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Life is more than an engineering problem

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Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#51

Post by gcanyon »

3abiton wrote: post #10
gcanyon wrote: post #9

I'll take this as my chance to recommend Ted Chiang -- he is among the very best short story writers working in science fiction (I say confidently, not having done an extensive survey...). His works are remarkably clever, from Understand, which does a credible job of portraying human superintelligence, to Exhalation, which explores the concept of entropy in a fascinating way. And of course Story of Your Life, on whic…

I second Exhalation, it was a great experience, and I couldn't share that excitement after reading as no one in my (offline) circle had read it at the time. Reddit was one of those places where it was brought up at least.

It's a great metaphor, and such a ridiculous path to get there (when the researcher is (mild spoilers) experimenting on himself. So good!

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#52

Post by baruchel »

Squarex wrote: post #46
baruchel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some stories by Ted Chiang share similarities with those of Borges.

Could you share some tips where to start with him?

The most classical book is certainly "Fictions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones. One of the most known stories in it is "The library of Babel": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#53

Post by gcanyon »

7thaccount wrote: post #26
gcanyon wrote: post #9

I'll take this as my chance to recommend Ted Chiang -- he is among the very best short story writers working in science fiction (I say confidently, not having done an extensive survey...). His works are remarkably clever, from Understand, which does a credible job of portraying human superintelligence, to Exhalation, which explores the concept of entropy in a fascinating way. And of course Story of Your Life, on whic…

Understand really was my favorite super intelligence story. Isn't the new show severance based off one of his short stories as well? I can't remember. I wasn't a big fan of the pacing of the digients story with the little digital life forms. It was certainly thought provoking though.

It's sooo easy to blow it when illustrating super intelligence. Interestingly, I thought Phenomenon with John Travolta did a pretty reasonable job -- when they asked him to name as many animals as he could in a minute, and he was bored and made it harder (by giving them for each letter of the alphabet?) and when he says to a friend that he should redesign/paint the parking lot outside his store because he could add an extra space and at the same time make the traffic flow smoother.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#54

Post by owlninja »

gcanyon wrote: post #9

I'll take this as my chance to recommend Ted Chiang -- he is among the very best short story writers working in science fiction (I say confidently, not having done an extensive survey...). His works are remarkably clever, from Understand, which does a credible job of portraying human superintelligence, to Exhalation, which explores the concept of entropy in a fascinating way. And of course Story of Your Life, on whic…

I first heard of him at some point on HN. Tower of Babylon absolutely blew me away. I read all his other story collections and can't recommend them enough.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#55

Post by bee_rider »

teleforce wrote: post #20
encomiast wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument seems to presuppose that a language is more perfect if it has fewer influences and contributions from other languages. But you didn’t actually state that assumption, and certainly didn’t support it. Maybe the most perfect language is a perfect amalgamation of all languages. That’s at least as plausible to me.

According to Islamic tradition it's the language of the heavens. The bottom line is that the best and/or perfect language there is, should be able to create the best and/or perfect literature either in the form of book/oration/etc. Mind you Quran is not originally in the form of book it's actually oral tradition and Muhammad is a well known illiterate person. In fact (I'm not making this up) currently there are many…

This point of view was basically covered in the interview.

> I grew up in a French household, and I often feel that there are French words and expressions that better capture what I want to express than any English word or expression could.

> Eco writes that when European scholars were arguing about what language Adam and Eve spoke, each one typically argued in favor of the language he himself spoke. So Flemish scholars said that Adam and Eve obviously must have spoken Flemish, because Flemish is the most perfect expression of human thought.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#56

Post by gcanyon »

I'm 100% certain Chiang is wrong about art. I'm a product manager, not an artist, but I write many things as part of my job, and Claude in particular is a better writer than I am.

Here's how Claude rewrote that, you can argue whether in this particular instance it did better than I did :-)

While I respect Chiang's perspective on AI and art, my experience as a product manager has shown me otherwise - Claude routinely writes better than I do, despite writing being central to my role.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#57

Post by borski »

almusdives wrote: post #19
ChrisKnott wrote: post #14

> "It’s like imagining that a printer could actually feel pain because it can print bumper stickers with the words ‘Baby don’t hurt me’ on them. It doesn’t matter if the next version of the printer can print out those stickers faster, or if it can format the text in bold red capital letters instead of small black ones. Those are indicators that you have a more capable printer but not indicators that it is any closer…

> We actually know exactly which gene sequence is responsible for real intelligence. We don't at all know this.

It’s an idea for a science fiction story.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#58

Post by [deleted] »

gcanyon wrote: post #47
ChrisKnott wrote: post #14

> "It’s like imagining that a printer could actually feel pain because it can print bumper stickers with the words ‘Baby don’t hurt me’ on them. It doesn’t matter if the next version of the printer can print out those stickers faster, or if it can format the text in bold red capital letters instead of small black ones. Those are indicators that you have a more capable printer but not indicators that it is any closer…

Interestingly the movie Companion, out this weekend, illustrates this case exactly. It's a thriller, not a philosophical treatise, so don't expect it to go deep into the subject, but the question of what "pain" means to an AI is definitely part of the story.

[deleted]

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#59

Post by borski »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #38
sukruh wrote: post #34

I agreed with almost all of it until: >My stance on this has probably shifted in a negative direction over time, primarily because of my growing awareness of how often technology is used for wealth accumulation. I don’t think capitalism will solve the problems that capitalism creates, so I’d be much more optimistic about technological development if we could prevent it from making a few people extremely rich. What's…

Rich people once they made their wealth creation move on society they no longer need to work. Their capital gains actually start increasing from the ownership of human capital. So they get richer and richer without contributing work. In fact that wealth gained without contributing and creating new wealth rises at a compounding rate. Simply owning enough capital your wealth will grow at speeds that far excel what a pe…

> You can see this effect in y combinator. The owners of y combinator don’t actually do much work.

The YC partners who spend so much of their time helping startups are definitely doing work.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#60

Post by [deleted] »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #41
sukruh wrote: post #34

I agreed with almost all of it until: >My stance on this has probably shifted in a negative direction over time, primarily because of my growing awareness of how often technology is used for wealth accumulation. I don’t think capitalism will solve the problems that capitalism creates, so I’d be much more optimistic about technological development if we could prevent it from making a few people extremely rich. What's…

I don't think he's saying no one should get rich, just that wealth inequality is already too large and seems to be on a path to continue growing. I think most people would agree there is some point where there is too much wealth inequality, we just disagree on whether we're already past that point.

[deleted]
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