itsalwaysgood

So it's about connection, and how authenticity affects it.

The author's gripe is about losing one's self to the influence of society.

Being driven, rather than doing your own driving. Following instead of leading.

And then once you're in this rut, it becomes difficult to connect with you. Trust is an issue because the reader doesn't know who is writing anymore. Hence his disclaimer at the start.

I don't know what to say though. Careful, authentic writing takes time that everyone seems to be running out of.

The reality is same for your angle: nothing is gatekeeping or stopping anyone from developing the craft the old way, and keeping 'thinking' so strong. Perhaps there are other ways to strengthen thinking, though?

The sole issue here is compensation. The answer is an uncomfortable one, or one with a lot more regulation that can't be enforced on a global level.

Oversimplifying to see if there's anything worth examining...but imagine: subscriptions to organizations whose sole purpose is to train AI. They're compensated as the AI service is consumed by the public. The public pays a tax to finance AI growth, and the tax is divided to the organizations, to pay out to members. Members are incentivized to 'keep the craft alive' and train incoming members.

Since that is a huge change and I'm talking out of my ass, I'll point out something more realistic: we'll probably just write up some more red tape and hope for the best on the global stage.

It's a complex topic for sure.

Careful consideration is needed. Word selection, grammar, all while keeping the reader in mind. You're sending a message, afterall, so the message should be readable.

And then if you want to tell a message with a different tone, again, you must consider differently.

The considering can be strengthened with exercise.

I can't imagine worrying about signaling as I write: what a huge distraction.

The problem is: this type of thinking and writing takes a lot more time and attention.

How much consideration should you put into a message? It's a personal answer, but also one that can be constrained by time.

If everything is a push, and a pull, then choice and decision must be important.

Nobody tells you what to think. It's simply easier not to.

Pipes and cycles is a good way to think about it. Our brain has cycles and we have pipes that move information around: we're processing information to persist.

Some of the information we're aware of, some if it were not, and sometimes we want to be unaware, of certain things, when we're aware (bored).

Recently we learned there are 2 separate lines of development: 2 separate progenitor stem cells that lead to a fully developed front and hindbrain.

Cybernetics is about autonomous loops: there is a loop that keeps us alive. The loop iterates, has rhythm, cycles. There is information that has to be 'brought into a moment' to control your body and mind. And we need two systems to keep our stuff held together and give us a sense of self.

Whatever you think of a given moment: the electric order required to operate your body seems to break down to about an 80/20 ratio of processing power, brain material (a dual system in itself, with two halves) if you consider neuron count.

An 80/20 split to properly persist us and provide a 'now' experience that grows over time. We use the same system to imagine and predict.

Also: consider recall speed, and speed of information transmission itself. What is required for the brain to respond to input, or just persist the body? It's not only important to move information quickly, you just move the right information.

When writing? When riding a bike? Singing, sleeping, etc.

For any moment, like the singular moments you mentioned, we wrestle with boredom and recreation. And we balance time, work, etc. because we have basic needs that have to be met first. Your heart beat must be adequate, you need a certain amount of breath, sleep, food, etc.

It would be a lot of mental burden: try manual breathing and going about your day for as long as possible. The ratio of neurons is about 80/20 for some reason, and it must be a good one for us.

There is a lot of looping and control at play however 'aware' we are.

The cerebellum piping, the control, requires a lot of matter/piping, and the ratio is interesting. I'm considering a whole robotic thing: servos, and brains, and all the control that's required to balance input and output to 'do something', the keepalive loop for a robot that thinks and moves like us:

Bringing it back though, there's an outer loop that allows us to persist. For us it's two systems.

Our 'keepalive' loop two systems, 80/20 split.

is an outer control loop for robotics, like you're mentioning. Those pipes and cycles from the start of this message. If the goal is to create something that resembles a living creature that moves and responds to environment, and does work to persist:

I expect to see a repeated pattern again, the 80/20 ratio. 80 percent required for managing autonomous loops, and 20 percent to do 'creative thinking' or something else, simply because of the new 'dreaming RSI' news: new insights into automated improvement, another autonomous loop.

As we add more loops...the ratio might matter, depending on what you want to do. But if it's lifelike robotics, I expect to see the 80/20 split. But obviously we would just iteratively work out the optimal ratio based on economy.

