wouldn't want to keep driving the boring old 1957 model around.

Isn't the whole athletic industrial complex of professional team sports the same thing? All the teams are pretty much the same, but marketing makes them arch competitors so people get all excited about spending money to support their favorite team.

Divide and publicize! Encourage people to spend money comby competing with each other!

In their book "monopoly Capital", two economists Paul Sweezy and Paul A. Baran computed that if basic automobiles from 1948 to about 1964 had only mechanical improvements and no styling changes, the 1964 model could sell for less then $1,000 – a huge price reduction. But since there would be no new model bravura, people would not be motivated to buy a new car. And the economy would suffer.

Competition artificially increases sales by tantalizing people to want to have the newest and "greatest" even though not much may be different except the decoration.

¶ +2024.05.10. Why do human interaction and social skills seem to me so complicated and impossible to learn? It feels harder than designing a CPU.

A Quora forum is not the right place to get help with personal psychological concerns.

You need to find a professional you can trust. Not all parents and teachers are helpful, unfortunately.

You might start with a Social Service Agency, like Jewish Community Services in your town. They may be able to help you even if you are not jewish, because they are compassionate and caring. If they cannot help you they wlll most likely be able to refer you to someone who can help you.

If anyone is abusing you, go to the police or call 911.

¶ +2024.05.10. Virtual reality systems are gaining popularity these days. Are you excited about the potential of virtual reality with children? Or are you worried? Why?

I am extremely worried about this. And not just for children, but for everybody!

They may act toward a virtual as if it was a real person, or act toward a real person as if it was a virtual . Essentially, being insane, not distinguishing reality from fantasy.

A real person may come toward them with a gun to shoot them and they just run toward the gun and get shot, thinking it's just virtual.. Or they may mistake a real gun for a virtual gun and kill a real person.

VIRTUAL REALITY SHOULD NOT BE FOR PLAY.

VR has legitimate uses such as training airplane pilots: better to crash a simulation then to kill 500 real persons in a real jumbo jet.

[ My vr experiment]

¶ +2024.05.06. How can science and technology preserve and develop African oral literature?

Great question.

Let me separate PRESERVE from DEVELOP.

Preserving is done best by highly educated and highly empathic social scientists humbly asking the native people to let them help preserve their social order and beliefs. The social scientists have powerful tools for this such as video recorders, and rigorous notetaking of their observations.

The scientists need to encourage the native persons as to become as involved as possible, so it is a joint accomplishment . Encourage the native people to record their beliefs and customs themselves. Especially try to get them to preserve their language with the help of linguists.

One example: A scientist documents what he (she, other) thinks a certain native custom means. He shares this with the natives. And they explain to him that he has it all wrong, that what it really means is something else. He may then get them thinking why their custom is the way it is and thus further contribute to the preservation, perhaps even re-discovering ancient meanings the recent ancestors forgot or themselves have misinterpreted.

Ideally the output should be research documentation which is the joint authorship of the people themselves and the scientists.

–––-

But developing is a different matter. The native cultures can be preserved like anatomical specimens and fossils. The native cultures cannot be developed because they are "contaminated" by our high-technology culture.

Example: They can reenact tribal dances but they are no longer naively living the spirit of the drama. They may watch a dance or more likely sell tickets to earn money from tourists. But what they are doing does not have the "spirit" of when the ancestors did it, who did not know about photographs and all the other "modern" things.

You can try to imitate the past but you can't live it like a fish swims in its pure native water which no longer exists because of everything it's been mixed up with.

If you are really serious about this subject, I highly recommend you read "Prisoners of Ritual", Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, Harrington Park Press, 1989

Here is one thing I did think of: The traditional oral literature, besides being preserved in its authentic form, can also be imaginatively mixed in with our high-technology arts.

I am not referring here to anything like creole or pidgin or "native crafts" to market to tourists. I am thinking of persons who have deep knowledge of both the native culture and also the modern culture creating fine innovative art and literature and other creative areas that incorporate the best of both the traditional and the modern.

This will not develop the traditional material which is "dead", but it can further help us develop today's global, synergistic culture. Consider this: Medical scientists have learned and continue to learn, there is sometimes knowledge in traditional cultures that is even better than what we currently use, so they will adopt these better ways that came not from The Ivory Tower but from tribal life in nature. All humankind's past and present life contributing to making the future even better.

"All known cultures have in one way or another depersonalized as well as personalized, so that no human culture has been worth preserving the way it was – although all have been worth improving." (Walter Ong, "Fighting for life", p. 201)

I remember an old hymn from school:

"God's whole will will not be done until all mankind is one."

¶ +2024.05.06. Is creativity real? Is creativity just combining many old knowledge into something new and not just generating knowledge out of thin air?

Where do new ideas come from? "No man knows from where the words come from in the upsurge of meaning from the depths into the light" (quoting from imperfect memory, George Steiner, quoting Schiller, "After Babel", p. 147, if I remember correctly). All creativity is a mystery.

Try to imagine something you cannot imagine. You can't do it can you? But sometime in the next hour "a lightbulb may go off in your head"

[ Light bulb ]

And you can't imagine where that bright idea came from.

The mathematician Andres Wiles spent most of his life trying to figure out Fermat's Last Theorem which nobody had been able to either prove or disprove for centuries. After years of futile trying, he says he was about half an hour from quitting and then

[ Light bulb ]

Or who ,knows, he might just have thought: "Well I'll be!" And here's the punchline: as soon as he saw it he realized how easy it would be for him to finish it up.

Bob Dylan says the lyrics for many of his songs "Just come to him" and he writes them down by taking inner dictation like a stenographer. He has no clue where they came from

––––

Here is the important thing: we cannot understand where new ideas come from. But we can improve the chances of having them by cultivating conditions that encourage them. Be in awe and cultivate seeking this mysterium.

Learn as much as we can about subjects we have passionate interest in and which are important to us. Have a lot of free leisure time to PLAY with ideas. DO other nurtiring, supportive things like sharing thoughts with good friends.

––––––––

Consider one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century, Richard Feynman, He had many innovative ideas. He at least said he had an IQ of 125 and studied hard. 125 is not stupid but it's maybe It's 95%ile. But he had something going for him in the nurture not nature department:

Prof. Feynman grew up with a father who was always asking him questions and challenging him to solve them and even more than that, encouraging him to think up more questions for himself.

Let me end by showing the biggest reason a person may NOT have innovative ideas. A parent or teacher tells the learner "Such and such" is the truth." The learner asks: "Why?" The parent/teacher replies sonething like: "That just the way it is, got it?" Or: "Because I tell you so. Got it?"

[ Boss ]

Learner: "Yes, mommy."

¶ +2024.05.06. When AI replace humans at everything, will education have any use?

AI replaces humans (and working animals, too) in DOING things.

