[Our research] has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending- Robert Wilson
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[Our research] has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending ...
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[Our research] has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending ...
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Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence (GOFAI) Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things, and then proceed to greater. ...
One thing I've always noticed about this photo is how bored Einstein looks :)
ReplyDeleteIf ever there comes a forced march, past the crumbled ruins of Athena Parthenos, back to the caves of ignorance, we should hold this picture high as we shamble along.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you still alive and kicking. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHave something against adding some noise to you blog?
I swear not mentioning DiBi. ;-P
\\I would be very interested if there's an update or video game in the works - I have experience as a game designer/programmer/player, especially in resource management and civ genres, going all the way back to Hammurabi in BASIC.
ReplyDeleteWell... there is one more topic to discuss, possibly.
As I quite inamoured with Civ... Civilization by Sid Meier, I mean. ;-P
And have my own ideas of how to improve it...
Up to.
As Meier himself "Megalomania? Oh, yes!". ;-)
Heh. A crossover from another blog. IMHO the series peaked with Civ5, I'm hoping that Civ7 will get it back on track. Resource management games did so much for my stroke recovery that I feel sad they're only used for entertainment. Games in general are a powerful path to acquiring, sharing, and augmenting knowledge/intelligence. The trick is to embrace youthful open-mindedness while remaining analytical.
Delete“Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.” - James Clerk Maxwell
Not Civ3?
DeleteWell. Alpha Centauri was last true attempt to rejuvenate that title. As for me.
Idea was to make a BIG WORLD... but now it reduced to mere sandbox... :-((((
Well. For me, it more like simulator of history. So Civ... and some other, most probably not known to you... well, for me too. That was publication in some scientific literature -- about simulation games played by historians. That invigorated my mind. So I tried to find likeminded people even. To make such project.
I even come to idea -- how to make it interesting as Massive-Multiplayer.
Because, you know, there is numerous attempt, And Civ itself have had play by net and hotseat modes very early too.
But... mere regime of playing game -- not suiting for many-many people to participate...
I actually collect older civ versions (they're dirt cheap on Steam), though I haven't played them. I did look at the public domain project called Freeciv and found it quite interesting, though not as smooth as the commercial version. Those people are serious civ developers - you might talk to them.
DeleteMy own interest is for rehab and therapy, mostly in a hospital environment. There, MMO games are not really possible due to privacy and physical/mental/age considerations. Instead, I'm interested in improving the AI players to allow social-like play for such patients.
Well... you know what modern "AI" needs... to demonstrate anything like that "improving the AI players to allow social-like play for such patients."
DeleteCollect some data from living players.
Well, you know what is the problem with game AIs??? It's a problem that rules of game ALWAYS tuned to make it possible for dumb game AIs to play...
Some games even became broken that way. As game programmers have limited time to improve it -- they even deliberately breaking it. For the sake of shipping in time. :-(((((
And well, most of players are not hardcore ones... for tuning games AI up to their expectations. :-(((((
I agree with these points. I focus less on ChatGPT type 'mimicry' and more on old fashioned 'rules' and 'goals' for the AI. More on the ghost and less on the machine it's in. Rudyard Kipling once said, "Sure it's clever, but is it Art?". It's not art until/unless there's at least some tiny speck of a theory of mind.
DeleteI also know what it's like to row against the tide of current fashion, trend, and commercial imperatives. It's part of what lead to my stroke :)
Well.
DeleteMake a seed.
Plant it.
Care and water it.
Until it'll grow into big tree... and then everyone will be glad to come to frolic under its broad shadow. :-)
Is there other way, I dunno.
Well... to test rules and goals... massively multiplaying environment is only option too.
DeleteImagine, if Lenat would be more free, and would release code of Eurisco among that Traveker players... at first.
And then to other games. In all other spheres.
There is no better way of achieving things -- then Evolution.
Well.
DeleteThere is two things that I would like to see in Civ game. And think it would improve experience of it. GREATLY.
First. Reconnaissance.
Well, there is spyes in Civ (dunno about past-Civ3).
But their use, while adding depth to it. Have little relation to battles. Though that is there it most important.