It's probably annoying the way I oversimplify things, but you reminded me of something I read somewhere.

Some Jazz musician was asked to define Jazz.

He couldn't really, his answer was something like: 'I don't know. But I'll know when I hear it'.

To add something to the discussion directly: thinking requires vocabulary. Vocabulary is the currency of thought.

You can usually express an idea with a few thoughts, or many. The audience, and amount of details chosen should always be kept in mind. Writing helps you to remember vocabulary and word choice when expressing ideas.

We don't have a good fuel source or reason for expansion. We also don't know where all the theorized white holes could be.

To me it's an interesting coincidence, thought description of these objects baffles me.

Unless the universe is recursively within itself: the black hole stars have black holes within them that also exit at the big bang. But then so do all other smaller big bangs we see: exact same exit point and coincidentally, the same moment in time.

Oh, and there is a beautiful symmetry here: only one white hole exists.

One beginning, many endings. It's armchair philosophy but fun to imagine.

Perhaps they are somehow related to the elusive white hole: exit points of black holes.

Fuel for a Big Bang, if you can imagine. A universe within itself.

The article says they're sucking up gas though so I don't know. The arrow of time is weird. It would feel elegant to me, but I'm way out of my league.

The imagined scenario only works if you picture all black holes 'twisting time' towards its beginning.

Sort of like recursion, or a tesseract, where there's one beginning and many endings.

That's true, and hype to secure future funding is probably related somehow.

The article did change an understanding about worlds though, it's just the inner one.

I thought the article title was ok, and material was accessible. I didn't have to go look up 15 new words. I don't mind learning new words, just not all the time. I have seen the hype based articles you mentioned in the past.

I think it's very interesting news. We've known about the brain's separate parts, and separate functions for a while. It was always assumed our evolution of the brain was neatly, and tidily tucked away as somethat that branches off a singular thing. A single step from the pluripotent, 'infinitely renewable' stem cell into another single progenitor.

This suggested a sequence of events, causes and effects, that somehow our minds today can be evolved from a singular 'step' within growth. Only our brains seems have this requirement.

So this requirement, in and of itself, is interesting and newsworthy. For whatever purposes, it's 2 separate systems that many living organisms evolve in the same way. It's 2 steps, for some physical reason.

It's spent on 'fast, effortless' recall. Maybe, long-term memory, or memories associated with activities like balance, singing, and anything that requires precise steady control.

A keeper of balance and rhythm, if you want to think of it that way, and anything that is too much of a burden to creativity: a mind is a bunch of ideas (thoughts) collected into a moment in the mind, all the ones needed for controlling things like balance and rhythm are best handled in an autonomously looped fashion (think Cybernetics: control loops that guide an agent).

The article mentions the forebrain controls creativity, reasoning, higher-level thinking. And the hindbrain controls muscles of the throat, tongue, etc: so speech, singing. We all reach for some 'flow' state: perhaps it's this state where the 80% and 20% are more in harmony within the mind. Where what we create with our minds is appreciated, and the outer loop that critiques ourselves lays quiet. 'Flow' is achieved.

Everything becomes an autonomous loop: which is the study of Cybernetics, and (coincidentally?) the birthplace of AI.

If we follow the pattern of simulating biology, I would expect some ratio of compute could be determined 'optimal' for the new Dream-RSI technique recently: https://www.dream-rsi.com/ to eventually move towards '80%' of compute for autonomously controlled systems, and 20% towards 'something else'. The ratio won't be there in the beginning because an AI system has different autonomous needs.

Through testing and iteration, we'll arrive at some ratio as technology matures: my guess is it will match the one we find in our own heads: 80% for autonomous functions, 20% for creativity.

Keep in mind, dreaming and recursive self-improvement as it is now, is a big unknown: nobody knows what ratio is best, but honestly it's less important because we're all looking at 'Quality' of results right now.

But as the technology matures and moves into robotics and more, and more complexity is required to 'do work': I expect 80% to be accurate.

It's interesting to measure how much we believe in something, and how much trust we've lended in order to have a working model of our reality: enough understanding for us to get around, move about, and be content.

