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Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

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Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#31

Post by dredmorbius »

Brian Eno is a skilled musician. He's a lousy economic, systems, and AI theorist.

The Edge is revealing itself far more to be a forum in which people of provenance hold forth on that which they've no particular qualifications or grounds to discuss (something which never happens elsewhere on the Internet, of course ).

Complex, highly-interdependent systems exibit fragility, nonlinear transitions, and multiple optima, some not reachable, some local and highly persistent but undesirable.

Tossing up ones hands and declaring that all shall be as God / Allah / The Great Spirit / FSM wills it abandons all sense of agency.

The prospects of a global collapse of systems concerns a great many people, and for much the reason AI would: the mechanisms, logic, interactions, limits, and consequences aren't clear. See David Korowicz's "Trade-Off".

http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-...

As for technological unemployment, that's been a consideration for over 200 years. You'll find strong treatments from J.S. Mill, and commentary from Abraham Lincoln.

Some modern sources, referencing those:

Technology in Society

1984, Vol.6(4):263–284, doi:10.1016/0160-791X(84)90022-8 "High technology and job loss", Russell W. Rumberger http://31.184.194.81/10.1016/0160-791X(84)90022-8

Robert Struble Jr, (1993) "Towards a Structural Solution to Unemployment", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 20 Iss: 11, pp.15 - 26

http://31.184.194.81/http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/0306829931004...

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#32

Post by dredmorbius »

Bromskloss wrote: post #20
dredmorbius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "invisible hand" metaphor used by Adam Smith is not an explanatory mechanism , and if anything is an admission that the specific mechanism isn't understood . In use at the time and earlier, it had the sense of "the invisible hand of Providence" (or God). Though Smith, as Hume, was almost certainly what we'd now call an athiest. He used the term three times, in three different books: The Theory of Moral Sentiments…

> "the invisible hand of Provenance" _Providence_, perchance?

Thank you.

Poor provenance on my part ;-)

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#33

Post by campground »

This is similar to a thought I've had for some time now; That artificial intelligence is most likely to emerge - rather than be explicitly designed - from our increasingly complex, interconnected, self-regulating systems and institutions. We will be no more aware of, or able to converse with it, than the bacteria in our guts are aware of us. Also, artificial intelligence is the wrong term. We have artificial intelligence. What we are talking about is a new, higher form of real intelligence.

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#35

Post by dredmorbius »

For those interested in what people who actually know whereof they speak have to say on the topic of technological unemployment, and the history of economic discussion of the topic, a solid outline of discussions from Ricardo, Mill, McCollough, and Neisser, is included here:

https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-technology-trap-...

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#36

Post by nyolfen »

campground wrote: post #33

This is similar to a thought I've had for some time now; That artificial intelligence is most likely to emerge - rather than be explicitly designed - from our increasingly complex, interconnected, self-regulating systems and institutions. We will be no more aware of, or able to converse with it, than the bacteria in our guts are aware of us. Also, artificial intelligence is the wrong term. We have artificial intellig…

It's not difficult to conceptualize globalized capitalism in this way, and indeed some have -- Nick Land springs to mind.

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#37

Post by dredmorbius »

PeCaN wrote: post #5
zitterbewegung wrote: post #3

I think the article is missing the point of what AI will do by eliminating jobs like transportation and fast food preparation . I think once we get to that point we will have to implement basic income .

AI and basic income in the same comment. I almost forgot I was on HN for a second there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12027495

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#38

Post by amasad »

campground wrote: post #33

This is similar to a thought I've had for some time now; That artificial intelligence is most likely to emerge - rather than be explicitly designed - from our increasingly complex, interconnected, self-regulating systems and institutions. We will be no more aware of, or able to converse with it, than the bacteria in our guts are aware of us. Also, artificial intelligence is the wrong term. We have artificial intellig…

In the paper coining the term 'Singularity'[1], Verner Vinge describes that one way superintelligence could emerge is that large computer networks may "wake up" as a "superhumanly intelligent entity".

I personally find any argument that relies on our lack of understanding of complex systems and emergence to be on shaky grounds at best and a fallacy at worst.

[1]: https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.ht...

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#39

Post by atemerev »

As a curious software engineer, I have a basic familiarity on where heating oil comes from (I remember my first sci-pop book with a section on basics of oil processing), where nuts are grown, basics of food industry supply chains, and every other example covered. My knowledge might be rudimentary and without much detail, but I try to cover all bases, and when I discover some area of human knowledge I genuinely know nothing about, I jump to Wikipedia in excitement. (I read Wikipedia a lot).

I thought that being uncomfortable with own ignorance is a fundamental part of human nature. But apparently it isn't.

Re: Just A New Fractal Detail In The Big Picture (2015)

#40

Post by piqufoh »

sixQuarks wrote: post #10

I don't see the correlation. The author is talking more about systems. The difference with AI is that it will have all of the knowledge within a system and thus be able to make incredible connections between disparate fields of knowledge. On a separate note, I had an interesting thought about AI as I was looking at a cool architectural photo. I would love to design a building, but I don't know a thing about it. It wo…

Or - you could design the building you want, any way you want - and the AI takes over when you're done to make the design is possible. Boring / difficult / specialist things like load bearing calculations, material strength, plumbing routing etc. are done for you. A bit like Ripley's exosuit, but for your mind!
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