And have little knowledge -- is it better anywhere.
Well, rules of game that based on "AI must be able to use it too"... well, AI dunno how to use spyes in Civ. :-/
There is that mentioned.Spartans. There is recon squads added... but in very sublime way... as, you know, AI cannot be taught to use em. :-((((((((((((((
Another one.
DeleteAdding a trade. Based on trade routes.
There are quite excellent economic games, where trade roads not only present -- but are in the center of gameplay.
Like in Railroad Tycoon 2.
(BTW, it could be good experience for you too, resource managment, lowely graphics, North America history... TRAINS!)
But.
To unite it in one game... creation and destruction in one... box. Hard thing to achieve.
And modern games developers... seems like stopped trying to create something new. Something more complex. Something more exciting.
Yes, these are examples of how GOFAI (rules) would be of more use than modern AI (neural nets). It would be simple to correct such things, but the kids today only want to train huge models using gigawatts of electricity. My own example is the worker in civ(5). When automated, it makes poor choices, including dangerous ocean crossings, wandering into foreign territory, and even straight into barbarian camps!
DeleteWell... because it have no common sense. :-)
Delete\\I've posted this before, but it validates Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" argument. Here is an old computational demonstration, with work shown, of "evolving a watch". It employs heuristics such as 'try everything', selection, and gradients.
ReplyDeleteMy own epiphany happened...
when I tried to make GA (genetic algorithm) of my own.
And it started working -- I mean showing "correct" result -- even before i HALF completed it. After just a couple of dry-runs.
HOW???
I investigated, and found that it "used" error in my previous code. :-))))))))
So. That way.
DeleteIt successfully proved to me.
That it not even need any intention and intelligence.
It even do not need some special environment.circumstances.
Accidental complexity... is all around as.
And that should be obvious in hindsight.... given with that HOW MANY atoms are... in even tiniest speck of dust...
But... we just UNABLE to think with such numbers.
Even today... when terabytes and gigahertzs are all around us... we still far-far-away from it.
From fullfeatured complexity even of simplest microbe.
Hmmm. Will someone explain to DiBi (davif brin) that
ReplyDeletewager
noun [ C ]
uk
/ˈweɪ.dʒər/ us
/ˈweɪ.dʒɚ/
an amount of money that you risk in the hope of winning more, by trying to guess something uncertain, or the agreement that you make to take this risk:
It seems answer is No One... no one have such courage. ;-P
Delete\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDelete\\ Re: Starship
\\ Forty years ago, we had a passenger airliner that did Mach 2 and we considered manned Moon landings routine. We've been lowering expectations since then. Now we sift eye candy while our top researchers make generative mimicry instead of positronic brains.
Because... it need to be done differently.
VERY differently.
Heh. I'm imagining a chat with my boss:
DeleteMe: We have to trash the whole project because it needs to be done VERY differently.
Boss: Oh. How long will that take?
Me: Forty Years at least.
Boss: Clean out your desk.
Well... that is not MY words: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" a definition of insanity".
DeleteSooner or later... there MUST appear someone, who'd say... something like "No, you will not be able to make a sail that will got more than 10 knot ferry speed... consistently. It must be done differently... like, with steam engine". ;-)
But the Concorde existed. It did Mach 2. It crossed the Atlantic many times. It was cancelled due to one horrific runway accident.
DeleteB1 still flying. And bombing even.
DeleteAnd well... Concorde -- was not that much a change.
Just an overhaul of existing techs.
As "Titanic" was -- BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST... saw such a documentary.
While I was mentioning NEW principles introducing.
Like Eiffel Tower -- it is not just biggest tower.
But based on NEW principles tower. And same time -- it would not be possible to make anything like that with previous techs.
With stone -- it'll be possible to make only Pyramids.
We're talking past each other. It's not the engineering principles I'm criticizing, it's the FORTY YEARS.
DeleteI bet on that that you know ins and outs of design and development process.
DeleteThat "FORTY YEARS" could be reduced, but... it would need some COMMITMENT poured into it.
As it was with Manhattan or Apollo Projects.
