--- Day changed Fri May 16 2008
00:16 -!- nsh [n=nsh@87-94-155-173.tampere.customers.dnainternet.fi] has quit [Remote closed the connection]
00:40 < fenn> the reason biotech is expensive is that every last thing is patented multiple times
00:41 < fenn> the only reason it hasn't ground to a halt is that nobody can possibly look at all the patents and figure out who is in violation
00:41 < kanzure> fenn: I just got done reading some of Eli's writings on yudkowsky.net ... why does he get funding?
00:42 < fenn> because nobody else writes seriously about AI ethics
00:43 < kanzure> but it's not a matter of ai
00:43 < kanzure> look, even if you get ai on a box
00:43 < kanzure> it's going to come across the same problems we're fighting with skdb
00:43 < fenn> hmm?
00:43 < kanzure> frankly *we're* ai, just not able to modify our software as quickly of course
00:43 < kanzure> so think about it
00:43 < fenn> no, because we arent able to re-engineer our cognitive architecture
00:43 < kanzure> if you have ai running on a computer, it designs its next generation hardware
00:43 < kanzure> assume it's reached upper limits on software
00:43 < kanzure> so it needs a new ISA
00:44 < kanzure> so it goes to make it, great, then it needs a physical implementation
00:44 < kanzure> how is it going to figure that out ? the same way we would
00:44 < fenn> yes
00:44 < fenn> so? that's just the first generation
00:44 < kanzure> ?
00:44 < kanzure> I'm not saying ai is a bad idea
00:45 < fenn> it's hard to say much of anything.. one ai may be wet and mushy, whereas another might be formalized and brittle
00:45 < kanzure> just that it's going to run into the exact same problems
00:45 < kanzure> it'll need new ways of interfacing with physical reality, just like skdb
00:45 < fenn> but they both run on the same silicon
00:45 < fenn> no, it wont run into the exact same problems, that's stupid
00:45 < kanzure> it'll need arms and manipulators and manufacturing equipment, or at least a text display so that it can tell a human what to do
00:45 < kanzure> okay, so then what is it going to do
00:45 < kanzure> just sit there, compute,
00:46 < kanzure> and suddenly intuit a new architecture out of the divine void
00:46 < kanzure> and suddenly it's magically implemented?
00:46 < fenn> maybe
00:46 < kanzure> wtf?
00:46 < fenn> well, say it reads a few papers and does this DNA FPGA thingie i'm rambling about, and sends them off to get sequenced
00:46 < kanzure> wait, sequenced?
00:46 < fenn> total human interaction: zero so far
00:47 < fenn> un-sequenced
00:47 < kanzure> right, okay
00:47 < kanzure> okay, so you're thinking more about a DNA-FPGA ai there
00:47 < kanzure> and that's implemented on bio
00:47 < kanzure> which is already an exponential process
00:47 < fenn> so then it just has to convince some human to shake up a couple test tubes of stuff and pour it into a beaker with wires dangling in
00:47 < kanzure> so that's the exponential growth hijack scenario
00:48 < fenn> that's just cognitive architecture number 2
00:48 < fenn> well, computational architecture really
00:48 < kanzure> yeah, but that's the hijacking scenario, what about the bootstrap scenario
00:48 < fenn> but i assume the AI is smart enough to take full advantage of FPGA's (whereas humans suck at this)
00:48 < kanzure> the hijack scenario is iffy, it's like GNU Hurd except on steroids - CSAIL has been beating their head against the amorphous computation problem for decades
00:49 < fenn> why do you call it a hijack scenario?
00:49 < kanzure> well, mostly because you used that terminology before
00:49 < kanzure> you were asking about what possible exponential processes there are that we could hijack
00:50 < kanzure> but I think I've probably used it before too
00:50 < fenn> er.. i dont remember using that word
00:50 < fenn> anyway it's clear now what you mean
00:50 < kanzure> anyway, it should be obvious
00:50 < kanzure> yeah
00:51 < fenn> i thought you meant the ai was hijacking a human's actuators to do its bidding
00:51 < kanzure> fun stuff
00:51 < fenn> all ur actuator r belong to us
00:55 < kanzure> on this subject
00:55 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/pipermail/hplusroadmap/2008-May/000493.html
00:55 < kanzure> that's the Anissimov email, or at least my response to it
01:00 < kanzure> beep
01:00 < kanzure> you stopped.
