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The Myth of the Objective

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Re: The Myth of the Objective

#41

Post by MyObjective4 »

So how do you harness the knowledge that many of the best ideas that have been thought up weren't the original intention or objective. I don't get the point. I think this is saying something like, only fate will create something extraordinary. This is useless nonsense.

Most of the claims of the video and article seem to lead nowhere, or are commonly known and while mildly interesting, are easily explained by logical observation and analysis. Knowing them doesn't help get you anywhere (that would be an objective). If there is no objective to the video, then why watch it. This is starting to sound like some kind of relativism.

The success of PicBreeder is accomplished by individuals ability to see interesting things evolving and the vast number of real world similar objects they had to choose from. Of course an algorithm cannot replicate that because it is not creative. This does more to dis-prove natural evolution IMO because the images that took shape required creative intelligence to facilitate them doing so. As to the point of the final pictures only appearing when there was no particular objective, OK fair enough, but how does this help us? What new thing did we learn? We know that many inventions and innovations were discovered this way. Why is it an epiphany? The computer could not create a recognizable picture because it was only given one. If it had the google images library to match to, it would certainly come up with some very great pictures.

On the Living Image Project, The recognizable images didn't happen, because different people saw different things and voted different directions. This failed precisely because there was no objective. If the Living Image Project stated an objective (A teacup for example), it would have had far more success. This just goes to show that objectives are important because in the real world, there are needs. If the article and video was useful, it would have revealed something helpful about how to fill needs (objectives) in a better way. The majority of problems are solved with objectives in mind. This article and video never seem to recognize that. The conclusion almost seems to say that attempting to fill known needs is a problem in the world today.

In the Novelty search demo that was shown, the biped that used the novel behavior algorithm walked better than the farther distance algorithm only explains the constraints that the failing algorithms had. All it proves is that when an algorithm has more choices to explore, in many cases it did better. To me this would be like telling someone to build the best house, car, ETC but only use the knowledge from 3 books. Tell someone else to do the same but use the internet, unlimited books, Talk to people ETC. Should we be surprised at the result? Kenneth Stanley seemed to be, and seemed to think it revolutionary. What new thing does this teach us in practical terms? Nothing. More stepping stones mean a better result. This is common sense.

It is no wonder the National Science Foundation would not give this guy any money. He hasn't taught us anything new. I want my 30 minutes of life back.

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#42

Post by gwern »

Nomentatus wrote: post #36
gwern wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see if you could improve on the results supposedly disproving having an 'objective'. I haven't sat through the full 40 minutes of the video and I don't see any writeups on the Picbreeder website (which appears to have not had any news updates since 2011), so I am guessing that what he did was using a CNN image classifier and do greedy maximization over the various options on each step; it w…

I my case, my greatest flaw in playing GO was losing sight of the objective - i.e. gaining more space everywhere. Instead I would zoom in too tightly on wherever the last few moves had happened; win battles and lose the war. I suspect that's very common in newbie GO players. But I still like the article, creativity is a different task with different pitfalls.

Interestingly, the main description of AlphaGo v2/Master's play by the Go players & experts on /r/baduk & commentaries elsewhere is exactly that: compared to the human Go players, it is very willing to disengage from a local fight to make a move elsewhere globally, often ending josekis early just to get in the first move elsewhere.

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#43

Post by MyObjective4 »

mirceal wrote: post #23
protonfish wrote: post #13

It makes sense to explore outside the box if your problem can't be found in a very limited search space. However the statement > Many natural processes don’t appear to be objective based. Natural evolution and human innovation are cases in point. Is not correct. Evolution is highly objective based and micro-incremental.

No it's not. Evolution itself does not have the objective of creating something. Regarding evolution, having read both Kenneth's book and "The Blind Watchmaker" by Dawkins I can tell you that Kenneth rediscovers what Dawkins explained in his book in 1986. The experiment Dawkins describes in his book resembles the picbreeder experiment a lot.

Wouldn't humans creating recognizable images by choosing a particular aberration that looks like something familiar be more akin to intelligent design? Without this intelligence and creativity to see something in each new breed and branch, coupled with the ability on the site to rank images and label images. The final images would have ever existed.

According to Dawkins, Evolution has two objectives. Optimizing survival and procreation. We saw how the randomness toward an objective failed to produce anything meaningful in this example so how is this similar to natural evolution?

I see no similarities.