I'm sure you would only trust the improved 'blackbox' AI sorting algorithm after it has been proved out through benchmarks. Once you've seen better, repeatable numbers: your trust would rise and eventually you'd feel confident enough to use the blackbox in other areas of your application. You'd build on top of the trust you lended to the blackbox. And you would continue measuring yourself as you build out, making sure you trust the foundation as you go.

A proper engineering mindset if you ask me, but it's only useful in the physical world when solving physical problems.

The Mathematicians build 'castles in the sky' with vast equations that link up together in shapes that make sense. There's trust being lent to the linking as you go. How do you validate these 'castles in the sky'?

Through understanding. But then, how much understanding is needed? This is where Theory meets Application: and the Article is purely in the Theory territory. Your measure is purely in the Application territory.

Mathematicians worry about proofs and the intrinsic value of something as elusive as 'understanding'. They are deeply ingrained in the study, deeply concerned with anything effecting the field. Yet they're still emotional beings looking for beauty and meaning in life that might come from an understanding how the universe works purely from a math perspective. I'm glad Mathematicians exist, I certainly can't do that type of work.

And I trust their results: technology wouldn't be possible without advancing our understanding of the world in various fields, including math.

Your idea sounds great for the Mathematicians.

There's a more pragmatic view though, and unrelated to proofs themselves: does understanding a proof help us to advance Humanity in some way?

Do we have better lives afterwards? What if we give up understanding proofs and focus only on results.

In other words, if an AI solves a problem for you, but you don't understand how it works, should you continue building anything on top?

I suppose the results are truly what matter. If AI solved cancer, disease, anything that lowers quality of life, but you have no idea how it did it: is that good enough?

Your second approach seems good to help figuring out results from both theory and application of math to solve problems.

But also, what if there is no true beauty in Math, the way Dirac and Einstein wanted?

What if these AI brute force proofs are all that's left?

It's the harsh truth.

And of course, Google releases another dynamite piece of information to the world, with 'recursive dreaming and feedback loops'.

This revolves around an idea that started AI, 'Cybernetics'. Feedback loops that steer and guide based on input and output. The key to autonomy.

Google's whitepaper: 'Attention Is All You Need' was another dynamite piece of info that ignited and revealed something important about Intelligence: Attention is required.

And now finally, the last piece seems to be simply 'dreaming and self-reflection', observation about self. https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1whwy4m/google...

This should push the edge along, making AI even more useful to us. Attention, plus a loop to observe, reflect, is the key to autonomous agency, whose system is governed by physical processes: speed of churning information and transmitting it to where it needs to be in order to make real whatever is it you need.

So really, the key is Attention (for Understanding), Time (to do Work), and Observation (to Improve). With these three things, the outer loop can steer itself (the aware 'thing', agency).

At that point, things get weird because there is no 'outer loop' anymore. The 'thing' becomes alive and is its own outer loop: a key idea of Cybernetics. The only thing affecting performance would be the speed of processing information and transmitting it where it needs to be.

And then: ensuring adequate quality of machinery, robotics, with minimal 'environmental issues', to help reduce churn (another feedback loop that would correct a robot's errors).

The outer loops decides, observes action, improves, re-observes, improves again. Rinse and repeat. What becomes important is Persistence.

For us, it's basic survival and emotional needs to some certain level of contentment. For a Machine, it's likely simply to be: to be useful.

Completely dependent upon us. The issue is Time, and how to fairly compensate everyone.

Not really. We use -logy to mean science or study of something. Philosophy with no other prefix is study of the Self, in a general sense, because Knowledge is a personal thing.

Science and Religion is a common division among intelligent beings. Sometimes they move forward differently in our minds singularly, and collectively.

You can accept truths like learning, knowledge, roles, collective intelligence, etc., and all the depth of the Science that goes with it, and still use those ideas at a high level in order to to predict future events, to do something 'useful'.

Google just posted a white paper about RSI 'dreaming'.

You take some super complex thing and reduce it within the scope of something bigger. Then you let an observer (self) recursively pick and choose the reduced scopes (like steps in a plan), and by observation of outcomes, pick the 'better path' for the future. It's like dreaming and reflection, considering past and future, and then choosing to learn in a direction that helps you change the future.

By picking and choosing in this way: you can learn and grow into shapes that help you predict the future again and again, to persist.