Another word -- want speedup -- open your purse.
Well... while I proposed Mind Process... for now.
DeleteThat one needs pretty nothing. In terms of money and efforts.
But needs some brains with good imagination and some time to think about it...
Another word -- we was just talking about DIFFERENT stages of that process.
Like Manhattan Project in it's infancy was just a letter -- of Einstein to FDR.
DeleteAnd Apollo Program was... some ideas in a von Braun and other NASA brainiaks... brains? Until Kennedy got knowing about it, and proclaimed it to became "our next goal"?
Yes, the best way I've heard it stated:
DeleteFast, Good, Cheap - choose two
Well... that is when we ALREADY developed new tech, and know trade-offs of it needed to be applied... then we can chose -- to make metal bars out of steel and what of what thickness... or use some cheaper material. Or... use some ready-made off the shelf. Or... ask for something more hardened, and costly.
DeleteNaturally... that we have NO such freedom when we do it for the very first time. Like, Brothers Wright could make good use of dural... but naaah, there was NO such thing in their times...
So... could you ELABORATE that your "FORTY YEARS"... if you please. About what part of a process it was said?
Like... "I can make super-computer out of billion transistors... but I need 40 years to make each individual one under microscope"???
Or... as we know today -- it can be made, that billion transistor supercomputers DIRT CHEAP... but here is a catch -- ONLY if you'd develop WHOLE INDUSTRY of producing BILLIONS of such computers... while starting from something MUCH-MUCH simpler (like 4004 ;-)).
but... isn't that ARE DAMN *profitable*investment* of that FORTY YEARS????
And that boss of yours -- is DUMB stupid... for not taking on that path? ;-)
Economics/business types talk about a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), engineers/scientists talk about Proof of Concept. The 4004 was both. With that in hand, the integrated circuit (LSI) age took off. The 3 transistors I had in my pocket (radio) as a boy turned into the 3 billion I have in my phone. It shouldn't take a billion X progress to make an efficient SST or moon rocket. N'est-ce pas?
DeleteWhat is MVP as in case with Brothers Write??? Paper plane?
DeleteWhat is MVP as in case with Manhattan Project??? Firecracker?
%-))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
\\With that in hand, the integrated circuit (LSI) age took off.
I have information from another sources -- and it says that it started operational amplifier.
Operational Amplifier History - Microchip Developer Help
Microchip Developer Help
https://developerhelp.microchip.com › bin › introduction
Nov 9, 2023 — It was the first commercial op-amp, introduced to the market in 1952, more than a decade before the first transistorized version. In the ...
Or... Elon Musk with his SpaceX... he must be starting with trying to make amateur rockets??? %-)))))
DeleteMeans... you want to make a bridge across an ocean... it's useless to start with "project" of piss stream crossing.
UPD. Sorry
This is that story.
25 Microchips That Shook the World
IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org › 25-microchips-that-shook-th...
May 1, 2009 — In 1963, a 26-year-old engineer named Robert Widlar designed the first monolithic op-amp IC, the μA702, at Fairchild Semiconductor. It sold for ...
P.S.
DeleteMy boss is a wonderful person who inspires me everyday. He is my hero. And he often reads my posts :)
Musk started by trying to buy old Russian rockets to send vegetation to Mars. And if we're going to laud op-amps, I want to talk about Babbage and Ada.
DeleteIt is all about adequacy of correspondence between means and goals -- like, if you wanna climb up to Everest -- hardly hill walking is adequate training.
DeleteNaaah, that is training your stamina at low-oxygen and use of ropes and spikes. ;-)
\\P.S.
My boss is a wonderful person who inspires me everyday. He is my hero. And he often reads my posts :)
If... he understand said higher -- I'm very glad for you.
\\I want to talk about Babbage and Ada.
Still... Turing is our father. ;-)
\\When was the hydraulic press invented?
DeleteHydraulic press - Wikipedia
1795
\\Charles Babbage began to construct a small difference engine in c. 1819 and had completed it by 1822 (Difference Engine 0).
Well... if only he'd be able to combine that things to mass-produce...
