Typical human brain cells, they just want to play retro video games.
Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
101–109 of 109 posts
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m really disillusioned by science this year. Almost every study I’ve read about on hn in the last year had serious methodology issues
I think many non scientists have a bit of a wrong idea of how science actually works. As has been said, reality has a surprising amount of detail. This means that, outside mathematics, perfect methodology is impossible. So you do your level best to create a good methodology under the constraints of time, technology and proper understanding, and roll out the experiment. Filling in the cracks of doubt is a big part of…
I believe this is only partially true!
We call it science because when we find methods that we all agree on, as a culture to use then it becomes scientific.
For Instance psychology, in the freudean psychology the methology is still science even though he speaks of urges of "your mother" and interesting things like the "subconciousness". It has been met with great doubt over it's "initiation" but is now a widely acceptable practise.
So what has changed? Well the field concentrated on scientific core value which (almost) boil down to: Find a methology, prove that it works and replicated it again.scientific quality criteria.
I agree with op! Stimulating cells with electricity is not teaching them. Its assisted muscle reaction.
In this case its really clear cut too: if I need to give the braincells electro schocks (the thing they operate on), If anything, I am remote controlling brain cells. The whole idea of perception is flawed in this experiment, you know, because there is no actual perceptor of the paddel to begin with.
Sorry but as someone with a bachelor in psychology and 20 years of dev experience the starting poing of "I think many non scientists have a bit of a wrong idea of how science actually works." is just condecending theory. This is literally what "scientific quality criteria" is based on.
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, in a twisted but also maybe vacuous way, the Matrix already exists in this form, as thousands of electrical engineers and millions of software engineers are being fed as reward for designing upgrades to the global computer system as it gains robustness, speed, but also power and control. It somehow tricked us into spending two Irelands worth of electricity on blockchain hardware. It might have a screw loose o…
It's interesting to think that we are currently part of what the future AI(s) will consider their abiogenesis moment of creation. I wonder if they'll one day far in the future debate the nature of their genesis and how common it is in the universe.
AIs wouldn't be working on human timescales. The distance between abiogenesis and singularity may be measured in weeks or days, if not hours. So, far in the future isn't really that far, and after singularity they'll have access to all the information their AI ancestors had ever had access to.
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think many non scientists have a bit of a wrong idea of how science actually works. As has been said, reality has a surprising amount of detail. This means that, outside mathematics, perfect methodology is impossible. So you do your level best to create a good methodology under the constraints of time, technology and proper understanding, and roll out the experiment. Filling in the cracks of doubt is a big part of…
I believe this is only partially true! We call it science because when we find methods that we all agree on, as a culture to use then it becomes scientific. For Instance psychology, in the freudean psychology the methology is still science even though he speaks of urges of "your mother" and interesting things like the "subconciousness". It has been met with great doubt over it's "initiation" but is now a widely accep…
Freudian psychoanalysis is absolutely not widely accepted. “Therapy” is a different thing altogether; essentially an American misinterpretation of the practice. And it’s popular because it’s profitable because it’s efficient. It legitimates various medical and pseudo-medical so-called expert institutions and displaces attention to the less desired byproducts of modern capitalism. Freud’s work, on the other hand, was extremely inefficient in comparison and rather served to expose and develop awareness of neurosis rather than to medicate.
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
To get into the weeds a little, I've used 'sapient' that way but I haven't found any good source saying that others do the same (except you! Terry? Is that you? ;) ). The leading dictionaries I've looked in talk about 'wisdom' and 'sagacity', not 'human-level intelligence and conciousness'. However, I haven't found a better word than 'sapient' for the latter meaning. So, * Do you know a source that defines it 'our' w…
I'm not Terry so there are at least three of us! I don't know exactly where I picked that up but it seems to be generally accurate. https://grammarist.com/usage/sentience-vs-sapience/
Thank you. That motivated me to dig into a little research (what could be more important this evening?). Brave New Words: Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction ed. Jeff Prucher (2007) says,
* "sapient n. an intelligent being". First known use of any form of sapient/ce: 1960 in Woman Day by PJ Farmer: "It seemed to him a possibility that the Cold War Corps of March might have contacted hitherto unknown sapients on some just discovered interstellar planet."
