Dennis Hackethal’s Blog

@mizroba @DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

It can. Memetic evolution may independently converge onto similar solutions, as evolutionary algorithms often do.

(It is for this same reason that a rabbit fossil in Cambrian rock would not refute the biological theory of evolution, but it applies equally to meme evolution.)

@mizroba @DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

"Memetic" means "of or related to memes." I don't know what you mean by universal animal behaviors, but yes, some animals have memes.

@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

Top-down causal chains are real, and they happen from meme to DNA, but reductionism denies that and says that causation can only travel bottom-up. So in a reductionist framework, it seems to make sense that genes have all the control. Which leads to many new problems :)

@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

So then genes presumably have enough control to build in a fail-safe that controls human behavior to the degree that it isn't detrimental to the genes? And so then humans aren't universal explainers after all? No.

And DNA molecules are made of atoms, so do atoms control DNA?

@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

Ah, our old friend reductionism. :) Genes build the neuronal architectures that store memes, sure, but that doesn't seem to have much impact on the kinds of memes people can have: how do memes such as fasting, homosexuality, etc spread despite being the gene's worst nightmare?

@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

And so we may consider the dysfunction or disappearance of the DNA molecules that used to encode those genes to be part of that meme’s phenotype.

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@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

I think so. I once heard that cats’ grooming behavior is memetic not genetic. Suppose it used to be genetic. After the meme of grooming spread through the population of cats, mutations of the corresponding genes occurred and now those genes are either dysfunctional or gone...

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@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

Yes, I'd consider those DNA molecules part of the phenotype of the meme of growing meat in a lab.

Not the genes themselves, though - they are abstractions, and phenotypes are about effects on the physical world.

@DKedmey @BretWeinstein @RichardDawkins @ToKTeacher @DavidDeutschOxf

Some memes are encoded in genes, e.g. the human meme of pointing in some dogs' genes (credit to David for telling me this). In such cases, the DNA molecules of such genes could be considered an extended phenotype of those memes, yes.

Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?

The Searchlight...

soundcloud.com/dchacke/the-se…

@ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

I’m guessing that’s how one could demote a person to an animal. (Horribly immoral to do so!)

If we were to delete all ideas from a mind, I’m not sure it’d be a mind anymore, but it may be more of a semantic issue at that point.

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@ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

If we could somehow delete those ideas from a mind that replicate within it, then evolution in that mind would stop and it wouldn’t be creative anymore. It may still contain non-replicating ideas, though, and therefore be a non-creative space for ideas.

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@Giovanni_Lido @noa_lange @DKedmey @DavidDeutschOxf @veritasium @Crit_Rat @LRNR @JohnHMcWhorter

I can't decide if it's better or worse to only have one term for it. :) The German 𝑤𝑎ℎ𝑟𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑙𝑖𝑐ℎ is an interesting case: as an adjective, it means what you said. As an adverb, it seems to mean "probably," e.g. "wahrscheinlich richtig" means "probably true."

@DKedmey @DavidDeutschOxf @veritasium @Crit_Rat @LRNR @Giovanni_Lido @JohnHMcWhorter

(using "likely" as a synonym of "probable" here)

@DKedmey @DavidDeutschOxf @veritasium @Crit_Rat @LRNR @Giovanni_Lido @JohnHMcWhorter

I don't know Greek but the confusion seems to date back to misinterpretations of Xenophanes' usage of the word "eoikota."

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@DKedmey @DavidDeutschOxf @veritasium @Crit_Rat @LRNR @Giovanni_Lido @JohnHMcWhorter

The terms are opposites because the more like the truth a theory is, the more non-trivial, complex, and bold it is, and therefore less likely to be true.

2/

@DKedmey @DavidDeutschOxf @veritasium @Crit_Rat @LRNR @Giovanni_Lido @JohnHMcWhorter

Epistemologically speaking, these sound off.

According to Popper's C&R, the confusion between "likely" and "like the truth" dates back to misinterpretations of Xenophanes in ancient Greece who used the latter meaning.

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@tjaulow

I haven't, but I guess behaviorism puts a cap on how much he can contribute to AGI research.

@giantcat9

Does he remember?