01:02 < fenn> good exponential intelligence, bad exponential intelligence
01:03 < fenn> if you outlaw microrobots, only criminals will have microrobots
01:03 < kanzure> eh?
01:03 < fenn> > Society goes to hell when I give myself a technology that lets me
01:03 < fenn> > kill hundreds of people undetected (microrobotics, for instance),
01:03 < fenn> > then millions of other people get it, then they all use it.  All it
01:03 < fenn> > takes is 1/1000 people to be murderous for this to be a problem.
01:03 < fenn> the proactionary principle turned out to be not what i expected
01:03 < kanzure> what did you think it was?
01:04 < fenn> i was expecting, "instead of worrying about bad possibilities, lets implement safety nets now, before anything happens"
01:04 < kanzure> it's sort of like that - but if anything, the safety nets you do implement, it's more about *your* safety nets, not Societal Blankets
01:04 < fenn> the engineering approach to disaster prevention
01:05 < fenn> i'd feel much more secure having an anti-microbot shield than some wimpy legislation banning microbots
01:06 < kanzure> "The Proactionary Principle recognizes that nature is not always kind, that improving our world is both natural and essential for humanity, and that stagnation is not a realistic or worthy option."
01:06 < kanzure> fenn: re: shield, http://lifeboat.com/ but they need to get their act together
01:06 < kanzure> or we could just fork a spacepod-colony-thing
01:06 < fenn> lifeboat suffers from internet-itis
01:06 < kanzure> hehe
01:06 < fenn> same reason luf failed
01:06 < fenn> the millenial project
01:06 < kanzure> I dunno, I have to wonder how the hell Eric Hunting could fail
01:06 < kanzure> I mean, he seems kind of like me, especially in his lengthy emails
01:07 < fenn> he writes much more coherently
01:07 < kanzure> yes
01:07 < kanzure> maybe he's been over the arguments often?
01:07 < fenn> i dont think so
01:07 < fenn> i've google-stalked him and he mostly writes to the luf-team list
01:07 < kanzure> the proactionary principle - "Let a thousand flowers bloom! By all means, inspect the flowers for signs of infestation and weed as necessary. But don’t cut off the hands of those who spread the seeds of the future.
01:08 < fenn> and his old shelter webpage which is now stagnant
01:08 < kanzure> aka. don't shoot yourself in the foot, you retards
01:09 < kanzure> or more likely - in the head - that's a better modern interpretation
01:10 < kanzure> but really, I don't know if you're following my "ai will not bring about the singularity" line of reasoning or not
01:10 < fenn> heh, you get around http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.apt.devel/14488
01:10 < kanzure> do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to googlestalk myself?
01:10 < kanzure> :(
01:11 < fenn> that was from googling for "eric hunting"
01:12 < kanzure> haha
01:16 < fenn> "People will do the research anyway, just like they code software anyway." unfortunately its much more likely that people get paid to engineer super-viruses rather than doing it for fun
01:17 < fenn> but it will go in some military black budget account vs being out in the open where we can see it (if you cut research spending)
01:17 < kanzure> yikes :(
01:18 < kanzure> there's a part in the email - a quote - that mentions "illegal cures"
01:22 -!- kanzure [n=bryan@cpe-70-113-54-112.austin.res.rr.com] has quit ["Leaving."]
03:35 -!- ybit [n=u1@unaffiliated/ybit] has quit [Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)]
17:36 -!- fenn [n=pz@adsl-99-133-185-36.dsl.bltnin.sbcglobal.net] has joined #hplusroadmap
17:36 -!- Topic for #hplusroadmap: http://heybryan.org/ http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/ http://heybryan.org/exp.html | krebs is now servicing the channel. try !help
17:36 -!- Topic set by kanzure [] [Tue Apr 29 18:54:31 2008]
17:36 [Users #hplusroadmap]
17:36 [ fenn] [ krebs] [ nsh] [ Phreedom] [ ybit] 
17:36 -!- Irssi: #hplusroadmap: Total of 5 nicks [0 ops, 0 halfops, 0 voices, 5 normal]
17:36 -!- [freenode-info] please register your nickname...don't forget to auto-identify! http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup
17:36 -!- Channel #hplusroadmap created Sat Mar 22 15:44:12 2008
17:37 -!- Irssi: Join to #hplusroadmap was synced in 33 secs
17:44 -!- kanzure [n=bryan@cpe-70-113-54-112.austin.res.rr.com] has joined #hplusroadmap
17:45 < kanzure> Hey.
