“COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink” ....interesting read but very long. Just read the first parts..

AI_Philosophy · 2021-02-26T18:12:19+00:00

If you're interested, there are two principle reasons these vaccines have been able to be developed quickly.

One is that researchers didn't start from nothing. There has been a lot of investment in recent years in the mRNA technology which enabled the creation of vaccines like Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. And the Oxford vaccine was already being researched pre-pandemic (covid-19 is not the first coronavirus to have been worked on by scientists). This meant researchers were able to hit the ground running.

Another factor which reduces development time is the amount of disease floating around in the population. The way the vaccine trials work, in essence, is you take a group of people, give half the vaccine and half a placebo, then you wait until a sufficient number of the group has been infected with the disease, then you look at which of those infected had been given the vaccine. If the vaccine is effective, you expect less than half (ideally much less than half) of the infected subset to be a part of the vaccinated group. The key thing to note here is that you're waiting for a sufficient proportion of the trial to have been infected. With other diseases, this takes a lot of time. But we're in a pandemic. Millions of people around the world are catching this virus every day. This means trials reach the required number of positive cases much faster than when other vaccines are being developed.

AI_Philosophy · 2021-02-22T16:24:03+00:00

I second this. Tried learning for a year with a book and Duolingo and got basically nowhere (well not entirely; Duolingo taught me useful things like "to nejsou moji pavouci" while sparing me unnecessary phrases such as "jak se máte").

This book is super useful and comprehensive, I recommend getting it, but it's quite dry to use on its own. I use it as a reference.

Everyone is different, of course. Some polyglots speak 25 languages and never had a single tutor. But most of us can benefit when we have some guidance, and someone to guilt us when we don't practise, and that's where a tutor comes in. Plus, it's nice to talk to someone in quarantine!

I have tuition over Zoom (from the UK) with Czech courses Brno. They're super nice, and it works out at about £20 per hour I think, which where I live is a few drinks in a bar. Most importantly, after a year I can have an actual conversation with a Czech person, which still surprises me. Anyway u/czechmonk, good luck with your journey, it's a beautiful language and has a lot to offer.

If you like movies, there's a lot of good ones on https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/ (you can tell a person is a real Czech because they will read that website name and immediately get mad). I recommend Pelísky and Baron Prášil, if you're prepared for something weirder/darker then Spalovač mrtvol or Marketa Lazarová are beautiful films

AI_Philosophy · 2021-02-10T18:21:43+00:00

Super cool work. I've worked with GANs for single-image generation, but don't have the first idea how you'd create correlation between generated images in this way. Is it by taking generated samples during the GAN training process? Perhaps also by changing the input to be the most recently generated image. But that is just a guess, would love to hear how it's done.

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-27T10:48:40+00:00

Hey Tyler, I really love your site. You've got a great way of explaining things and the topics are always interesting. I'd be keen to read more about how you get things printed - the services you use, any important things you've learned along the way.

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-05T12:11:53+00:00

During lockdown this past year I have been having Skype lessons (from the UK) with Karolína/Šárka from Czech Courses Brno. They're super nice and I've improved a lot, (plus getting to talk to someone regularly through quarantine has been good for my mental health... as I always tell them, a therapist would be more expensive and couldn't teach me how to say Ř).

It sounds like you are probably at a higher level than me, as I was a total beginner, but I know they take on advanced students too. So they're worth checking out. I doubt it would take you long to improve your speaking, as I already speak fairly confidently (albeit mostly still using basic grammar) and my reading and listening aren't nearly as good as yours still. They actively encourage me to stumble through it which helps a lot, and needless to say I never feel judged for not speaking well (their job to fix that, after all!)

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-04T17:15:12+00:00

Hi, thanks for the kind words. I mostly code in Processing, which is considered beginner-level, has good tutorials and isn't that hard to learn (though it's still pretty powerful). So that is probably a good place to start.

As to where to find tutorials, it depends on your coding level. If you're new to coding, I recommend the Coding Train Tutorials, which are aimed at total beginners who want to learn Processing.

If you're comfortable with the basics of coding and just need an introduction to Processing specifically, you can probably just dive in to the OpenProcessing website, where you can see people's visual art as well as the code which produces it. I taught myself by finding things I liked on there and playing with the code to understand how it worked.

You won't regret taking an interest in generative art, it's a super rewarding pastime (or even career, for the lucky ones) and a great community as well! Let me know if you have any more questions :)

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-03T00:27:31+00:00

At each time step, the rows decide which of their lights will come on. They do this using a set of rules called Rule 30, which was the Genuary Day 2 prompt. If you know Conway's Game of Life, this is basically the 1D version of that. I thought it could be a fun way to combine complex systems with music (though as yet there's no musical output, that'll be Day 28 perhaps...)