\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDelete\\ Alfred Differ: All fools who wanted to treat history as if it was a science
Well... you can ask that one -- do Astronomy are Science too? ;-) (because it deals with History of Universe)
\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDelete\\ Nobody wants JB to drop out more than DT does.
Such extravagant claim needs not less extravagant explanation. WHY????
When JB practicly turned on it's back, and gave its tummy for scatching. ;-P
\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDelete\\ Gnotopia is a good middle ground.
Swift's Laputs and its "scientists"?
Or... that is Old World too much. ;-P
Following that moronic quibble about "prehistoric harems".
ReplyDeleteOf generation of people who accustomed to have everything from super-markets.
Hallo, people????
And WHO will be FEEDING that harems???? From WHAT source???
Do you know that Chinese hieroglyph for a "man" depicts a crop field.
And that field is of size that ONE man can work on to FEED his ONE woman and her progeny.
And hardly that peasant would be glad to work TWICE as hard... to have SECOND, THIRD wife. ;-P
PS Actual harems that exist in different human societies -- are either anekdotal evidances -- like harems of big sheiks and hans and sultans.
Or... they are from cattle herding tribes -- formed naturally. While core of family (mostly famales) sitting in one place. While male part -- caring over herds elsewhere, or... yes, raiding over other tribes herds...
\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDeleteEssence of that fireside piece: Such complex causation defies general laws
Being reminded of Hari Seldon doesn't necessarily make one a Hari Seldon disciple. Putting modesty aside for a moment is something every thinker should do occasionally to remain honest. So, as I've said before, Isaac Asimov (and a few others) could have greatly benefitted from a 10 minute chat avec moi. Not because I'm smart, but because I'm different. You have to listen to different people if you're ever going to break out of academic silos and delusional bubbles (or break into them in my case). Fortunately, I speak the language of rationality*, so there's enough common ground for fruitful discussion (not even dialectic, just some plain understanding).
Hah... you still not get it -- how socium works.
To see any benefit in a communication with other -- one need to be of lower or for at least similar standing in a society.
Yawn.
Like... I come here to you, to share thoughts, to listen.
But... with that who are high. They -- do not listen.
Yawn.
\\Blogger scidata said...
ReplyDelete\\ A few years back, we had a discussion about goals, and why modern A.I., for example, is entirely lacking such. Without goals, discourse is just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. All this talk of piercing bubbles and opening others' eyes to the Truth rings hollow. It begs the question: Why? What's the goal?
Thank you for this one.
\\ How much energy is being spent in shagging other political parties and perspectives? Especially ones that have a far more delusional and malevolent ideology than this here happy little band, in which the very word 'ideology' is frowned upon.
Apart from "All bent knees before King Brin"? ;-P
\\Logic, and thus inference, are not absolute Truths. Read Wolfram. Or Hamlet.
ReplyDeleteLogic(deductive inference) -- is just common sense formalized.
Like... if I hold TWO apple in my hands, and then I'll lose (like, eat) one of em -- there'd still be ONE apple in my hands.
And is AS closer to The Truth AS we mere tail-less monkey can get to.
And if it suddenly stop to work... it would be, disastrous. (but well, that's what exactly happen in the minds of 90... or maybe even 99% of people)
Are you certain about the apples? Or is that just a Bayesian estimation based on all your prior experience? What if an evil queen appears and gives you another apple? Think of cartesian vs spherical topology.
DeleteWell... I'm not 19th century professor of logic or 20th century reasonering schmuk. ;-P
DeleteI know about Cognitive Biases and stuff.
Naaah. I not only KNOW about em... but working on exploring and mitigating em in myself.
And also, I pretty much observant enough to know that Knowing Truth... not always are The Goal. Even IF declared.
But still... what can I say. Sociology, Psychology and Human Ethology... are still in their infancy and do not give ready made answers to that dangling questions.
That's why observing places like DiBi's blog... even though not quite pleasant, but still QUITE informative... ;-)
PS Never the less... thank you for having conversation with me.
“The only reason psychology students don’t have to do more and harder mathematics than physics students is because the mathematicians haven’t yet discovered ways of dealing with problems as hard as those in psychology.”