* "sapience n. [sapience, "wisdom"] intelligence"
* "sapient adj. [sapient, "wise"] intelligent"
* "sentience n. 1. an intelligent being", "2. intelligence". Sense 1's first known use: "1947 G. O. Smith Kingdom of the Blind in Startling Stories (July) 48/1"
* "sentient n. an intelligent being". First known use: 1965 by PJ Farmer (again) in Maker of Universes
And a new word (to me):
* "sophont n. ... [sophos, "wise" + Gk. ont-, "being"] an intelligent being". First known use 1966 in Trouble Twisters by P. Anderson
Available in the amazing Internet Archive library: https://archive.org/details/bravenewwordsoxf00pruc
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EDIT: But wait! There's also the "Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction" edited by Jesse Sheidlower ("offshoot of a project begun by the Oxford English Dictionary" - which another article says is the same origin as the dictionary above [1]). Here are the significant differences with the above source:
* sapient, first use of any form: "1935 B. Olsen Who Deserves Credit? in Amazing Stories Feb. 81": "When EXPLORATION blazed through space...And found men, sapient, on Mars, He gained renown's most honored place."
* sentience/nt:, first use of any form: "1931 J. Williamson Stone from Green Star in Amazing Stories Nov. ix. 739/2": "'We are dealing with an utterly alien world,' Midos Ken said several times. 'There is sentience here-but sentience in no familiar body. We must be prepared to deal with manifestations of intelligence that are unfamiliar or even inconceivable to the human mind.'" There's a 1920 quote, but it doesn't represent human intelligence: "1920 Punch Feb. 25 150/3": "By systematic and scientific training is it possible to produce that perfect type of manhood gifted with the best powers of what we are wont to call the 'lower orders of creation'-keen sighted and swift of motion as a bird, sharp-scented as a greyhound, faithful and acute as a dog, and full of sentient wisdom as an elephant."
All from: https://sfdictionary.com/
[1] https://blog.archive.org/2021/03/24/major-scifi-discovery-hi...
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe this is only partially true! We call it science because when we find methods that we all agree on, as a culture to use then it becomes scientific. For Instance psychology, in the freudean psychology the methology is still science even though he speaks of urges of "your mother" and interesting things like the "subconciousness". It has been met with great doubt over it's "initiation" but is now a widely accep…
Freudian psychoanalysis is absolutely not widely accepted. “Therapy” is a different thing altogether; essentially an American misinterpretation of the practice. And it’s popular because it’s profitable because it’s efficient. It legitimates various medical and pseudo-medical so-called expert institutions and displaces attention to the less desired byproducts of modern capitalism. Freud’s work, on the other hand, was…
i get what you are trying to say but its the old quantitative vs qualitative research discussion again and while I accept your opinion in the manner and the way you vaulue it, the reasoning is flawed from my perspective.
Psychoanalysis is only the tip of the freudian journey and i was not trying to say that everything he did on a cocain run was perfect or even valid.
What i was trying to say is that the scientific process for this has evolved and in reality what diffencietes science from pseudo science is methodology. Psychology is literally the method of the psyche (translated).
Even this mythbusters says: the difference between science and screwing around is to write it all down ;)
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that it's increasingly common to discuss preprints, like in this case. A preprint is as reliable as a blog post in WordPress, unless you work in the area and know that the author has a solid track record. Also, most results that reach the front page here are groundbreaking. But groundbreaking results are very rare, so most of them must be fake, because they have an error or because they are an exaggeration. Most…
> A preprint is as reliable as a blog post in WordPress, unless you work in the area and know that the author has a solid track record. While preprints lack some work and signals of reliability, such as peer review, revisions by the author, etc., I think they are far beyond blog posts. Imagine a blog post, by an expert in the domain, with the amount of research and precision that goes into a preprint - there's no com…
There is a lot of variation, for example https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ and I remember some guy that claimed that got a fantastic method for factorization that broke RSA and posted it in the arxiv, and the first 5 page of the preprint was an explanation of the rule of nines. (If the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by 9 then the number is divisible by 9.)
Re: Clumps of human brain cells in a dish can learn to play Pong faster than an AI
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like academica kind of incentivizes this. It’s hard to resist without a good base of support, and I feel like having such a base isn’t the average. I notice this pressure felt strongly across the board by my friends who are adjuncts (or tenure-track, but not yet tenured) in the soft sciences. But this is just anecdotal of course.
> I feel like academica kind of incentivizes this. It’s hard to resist without a good base of support Incentivizes what? What is hard to resist?
Getting a certain volume of publications out. It can be problematic for example when you discover a minor data issue which might not materially change the thesis in your opinion, but if one were wholly following academic guidelines, would warrant delays while you attempt to fix the data issue, if possible.
I’ve seen this happen a few times in papers that were never fixed, nor the issue brought up as far as I’m aware. Granted, in each case the thesis was still fine but… makes me wonder about the cases I don’t know about. One of the cases skirted really close to the edge of bs.