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#46

Post by mirceal »

MyObjective4 wrote: post #43
mirceal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. Evolution itself does not have the objective of creating something. Regarding evolution, having read both Kenneth's book and "The Blind Watchmaker" by Dawkins I can tell you that Kenneth rediscovers what Dawkins explained in his book in 1986. The experiment Dawkins describes in his book resembles the picbreeder experiment a lot.

Wouldn't humans creating recognizable images by choosing a particular aberration that looks like something familiar be more akin to intelligent design? Without this intelligence and creativity to see something in each new breed and branch, coupled with the ability on the site to rank images and label images. The final images would have ever existed. According to Dawkins, Evolution has two objectives. Optimizing survi…

the point is that you cannot design it. you're exploring the space looking at what is interesting. So if you're given a start image and an end image (an objective) you cannot reach the end image. In the case of pic-breeder you are playing the role of a fitness function not that of an intelligent designer.

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#47

Post by chrisweekly »

orclev wrote: post #38
nostrademons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not to mention there's a finite supply of money, it's literally impossible for everyone to be a millionaire (well, you could inflate the currency to the point where a million dollars is nearly worthless, but that's just playing semantic games). Most people who are millionaires don't get there by holding a million dollars in currency, they get there by holding assets worth a million dollars. This is not zero sum - a…

It isn't a question of actual dollars in circulation, you can always print more after all, it's a question of total economic value. All goods in circulation in the U.S. have a finite value, and it definitely is a zero sum game. You can add more goods and therefore value, but that can only happen at a certain rate (this would be tied into population growth, employment rate, and profit margins among other things). Ther…

pg (and many, many other entrepreneurs and investors) disagree vehemently, positing that startups are about wealth _creation_. if wealth isn't created, how has humanity's global standard of living so radically improved?

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#48

Post by taneq »

mathattack wrote: post #29

One of the father's of quality, W. Edwards Deming came out very strong against Management by Objective, even though he was very statistically inclined. In his 14 points [0] he mentions Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management. . His idea is you should focus on the journey (always improve) rather than artificial endpoints. It's a profound idea, and one I've sometimes struggled to…

So how do you know whether you're always improving if you don't measure your performance at consistent points along the way? Just ask everyone if it felt like you improved, followed by a group hug and mutual back-patting?

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#49

Post by bandushrew »

taneq wrote: post #48
mathattack wrote: post #29

One of the father's of quality, W. Edwards Deming came out very strong against Management by Objective, even though he was very statistically inclined. In his 14 points [0] he mentions Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management. . His idea is you should focus on the journey (always improve) rather than artificial endpoints. It's a profound idea, and one I've sometimes struggled to…

So how do you know whether you're always improving if you don't measure your performance at consistent points along the way? Just ask everyone if it felt like you improved, followed by a group hug and mutual back-patting?

I dont think he said to eliminate the measurements, he said to eliminate the quotas.

Re: The Myth of the Objective

#50

Post by PhilWright »

chrisweekly wrote: post #47
orclev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a question of actual dollars in circulation, you can always print more after all, it's a question of total economic value. All goods in circulation in the U.S. have a finite value, and it definitely is a zero sum game. You can add more goods and therefore value, but that can only happen at a certain rate (this would be tied into population growth, employment rate, and profit margins among other things). Ther…

pg (and many, many other entrepreneurs and investors) disagree vehemently, positing that startups are about wealth _creation_. if wealth isn't created, how has humanity's global standard of living so radically improved?

Some startups will create extra wealth, some will destroy wealth some will redistribute it.

Imagine I create a new shoe factory right next door to an existing shoe factory. After 10 years we find...

1) I failed, I lost all the investors money and had to close down. I destroyed the investors wealth.

2) I win, the next door factory has closed down and now I have all of their business. But I have exactly the same costs, sales, staff and so forth. So the profits come to me from now on instead of the neighbor. I have supplanted them, but consumers and the economy as a whole is no better off. Wealth is transferred to me as ongoing profits that would otherwise have gone next door.

3) I win, the next door factory has closed down and now I have all of their business. I produce the same output as they did but with less staff and lower costs. So consumers benefit from lower prices, the money they saved can be spent on other things, creating demand elsewhere. Wealth is transferred to me as ongoing profits that would otherwise have gone next door. Everyone wins except I employ less people than the neighbor so there is less employment. But the extra demand for other goods because of my lower prices means they get employment at other businesses!

Number 3 is why the UK, which used to employ 90% of people in agriculture before the industrial revolution, does not have 90% unemployment today, the people released from agriculture because of better productivity are freed to work in other sectors instead.

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