But AI cannot make the choices what to do and why. As I think an ole Microsoft ad had it: "Where do you want to go today?" AI just computes; it doesn't have goals.

In past (and still to a large extent today...) humans – persons – need to be educated in order both to have skill do to things as well as wisdom to choose what to do and why.

But as AI becomes ever more adept at doing more and more things, humans will have to do less and be free to enjoy living more. But people will always need to know how to do things, AI can never replace humans as "field engineers", for instance, i.e., the people who fix the AI when it breaks. This means people will need to be educated in the knowledge of how the AI works, and they will also use this skill knowledge to make new inventions and by choice to have "hand made" artifacts as well as "machine made".

But the biggest reasons for persons to need education even if they do not have to do anything (it has always been this way for the ultrarich, yes?) will be to have the WISDOM to choose wisely how to shape their social world. And also to have more enjoyment in living: connoisseurship.

Even if you do not believe in any Deity, I suggest you read the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

"Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture.... in our bourgeois Western world total labor has vanquished leisure. Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture – and ourselves." (Josef Pieper)

[ Winnie the Pooh ]

¶ +2024.05.05. What would it take for AI technology to be able to provide media criticism and analysis on par with human experts?

This is not possible.

AI can provide all sorts of information about any subject. But it's just information. And this information can be very helpful to human experts in facilitating them making their analysis and criticism as "good" as possible.

But criticism and analysis are not just information: they are evaluations of how well the information succeeds in accomplishing some human goal.

AI has no goals except for the goals humans program into it.

The humans will always program the goals. The AI can be a resource for evaluating how well the media material accomplishes the goals the humans choose.

¶ +2024.05.03. What factors contribute to people being ignorant or unknowing? Is it related to intelligence or other factors?

Ignorance means not knowing something. I am ignorant about the Japanese language.

"unknowing" may be a somewhat vaguer concept. So I would stick with ignorant.

Ignorance is remediated either by somebody informing you or by you doing your own research.

-–––

"Intelligence" is a somewhat contested quality. We know that some of it is inherited and some of it is due to social conditioning: childrearing, schooling, etc.

I have read an example: The physicist Richard Feynman was one of the most creative physicists of the 20th century. Everybody would agree he was VERY intelligent. But he said he had an IQ of 125. That's about 95th percentile. Pretty bright but nowhere near "brilliant".

But, as said, he was really smart, far smarter than a lot of people with higher IQ scores. So what made the difference?

[ bossy parent ]

Many children, when their parents or teachers tell then something and the child asks "Why?", the answer is: "Because I say so." Or: "That's just the way it is, got it?" "Yes mommy."

Feynman's childhood was very different. His father was always challenging him with questions to figure out the answers for himself. And even stronger: His father encouraged him to think up more questions of his own to try to solve.

[ THINK ]

¶ +2024.05.02. How does moving from one city to another affect the brain? Do people's brains adapt and change based on their environment, or are there other factors at play?

Let's not talk about "brains". Let's talk about persons. Each person has a brain and it's part of what contributes to making him, her or other the specific PERSON he is.

Different persons are affected in different ways by moving from one place to another. Some look forward to it. Some dislike it very much and will only move for exigent reasons like getting out of a building that is not being maintained, for a much nicer place.

There are many factors at play (and at work...) so you need to interview each person in depth. Unless you are doing neurophysiology research, what goes on in a person's brain is generally not relevant, unless you imagine each thought and emotion as brain activity.

I often suggest to persons, even if they do not believe in any religion, to read the wisdom in The Book of Ecclesiastes in he Bible.

¶ +2024.05.02. How do you inject creativity into mundane tasks?

Profile photo for Bradford McCormick

Bradford McCormick

Independent Researcher (2018–present)Just now

This is an excellent question. It is a very important question because what most of our lives mostly consists of are "mundane tasks".

I have some thoughts which you may find of some value or not.

Obviously, avoid as many mundane tasks as you can. I am not thinking up good ideas here, but if the paint on the walls is in good condition don't repaint your home just because new colors are in fashion. Ask yourself about any activity you do not really WANT to do, whether you really NEED to do it. This is obvious.

But I have another thought that is very different, and maybe not as obvious. Can you make some of your mundane tasks more satisfying?

I have two cats to feed. I feed then on handmade porcelain plates of the same kind I myself use for dinner. Dumping a can of catfood on a plate is not very exciting. But I get some pleasure out of feeding my little friends on quality dinnerware, not old "cat dishes". Here's another:. The trash cans. I bought Rubbermaid "animal stopper" trash cans which have special handles that really keep the wild animals from breaking into them and spreading my trash all over the place. Do I really enjoy taking the trash out? No, but I enjoy it a lot more than if I was taking it out to crappy garbage cans because I find it satisfying to pen the latches, put the trash in and relatch the cans. Not just maybe slamming a battered lid on a galvanized can.

Can you make some of the things you have to do more appealing to do? This is, of course, the religion of Japanese Buddhist monks. Americans have lawns to mow (my feeling: "Yuk!"). In their temples the monks have "dry gardens"

[ dry gardens ]

Sorry I don't have any better pictures but look up "Buddhist temple dry gardens" on Google and you will get many lovely images. Instead of mowing grass to just have a lawn, people can rake fine gravel to have works of art. (Or, of course, live in an apartment and have nothing to mow).

Remember the cats? Our loving pets give us lots of pleasure. I have to clean the litter box. It's one of the few things they expect out of me: a clean litter box. Well, as I remove what has to come out and be disposed of (I am trying to be polite here...), I imagine I am raking a Buddhist dry garden instead.

All my life I have tried to have few but very pleasing "things". If I had to drink coffee out of a styrofoam cup I'd probably not drink it. I drink my coffee from a cherished coffee cup and that enhances the experience. If one buys fewer things they can be higher quality.

I write a lot I always write with a Cross Century (not Century II!) ballpoint pen You can find them on the Cross website. The pen is slender and the finish feels soothing to rub my fingers over when I'm thinking of what to write. Any other pen or pencil discourages me from writing and from thinking about what I want to say.

I have tried to make as many of the things I use in my "mundane" activities objects I cherish and enjoy using – some for now over 40 years.

Is any of this of any help to you?

––––

Let me end with something from school. I was in elementary school in the late 1950s and early 60s. all the kids wrote cursive script. I hated it. I felt I was leaving a trail of snail slime on the page. Somehow in 7th grade I changed to write differently and I've stayed with it for 60 years now. Two pictures: (1) how I write, and (2) my 7th grade teacher's reaction to my creatitive initiative; fortunately he did not succeed in crushing my soul.

[ handwriting sample and Rentko ]

¶ +2024.04.30. Wouldn't the adoption of Neuralink's brain technology disrupt the beauty of human diversity?

