by Dan | Jul 11, 2019 | Creating or Enhancing Consciousness, The Good Must Be Explored
The following quote is as good an introduction to this article as I could ask for: “…he saw in Java a plain far as the eye could reach entirely covered with skeletons, and took it for a battlefield; they were, however, merely the skeletons of large...
by Dan | Jun 3, 2019 | Amoral Solipsism, Discerning the Good Itself
Michel de Montaigne isn’t particularly popular in the twenty-first century. Born to a well-to-do family in 1533 near modern-day Bordeaux, France, Montaigne was a politician and thinker who recorded his thoughts in many essays. Montaigne is widely regarded as the...
by Dan | Apr 14, 2019 | Amoral Solipsism, Exploring the End Game, Facilitating Post-human Transition Collaboration
Rich in tradition and material wealth, Japan’s reclusive youths are often completely uninterested in sex, relationships, or work. The country’s youth – especially men – are seeking escape from the job and romance market. Video game addiction...
by Dan | Mar 8, 2019 | Controlling Intelligent Substrate, Morality as Arbitrary and Contextual, The Good Must Be Explored, Transhuman Transition
The AI value alignment argument goes something like this: As artificial intelligence will continue to approach human-level intelligence Artificial intelligence will generally be driven by a reward function, by a kind of abstract goal Any such goal could have...
by Dan | Feb 4, 2019 | Consciousness is What Counts, Managing the Transhuman Transition
Nick Bostrom’s 2007 TED presentation (titled: Humanity’s biggest problems aren’t what you think they are) involved an illustration that I liked so much that I modeled it – and credited Bostrom – in my first TEDx back in late 2014. I present a...
by Dan | Jan 9, 2019 | Discerning the Good Itself, Reflecting on What I've Read, The Good Must Be Explored
What matters most? If we have a reasonable chance of building conscious AI and/or post-human intelligence in the next 60 years, it makes sense for us to consider where we’re headed. If we presume we have any control over our fate at all – where will we point the...
