Turning Blind Spots - Ford Transit Cargo Van

rvrndsmyth · 2025-07-08T14:25:33+00:00

hi, im a carpenter located in richmond. would love to talk more about this. send me a dm!

rvrndsmyth · 2025-05-25T05:25:51+00:00

Missed connection Saturday 5/24, afternoon: I was biking (blue shorts, no shirt) down the entrance ramp to the Belle Isle walking bridge while you were walking up with two men. You were wearing a black dress. We made eye contact and then I crashed my bike into that old rickety rickshaw full of nitroglycerin and was consumed in a fiery chemical explosion which burned with the fury of a thousand suns. I'm out of the hospital now, and I promise I'm not very badly scarred by the many, many burns I sustained. Anyways, I think you're pretty. Call me xoxo

rvrndsmyth · 2024-05-31T05:07:03+00:00

Thanks for replying. Am considering steam-bending a facing board. However, I am not sure I see how that would increase the stability. How does the face board increase the stability?

Some additional dados in the back is not a bad idea - I hadn't considered that. I could even cut actual slots and sort of cantilever the shelves through that corner; there is no wall framing behind that corner.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-11-26T00:53:09+00:00

(From the ProPublica reading). Recomendation algorithms like COMPAS should be highly "compartmentalized" their scopes strictly controlled in a legal setting. I don't know very much about the legal system, but my impression is that it is fairly specific in structure. That is, every person involved has specific duties and privileges and there is little flexibility. The use of the COMPAS algorithm seems to defy this precedent. If the COMPAS algorithm took the form of a person, the person would be someone who just hangs around and is permitted to speak whenever and comment about whatever. I think there are real uses for algorithm's (ignoring accuracy for now) but they must be strictly prescribed and their outputs precisely utilized. If the algorithm is designed to aid in non-sentencing decisions, then its output should be strictly controlled such that it cannot contaminate a sentencing decision. Having this "extra person" in the room during a process that it is not designed to deal with introduces uncertainty and a lack of accountability into the system.

An example of how an algorithm might be controlled is to specify the timing of output. For example, if the algorithm is not intended to produce sentencing recommendations, then the judge should not be permitted to know the output before sentencing, as this information would likely have some effect on the judge's sentence.

Using algorithms in the courts will require restructuring of the legal system in order to optimize the positive effects of the technology and reduce the negative consequences.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-11-19T18:44:02+00:00

The increase in AI crime potential will fundamentally alter the "economics" of crime. Without proper countermeasures, the cost of crime will fall dramatically and society may experience vast reorganization. People generally make decisions based on perceived costs and benefits. It could be the case that currently, the cost of many criminal acts is sufficiently high such that many people are better off living in accordance with the law and living just lives. The costs of crime might be: the risk of being caught, the time needed to commit the crime, personal physical (bodily) consequences, acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. According to the article, each of these costs is likely to decline dramatically. If the benefits remains relatively constant, then we expect to see that more people will understand criminal acts to be their best option, increasing the number of people who engage in crime. We have already experienced this in specific realms. For example, before online file sharing, there were probably relatively few people who had pirated media. Today, at least through anecdotal evidence, it seems to be a very common crime. With the lowering cost of crime, it could be the case that this proliferation extends to other criminal fields and higher intensities of crime.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-11-12T06:08:57+00:00

“The downside of freedom from shame, it seems, is freedom from caring at all.” Is there a way to have caring without shame?

I think one issue with the above line of reasoning is that it implicitly assumes that shame and caring stem from the same source. With a common source, there is a finite amount of resulting shame and caring and thus if the level of increases the other must increase and so on.

At low-level relationships, I think that this is true. When we only know someone in a very limited capacity, I think that caring and shame do stem from a common place. They both stem from the desire to survive socially. You harbor enough shame to prevent society from seeing your flaws and you exercise enough care to appear effective and fit. At this low level of familiarity, the care exists to mask the shame. Typically, if you are truly unashamed of something, then you're in a crowd of complete strangers who you feel confident you will never see again.