Why be so "romantic" about it? Wouldn't netlinked computer chips in all our brains potentially turn all our minds into zombies, sci-fi gooks or some consumer product?

It's a terrifying prospect, isn't it?

Implanting computer chips in persons' brains does have a use if the technology to "decode" brain waves cannot be done non-invasively, but it is a very limited use dictated by terrible circumstances: Persons whose minds are alert but who cannot control their voluntary muscles including victims of ALS ("Lou Gehrig's disease"). If a chip in the brain would allow such sad people to control their hand to be able to use a knife, fork and spoon to eat, and to allow them to control their bowels, etc. That will be a great service to humanity. But normal persons need their God-given capabilities nurtured by education, not jerked around with electrodes.

To advance "human intelligence", give everybody Socratic education and leisure to study, not risk major surgery to implant electrodes in their skulls. And always remember that any surgery involves risks.

[ Platonic eduction ]

Some sci-fi ideas need to stay in sic-fi movies.

[ Zuckerberg ]

¶ +2024.04.28. Is there a game where humans still beat machines?

Two parts to the answer to this question:

(1) What is a game? The mathematician who invented "game theory", John von Neumann, said that many "games" are not games (play) but just computational spaces: given enough computing power we can compute the outcome of chess or even go by playing all possible moves. This is easy for TIC-TAC-TOE but the computational space is much larger for chess or go and it is not likely we will ever have a computer that will actually do all the computations and give us the solution.

For these "games", people write sophisticated computer programs that rely on algorithms and reference to previously played games. As computers get ever more powerful they will succeed ever better at this but they still will not be playing the game, just computing.

I don't know the details, but whenever a human beats a computer at chess or go, the computer programmers will probably improve the program to do even better the next time.

(2) von Neumann called poker a real game (play) because it involves bluffing. Not all the possible hands can be computed. Nonetheless, it may be possible to write a computer program that usually wins over a human expert by incorporating as much knowledge of games that have been played and good algorithms. I am not sure of this.

I am not an expert but hopefully this is helpful information. Please do more research!

What we can say is that in practice, very complex "games" such as chess and go, and real bluffing games like poker will continue to challenge humans because even if there is theoretically a solution, we won't have enough computer power to compute it. On the other hand, the computer programming will keep improving so that fewer humans will win.

Hypothesis: Unless you are a world class professional player, just play against other humans and don't try to beat the computer.

But, I repeat: I am not an expert. Do more research and see what I have missed here.

Finally one more "off the wall" thought which is likely all wrong: Maybe somebody will come up with clever proofs for chess or go or other such complex computational "games". Professor Andrew Wiles recently came up with a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem, which had resisted mathematicians for several centuries. So who knows? Nobody knew if there was a proof until he spent most of his life looking for it and also had some very good luck. Don't go down a rabbit hole; you have only one life to live. Even if you do not believe in a Deity, there is much wisdom in the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

¶ +2024.04.28. What is the reason behind Facebook's choice of the term 'metaverse' for its upcoming platform instead of other terms like VR, AR, AI, or VRX?

I do not know but I have a guess: It's advertising promotion.

In philosophy, which is the most esteemed of the realms of knowledge, "meta" means "above", or a higher order than everything else. "Mtetaphysics" is "above" physics. "Meta" is an honorific word.

So "metaverse" means: above the whole of the universe." It's like God in theology.

I looked it up in Google:

"The metaverse is a broad concept that includes virtual reality (VR) as one of its enabling technologies. The metaverse is a persistent, interconnected digital universe that combines virtual, augmented, and physical realities. VR is a specific type of digital experience that creates an immersive, computer-generated environment."

This, to be sure, is false advertising: Metaverse is just Facebook's "virtual reality" which is obviously just one new product added to real reality like television or some other technology. But there is a big DANGER if persons come to mistake this simulation of reality for reality itself in their VR goggles.

[ VRMan ]

This person is literally out of his mind. So you can come along and steal his wallet and he might not notice he has been robbed because all his attention is in the simulation. Or it could even be worse than that!

I did a virtual reality experiment once and it could have killed me. Learn from it. There are good uses for virtual reality such as in training airplane pilots where it's far better for the learner to "crash" a simulation than to crash a real jumbo jet and kill 500 people. But virtual reality should not be treated a just a fun thing to do like going swimming or playing a video game!

[ My VR experiment ]

¶ +2024.04.28. What is the current understanding of the human brain? Are there any unknown aspects or mysteries surrounding it?

Someone else has already written a good response to this question here.

It is an extremely complex and difficult subject that nobody may ever "understand". The real question is not about brains but about minds: your own mind reading this sentence right now, your mother's mind, higher animal's minds ("Meow!") ....

We are pretty sure of some things, however, including that by damaging a person's brain we can damage or even destroy their mind. Lee Harvey Oswald demonstrated this when he put a bullet through President John Kennedy's brain and thereby destroyed his mind, i.e., his being a person.

Long story short: Be very careful when messing with brains. I am thinking in particular here of the idea of implanting networked computer chips in persons' brains. There is apparently a good use for this if it can enable severely neurologically impaired persons to regain control of their voluntary muscles. But to do this kind of thing to healthy persons is extremely dangerous. Any brain surgery risks harming or destroying the person's mind, i.e., the person as a person, but it can also be used by corporations (Elon Musk's Neuralink?) to turn everybody into zombies, etc.

People with sci-fi fantasies about doing things to people's brains to make their minds super-intelligent or something like that need to restrict their experimentation to two types of people: (1) severely neurologically impaired persons, per above, and (2) themselves. They should not mess with other persons' lives.

My advice: Study the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible even if you do not believe in any Deity.

¶ +2024.04.28. How important is it for organizations to focus on optimizing human involvement alongside AI implementation in content creation and distribution processes?

Humans – real persons who understand what they are doing – always need to monitor and oversee all applications of so-called "artificial intelligence" (AI), because AI is not intelligent: it just computes, applying the computer programming coded up by some persons to the database they and/or others have collected. There is no intelligence to AI: it is just very powerful computing. To use a possibly misleading image: AI doesn't know what it is doing. AI does not know anything: it just computes.

I asked the Bing AI about this and it outputted:

"Today's AI is nowhere close to being intelligent, let alone conscious. Even the most impressive deep neural networks, such as DeepMind's AlphaZero or large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3, lack consciousness. They operate purely based on patterns and statistical correlations, devoid of subjective experience1. These AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, from playing games to writing essays, but they lack self-awareness or inner life."

Real human persons need to always watch over what the computer is computing because it is just computer code operating on whatever data it is applied to. AI is just a tool, albeit a very powerful tool, for us humans to use in accomplishing our objectives in living. The AI serves us like any other tool. AI without human oversight is just a robotic process running automatically.