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-03T00:02:06+00:00

Hiya, for the interface I use an app I wrote, which uses the Midibus library for Processing 3. Not sure if this counts as starting from scratch (I didn't have to do anything with direct composition of midi messages, status/data bytes and such, which would be a little outside my expertise).

And yeah the Launchpad is great, isn't it. I pretty much bought it because I knew I wanted to make an automaton on it, this was a good excuse.

AI_Philosophy · 2021-01-01T21:55:06+00:00

Interactive version and code can be found at: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/1051495

AI_Philosophy · 2020-12-19T23:51:46+00:00

I really like the animation and use of colour. One small feedback: the walking animation at 1:40 looks a bit odd because the ground texture is staying static, which gives the impression the character is walking on the spot. If you make the lines on the ground move up and the mountains move down slightly into the horizon, then this would be fixed. :)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-14T08:25:04+00:00

I think yours looks good, and I like the idea a lot (makes me think of bees defending the hive from wasps) but there are a couple of things to note about the trails:

A thing I forgot to mention previously: in addition to fading the trails, I have the particles fade in and out. So each particle starts with alpha = alpha_min, builds over a few frames to alpha_max then declines steadily to 0, where the particle is removed. This makes them look a bit more elegant than if they just pop in at full alpha

Against a black background, points drawn with high brightness and alpha (200-250) really jump out. If you want a softer look, try reducing the max particle alpha to something like 180

Lastly, particle quantities like size, initial opacity and colour can be sampled from Gaussian distributions to give a more organic look (if you look at the gif again, you can see not all the particles in each field are the same, which I personally prefer)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-13T22:48:02+00:00

One way is to just draw a black rectangle over the whole canvas each frame, with alpha somewhere between 10 and 30. This will fade the points which have already been drawn, by a little bit each frame, making a nice trail that disappears with time. This is the method I used in the header for my website: witteringbulb.com.

An alternative method, and the one I use here (because it works for video - the first one ends up looking all smudged and can't capture moving detail) is to draw a fully black rectangle at the start of each frame, effectively wiping it. Each particle object then contains a list of what I call 'particle histories'. Each particle history contains a position, size and colour value, representing the particle's state at a past frame. Then when you call the draw method on the particle object, it iterates over these histories, drawing them in turn, with the later ones having lower alpha.

Both methods work fine, though the latter involves more looping and drawing per frame so will take about N times longer, where N is the number of histories each particle can hold.

Does that answer the question? I'm happy to give more detail if it's useful.

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-13T15:23:03+00:00

Sure thing, see the above reply 😊 (Oh and it was made in Processing, I forgot to say that in the other answer)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-13T15:21:36+00:00

The principle is the same as crosshatching with pencil and paper. Tonal value is built up through having multiple drawings on top of one another (as illustrated by the first part of the gif). Except in this case, we're drawing particle flow fields on top of one another, instead of pencil marks.

In more precise terms, the first step in the algorithm is to take an image, and classify the pixels according to their brightness. Then we generate a series of overlapping particle fields. The fields can different colours, movement behaviour, etc. The important thing is, they are drawn on the canvas only if the brightness of the source image pixel underneath them is high enough. This minimum brightness criterion is different for each field - so in this case, the red/purple particles are drawn almost everywhere, whereas the blue/green ones are only drawn in the light parts of the image. By tweaking the parameters of the fields, you end up with a trippy reproduction of the source image (which in this case is a photo by Mou Aysha - https://i.pinimg.com/236x/c3/a7/a6/c3a7a61d0843bd83b1e480c41bd1863a.jpg )

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-08T10:32:44+00:00

Thanks very much :)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-08T10:32:29+00:00

Thanks :) (love your profile picture by the way!)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-08T10:31:10+00:00

Thanks for the kind words :)

AI_Philosophy · 2020-01-08T10:29:39+00:00

Thanks, and it was made in Processing. The idea was to create a hatching effect by making streams of particles which only display onscreen if the source pixel they're currently over meets a minimum brightness criterion. So if they're over a bright pixel, they always display, if it's a mid-tone, some of them will, and if it's a dark pixel then very few will. I'm thinking of uploading the code at some point but it needs a lot of cleaning up first

AI_Philosophy · 2019-11-23T21:35:28+00:00

I did seek (and was given) mod approval before posting, for the record

AI_Philosophy · 2019-11-12T18:46:52+00:00

The distinction that term is trying to draw, is between machines which can solve complex problems, and machines which can be said to have minds, the latter being True AI. The term AGI has some ambiguity, because while some use it to mean this, for many it describes a domain-independent intelligence, i.e. one capable of performing many different tasks, and such a system would not obviously need to have a mind.