@PopperPlay

Evolutionary algorithms (genetic programming). We don't yet know how to build AGI with them, but they seem to be the only promising path.

@PopperPlay

Glad you like it. Reach as in could potentially help build AGI, or as in learn about functional programming generally?

@ChristopherCode

Sure, happy to discuss.

@ChristopherCode

Mind elaborating on the last step?

@joe_shipman @DavidDeutschOxf @ESYudkowsky

I recorded an impromptu episode of my podcast to go into more detail about this:

soundcloud.com/dchacke/artifi…

I recorded an impromptu episode about the question of "value alignment" in artificial intelligence research:

soundcloud.com/dchacke/artifi…

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Not really, no. Here's a hard-to-vary explanation of explanation: youtube.com/watch?v=DHR6ro…

The mistake Popper identified as the who-should-rule-question permeates inquiries into AGI and is behind the pseudo problem of “value alignment.” An example of how critical philosophical knowledge is in this field and how urgently we need more of it. twitter.com/joe_shipman/st…

@joe_shipman @DavidDeutschOxf

It’s undesirable because when taken seriously it leads to enslavement and murder of AGI.

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@joe_shipman @DavidDeutschOxf

One can’t know, nor does one need to. The very question seeks an authoritative answer (see the only superficially unrelated economist.com/democracy-in-a…; disable JavaScript to circumvent the paywall). And mistakes are what enables progress in the first place.

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@jchalupa_ @ReachChristofer @adilzeshan @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Video game "AIs" work according to the same mechanisms as animals even when given only incomplete information about their environment. (In)complete access to model of environment is not the defining factor. The ability to create knowledge is.

@jchalupa_ @ReachChristofer @adilzeshan @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

It's possible, but not part of our best explanation of creativity. FWIW creativity does not only apply to humans but all people (humans, AGIs, intelligent ETs, etc).

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@jchalupa_ @ReachChristofer @adilzeshan @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Moment to moment response to environmental factors != creativity.

Eg video game "AIs" respond to the player's movements and decisions moment to moment. Since we build them, we know they do not use creativity for that. It all follows predefined algorithms that have reach.

@NathanPMYoung @IamtheWay13 @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher

I'm happy to immediately drop the term "AGI" and replace it with whatever you find more appropriate as long as we know we are talking about the same thing.

@NathanPMYoung @IamtheWay13 @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher

I explain my reasoning for the sharp distinction between narrow AI and AGI and why progress in one is not progress in the other here: soundcloud.com/doexplain/2-wh…

@NathanPMYoung @IamtheWay13 @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher

Just because the vast majority of researchers use a word as it is commonly used does not mean they are successful.

I'm on board saying that narrow AI researchers achieve great successes in the domain of narrow AI. Sadly, that says nothing about their contribution to AGI (nil).

@NathanPMYoung @IamtheWay13 @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher

That’s the AI researchers’ confusion, not Deutsch’s. :)

They don’t understand universality. That’s why AI researchers will not make progress in AGI.

Entirely different field with a misleadingly similar name.

@NathanPMYoung @IamtheWay13 @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher

Not entirely sure what you mean by “AI is a superset of AGI” but in terms of problem solving it’s the opposite because an AGI could do everything all narrow AI programs could do (and then some).

@joe_shipman @DavidDeutschOxf

AI is like all other programs; execution of predefined tasks, no creation of new knowledge to solve novel problems.

AGI = universal problem solver; creates knowledge. Opposite of not creating knowledge.

BTW, perfect value alignment is neither feasible nor desirable.

@DavidDeutschOxf

Oof. Pessimism ad nauseam.

@IamtheWay13 @NathanPMYoung @SmashAGrape @DavidDeutschOxf @ToKTeacher @SamHarrisOrg

Yeah humans = AGIs (both are people) because of universality.

@RealtimeAI @pmathies @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

I don't understand the question. Please elaborate.

@RealtimeAI @pmathies @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Both frogs and dogs may well have universal computers for brains. So it's not the brains. It's the software installed on those brains that determines whether you can train that brain.

@ReachChristofer @EAMagnusson @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Exactly. Fallibilism must not lead to paralysis during decision making. Otherwise we run the risk of turning fallibilism into a strange version of the precautionary principle.