AI is very powerful and will increasingly become more powerful as computer programmers and other persons improve the programming and the quality of the database, but it needs to be monitored like any other robotic process. AI making political decisions without human oversight would be like an automobile factory producing cars without quality control inspectors: its errors would be shipped to the customer undetected.

Recently I asked the Bing AI why the mountain K2 is called "K2". It outputted what looks like the correct answer and then it added that "Everest" is another name for K2. I inputted that this was an error and it outputted thanking me for correcting its error and then repeated the error. Of course this can be fixed, but the AI itself would never have detected its erroneous processing.

¶ +2024.04.27. Why artificial intelligence failed in front of a human intelligence?

Artificial intelligence sometimes "fails" in front of human intelligence because it is not intelligent: It just computes.

I asked the Bing AI about this and it outputted:

"Today's AI is nowhere close to being intelligent, let alone conscious. Even the most impressive deep neural networks, such as DeepMind's AlphaZero or large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3, lack consciousness. They operate purely based on patterns and statistical correlations, devoid of subjective experience1. These AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, from playing games to writing essays, but they lack self-awareness or inner life."

I vaguely remember that the first time Google publicly demonstrated its AI and they asked it a simple question, it made an absurd answer. So they improved the computer programming and the data base it accesses and then it did not make that error any more. This process will keep going on: AI errors will get corrected by human computer programmers.

I recently asked the Bing AI why the mountain K2 is called "K2". It outputted what looked to me like the correct answer and then added that "Everest" is another name for K2. I inputted that this was an error. It outputted thanking me for correcting it and then repeated the error.

AI just computes. the humans who develop it will continually make it better but that just means it will be a better computer program.

So whatever information you get from "artificial intelligence", you need to use your human intelligence, knowledge and common sense to evaluate it. But in a way this is nothing new. You should always use your common sense and knowledge and experience in evaluating anything you get from any source, yes?

As the motto of the British Royal Society has been since Sir Isaac Newton: "Nullius in verba" Take nobody's word for it.

¶ +2024.04.27. Do you believe that being a mother can enhance a scientist's ability to explore different scientific narratives? Why or why not?

I am no a mother nor would I want to be one. But it looks to me like a very life-changing and expanding thing that exposes you to a wide variety of things you probably would not otherwise be aware of. The counter issue, of course, is that if mothering takes up all your time and energy you won't have time or energy to do science of any kind or to do it well.

The richer our experience of life, the better we can explore and evaluate things. A person who has only studied college courses is no going to have the kind of perspective of science as one who has also developed laboratory equipment to test and explore what they learn in the courses. Indeed, trying to construct apparatus to test a scientific idea may lead to significant discoveries.

I think this is all pretty obvious. And while I do not think science is necessarily "sexist" even though often women's careers are hindered by a male dominated power structure, doing science is a social process. A woman who has been through mothering a child may have acquired a lot of social skills. If she sees the lab directory behaving like a frustrated toddler, she may be able to handle the scientific situation a lot more effectively than some male who never tried to diaper a baby.

I feel I am not saying this at all well. And of course different persons learn different things from "the same activity". Here is a true little story that may be relevant:

There is a classic psychologist whose specialty was studying how bad childrearing hurts children (Alice Miller, "The Drama of he gifted child", "For your own good", "Thou shalt not be aware"). And she happened to be a woman who had a child, so she had experience. When her son grew up, he said that studying his mother's books saved him from the harm she had done in raising him.

¶ +2024.04.24. What's the future of Neurallink and what will be its impact on human intelligence? Will work be dependent on the amount of work and experience rather than the intellectual abilities of the human mind?

Let us hope that electronic invasion of persons' brains remains limited o helping severely neurologically impaired persons regain control of their voluntary muscles.

Brain surgery risks you losing the only thing you have: your consciousness of living. And once inside your skull, the corporations that make these gadgets can do anything like turn us all into zombies.

Technologies like Neurelink have their legitimate uses, but it is only with severely neurologically damaged persons. Anything else like "enhancing our minds" is dangerous irresponsible sci-fi puerile fantasy

[ Zuckerberg ]

¶ +2024.04.20. What are some ways to determine if an article is biased? How can bias in journalism be minimized?

This is not always easy. If somebody murders somebody by stabbing them 50 times with a hunting knife, it's not likely biased for an article to say to was a "brutal" murder.

But in a war where both sides are trying to kill each other, if it says "our brave fighting men inflicted significant casualties on the brutal enemy" that's likely biased. A reporter on the other side of the war could describe the same battle with the same words, just calling the men on his side brave and our side brutal. Indeed, in war, it is often difficult to find "unbiased" reporting, i.e., reporting that fairly describes the action from both sides.

In general, be suspicious of reporting that is "all one sided". Rarely is one side all good and the other side all bad. Look for information about the good and bad things that are happening on both sides. Get the interpretation of what's happening from both sides if you can. And when the description is loaded with highly emotional words, you can be pretty sure it is not "unbiased" reporting.

As the saying goes "the facts should speak for themselves", as far as possible. Our side took 5 killed and 8 wounded; the other side took 4 killed and 12 wounded. Try to describe what each side seemed to be trying to do and why they wanted to do it, and how they view the outcome, not just what our side wanted to do..

Most first person accounts generally reflect the side the person being interviewed is on. Rarely do you hear somebody say that they could appreciate why the other side did they were doing.

Always note who is speaking: In the Ukraine war, A Ukrainian general will tell you one thing and a Russian general will tell you something else. Biased reporting would say, for instance that the Ukrainian was telling the facts and the Russian was speaking propaganda. And the other way around. The Russian general would say he was telling the facts and the other side was propaganda. Unbiased reporting would present what both generals said and let the reader decide for themselves. Unbiased reporting would just report that the Russian general said so-and-so, and the Ukrainian general said so-and-so. And report any other facts available.

Even "facts" are often biased. Each side will generally report facts favorable to it not those favorable to the other side, or even misrepresent facts..

Also, the more history and context you know about the situation, the more likely you are to be able to perceive bias. But that means leaning history and context from BOTH sides of the issue, not just your own side.

¶ +2024.04.20. In terms of problem solving and reasoning, is artificial intelligence more powerful than human intelligence?

It's not that simple.

What definitions do we want to use for "powerful" and for "intelligence"?

First, "artificial intelligence" is not human intelligence. I asked the Bing AI about this and it outputted:

"Today's AI is nowhere close to being intelligent, let alone conscious. Even the most impressive deep neural networks, such as DeepMind's AlphaZero or large language models like OpenAI's GPT-3, lack consciousness. They operate purely based on patterns and statistical correlations, devoid of subjective experience1. These AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, from playing games to writing essays, but they lack self-awareness or inner life."

AI is more powerful at computing and also at scouring for information through huge masses of text. As we saw a few years ago, a computer beat the world chess champion in a chess game. But the computer was n0t playing chess; it was just computing.