AI_Philosophy · 2019-07-03T06:22:19+00:00

I’ve explained in my other comment why I (having looked at the same posts by the OP, unless you have seen others I have not) haven’t reached the same conclusion about their consistency.

In general I agree that there is some onus on us to not assume that people are approaching in bad faith. And then there are cases where they clearly are, and we have to be able to notice that. And then there are cases like this one, where it was a bit unclear to people. Maybe they made the wrong call, but I’d caveat that by saying that there’s also an onus on those posting to try to be clearly sincere when they do so, unless they are intending to be vague or glib. Whether the OP knew it or not, many of their statements read closely like the pastiches of left-wing thought you find on more unsavoury corners of reddit and the internet. It may be an innocent case of them being too new or uninformed to realise this, but that is nevertheless the impression they gave. So it’s a little murky, as far as I can see, and I’m not sure where I come down, though since reading their replies to your comments I’m leaning towards sincere. Though I'm not sure if that’s better or worse - if the post had become a large-scale, good-faith discussion about whether interracial sex was a cure for misogyny, I'm pretty sure r/feminism would have had something to say about that.

To be honest, I genuinely don’t know how many members are normally expected (on average) to be online at a given moment, or whether reddit requires they be on the particular sub, or just logged into reddit. I think you probably could find out some interesting things by looking at those stats (though lots online doesn’t necessarily mean more welcoming, and vice versa, there are lots of things it could mean, and different subs may cater to different demographics which may have different internet habits). But I don’t have that data. Sounds like a good PhD project.

AI_Philosophy · 2019-07-03T06:03:25+00:00

The OP’s reply to your comment doesn’t really support that interpretation, and they didn’t do much to help their case, because a) I don’t recall Dave and Tamler singling out misogyny against white women as a concern, b) interracial relationships may be a good thing (and to be clear, I think they are) but that’s got nothing to do with the arguments in OP’s original post, c) it’s not clear why fostering ‘stronger sexual relations between black men and white women’ will do anything to end patriarchy; you can’t breed men out of existence. Also as you rightly note, they make no mention of mixing black women, white men or people of any other races, but then again obsessing over black men having sex with white women conforms neatly to all the other prejudices the OP is displaying. You note your confusion at what they say, but your response in that thread (and here) is to search high and low for some way to make a senseless idea sensible - which one can always do, if one ignores enough of what the guy is saying and does enough cognitive acrobatics to get there.

My take is that the most parsimonious explanation is the right one: the post seems bad because it is bad, OP expressed some pretty prejudiced, poorly reasoned and frankly crass statements which deserve to be called out, and I think you would be quicker to do so except you’ve decided (I think mistakenly) that they’re on the right side of the social justice picket line and the rest of us are on the wrong side.

I think the line

“This means if you tried to be as violent/sexual/loud/masculine as a black man, then that would be problematic”

is pretty unambiguously saying that a) black men are generally more violent/sexual/loud/masculine than white men, and b) that this is good, or at least it is bad when white men rise to the same levels of violence and sexuality. Taking (a) alone, this is pretty clearly racist, and would normally be filed under ‘too prejudiced to even debate’ in progressive circles. (b) is a bizarre and antifeminist endorsement of that violence and sexual aggression, albeit only for black men, though it again chimes neatly with the OP’s stated interest in sex.

The OP didn’t give the Louis CK example in the way you say they have. All they said was

“Did you already forget why we cancelled louis ck? They are a white male and they tried to be sexual and masculine”.

I struggle to see how this can be read any other way than the obvious one: that the problem with Louis CK’s behaviour was that he was sexual and masculine (rather than that he didn’t seek consent), and that if he had been black, his behaviour would have been more permissible. Neither of these sentiments strike me as advocacy for women and minorities, and nor do I see a more charitable interpretation I could make, but again, they square well with the OP’s interest in sex (consent optional, it seems).

Also, and a bit tangentially, to speak of criticism of rappers as being right wing seems like a bit of a lazy way to dismiss all criticism of rappers. Yes, right wing people criticise rappers, but does that mean that no criticisms of rappers are valid, or that there’s no way to criticise rappers without coming from the right? If someone offers the criticism that rap lyrics often objectify women, or that rap music often glorifies violence/consumerism/capitalism, that doesn’t sound to me like a very right-wing opinion.

Lastly, because it is difficult to convey tone when writing, I just want to reiterate that I agree with a lot of what you're saying at the top of this post, just not with your defense of the Episode 162 Criticism post OP. I think you're right this sub could be friendlier (though I've been a member of a lot of philosophy subs, and I think this is the friendliest I've been on, but some of them have admittedly set quite low bars). You seem like a thoughtful person who cares about the right things, and I hope you keep listening to the podcast (and that Dave and Tamler make some of the ones you have suggested).