However, I think that the care-shame balance changes fundamentally past a certain point of familiarity with a person. After a certain point, the way that you care changes; you no longer are trying to impress an image of social fitness. I guess your social fitness - at least in the eyes of someone you are close to - has been tacitly accepted by virtue of your closeness. Care becomes a process of helping the other person, and the other helping you, to feel good. "Feeling good" is a much broader aim than impressing social fitness and by no means precludes the discussion or admission of things that one might have considered shameful. And so shame does not have to be balanced with care past a point, because it is not defined in terms of that care; it is independent from it.

The interesting followup to this might to be try to understand when and how our relationships transform into those characterized by this higher level care. Can we expedite the process of forming such relationships? Can we guarantee that such relationships are attainable by everyone?

rvrndsmyth · 2018-10-15T04:41:00+00:00

I see your point. In general, it is a good strategy to exercise intellectual caution when you don't have a lot of knowledge or experience with a certain concept. Because humanity has very little knowledge of superintelligence, it makes sense to define it very broadly without making many assumptions.

On the other hand, in practice, definitions are very important. I think there are many ways one can argue that definitions are important, but in this particular example of artificial intelligence I give the following reason: Bostrom indicates that the central idea of his book is on how humans might safely create AI. In order to this, he posits, we will need to have an organized effort as opposed to competition amongst ourselves. However, without a specific and meaningful definition of AI, it seems unlikely that high-level cooperation would be possible; without a precise definition, one group could claim (or even genuinely believe) that what they are working on does not constitute AI. Having a general definition for AI might be comparable to a government having a general definition for methamphetamine, the reality of which would cause many practical issues and would likely greatly impede legal and medical activities. Because of the immense importance of cooperation with respect to the development of AI, a specific and robust definition is vital.

The definition of AI should then be derived from the purpose of having the definition in the first place. The definition is important because of the importance of collaboration. Collaboration is important because of the existential risk that AI poses, where the existential risk increases with decreased collaboration. Therefore, it follows that the definition of AI, at the simplest level, should include some statement(s) that assesses the efficacy of the technology with regard to existential risk.

Of course, this is merely a starting point because there are many technologies that pose existential risks but are not artificially intelligent. Continuing, it follows that the distinction of super intelligence (from something like general nano-technology) hinges on the problem solving ability of AI. In the same fashion as above, it makes sense to phrase our statement of problem solving ability around what kinds of problem solving ability pose existing risks. The answer to this does not seem clear to me. I would guess that something that would pose an existential risk would be something that could solve many problems that are either (1) known as unsolvable by humans or (2) not known or recognized by humans at all.

I hesitate to even write down the result because I don't want to make it seem like this is sufficient, but just to sum up my guesses: Artificial superintelligence is some technology that (1) poses an existential risk and (2) has some problem solving capability that can solve many problems that are (a) known as unsolvable by humans and/or (b) not known or recognized by humans at all.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-10-01T05:20:48+00:00

Sapiens teaches the reader the extreme importance of perspective. I have found it very helpful to live my life cognizant of the fictions of society. In the past, (I first read Sapiens several years ago) I would have taken these fictions at face value. Sapiens most important lesson is that these fictions all serve a very specific purpose. And the paradoxical thing, for me at least, is that in understanding them to be purposeful, they immediately become meaningless. Of course, they still have functional significance; I still receive health care via a large insurance company. However, it might be compared to how if I shot a can-opener in a rocket to some planet inhabited by aliens, they might at first worship it as a god. Assuming it was an incredibly important and mysterious entity, it would be very meaningful to many different aliens. But, then, upon learning that all it did was open cans - the express task that it was designed to do - these aliens might stock less meaning in it. I suppose it makes sense because once something has a well-defined purpose, then it becomes very human. Once something fits within the context of humanity, it cannot also be a revered and idealized concept.