If by "intelligence" one means knowing a lot about a lot of things, AI can have a far larger data base than any human.

But where the human intelligence differs from the artificial intelligence is in dealing with unforeseen, especially unforeseeable situations. AI does not have imagination; AI does not have common sense. AI des not THINK.

The way to go is for the human to ask the AI for the information it can provide relevant to an issue, a a reference source, and then the person USE that information to try to help figure out problems that do not have solutions in the given data store.

Also it is important to keep in mind that since AI does not think of have common sense, sometimes it comes up with bizarre errors. asked the Bing AI why the mountain K2 is called "K2", and it outputted what looks to me king the correct answer. but then it added that another name for K2 is "Everest" and when I inputted that this was an error it outputted thanking me for the correction and then repeated the error.

¶ +2024.04.20. Are books, board games, and video games all examples of coping mechanisms for people who are lacking in self-generating imagination?

They CAN be if the person just "consumes" them. But don't forget about being a fan of pro sports competitions and celebrities and probably other things.

Imagination is taking what you have and making something new with it.

Nothing comes from nothing. Everything builds on something already there. Sir Isaac Newton said he could see further than others because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Einstein built his physics on top of Newton's....

But imaginative persons CAN also play games. In the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, which is a bunch of the most imaginative people in the world, they used to have (may still have) a Friday afternoon poker game.

As far as books are concerned, a person generally needs to have read and studied a lot of books to be able to add anything new, don't they? I forget who said that most books are about other books.

Why did the person ask this question? What was their particular concern? What were they looking for? Are there people frustrating your ability to express your imagination?

¶ +2024.04.19. Is it the responsibility of AI developers to ensure the data used is representative and free from bias?

I can't do justice to this in a quora posting, but some thoughts to consider:

No information can be free from bias, if by "bias" we mean seeing a subject from a certain perspective and not from a different perspective. Even believing that one should be "unbiased" is a bias, as every fervent adherent of any particular side of a contentious issue will vehemently protest.

Some things that can be done: To explicitly state that all material expresses some particular perspective and to call attention to the particular perspective of each material presented, to present material from a wide variety of different perspectives, and to not judge which perspective is "the right one" but emphasize that the user should study all sides and make their own decision.

This can be difficult with contentions issues when everybody is pushing their own side and loudly saying the other side is all wrong. They may even try to censor presenting material from the opposing side and try to ban it as "propaganda" or "lies", etc.

I will not go into details here but 3 examples currently are: (1) The Gaza War, (2) The Ukraine War, and (3) Abortion.. The AI should present the information from all sides of these issues and not judge which is the right one.

The Palestinian perspective on the Gaza war is extremely different from the Netanyahu perspective, and of course there are other opinions too. The perspective on the Ukraine war of Columbia University Prof Jeffrey Sachs is very different from The White House policy and there are other opinions there too. There are radical differences in how persons interpret foetuses at various stages of gestation. The AI needs to present the information from all the different sides, and encourage the user to make up heir own opinion.

Obviously the issue arises of what is real or at least plausible and what is genuinely fake or nonsense. Each side will claim that what the other side says is fake but often there is some truth and some falsity on both sides.

The AI needs to present the material from each side not as "truth", but as what that side asserts is truth. And leave it to the reader to make their own judgment.

It's not easy. Use "common sense". Accept that you may be wrong so let the other side have their say, too. Think about it: You think you are right and your opponent is wrong. Guess what? Your opponent thinks they are right and that you are wrong. They believe they are right as sincerely as you believe you are right. Thinking about this is a good place to start thinking about bias.

¶ +2024.04.19. Is it the responsibility of AI developers to ensure the data used is representative and free from bias?

I can't' do justice to this in a quora posting, but some thoughts to consider:

No information can be free from bias, if by "bias" we mean seeing a subject from a certain perspective and not from a different perspective. Even believing that one should be "unbiased" is a bias, as every fervent adherent of any particular side of a contentious issue will vehemently protest.

Some things that can be done: To explicitly state that all material expresses some particular perspective and to call attention to the particular perspective of each material presented, to present material from a wide variety of different perspectives, and to not judge which perspective is "the right one" but emphasize that the user should study all sides and make their own decision.

This can be difficult with contentions issues when everybody is pushing their own side and loudly saying the other side is all wrong. They may even try to censor presenting material from the opposing side and try to ban it as "propaganda" or "lies", etc.

I will not go into details here but 3 examples currently are: (1) The Gaza War, (2) The Ukraine War, and (3) Abortion.. The AI should present the information from all sides of these issues and not judge which is the right one.

The Palestinian perspective on the Gaza war is extremely different from the Netanyahu perspective, and of course there are other opinions too. The perspective on the Ukraine war of Columbia University Prof Jeffrey Sachs is very different from The White House policy and there are other opinions there too. There are radical differences in how persons interpret foetuses at various stages of gestation. The AI needs to present the information from all the different sides, and encourage the user to make up heir own opinion.

Obviously the issue arises of what is real or at least plausible and what is genuinely fake or nonsense. Each side will claim that what the other side says is fake but often there is some truth and some falsity on both sides.

It's not easy. Use "common sense". Accept that you may be wrong so let the other side have their say, too. Think about it: You think you are right and your opponent is wrong. Guess what? Your opponent thinks they are right and that you are wrong. They believe they are right as sincerely as you believe you are right. Thinking about this is a good place to start thinking about bias.

¶ +2024.04.19. What could be the reasons for someone to be highly intelligent but not able to utilize their talents effectively?

There can be many reasons.

Lack of opportunity.

Another is a lack or parental support, and then repressive teachers.

It can be peer pressure.

Some persons are stronger than others and their character can see them succeed even under relatively inauspicious conditions.

Others are more fragile emotionally. My parents were always threatening me with OR ELSE if I did not et all A grades in school, so I took only easy courses and never networked. I could have "gone much further" with supportive parents.

¶ +2024.04.19. How can philanthropists foster an environment where failure is not seen as a setback, but as an essential part of the innovation process?

Reward intelligent failure as well as rewarding success. If something looks promising but, in further working on it, it proves not such a good idea, don't just throw it away and say the person failed.

Every time something the looks hopeful fails, STUDY it to find out what the problems were with it, to help do better in future. It can be productive. to know what doesn't work and especially why it doesn't work, as a step to finally succeeding.

Also I think it helps to foster a spirit of cooperation not competition. Don't give out a huge prize to "the winner" but distribute any rewards over all the persons who contribute. I think I read somewhere that the two dudes Watson and Crick who won the Nobel prose for discovering the structure of DNA did the opposite: They purposely misled Linus Pauling in hopes of preventing him from solving the problem first and they denied Rosalind Franklin credit for her part in their success.