Delete- John Kemeny
Sociology, psychology, and ethology are not 'soft' sciences, they're way too HARD for current understanding!
PS Thank you for having conversations with me. You're the only one who visits this blog. I prefer to be here because I'm really not qualified for or interested in politics - just sci-fi, computation, and psychohistory.
Delete\\“The only reason psychology students don’t have to do more and harder mathematics than physics students is because the mathematicians haven’t yet discovered ways of dealing with problems as hard as those in psychology.”
Delete- John Kemeny
BS.
Cybernetics and Game Theory exist for almost a century by now.
That's just studying Psychology going third-rate minds... after Physics and Economy.
Yawn.
\\Sociology, psychology, and ethology are not 'soft' sciences, they're way too HARD for current understanding!
For poor mind? Yes.
That's why I thanked you for continuing conversation with me.
Sorry.
\\PS Thank you for having conversations with me. You're the only one who visits this blog. I prefer to be here because I'm really not qualified for or interested in politics - just sci-fi, computation, and psychohistory.
DeleteThen... we have common interests. :-)
Cheers!
Well.... have you heard about Turchin;s ClioDynamucs? ;-)
DeleteWell... https://peterturchin.com/cliodynamics-history-as-science/
DeleteAmpère used the term 'cybernetiques' two centuries ago. We dismiss the past at our peril.
ReplyDeleteTurchin has a fascination with Vermeer, as do I (eg Clio). But I'm much, much, much, much more into low-level computation than he and Asimov ever were. FORTH, transistors, ribosomes - that's my wheelhouse. I don't trust anyone who can't solder :)
Well... they know nothing about it -- in French Wiki -- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybern%C3%A9tique
Delete\\I don't trust anyone who can't solder :)
Well... I marginally passing, then. ;-P
World of bits and bytes are more my world -- more forgiving, and cheap to try. :-(
Which, with my clumsiness, more like way to go.
Clumsiness and laziness are underrated. They open the door to serendipity.
DeleteYep. Pretty much true. In my case.
DeleteInaptness with holding soldering iron firmly -- have led me to juggling bits and bytes -- and then laziness (to type-in boilerplate all of the time) now, to becoming keyboard warrior. %^P
Who knows what will await for me in the Future. ;-P
Spambot? Or you? ;-P
ReplyDeleteWell. Whatever.
DeleteI can only remark how it strangely resembles Soviet Union -- there ALSO was loud and hard chest-thumping "we are country of Atheism and Science!".
But then, if some even among renowned and recognized scientist would come up with something AGAINST Party Line... he quickly be gone... into Siberia. Or, in later times, being placed into mental institution...
Yawn.
Here.
DeleteStory told in given by DiBi himself reference.
""
The story of German scientific forestry transmits a timeless truth: When we simplify complex systems, we destroy them, and the devastating consequences sometimes aren’t obvious until it’s too late.
"
""
So-called “scientific forestry” was that century’s growth hacking. It made timber yields easier to count, predict and harvest, and meant owners no longer relied on skilled local foresters to manage forests. They were replaced with lower-skilled laborers following basic algorithmic instructions to keep the monocrop tidy, the understory bare.
Information and decision-making power now flowed straight to the top. Decades later when the first crop was felled, vast fortunes were made, tree by standardized tree. The clear-felled forests were replanted, with hopes of extending the boom. Readers of the American political anthropologist of anarchy and order, James C. Scott, know what happened next.
It was a disaster so bad that a new word, Waldsterben, or “forest death,” was minted to describe the result. All the same species and age, the trees were flattened in storms, ravaged by insects and disease — even the survivors were spindly and weak. Forests were now so tidy and bare, they were all but dead. The first magnificent bounty had not been the beginning of endless riches, but a one-off harvesting of millennia of soil wealth built up by biodiversity and symbiosis. Complexity was the goose that laid golden eggs, and she had been slaughtered.
And then... it really could be that solution of Fermi Paradox...
in that line "one-off harvesting of millennia of soil wealth built up by biodiversity and symbiosis".