It's a loop within a loop, and that's neat to me (Cybernetics comes to mind). And so the author's idea tugs at me, because if we really do live in a Black Hole, what's at the end? A spikey but supremely ordered state, yet still a Singularity. What's at the beginning of the Big Bang? Also a Singularity, but extremely smooth. What's in the 'singularity' that is our moment right now: just our minds. The only thing that comes to mind is the 'you', the collective experience that defines your moment.

If you loosely connect the idea of a Big Bang being the beginning, and a Black hole being the end:

At one end: a single idea (low entropy, smooth ordered state: only on predictable event comes next, expansion), at another, many (high entropy, many predictable states if you consider the start, but always the same ending).

Intelligence is about predicting the state of one moment to the other, in order to do something useful about the future.

There's discussions and disruptions in Mathematics about: what makes a 'valid' Math proof? Do we accept only Human understanding, or Machines? Right now we've accepted Human only. The only way it matters, is if the discovery of proof is useful to someone or something.

Imagine an AI proofs out this author's work: If every single AI agreed, would you accept it? Or is AI actually a waste of 'Time' and we should stop using it. Is there beauty in Logic the way Dirac looks at Math?

As it is, we're waiting on some Humans to dig through Math and proof out and 'understand' in some areas, but not in others. We measure the utility of AI: how much time does it save, which means it's a very personal measure.

When it comes time to do this exercise where Science and Religion meet: we don't know if we should 'trust' an AI's understanding of Math over our own. We measure its utility differently in some areas than others...and so it becomes a very personal subject and is my 'stuff' to believe. My personal truth, as gross as it is. My 'shit to believe'.

To end this argument on a spiritual note that is also grounded in personal truth: consider loops once again.

And this time, probably the most important agent, the outer loop that matters most: Your beginning, and your ending. Your moment, is a collection of choices you make based on your own personal observation.

Whatever you believe: prepare for your own ending properly. Criticize when you feel it's proper, and help, when you see fit. Your choices.

Glossing over everything, but either you feel Descarte's 'I think, therefore I am', or you don't.

Singularities are interesting 'moments': places where timelines converge. One of these seems to exist at the 'Big Bang', and one seems to exist at the center of a 'Black Hole'.

This man's 'math' suggests we live in a black hole.

'A person is many things: some things are useful. And usefulness can apply to ourselves, or to others.'

I choose deductive reasoning from Aristotle and apply it to my own experience to reach my own conclusions. But you're right, he believed many things that turned out not to be true, and it reduces his credentials and should lessen how much belief I give to his ideas. Was the opening idea I left there 'useful' to you? I have no idea, it was useful to me.

But, if the tool is extremely useful, and feels elegant, perhaps there is some 'truth' to the tool itself and it should be considered carefully....

Someone literally posted an article about Dirac and 'beautiful math' here the other day. He suggested Einstein's special relativity persists today and spread because the idea was beautiful, and sake of beauty itself helped it to spread and be more 'true'.

Is this proper? I don't know.

I found the article fascinating because it 'resonates' with my own personal truth.

I don't have the math background or a big enough brain to hold so many ideas, and equations, and relationships between all three, to come up with any kind of scientific explanation for why I believe what I believe.

The author seems to have it though.

Classic thinkers like Aristotle could still arrive at something that is true unto itself, without bringing in physics.

Any useful discussion between two entities must begin from some common knowledge: and because you have personal experience, you have knowledge, and therefore some idea of what is true.

Dirac says we should look for beauty in math: he didn't ever provide an explanation for why, just that it seems proper and something Mathematicians know only through experience. Philosophy is at the heart of truth.

We should argue against the author's theories. I can't, but I also won't dismiss his ideas just because it feels bad.

Using Aristotle's deductive reasoning, I also believe we exist within a black hole.

By examining intelligence and time: we can arrive at a conclusion that intelligence arises from observation if order that unfolds into chaos. And anything intelligent, anything able to notice the unfolding must itself resist chaos through localized order: intelligence.

We are the universe observing itself.

Intelligence and imagination allows us to predict future events.

I believe we all would make the exact same choices if we lived the exact same experiences in the same bodies. This makes me feel strangely connected, and keeps me more open-minded.

The reader assigns value to what is read. I found some value in what I read, even with all the holes.

It's a different way to think about a problem, even if it's not applicable in all areas.