¶ +2024.04.19. If aliens invaded with superior technology, would we be able to defend ourselves because we now have someone to fight other than ourselves?

Many different outcomes are imaginable.

The one probably envisioned here is that us human overcome all our petty squabbling and join together to fight the foe. The U.S. would stop fighting Russia and the Israelis would stop fighting Hamas and all would join together to fight the aliens. Like the U.S. amd the USSR joined together to fight Hitler in WWII.

Another possibility is that one side or another of us humans would join with the invaders against the rest of humanity.

If the invaders were strong enough, of course it would not matter what we wanted.

Another alternative is that the invaders would decide that this planet is too messed up to worth dealing with and leave. Like when a great Muslim general came to fight King Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia, and when he marched up a road lined with men skewered through their anuses on stake poles, some dead and some still living, he was so sickened that he turned around without fighting.

[ Road lined with skwewered people ]

¶ +2024.04.18. What are some examples of artificial good things in the world?

Is this difficult?

Eyeglasses so people can see better.

Refrigeration to keep our food safe to eat over a periods of time.

Pen and paper to write things down so we don't forget them.

These are examples of good artificial things "all over the place". And, yes, the are also examples of artificial things that are not good. Just about everything in our lives is artificial, i.e., made by human artifice.

Why is the person asking this question. What is the particular concern they have here?

¶ +2024.04.18. Why has humanity struggled to consistently make accurate predictions about technological advancements?

This will always be the case with transformative technologies. Any technology "does more than it just does". The unknown is hard to predict.

Marshall McLuhan described the nature of any technology as the changes in makes to the pace, pattern and scale of life.

I am not good at coming up with examples. But consider modern medicine: It has vastly extended the length of people's lives and greatly improved our health. That is what it is intended for and it continues to be highly successful at it. But it has also led to the population explosion which has created all sorts of new problems. Who would have anticipated that modern medicine would cause the world's population to increase by almost an order of magnitude on our small planet? Or the steam engine: It greatly increased out mechanical power beyond what human and animal muscle used to to be able to do,, at the price of global warming.

Those may not have been the best examples. There is an excellent book about the effects of the advent of printed books in the 15th century in Western Europe: "The Printing Press as an agent of change" by Elizabeth Eisenstein (Cambridge University Press, 2 Vols in 1, 1979). This book goes into detail about how printed books enabled our modern exact sciences of nature (Newtonian physics, then Einstein and quantum physics, etc.), the Protestent reformation and changes in the ways persons think of themselves as individuals, including the18th Century European Enlightenment. Without printed books our social world would be very different in ways that Mr .Gutenberg would not have imagined when he "just" made it easier make copies of the Bible.

Everything is interconnected. Change one thing and it will have generally unintended effects in other places which could not have been foreseen.

Trying to predict the future from the resent will generally just extrapolate "more or the same" as we already know about. We don't yet know about the technologies that have not have been invented yet. Unfortunately, it's impossible to know the unknown, right?

But we do have choices between just letting the technologies run amok for the profit of some, or try to apply social intelligence as best we can. There is a classic essay free on the Internet which is highly recommended: "The tragedy of the commons", by Garrett Hardin.

[ Weizenbaum ]

¶ +2024.04.18. Would you accept an invitation to Balmoral Castle from Her Majesty? What factors would influence your decision?

I would gladly accept if all expenses paid by the Crown. But I would not go at my expense (How about a Zoom call in that case?).

But I would suggest they invite Columbia University Prof. Jeffrey Sachs instead since I think he could be of far greater help to them than I.

¶ +2024.04.18. Is the assertion of Brooks's Law, "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later," still considered accurate, or has it been deemed an exaggeration? If the principle is still valid, what are the reasons behind its continued applicability?

It's been 40 years since I read "**The Mythical Man Month**". But I expect it is still timely and will remain so for a very long time.

But I also hypothesize that people who are interested in maximizing profits not producing quality products keep hoping they have found ways to get around it, with ever new managerial technologies such as "Agile" and "Scrum" these days.

It has always been the dream of MBA types to be able to treat innovation and development like a schedulable component supply chain. One time now many years ago, I was walking behind two business planners in IBM's Headquarters building and overheard them say something. Background information: "Fishkill" was IBM's mission critical computer chip production facility at the time. One business planner said the the other:"

"Fishkill is not coming in with the inventions on schedule."

¶ +2024.04.18. How do you define the mind? What are your ideas about the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious? Are you aware that the main focus is on the unconscious?

This is a very complex question.

But the short answer is that" "the mind" is what you are doing right now in reading the present sentence. Isn't that true? "Everything" is 'in your mind", including your present thinking about this question right now, or remembering having asked the question some time ago, or believing that "the main focus is on the unconscious". Are you aware that the main focus is on the unconscious, or do you hypothesize that the main focus is on the unconscious?

"The mind" defines all things, including being aware that we are defining all things. And that defining event we call the mind. We think that we think,

That is the mind. But this is all very complex to work out in detail, including how sometimes we define "conscious, subconscious and unconscious" in some psychological theory which, of course, is just one more thing in our mind.

¶ +2024.04.18. 1. What are the potential consequences of relying on artificial intelligence for critical decision-making?

Using the results of AI as input along with material from other sources to help make an informed decision is fine, just like using the New York Times, or what any other source from Donald Trump to Prof. Jeffrey Sachs or Newton's Principia or anything else. Learn as much as you can before you choose and weigh carefully the quality of the information you have to work with.

But to RELY on what you get from artificial intelligence is not a good idea. I asked the Bing AI why the mountain K2 wa named "K2" and it outputted what looked like the correct answer but then it added that "Everest" is another name for K2. When I inputted this was an error, it outputted thanking me for correcting its mistake and then repeated the mistaken information. AI has no common sense; AI is neither intelligent nor stupid: it just computes.

Take nobody's word for anything, be it your parents and teachers or your rebbe or your country's leader or me or even yourself. Do the best you can, always being cognizant you are working with incomplete information and so future experience may advise changing course.

[ THINK ]

¶ +2024.04.17. What factors contribute to a person's intelligence? Can intelligence be inherited or is it solely acquired through education and experience?

We really do not know all that much about how much of intelligence is inherited and how much is the result of socialization. It does seem that different children are born with different amounts of innate intelligence, from "mentally retarded" thru "geniuses".

Poor nutrition lowers intelligence and good nutrition helps it.

Intelligence can be nurtured or repressed.

[ boss ]

Consider the child whose parents are always telling him (her other): "Do this" Or: "Believe that" And when the child asks "Why?" he is told: "Because we say so." Or: "That's just the way it is, got it?" "Yes, mommy." That is not likely to encourage the child's intelligence, is it?

On the other hand,one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century was Richard Feynman. He at least said he had an IQ of 125. Not all that bright. However! His father was always challenging him with questions to solve and, further, challenging him to find more questions for himself to ask himself to solve.