17:55 < fenn> hi.
17:56 < fenn> the paper knot model got my roomate's 8-yr-old daughter interested in blender
17:56 < kanzure> uh, to what extent
17:56 < kanzure> I would *not* recommend blender for 8 yr olds
17:57 < fenn> heh why not?
17:57 < kanzure> unless they can sit and click for hours and not expect results for a while
17:57 < kanzure> ooh
17:57 < kanzure> screw that
17:57 < kanzure> http://youtube.com/ has videos on blender
17:57 < kanzure> set that kid up with that
17:57 < fenn> she didnt seem interested in me "helping"
17:57 < kanzure> ah, that's good
17:58 < kanzure> http://biobus.org/ - they drive around with equipment in a bus
18:00 < kanzure> if I have to use blender, I think I'll take up the scripting approach
18:13 < kanzure> fenn: have you found any holes in my argument from last night re: ai isn't going to solve the skdb problem?
18:24 < kanzure> gmail is not responsive
18:26 < fenn> yes lots of them, but you arent paying attention
18:27 < fenn> an AI thinks in code, so the whole problem of turning human understanding/knowledge into codified programs doesn't exist
18:29 < fenn> also, since it doesnt have the same type of hardware processing built-in (ex: face recognition) it will come up with different solutions than a human would, but it can still leverage human developments
18:31 < kanzure> "debian science git repository is up and running" hurray (an email I got 12 hours ago apparently)
18:31 < kanzure> sigh
18:31 < kanzure> look, I don't care if it's thinking in code
18:31 < kanzure> that doesn't matter
18:31 < kanzure> the problem would exist even if *we* thought in code
18:32 < kanzure> it still needs to be 'grounded' with instrumentation into physical reality, it still needs to be able to assemble and process the information that really hasn't been assembled yet, and it would need to do actually *do* stuff
18:32 < kanzure> I'm not saying it's impossible for an ai to do it
18:32 < kanzure> I'm just saying that I'm questioning the focus on building an ai first, rather than you know
18:32 < kanzure> doing both things at once
18:51 < fenn> the assumption is that the ai will "bootstrap" itself and become vastly more intelligent than us, so that then manufacturing problems become an insignificant background task
18:52 < fenn> i see that lots of smart people have been working on AI for fifty years now and havent exactly achieved their goals
18:52 < fenn> however, nobody's tried what we're doing to my knowledge
18:57 < kanzure> so you think intelligence solves the manufacturing problem?
18:58 < kanzure> as opposed to aggregation of knowledge that we've acquired by wrestling with experiments and modeling etc.
18:58 < kanzure> I mean, I ultimately hope that intelligence can bruteforce its way out of any hell, any shithole -- believe me, I spend many hours each day in school thinking about this
18:59 < fenn> no, i think the intelligence will undoubtedly find a way to do real empirical experiments in a rapid manner, without having to waste its time writing grant proposals and journal articles
19:00 < kanzure> sure, okay
19:00 < fenn> its not just going to sit in a box and think
19:00 < kanzure> so it needs to be interfaced with the outside world
19:00 < kanzure> kind of like with a manufacturing/peripheral system
19:00 < kanzure> oh wait
19:00 < kanzure> :)
19:00 < fenn> but that doesnt mean you cant accomplish anything at all inside a box
19:00 < kanzure> right, of course
19:00 < kanzure> lots of good models can be made and so on
19:01 < fenn> not models, more like aggregation and formalization of data
19:01 < kanzure> I've found that I've been able to do some good predictive modeling of sorts ... not "here's the situation, now predict" but rather constructing ideas that I later find applicable 
19:01 < kanzure> instead of just-in-time learning.
19:01 < fenn> sorting and assimilating information
19:01 < fenn> sound familiar :)
19:02 < kanzure> oh
19:02 < kanzure> it doesn't really matter anyway, the "ai bootstrapping is wrong" idea doesn't matter
19:02 < fenn> hmm
19:02 < kanzure> oh, no, nevermind ... it's to steal Eli's funding ;-)
19:02 < kanzure> I forgot.
19:02 < kanzure> future archivists: I'm half joking.
19:03 < fenn> you know he moved to california from illinois in order to get funding..