We should act on our best explanations without hesitation. Anything else is like Pascal's wager.

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

IIRC DNA is a general purpose storage medium, so yes, I think it could encode a nuclear spaceship. (That’s not to say such a thing would evolve biologically.)

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

No. They’re on a molecular basis?

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

I have been thinking about how cool it would be to build self-replicating machines. I don’t think it’s been done. Might tell us a thing or two about evolution.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Nuclear von Neumann probes? :)

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Sure but none of the ideas built by creativity did. Those are created at runtime.

@RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Examples of that: learning how to communicate with people, or building complex structures that are completely different from anything the species has built before, or every individual creative animal being entirely unique in character.

@RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

... and therefore would not have evolved biologically, and therefore could not be encoded in the animal's genes, and therefore must have been created by the animal itself, at runtime (i.e. during its lifetime).

3/

@RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Here's what I'd consider evidence for creativity in an animal: knowledge for which there would have been no genetic precursors in its ancestors, or which would not have given the ancestors' genes a better ability to spread...

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@RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Combination of inborn ideas about what things to avoid and shape recognition algorithm?

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@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Also note how the dog is not looking at the stick he's pulling out, or even at the tower, but at its owner. It has no idea what it's doing or why. It wants to please his owner.

2/2

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

I don't think it guessed. It just had to update parameters and make associations. Dogs know from birth what sticks are, how to put things in their mouths, and how to seek reward and avoid punishment.

Put these things together and you get enough reach to play Jenga.

1/

@univ_explainer @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

I made critapp.com for that reason - I think it has better tools for discussion than Twitter. If you'd like to try it out, shoot an email to contact@critapp.com and I'll make an account for you. :)

@univ_explainer @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

... and it makes sense for dogs to have genetically evolved such criteria for success because people have been selectively breeding them.

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@univ_explainer @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Ok, a few things (Twitter’s character limit is terrible):

Narrow AI can already do what the dog does there.
AGI can only be achieved in a jump, so we must skip to it somehow.
What the dog counts as success is genetically given (praise by owner)...

1/

@univ_explainer @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

To be clear, you mean an AGI?

The dog trick is cool, but can be accommodated by a reinforcement algorithm with enough reach, which dogs seem to have. (Note how she praises the dog. Also note how the dog watches her closely, presumably for facial cues indicating success.)

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

While it's impressive that animals can do this, it does not require any creativity on their part - that's why I don't consider it learning.

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Yes, though I'd be careful with the word "learn" there - the animal may have been an inborn reinforcement "learning" algorithm, which, coupled with inborn shape recognition algorithms, updates parameters to categorize something as "not dangerous" after several interactions.

@univ_explainer @ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Why did they have almost no chance to explain anything?

In any case, note that "universal explainer" also signifies an ability, not a guarantee or even chance of success.

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Yes, I don't disagree that the replication strategies of memes differ from ideas that never become memes. But... so what? :)

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

I claim that they do replicate within minds, just not necessarily across people :)

@univ_explainer @ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

All babies make that jump to universality long before they learn to speak. This universality lies within people - it is not induced or awarded by outside factors such as technology (let alone the fact that one needs creativity to make technology in the first place).

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Eg "selecting" a preference between fight or flight can be done according to inborn algorithms that do not involve creativity (variation and selection in the evolutionary sense).

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Ah, got it. I'll claim that's a stretch of the phrase "variation and selection" as it strays a bit from evolution because it doesn't refer to variation and selection of replicators.

@dela3499 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Can you give an example of variation and selection in animal brains?

@RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ReachChristofer @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Why bring recursion into this?

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Well, people are universal explainers, so even if other organisms have some limited creativity, that marks a pretty sharp distinction. They would all have an infinitesimal repertoire compared to people.

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Could all of those things not be encoded genetically? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the presence of knowledge, including that which changes behavior, is not evidence of creativity. That knowledge may have emerged from biological evolution.

@ReachChristofer @RealtimeAI @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Yes, people do eventually die if they don't solve problems. But I don't think the absence of creative thought = death. Eg if you run on autopilot for a few minutes, that won't kill you.

Of course, the underlying message rings true: problem avoidance eventually kills people.

@RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer @dela3499 @ToKTeacher @Soph8B

Here's a criticism of one of the ideas in BoI :)

critapp.com/#/posts/bdd9d1…

The artificial intelligence research community is in bad shape...

soundcloud.com/dchacke/scanda…

@DKedmey

Actually, I take it back - progress is the result of that. So still need a word for it. :)

@DKedmey

Progress? :)

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

I’m about to publish something on this, stay tuned. :)

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

Yeah those with side effects transform minds, and, if they get a mind to act, the world.

The motivation for treating ideas as functions is to solve the problem of how to encode ideas in a computer program.

Ideas need not return the same output for same input, nor do functions.

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

PS: The above is more of an answer to your question “Is there a way we can show that all possible conjecturing and problem solving descends from a single algorithm?” from popperplay.com/problem/Qb6ij0…

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

So the explanatory universality of people is powered by the computational universality of functions. Those two universalities are deeply intertwined.

4/4

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

Since Lambda Calculus is computationally universal, all ideas in the mind can be expressed as functions, and so the above is the same as saying that it’s a functional replicator in a mind that explores the space of all possible functions.

3/

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

A more elaborate one: ideas replicate imperfectly within a creative mind and thereby inadvertently explore the space of all possible ideas. This is how sometimes ideas evolve in a mind that happen to solve a problem/explain something.

2/

@PopperPlay @ReachChristofer @DavidDeutschOxf

Some quick arguments for the explanatory universality of creative minds:

1) What couldn’t one guess? (nothing , it seems)

2) Humans are so far off the mark (we have built space shuttles age cured diseases etc) that it just makes sense to think they are universal.

1/

@ReachChristofer @ks445599 @PopperPlay @DoqxaScott @DavidDeutschOxf

Yeah, IIRC, there is no computation a quantum computer can perform that a classical UTM couldn’t. It’s just that some of those computations run intractably slowly on UTMs compared to quantum computers.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I once saw a video of a monkey swiping pictures on an iPhone. Cool, but not evidence of creativity.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

What do crows/monkeys/other animals do that couldn't be explained exclusively in terms of biologically evolved adaptations? Do you have a video showcasing such behavior, or maybe an article explaining it?

@DoqxaScott @ks445599 @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I think conjectures are the result of imperfect replication of ideas in the mind.

@ks445599 @DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I'd leave out any considerations involving pattern matching because they are too close to empiricism. It's a mistake I have made in the past myself. Empiricism is tempting so it does sneak back into mind here and there if one isn't careful.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I mean, maybe we can consider the result of any algorithm running in the mind a conjecture, but thinking of creativity as pattern matching is a dangerous path into empiricism, which is really creativity-denial.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

That's why I wrote "intelligence/consciousness" a number of times, because if you have one you automatically have the other.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I didn't mean to suggest that intelligence and consciousness are the same thing.

I think intelligence = creativity. Same thing just different words. And I think consciousness, among other things, is epi-creative, meaning it arises from creativity.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Ah - you’re saying the result of, say, a pattern matching algorithm is a conjecture?

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

There may be value in it, idk, I’m just pointing out that one is an error and the other a result of one. They are different things. So I don’t think the comparison applies.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Yes, with the proviso that no (or only little in the case of inborn ideas) knowledge of how to solve particular problems is given and needs to be evolved at runtime instead.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Sounds like empiricism. Not sure what you’re trying to say. Please elaborate?

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Yes. Sometimes adaptations have enough reach to incorporate use of new tools etc.

Knowledge of any kind, no matter how sophisticated, is not evidence of intelligence.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Well, a conjecture is the result of an erroneous replication in a mind, so I wouldn’t compare it to transcription errors per se.

But yes there are many differences between biological evolution and what I call functional evolution in a mind.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Don’t see why those couldn’t have been genetically programmed?

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

Not pedantic, good point. Errors in transcription do indeed happen somewhere in plant. But no evolution within plant. Hence not intelligent.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

I think conjectures and refutations are components of intelligence regardless of whether they are made consciously.

@DoqxaScott @RealtimeAI @ReachChristofer

There is no variation and selection happening within plants. They happen across plants.

And yes I think only people are intelligent.