And education: a rote learning school will not encourage intelligence like school where students are encouraged to investigate for themselves.

¶ +2024.04.17. How is the solution for a problem built upon the foundation that the issue is based on?

This is a basic issue in the philosophy of science as well as in daily life:

People naively imagine that we invent theories based on data. But in fact it's the other way around: we see data in terms of our theories,

Suppose you lived in a primitive society with witch doctor medicine. Then if a person had a lump in their neck, the problem might be that they were possessed by an evil demon and the solution would be to expel the demon.

But today, we might see the problem as a cancer tumor and the solution as surgery to excise the tumor.

There are very good books about this, starting with Thomas Kuhn's "The structure of scientific revolutions". And Norwood Hanson's "Patterns of discovery".

The basic point is that you can only see the kinds of things you can look for. There is no such thing as "raw data". Data are always interpretations. It's a cat. It's a glass of beer. No, it's not cat but a child's stuffed animal toy that looks like a cat. No it's not a glass of beer but a glass of poison that looks like beer. Etc.

It you did not already have concepts of "cat" and "beer" you could not have these thoughts, and the data would present themselves as something else you did have some idea about. But then, building on the foundation of the knowledge you already had you could come to construct new ideas of cats and beer, and, in future, be able to see cats and beer.

Knowledge builds on itself. If you want to build a house, or even a table, you first need to know about wooden boards, and know how to drill a hole in two pieces of wood and screw them together, or to use nails to hammer then together, etc.

¶ +2024.04.17. How would society be affected if we had complete knowledge about everyone? Would there be a loss or gain? Would trust increase or decrease? What level of privacy should individuals expect in this scenario?

Two questions here:

(1) How would society be affected if we had complete knowledge about everyone? Would there be a loss or gain? Would trust increase or decrease?

(2) What level of privacy should individuals expect in this scenario?

The answer to question #2 is obvious: NONE, because question #1 stipulates: "we had complete knowledge about everyone".

It would be very interesting. Nobody could ever blackmail anybody. The dirty little secrets of prigs and prudes would all be exposed to everybody. No secret adultery. Parents could not hide sex from their kids. There would be no "trade secrets" in business. Nobody could cheat on a school exam. The Tabloids would go out of business. It's really hard or impossible to imagine because of all the "feedback" loops that would be created.

But in reality, it's far more likely that a few persons with power will have more or less complete knowledge of other people who do not have power. This has always been somewhat the case with parents knowing their kids' secrets but the children not knowing the parents' secrets, etc. Parents plant surveillnce camers in the kids' bedrooms but not the kids planting surveillance cameras in the parents bedroom. Or factory managers with surveillance cameras monitoring the shop floor but not the shop workers having cameras monitoring the CEO's office...

Watch the old, fun but also profound movie: "The Truman Show".

¶ +2024.04.17. What motivates people to speedcube and improve their Rubik's cube solving skills? Is it worth the time and effort?

Why not "expand" he question and ask what motivates people to do anything that doesn't seem to accomplish anything?

Isn't the Guinness Book of Records full of people like this? For one example I think there is the man who threw over 500 consecutive basketball free throws without missing. What motivated him?

Another way: What motivates people to compete, in this case with oneself, in many cases with one another? One person may keep trying to solve the cube faster than he himself ever did it. Another may try to do it faster than some other person.

Is it worth the time and effort? To anyone who is not interested in it, it does not. People do all sorts of things that do not accomplish anything. Some times it's "to pass the time" when otherwise they would be bored. Sometimes it's friendly interaction. Sometimes it's aggression, as in much competitive athletics. Ask them.

Since these are things nobody has to do to accomplish anything, if it doesn't "turn you on", so what? Why ask the question in he first place?

[ Homer and his donut ]

¶ +2024.04.16. What are some ways to acknowledge and address unconscious bias in a team?

This kind of thing is obviously difficult. Trying to lecture a person that they have biases and that they are wrong is not likely to accomplish anything other than making them defensive.

What kind of biases? And what are they affecting in the team and the organization? We're all trying to work together for the success of the team and the success of the organization, yes? If everybody can agree on that, then pointing out to them how their attitudes are not being helpful, and asking them to explain why that feel that way, and asking them to also imagine how people feel on the receiving end can help.

Biases are stereotypes. They think all persons of a certain kind are a certain way. But if they get to personally know a member of he stereotyped group, they often see that that person is "an exception". So not all persons in that group fit the stereotype. Try to get persons to deal with one another as individuals.

Another point to make is that to be respectful and to cooperate with persons in a team does not necessarily mean to have to want to become intimate with them. We can work together effectively but not not want to "socialize".

Do those thoughts help?

¶ +2024.04.16. Is it possible to have fun without Internet access? If so, how?

This question has already got at least one very good answer.

It's unfortunate that "we" have become as dependent on the Internet as we have. The Internet is very useful and helpful for many things, but it should not get to the point that persons should have to ask this kind of question.

First thing, always make sure whatever one does is safe. Have safe fun.

One could say the opportunities for having fun without the internet are "endless": all the things persons used to do for fun before the Internet became popular, say around the year 2,000 or a little after. Pets, friends, kids, sex, reading, walking in the open air....

Are those thoughts of any use?

¶ +2024.04.15. Why are people creating deepfake videos of celebrities like Rashmika Mandanna?

There could b all sorts of reasons, as some others who have answered this question have proposed..

They could be bad reasons, foolish reasons, any number of reasons.

I never heard of Rashmika Mandanna, but a quick Google search shows she is a beautiful and famous Indian actress.

"Fans" do all sorts of things with their fantasies of their celebrities. Deepfake videos is a new one. I asked the Bing AI about this and it outputted to me that it takes some effort but it looks like any clever tech savvy teenager can probably do it.

Furthermore, deepfakes is something new, and some persons who like to play with new technologies will want to try it. Aren't there other things that people are doing with their smartphones thta seem not very well advised, not kids sharing nude selfies of themselves? I found on the internet an image some person made with AI or just photoshop.:

&$91; Pooping Putin ]

Remember Marcel Duchamp's "readymade" "Fountain" fountain 1917:

[ Fountain ]

Remember that in ancient times, people invented gods that were animal bodies with human heads or vice versa.

Why do people do such things? For fun. For profit. Sometimes for nefarious reasons.

¶ +2024.04.15. In 1954, an article appeared that was addressed to youths who were going to live in the 3rd millennium. It was argued that one of the tasks to solve by its readers was learning to control weather. How close are we to achieving this?

This question should be asked to a meteorologist.

From a lay person's perspective, it doesn't seem we have achieved any ability to CONTROL the weather.