19:03 < fenn> i think that's a large part of it
19:03 < fenn> dear google:
19:03 < fenn> i know that you're young and immature, but i really think you should cut it out with the spelling substitutions
19:03 < fenn> thanks,
19:03 < fenn>   -one of your many fleshy carbon-based subjects
19:04 < kanzure> fenn: He was on the extropy-chat mailing list starting in 1999 and then got funding sometime four years later or something
19:04 < kanzure> kind of peculiar
19:04 < kanzure> I think he was doing some writing that got him noticed, I don't know
19:04 < fenn> well, its quite interesting, have you read any of his papers?
19:05 < kanzure> oh, a few 
19:05 < kanzure> A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation
19:05 < kanzure> his intelligence-book
19:05 < kanzure> one on starring into the singularity
19:05 < kanzure> (which talks about big giant numbers and exponential processes ... from the context of ai)
19:06 < fenn> well, the interesting and unique ones are his writing about friendliness
19:07 < kanzure> ah yes, FAI arguments
19:47 < kanzure> holy shit
19:47 < kanzure> Myanmar's cyclone - 100k dead people, 2 million needing some sort of assistance (housing, food, medicine, supplies); - this isn't the "holy shit" part
19:47 < kanzure> international support teams have been deployed, but are stopped at the borders
19:47 < kanzure> the government will not issue visas to let them in
19:48 < kanzure> so how's that for sick
19:48 < kanzure> these people are ready to be deployed
19:48 < kanzure> but they choose not to because "oh, well, we don't have visas"
20:11 < kanzure> fenn: Let's get a little sick.
20:11 < kanzure> In our own way.
20:11 < kanzure> we can do an analysis on how well a clanking replicator could have responded to the disaster
20:12 < fenn> um, no
20:13 < kanzure> as a way to get funding
20:13 < kanzure> within 20 days, at one day replication cycles, there'd be 1 million units
20:13 < fenn> we already have self-replicating general purpose machines and they were stopped at the border because they didnt have visas
20:14 < fenn> otherwise you get into political discussions
20:14 < kanzure> they don't replicate fast enough, and when they *do* replicate, you need to train them for at least 12 to 15 years before they have a clue
20:14 < kanzure> they weren't "stopped" - they respectfully declined to enter without visas
20:14 < kanzure> the military wasn't showing up with tanks and machinery to gun them down
20:14 < fenn> oh they werent? well thats stupid
20:14 < fenn> i mean, more stupid
20:17 < kanzure> fenn: ever read anything by Howard Bloom? Lucifer Principle, or Global Brain, in particular ?
20:19 < kanzure> I'm trying to figure out if I should read them right now. I got them from a friend at the WTA.
20:20 < kanzure> I'm pretty sure the Lucifer Principle is kind of like the Nonzero book (re: the nonzerosumness of collaboration throughout evolutionary history)
20:25 < kanzure> erm, I shouldn't bother asking that
20:25 < kanzure> need to get back to work :)
21:23 < kanzure> well, shit
21:23 < kanzure> http://www.openverse.com/~dtinker/agalmics.html
21:23 < kanzure> I was going to go contact Robert Levin (lilo) to talk about that pape
21:23 < kanzure> *paper
21:23 < kanzure> but then I realized he founded freenode and proceeded to die
21:23 < fenn> yep
21:24 < kanzure> I didn't remember all of the updates from lilo I was getting off of freenode a year back from now
21:24 < kanzure> remembr those?
21:24 < kanzure> *remember
21:24 < fenn> yeah he was a good guy, i dont really understand why so many people hated him
21:24 < kanzure> people hated him?