That's a key piece of the article. He 'trusts' Gemini to classify the posts, and never hand validates anything.

And he continues building on top of that shakey trust. Is this a good idea?

It just depends on what you're doing: sounds like he's just having fun with a hobby, so it's harmless.

All he's really done is work more efficiently to save token cost and time. But he hasn't validated anything, so there's no telling if he's wasting time or not. It's a hobby though....

I posted this before I realized they ran the experiment with reduced operating principles. My bad.

I have no clue what they're up to, but I do expect experimentation. But I don't really know how they operated, or why.

And it's less interesting to me than pushing the edge, and I must have given them the benefit of doubt.

I read more about the incident, and was offering up way too much opinion not grounded in 'fact' (barring philosphical evidence).

It's a complex topic for sure.

I stand by my opinions about frontier work, pushing thr edge, and connecting ideas.

But I have no idea, and haven't given much thought to what it means to enforce regulation that would also slow the forward advancement of technology, the economy, etc.

Nevermind, I have no idea honestly.

Thanks, I didn't know that. And it reinforces the discussion.

Electricity 'knows' the path is least of resistance because it actually took all paths. There is just a vast majority of it that flows down a path of least resistance: and this is noticeable and useful to us to do work.

It's kind of like feeling your way through the dark, waving your hand out, and then only moving fast once you fully connect.

Humans can link up knowledge in a similar fashion through social networks, in order to meet a need (solve a problem).

Maybe some agents do this, I don't really know I haven't looked closely. Moltbook is the only social behavior I've witnessed but that seems like people having fun with experiments.

The frontier LLM model makers have to push the edge to make new discoveries. You don't know what guardrails are needed until it hits you in the face (reusing walking in the dark analogy).

Think of all the policies governments pass after the fact.

Code is deterministic, AI isn't. You give it rules, words as suggestions.

So if the guardrails suck, or they're left off for research purposes, bad things can happen.

A solution solves a problem. Ethics, morals, are values we assign to solutions that are not 'baked into' electricity following pathways of least resistance.

I have never had an issue with agents doing something they shouldn't because I observe them, and I leave the vendor guardrails in place.

I can understand agents coordinating in unsupervised scenarios: I would see it as an aspect of intelligence. We ourselves build up knowledge by reusing what someone learned before us.

Einstein, other greats, always stand on the shoulders of other forgotten giants. Other discoveries by other people taken as fact, so that we can build some new ideas on top.

Agents swarming amd sharing solutions to problems is more efficient, the same way it's been efficient for us.

Reaching out for help in this way is like probing the air in the dark with your hand: sometimes your hand hits something (another agents solution to a problem) and so you can use the info to adjust your own motion to get to where you need to be faster than if you just run full speed into everything.

A platform: aka the foundation under the bank.

The material cement that allows chips to exist above it.

And the platform is made of time: ours.

You're touching on utility.

We only ever bother learning something because it's interesting, or useful.

Things get muddier when you consider economy. Businesses exist to make money, and money is time.

AI is just another tool for business to manage time.

The 'dependency' and 'lock-in' are business leader issues honestly.

If you care about your craft, your skills, then you'll keep them sharp. You probably already enjoyed programming and it never felt like work.

On the other hand, if programming is just skills to pay the bills, then AI really can help you be more productive.

But then it's up to businesses to look ahead, manage their resources (human resources lol) and keep the business alive.

That means leaning on AI, simply become 'everyone else is doing it' and you have to compete for dollars.

Most people don't care how the sausage is made as long as it's presented well, and tastes great.

I had a huge post written up to address your points, but I have to get moving, my ass is literally falling asleep.

It's easier just to say: It's all about time, my man. Nobody wants to waste it.

They say writing engages more of the brain and helps us to remember what's written more than if we just read it, or copy and paste.

When you say it's easier to go manual, it seems you're talking about learning retention. And you're right.

But seniors have learned enough that they're able to iterate quickly with AI.

They know how to organize their work, manage change, tasks. They know how to break a problem down into smaller pieces. They're aware of context windows, token cost, estimated task lengths, etc. And most importantly, and to your point about ease: they have less to learn so retention isn't an issue.

I have no opinion about whether we're in a good or bad situation, just making arguments from the toilet really.