Different packaging, same product

In the world of the philosophy of consciousness, most formal theories rely on what's referred to as an “extra factor.” This extra factor is used to describe why humans have free will, while everything around us seems to be determined. There needs to be something to separate us from the rocks that we don't assign agency to.

One interesting modern interpretation of this problem is the idea from Daniel Dennett who theorized that if consciousness is defined as “there has be to something that it's like to be you,” then an explanation of the extra factor could be that we narrate ourselves into existence.

From an evolutionary perspective, this idea is genius because it enables long term thinking. If I didn't think I'm going to exist in the next second because I have no sense of self, I won't make plans that don't satisfy an immediate urge but accomplished a more abstract long term goal.

AI is such an exciting field because we get to dive into how intelligence works. If something works in a machine, we will likely be able to use it to augment our own capabilities. Intelligence is intelligence, regardless of the source so I have to suspect that if our rules of logic and math are sound, ai will inevitably end up similar to humans as it's human tasks they are being trained on and given human tasks to accomplish.

Source: Researchers Discover AI Language Models Are Mirroring the Human Brain’s Understanding of Speech - The Debrief https://share.google/SAdRN7TxSsG2Rk3tR

Watch for sensationalist journalism

When I look at a news feed, I'm bombarded by all the half informed takes that don't provide context to prove a point. Yes, openai is losing money. So is every generative ai company at the moment. But how long did it take Uber to believe profitable? Facebook? Air BnB? or even all the new age sports gambling apps.

At least generative ai companies are trying to provide real value, instead of promote bad behavior. While ai is a tool that can be used to produce brain rot or detect cancer, a gambling app will never produce a statistically positive result. Yes, there is a lot of hype because there is potential value, but the blitz scaling used to rocket tech to the moon strategy didn't go away for the next silicon valley miracle.

Source: X https://search.app/qd8RC, https://youtu.be/Wcv0600V5q4?si=UKgEyZh28gxE_Vak

More Power!

it's so interesting how many persepctives there are. on one hand, I've heard extensively that Chinese construction is sub par, whether it's the silk road initiative that has produced... interesting results, or even their domestic housing.

Yet at the same time, China is able to accomplish some is the most impressive civil engineering in the world like the three gorges damn or this new nuclear power plant. The ai race will be won or lost via infrastructure, everyone better hope their contraction is as least as good as China...

Check out the website in my bio for more content on ai!

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-starts-world-first-hybrid-nuclear-plant