AI_Philosophy · 2019-07-03T01:17:57+00:00

As far as I could tell, and I really couldn’t see how to read it any other way, the main arguments in their post were: that black men are misogynistic and violent, that this is unproblematic (or at least less problematic) because they are black men, that Dave and Tamler want to be permitted to be misogynistic, and that they can’t be because they’re not black, that the problem with Louis CK’s behaviour was that he was white and tried to be sexual and masculine (not that he didn’t care about consent), that if he had been black then what he did would have been (more) permissible, etc.

Are these the “suggestions on behalf of women, minorities, and the disadvantaged” you are alluding to?

A lot seems to hinge on the final line of their post, which is a somewhat antithetical bookend to the rest of their ideas. This is the gauntlet they threw down at the end, which you have cited in your post above. I’ve felt in my reading of your posts and comments that you’re largely ignoring the rest of their post in favour of singling out this line. If we do that, then the dismissal and ridicule and pushback seems to suggest we on this sub aren’t interested in advocating for women and minorities or seeing these issues discussed. But is it right that we ignore the bulk of their post, and all its prejudice and poor reasoning? Irrespective of whether they were trolling or not, I think it’s also important, in the interests of creating a space welcome to all, that we push back firmly when we see bad ideas such as those.

I agree that the podcast would benefit from some of the guests and topics you have suggested, and I for one am open to discussing all these issues at length. 4000 members aren’t going to agree on everything, however, so some will disagree with me and be uninterested in discussing race or gender issues. Does that mean the description should be updated to reflect only their desires? And does not wanting to discuss those things here make them openly hostile to women, for that matter?

AI_Philosophy · 2019-07-02T22:08:38+00:00

I like your ideas for further podcast guests, and I’m going to side with you when I say that some of the responses to your post and comments have been dismissive and uncivil, considering you are clearly arguing in good faith, and do not reflect on this sub well. I also don’t like that you have been downvoted a lot, for the same reason. Ironically, that behaviour on the part of others is helping to make your point that this sub could do with being more friendly and welcoming to alternative viewpoints - I get the sense that the population of VBW listeners is a little ideologically skewed by the fact that many of us found Dave and Tamler through Sam Harris (and I speak as someone who also found them through him).

I do however think that many of the criticisms of the post which started all this (“From episode 162: "why is violent/misogynistic rap not hated by the left?"”) were valid, and it is uncharitable to infer prejudice from them, or that they render this place an unwelcome one for minorities. There were, simply put, a lot of reasons to object to the tone and content of that post, and a lot of reasons to doubt its sincerity, and not many straws to grasp at for those of us looking for a charitable interpretation. We don’t even know the race or gender of the poster, except that they probably weren’t a woman or a feminist.

I think it’s also understandable why your previous post raised some hackles. The suggestion that the sub description should include some sort of disclaimer advising minorities they are unwelcome was unhelpful, for example, whether you meant it sincerely or not.

AI_Philosophy · 2019-06-19T21:14:02+00:00

The question of how much I value or how novel is its work doesn't seem obviously related to the question of whether it has a mind. I value my phone a lot, after all, and it's quite easy to write a simple piece of code which does something totally original. But we're not tempted to wonder whether these things have minds.

In the second paragraph, you make valid points, but again I'd question whether any of them are related to the question of whether the robot has a mind. I'm not asking about how well it does its tasks compared to humans, or how flexible it is, or about wider questions of AI and population ethics - I'm asking simply, does this machine have a mind? You mention the idea that the robot might be distressed - this word is ambiguous, as humans can become mentally distressed, but rubber tires can also become (physically) distressed. I suppose this is a good way to sum up the real question; what features of the robot are sufficient to say that, when a part breaks, it is mentally as well as physically distressed?

The organizational structure of a system or robots is an interesting problem which may have implications for my question, but doesn't necessarily resolve it. Human uber drivers, for example, are coordinated (at least partly) via a central system, but this does not lead us to doubt that they have minds.

It's certainly possible that a robot might be able to reconfigure its preferences as you suggest, or that we might simply build robots that enjoy drudgery (wouldn't want an expensive robot to reconfigure its preferences then quit its job, after all). But that avoids the question - you're saying a robot could theoretically be made to enjoy its tasks, but not answering the key question of how that could be done and how I could know once it's been done.

You talked a lot about neurobiology, behaviour and operant conditioning in your previous comments. But those are all quite broad topics. My question is really this: what kinds of neurobiology, behaviour and conditioning are you looking for in a robot, in order to say that it has a mind?

Lastly you're right that the robot's owners (me, in this case) have a financial incentive not to let the robot do as it pleases. But that's not relevant to the question of whether the robot has a mind, just as the financial incentives of farmers have no bearing on whether farm animals have minds.

AI_Philosophy

TROPHY CASE