21:24 < fenn> maybe they were just more vocal about it
21:27 < fenn> too bad the word agalmic never caught on
21:28 < kanzure> it's a useful concept, "marginalization of scarcity"
21:28 < kanzure> although importantly, the knee-jerk reaction is to say "but scarcity is still real, blah blah blah - don't marginalize real problems"
21:29 < fenn> um, no it isnt
21:29 -!- nsh [n=nsh@wikipedia/nsh] has quit [Remote closed the connection]
21:29 -!- nsh [n=nsh@87-94-155-173.tampere.customers.dnainternet.fi] has joined #hplusroadmap
21:30 < kanzure> I mean to say that 'marginalization of scarcity' can be taken to mean 'marginalization of the issue of scarcity' (covering it up) (which this essay is not about, yes, but I refer to the use of the phrase (marginalization of scarcity))
21:30 < fenn> on that topic, have you read http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/  (particularly the natural resources part)
21:30 < kanzure>  no, please hold
21:31 < fenn> its a huge linky behemoth spanning much (for me) new material
21:31 < fenn> interesting site though, i recommend reading all of it
21:31 < fenn> btw he discovered/invented lisp
21:31 < kanzure> haha, token "E.O. Wilson" reference :)
21:32 < fenn> nice
21:33 < fenn> there's a lot of proactionary philosophy on that site
21:34 < kanzure> he has an odd perspective
21:34 < kanzure> he's trying to write for the masses apparently
21:34 < kanzure> well, not "the masses"
21:34 < kanzure> but a wide audience
21:35 < fenn> i think its supposed to be like a 'getting up to speed' page, somethin you can point to for correcting a lot of widespread misunderstandings and baseless fears
21:36 < kanzure> hm
21:36 < kanzure> if he had skdb available at the time, he should have just created new projects for each of his points and jot down a few technical notes on implementation and design
21:36 < kanzure> and then just aggregate all of them together to address the issues
21:37 < kanzure> instead of just leaving us with a static html page that doesn't link to actual *solutions*
21:37 < kanzure> (yes, the words describe solutions, sure)
21:37 < fenn> hmm i dont agree with you on that
21:37 < kanzure> how so
21:37 < fenn> if we try to expand skdb to fulfill every type of information storage and conveyance, it'll be good at nothing
21:38 < kanzure> 'information storage and conveyance' ?
21:38 < kanzure> you mean, the engineering projects that are mentioned on McCarthy's page?
21:38 < fenn> like, people try to use mediawiki for everything, when it's really designed to be an encyclopedia
21:38 < fenn> not a blog, not a photo gallery
21:39 < kanzure> so why wouldn't people use SKDB for projects
21:39 < fenn> if he had nuclear reactor designs on his site, would that be better?
21:39 < kanzure> probably :)
21:39 < kanzure> and those designs would belong in SKDB, IMO
21:40 < fenn> referencing your sources is great but it's not absolutely necessary to get the point across
21:40 < kanzure> true, but part of the whole point is to provide a way for people to get involved
21:40 < kanzure> that's what "getting up to speed" is about
21:40 < kanzure> unlike the news, where you just hear stuff and nod
21:41 < fenn> and how is skdb supposed to store stuff like "Life expectancy in both the rich and poor countries.  Infant mortality in rich and poor countries. 
21:41 < fenn> Days lost per year due to illness.:
21:41 < kanzure> no, I mean the engineering projects he mentions would go in there
21:41 < kanzure> life expectancy improvement tech would go in there
21:41 < kanzure> and he's free to link over to the solutions
21:41 < fenn> it sounded like you wanted to put the whole webpage in an skdb project
21:41 < kanzure> well ... documentation?
21:42 < kanzure> doesn't that go within a project?
21:42 < fenn> sure, and it should be wiki-able
21:44 < fenn> i'm notoriously bad at citing references (mostly because i can't remember where i learned something)
21:45 < kanzure> :(
21:47 < fenn> heh remember your "squeezing the most out of google programmers" http://www.flickr.com/photos/10719678%40N08/1424289534/in/photostream/
21:50 < kanzure> heh, squeezing every last drop
22:43 < fenn> this is hilarious, its about bad urban planning and suburbia http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3057280178909051497
23:38 < kanzure> fenn: why doesn't unfold.py work for me?
23:39 < kanzure> it generates SVG, but I don't get anything in the SVG file
23:39 < fenn> it's very small
23:39 < fenn> select all, then zoom to selection
23:41 < kanzure> select all what ?
23:41 < fenn> ctrl-a
23:42 < fenn> then click on magnifying glass with a dashed box in it
23:42 < fenn> or ctrl-drag on the handles to proportionally scale it up
23:43 < kanzure> I'm getting nothing.
23:43 < kanzure> the file is nonempty
23:44 < kanzure> export to png also shows nothing
23:48 < kanzure> hrm, this sucks, I'm going to have to learn blender
23:48  * kanzure goes off to youtube to hear some annoying voices 
23:49 < fenn> in object mode, right-click on what you want to unfold, then run mesh->unfold, select 'curvature' and 'search' and click unfold, then save
23:49 < fenn> doncha love GUI
23:50 < fenn> why does LUF attract so many wingnuts
23:53 < kanzure> many groups that use yahoo for mailing lists, are generally attractors of wingnuts for some reason
23:53 < kanzure> just in general.
23:53 < kanzure> orions_arm is an interesting exception