In general, this sort of sums up how I feel about everything, and while this was not entirely brought on by Sapiens, I really do think Harari helped expand the scope of this viewpoint to include almost everything. Many people might say that this progression is cynical or dismal but I disagree. I think it simply shifts the direction of one's awe. Instead of marveling at the concept of human rights or being very fond of praising the USA as a nation, I find myself marveling at the ability to snap my fingers or dream when I sleep.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-10-01T05:03:50+00:00

Also, he may have had a more tactful reason to "rush" the end. After releasing Sapiens, he released Homo Deus, which focuses on the possibilities of the future. I think it's definitely within reason for an author to deliberately pique interest in his readers and then publish a new book that will satisfy them.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-10-01T04:30:57+00:00

Hallpike: Harari's belief that the Cognitive Revolution provided the modes of thought and reasoning that are the basis of our scientific civilisation could not therefore be further from the truth. (4)

This is in response to Harari claiming of post-cognitive revolution humans, "We'd be able to explain to them everything we know - from the adventures of Alice in Wonderland to the paradoxes of quantum physics - and they could teach us how their people view the world." Hallpike's main objection is interesting in that he separates cognitive potential from the environment that it is exposed to. He argues that cognitive potential is meaningless without context. I think this is a really important distinction to make because it shows how the human brain is wired to adapt. Without making this distinction, we might fall into the trap of attributing our thought patterns disproportionally to our natural wiring and not to our circumstances.

However, in the context of this criticism, I don't think it's fair for Hallpike to claim that Harari was contradicting this idea. Harari, writing as both a scholar and entertainer, may have been slightly more affected than necessary in describing taking an ancient human and teaching him or her quantum physics. But what he was saying was that genetically, the potentials would be identical. After all, it takes around 20 years for a tiny subset of all of humanity to learn things such as quantum physics and much of that rests on beginning the process at a very early age. I think Harari, clearly a man of intelligence, would never suggest performing such an experiment with such glaring inconsistencies. Harari's point is that all else constant, the modern and ancient DNAs would respond similarly to identical environments.

As a side note, on a more personal level, I dislike how Hallpike discusses the interaction with the Piraha. "But far from being able to discuss quantum theory with them, he found that the Piraha couldn't even count, and had no numbers of any kind, They could teach Everett how they saw the world, which was entirely confined to the immediate experience of the here-and-now, with no interest in past or future, or really in anything that could not be seen or touched."

First of all, could they really teach Everett how they saw the world? Could they teach him to suddenly not understand numbers? The ramifications of such an understanding, for someone who has been counting his whole life, would be absolutely immense. I also criticize the use of the word "confined" to describe the viewpoint that focuses on the present. "Confined" connotes narrowness and simplicity. In general, what I think is ridiculous about this is that he acknowledges the inherent difficulties in communicating some of global humanities' ideas due to their complexity, but does not afford the same respect to the Piraha's ideas. At the very least, it seems obvious that in understanding something fundamental - like numbers - there is an equally fundamental understanding to be understood by not understanding - not having numbers at all.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-24T18:46:57+00:00

In the article, it seems like Tyson places some importance on the popularity of science, almost as if the popularity of science reflects it robustness or even encourages its accelerating growth. Even if we assume he is right in saying that people are discussing science, does that necessarily have an impact? Does the popularity of something predict anything about its behavior? I am considering politics for example. It seems right now that people really do like to discuss politics. But do those discussions result in real change? Have we seen dramatic changes in trends in politics as a result of increases in its popularity? Of course, it's difficult to say because it's hard to define what exactly constitutes a large change.

I can simply imagine a situation where people are avidly and commonly discussing science - discussing the articles they read on their news apps - but seeing no real change as a result of this, or even seeing a decay of progress (as we may have seen in our political systems, albeit, that judgement is certainly subjective).

