Accelerating Future

Visiting SIAI Wednesday, Aug 9 2006

singularity Michael Anissimov 4:46 pm

Last Saturday I visited SIAI’s research wing, in Santa Clara, CA. It currently consists of one research fellow (Eliezer Yudkowsky), one associate researcher (Marcello Herreshoff), and two summer interns (Nick Hay and Peter de Blanc). It was a very pleasant time, filled with lively conversation and challenging theoretical discussions. Larger pictures are here. Among the topics discussed:

technical
combinatoric proof - what is it?
multiple heuristic ordering problem
success density and success sparsity
the “gluing trick” and links between heuristics
causal and evidential decision theory
difference between an algorithm and heuristic
defining what makes up a probabilistic trial
defining ‘cost’ in AI - time, complexity, etc?
decibels of evidence, rules of thumb
Kolmogorov complexity and assigning priors
likelihood of a ’simple universe’ and anthropics
is the universe literally made of math or no?
organizational
congrats to Marcello on new research position
future directions of SIAI and AI research
ratio of research staff vs. support staff
how recent success is effecting SIAI’s image
games
introduction to zendo and basics
introduction to go and basics

My favorite quote of the day (paraphrased):

“If you were to remove the top half of your head and examine it, it would lack consciousness. If you were to remove the bottom half and do the same, you would also find nothing. Since consciousness can be found neither in the top half nor bottom half of the brain, it doesn’t exist.” - Peter de Blanc

(This is tongue-in-cheek, btw.)

7 Responses to “Visiting SIAI”

Fred Says:
August 10th, 2006 at 11:00 am

If you were to remove the top half of your head and examine it, it would lack consciousness. If you were to remove the bottom half and do the same, you would also find nothing. Since consciousness can be found neither in the top half nor bottom half of the brain, it doesn’t exist.

Have you considered that consciousness may, briefly before you remove either half to inspect it, hides itself in the other half?

Jeff Medina Says:
August 11th, 2006 at 5:08 am

If you were to remove molecule 1 from your house and examine it, it would lack yourhouseness. If you were to continue to do this for molecules 2 through N which collectively make up your house, you would also find each lacked yourhouseness. Since your house can be found in none of its parts, it doesn’t exist.

Really, what a silly comment. Consciousness doesn’t exist in the way(s) many people think it does, but Peter’s comment sure isn’t illustrative of why.

Michael Anissimov Says:
August 11th, 2006 at 9:19 am

Jeff - Peter’s comment was in jest.

MCP2012 Says:
August 15th, 2006 at 4:54 pm

“If you were to remove the top half of your head and examine it, it would lack consciousness. If you were to remove the bottom half and do the same, you would also find nothing. Since consciousness can be found neither in the top half nor bottom half of the brain, it doesn’t exist.” - Peter de Blanc

Peter seems to have rediscovered (more-or-less) the *reductio ad absurdum* by Paul Feyerabend with his “Cereroscope” thought-scenario–which, by the way, was rendered as a delightful cartoon (or illustration, if you prefer) in Wallace I. Matson’s superb (and a bit underappreciated) little gem, *Sentience* (U.Cal. Pr., 1977). Check it out.

On another note (permit me to remark here, under this topic for now), THANK YOU, Mike, for the superb link to the Aubrey de Grey interviews. Now if only we can get him on American TV…