We have made enormous strides toward PREDICTING the weather. The 1900 Galveston Texas hurricane struck the city of Galveston Texas with very little warning, Today with satellite surveillance and other technologies the city would have had much earlier warming, so people could have fled to safety instead of the hurricane killing over 8,000. But I know of no way we could have INFLUENCED the hurricane itself with today's technological improvements.

Also obvious, while we cannot CONTROL the weather, we are CHANGING it with all the greenhouse gases we continually spew into the atmosphere, cutting down rain forests, etc. We are making the weather be out of control, with more extreme storms and droughts and other things like melting the glaciers raising the sea level. Item: (From Bing:) As of the most recent projections, up to 630 million people reside in areas that could potentially be underwater by 2100. More than half of these individuals could face the impact of rising seas by 2050

We cannot control he weather but we could have controlled the things we do that are changing it in ways we cannot control.

How close are we to achieving control over ourselves and what we do hat affects the earth and other aspects of our planer such s species extinction etc.?

Dos anyone want to call this "achievement"?

[ Homer eating his ddonu and Weizenbaum ]

¶ +2024.04.15. What do you think about the AI-powered live transcription services that translate judicial proceedings into 18 regional languages and Hindi to ensure that legal information is accessible to all?

I am no an expert.

This sounds fine so long as the AI transcriptions are clearly marked as machine translations which have not been verified for correctness.

They must not be be cited as evidence in court, because machine translation is just computation and has no sense of the meaning of what it is transcribing. Homonyms and other aspects of human language will often be mistakenly translated, so he AI transcriptions must always be used as only a convenience, not as have having legal standing.

No person should ever be convicted on the basis of an AI transcription of anything he (she, other) said or wrote.

¶ +2024.04.14. How would the world look like if humanity reached our current tech level just by having 1 billion people?

That seems like some things could be "better". Less pollution and less "global warming" and other bad things which are exacerbated by the sheer number of people. We might have more time to try to prevent "global warming", and natural resources might be being used up less rapidly.

On the other hand, a large percent of the pollution and some other problems is produced by the most advanced countries which have a relatively small percent of the world's population. According to Google: "The U.S. is responsible for 30 percent of global energy use, while only accounting for about five percent of global population."

So one question is how would the 1 billion people be "distributed"? Currently, the United States has 333 million people and India and China each has 1.4 billion people. Would each of these country's population be reduced by a factor of 8, for the United States to have 42 million people, and China and India each 175 million people? Some of the fastest growing countries are also the poorest, aren't they?

I personally feel the are too many people.

[ Where's waldo? ]

But each living soul deserves a good life. Obviously, poverty needs to be eliminated but we do not seem to be doing enough about that, do we?

So if there were "only" one billion people instead of the current almost 8 billion, things would be different, but how different in what ways would be significantly affected by the composition of the population, i.e., now the people lived and whether they were concerned about making the planet habitable for the future or not. Some of the few might just use even more resources and create more pollution than today since there would be a lot of available land and easily mined minerals. etc.

Think about all the pollution and resource waste of private automobiles. If there were were 1/8 as many of them that would put less stress on the planet.

This is by no means a simple question to speculate about and in any case, the question is where do we go from here? Do we just let "the invisible hand" have its mindless way with the world, which got us from less than 1 billion in 1800 to 8 billion today without us having planned for it?

There is a classic essay free on the internet: "The tragedy of he commons", by Garrett Hardin.

¶ +2024.04.13. What is your opinion on the content available on the Internet?

My opinion is that some of the Internet content is very high quality and that's what I look at.

Example: I am very interested in the Ukraine war. There are highly educated persons on YouTube who are telling the tragic truth about this humanitarian disaster, including Columbia University Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, University of Chicago Prof. John Mearsheimer, and Alexander Mercouris.

But I also think that may be only 1% of what's on the Internet. I think a lot of what it on the Internet has little value and some of it is very harmful.

I would apply the old ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) slogan, perhaps out of context:

"Take what you like and leave the rest."

¶ +2024.04.13. I believe that if we destroyed and banned social media, content creation, 80% of the digital media and more, that society and the world would be better, adding more adventure, fantastical moments, & more, do any of you agree with this idea?

It isn't going to happen, don't you agree?

But couldn't "we" try to do better?

I'll just throw out a few suggestions here:

(1) Advertising slogan: "Shut down your computer. Restart a friendship. The conversation is waiting. Go there." (Grand Marnier (liqueur, aka cordial))

(2) The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, which urges enjoyment of the simple pleasures of social life, such as leisured dinners with a few good friends, good bread and good wine.

(3) Platonic education: Persons getting together t study serious topics and learn by sharing their ideas with each other:

[ Platonic education ]

(4) "Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture.... in our bourgeois Western world total labor has vanquished leisure. Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture – and ourselves." (Josef Pieper)

(5) I strongly feel that competitive athletics like football are bad too, because they encourage persons to compete against one another, not to cooperate and enjoy life together.

[ angry competitive athletes ]

Also celebrities are bad: Instead of sublunary stars and their non-HVAC fans, let persons enjoy playing together as peers.

A professor told me a story from when he was in college before World War II. He went to visit his girlfriend at the Black Mountain Art school one summer. On a Saturday afternoon, the students got together with some beer and played a game of softball. But not exactly. they didn't keep score or anything; they just played around and had a lot of fun. Then, he said, one of he students started playing to win and soon enough everybody was competing against each other, and, he said: "It turned ugly".

Make love not war.

¶ +2024.04.12. What are the potential risks and benefits of integrating Internet of Things (IoT) devices into our homes and cities?

This is a very interesting question and I do not pretend to have a comprehensive answer.

I do not hear much about this, either. Everything we hear about computers is AI, VR, quantum computing but I can't recall the last time I saw anything in the media about the Internet of Things.

But this seems to me a very important, potentially transformative thing(pun there, yes?). I do not know how far it is technically possible. (Item: Might we run out of IP addresses? Now many years ago I seem to recall there were problems moving from IP-V4 to IP-V6 but I do not know the details or the outcome, and this may not be relevant).

Would it produce a lot more electromagnetic radiation that might harm us?

One good thing that it looks to me could come of it is that we would no longer often lose things. Recall Roz Chast's New Yorker Magazine cover showing all the infrastructure under Manhattan streets, where the very lowest layer, just above bedrock, is lost cat toys:

[ New Yorker October 1st, 1990 by Roz Chast ]

If all cat toys were in the Internet of Things we could always find them (ditto for lost cats). Maybe "devices" does not get down to the level of cat toys?

On the negative side I expect that it might make it easier for the government to track people and what they are up to, and surely bad actors (scammers and others) would find some way to abuse it.

What about pollution and other bad things due to producing all the transmitter/receivers and then disposing of them?

I hope you get more ideas, both pro and con! We always need to be careful about new technologies because while they can do good things they can also create problems.

[ Weizenbaum ]

+2024.08.11 v190
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