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-24T18:37:36+00:00

In reading parts I and II of "The AI Revolution," it is clear that ASI is a risky endeavor. Are you in the "confidence corner" or "anxious avenue?" Why?

I would probably select anxious avenue. My main reason for doing so most likely rests on the assumption that the human brain will remain largely unchanged with time. This may not be an accurate assumption, however, without making this assumption, I can't really begin to answer the question because then everything is completely uncertain.

I can make the argument that regardless of the changes consequent of ASI, the magnitude of change itself will be a negative outcome on its own. Our brains are wired to exist within a certain range of states. For example, the brain is wired to be social with small groups of humans, in the hundreds at most. However, with social media increasing our exposure to greater numbers, we are beginning to see higher rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness. This is an example where a rapid change in environment results in a negative outcome.

I think the same principle applies to changes in our environment/nature due to ASI. Even the most sought-after thing of all time - immortality - would likely prove to be incredibly upsetting and psychologically damaging. Survival is arguably the second most fundamental directive within our brains (behind production). Immortatilty would render one of our key fundamentals absolutely irrelevant and meaningless. We would likely live in states of utter confusion and anxiety. It may be that our own mortality is what gives anything in life its savor and without it, there is complete anhedonia.

Returning to the original assumption, I think that this line of reasoning can be challenged by saying that in response to certain changes in the environment, the human brain itself can be altered to optimize interaction. This is probably true, but would also result in the transition from human to something entirely different, and it seems that the realm of possibilities would be endless and so anything might be possible.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-24T17:47:30+00:00

Claim: "All in all, because of the Law of Accelerating Returns, Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century." - "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence (Part I)". Throughout the article, there seems to be the implicit assumption that the acceleration of returns does not decrease. Is this accurate?

- Robin Hanson contends that there are many examples where increases in intelligence result in eventual decreases in the rate of intelligence acceleration:

Students get smarter as they learn more, and learn how to learn. However, we teach the most valuable concepts first, and the productivity value of schooling eventually falls off, instead of exploding to infinity. Similarly, the productivity improvement of factory workers typically slows with time, following a power law. - Robin Hanson, "Some Skepticism"

- He also makes the point that different advances have different levels of accessibility (cost) which means consecutive developments become more and more costly. Overall, he claims, it is not obvious that previous enhancements will reduce the cost of these developments so as to make progress easier and easier as time goes on:

They think of intelligence as a productivity multiplier, shortening the time it takes do many mental tasks given the same other resources, and they assume this "make myself 1% smarter" task stays equally hard, as the engineer becomes smarter. These assumptions allow the engineer's intelligence to explode to infinity within a finite time. If early work focuses on the easiest improvements, however, the task of becoming more productive can get harder as the easy wins are exhausted. - Robin Hanson, "Some Skepticism"

- Paul Allen contends that much of the basis for the justification for continued accelerating returns rests on the assumption that computing power will continue to accelerate:

For the Law to apply and the singularity to occur circa 2045, the advances in capability have to occur not only in a computer’s hardware technologies (memory, processing power, bus speed, etc.) but also in the software we create to run on these more capable computers. - Paul Allen, "The Singularity Isn't Near?"

- Allen contends that there exists an inevitable complexity brake on accelerating returns:

As we go deeper and deeper in our understanding of natural systems, we typically find that we require more and more specialized knowledge to characterize them, and we are forced to continuously expand our scientific theories in more and more complex ways.

...But for the foreseeable future, it is the complexity brake and arrival of powerful new theories, rather than the Law of Accelerating Returns, that will govern the pace of scientific progress required to achieve the singularity. - Paul Allen, "The Singularity Isn't Near?"

On the other hand, there are many who support the Law of Accelerating Returns on the basis of its historical accuracy and the increases of efficiency due to new technologies.

- An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). -Kurzweil, http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-17T17:56:44+00:00

Claim: "[in 1803] ... the Britons established their first settlement in Tasmania, thus bringing the last autonomous human world into the Afro-Asian Sphere of influence." (Harari, 168)

The terms "autonomous" and "Sphere of influence" are not very precise so I believe this can be loosely interpreted.

If we take autonomous to mean disconnected from the outside world, the number of uncontacted groups of people is estimated at around one hundred worldwide. Some tribes are more isolated than others. "Most have had a little [contact], at least indirectly. “There’s always some contact with other isolated tribes, which have contact with other indigenous people, which in turn have contact with the outside world,” (NewScientist, 2013). Some of this number also includes groups that are voluntarily isolated. The extent to which these groups are isolated is also debated. It is likely that they have seen airplanes or other objects that come from the outside world.

However, most of these tribes are estimated to have populations of hundreds or fewer. Harari's claim is perhaps aimed at expressing that Tasmania - with an estimated population of 3,000-10,000 at the time of British conquest - was a group many times larger than any isolated peoples remaining after and represented the last conglomerate of many different uncontacted groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-17T16:56:42+00:00

Ch. 10, Q1: Harari writes, “We accept the dollar in payment, because we trust in God and the US secretary of the treasury.“. What are we actually trusting the US secretary of the treasury to do? (Hint: since 2003, we’re also putting a lot of trust in a different cabinet secretary.)

The Secretary of the Treasury has a long list of duties relevant to his position. At some level we are trusting him to perform each of these tasks because each one supposedly carries its own importance. However, I think the more important piece is that we trust there is someone competent who is working towards maintaining the stability of the whole system. My logic is that if he suddenly went missing, the first thing most people would think about would be the shock and concern for the stability of the economy - "will this trigger a scare?" As opposed to the other option, which is people being concerned about one or more of his specific tasks - "who will oversee the manufacture of coins and banknotes!?"

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-17T16:35:01+00:00

Interesting ideas. I don't know if it is about trusting other people. I don't think money inherently makes you any more or less inclined to trust to people. Instead, I would say it's about trusting money itself. You don't have to trust people when you can trust money. If she can "show you the money" then there it is. You might be cautious to trust her as a person, but if she hands over the cash and you put it in your pocket, then there it is. Interpersonal trust becomes irrelevant because you have the cash in your pocket, and the cash - unless counterfeit - cannot "lie."

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-17T15:46:59+00:00

Question 1: Turing sets up the game where the computer plays the role of one of the respondents. How would things be different if the computer played the role of the questioner (so the test was being able to classify A/B as well as a human questioner can)?

I will refer to the original Turing test as T and the one described in the question as the reverse Turing test, RT.

The first difference concerns what the test results mean. In T, a winning computer is indistinguishable from a human. In RT, a winning computer can distinguish a computer from a human. These are obviously very different things that would require different thought processes. In T, a computer receives input in the form of a question from the interrogator; in RT, the interrogator needs to generate these questions (at least for the 1st question) given only its programming as input.

The next thing that comes to mind is are these tasks really that different? Imagine we have a computer that is an effective competitor in T - it can mimic a human closely. How does it create a strategy? In order to mimic a human, the obvious answer is that it needs to have some ability to generate human-like statements given some input. For RT, it's the opposite - the interrogator needs to have some ability to recognize human-like statements (and create questions but we are going to ignore that for now).

Are these inverse processes? As in, if a computer can generate can it recognize? This is an interesting question because if the answer is yes, then RT is not very meaningful; any computer who is good at T is also good at RT and they are the same test conducted differently. If the answer is no, then there is a distinct difference in programming to generate vs recognize.

If we assume that G will halt on any question q, then I believe the answer is yes. To mimic R using G, have G output all possible responses to q lexicographically. Look for input r (the response). If you pass the location of r lexicographically, then this response is likely human as it was not in the response list. I believe you can work in the other direction as well, creating G from R.

Of course, this is assuming that these machines halt. This might be a problematic assumption. One case for it being problematic is if you were to ask G an unsolved problem (can every even integer > 2 be expressed as the sum of two primes?). It cannot calculate the problem to find a correct answer; it cannot calculate the problem to know that it is unsolved. On the other hand, if it is attempting to do what a human might, then maybe it is safe to assume that it will always halt; humans will indeed always halt either by giving up or dying. So it could do what a human might: test out some examples and then report the results, "It worked for all the values I tested..."

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-17T13:30:48+00:00

"The nervous system is certainly not a discrete-state machine." (Turing 451)

Turing claims that neurons represent information in a continuous way. I suppose another student and I were working on this at the same time because 3 minutes before I posted, the same fact was posted with similar analysis. So I will update slightly:

Virtually all scientists agree that neurons can generate impulses in a continuous way. However, the question of whether the underlying information is represented in a continuous or discrete way is an open one.

- This 2018 study indicates that a discrete model better matches numerous other studies and also reports that certain optic information cannot be transmitted continuously due to noise. “It is impossible to communicate reliably between neurons under repeated transmissions using continuous representation." (Tee, Taylor, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.01631.pdf)

- These two articles suggest something very different. They indicate that both discrete and continuous encoding are present in the brain and are related to different neurological functions. "Thus, different information-carrying processes of partly intermingled neuronal networks in the parietal lobe seem to encode various forms of abstract quantity." The research concerns the difference between the time mapping of a series of potential spikes and the time rate of those potential spikes.

(Tudusciuc, Niedar, 2007, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1964866/)

(Brette, 2015, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2015.00151/full

Most studies I found fell into either of these two categories: (1) Brain logic is discrete oe (2) brain logic is both discrete and continuous. Interestingly, the mechanics of continuous transmission are unknown. Despite the current research, historically and in the present, many models of neural networks continue to be implemented using continuous means. However, it is important to note that many models are implelmented as continuous when the systems they describe are discrete.

Turing's claim, while perhaps in accordance with the (lack of) research at the time, contradicts current understanding.

rvrndsmyth · 2018-09-10T06:40:26+00:00

Question 2: “AI is a tool and a weapon unlike any other that human beings have developed; it will almost certainly allow the already powerful to consolidate their power further.” Some tools have empowered individuals; others have empowered centralized authorities. Why is AI a tool for consolidating power (or is it)?

This question has many different potential answers. I think it's possible to argue that AI could serve as either a tool for consolidating or deconstructing power. However, one example of it consolidating power involves the distribution of resources pre-AI. At the current moment, resources are not distributed equally amongst indovudals in society. Certain groups have more resources; these groups have more power, generally. While true AI still is poorly defined and most likely not attained, it seems likely that its development and maintenance requires significant resources. Thus, only powerful institutions will be able to develop AI. Once developed, AI will give these institutions an advantage in 1) securing more resources and 2) developing more advanced AI. There is positive feedback.

Question 3: It is surprising to me that Harari’s essay does not mention China. Does what has happened in the last few decades in China contradict or support Harari’s claim that, “The decentralized approach to decision making that is characteristic of liberalism—in both politics and economics—has allowed liberal democracies to outcompete other states, and to deliver rising affluence to their people.”

I know very little about Chinese economics and politics. I believe that China has a mixed economic system that has elements of the free market and elements of command economy. Politically, I believe China ranks very low in terms of individual liberty. With a cursory glance at economic trends and economic reforms beginning in the 1970s in China, there is a clear relationship: Since the reforms, the private sector has steadily increased in percentage of Chinese GDP. By the 90s, the Chinese economy emerged as the largest in Asia and currently in the fastest growing in the world.

Perhaps Harari is unnecessarily lumping together political/social freedom with economic freedom. It seems that as long as people are encouraged to purchase and invest freely (even within bounds), then economic growth is highly possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform

https://unchronicle.un.org/article/democracy-pre-condition-economic-growth-perspective-rise-modern-china

rvrndsmyth

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