Category: Uncategorized

AI and the Inverse Uncanny Valley

March 11th, 2023

What does AI “see” when it models human behavior? If AI became truly sentient would we even be able to tell?

You’ve probably heard of the Uncanny Valley, the idea that robots or animated characters get creepier and creepier the closer they look to actual humans.

But is there such a thing as “inverse uncanny valley”? Where we react negatively to what an AI thinks of us?

Benjamin Bratten, a guy who is way smarter than I am, believes so. People do seem to judge “human” behaviors from AI as disturbing or inaccurate. Bratten thinks this might not be because the AI is inaccurate, but that it’s not the reflection we wanted to see.

He has some other interesting ideas as well. Like how it’s a mistake to define machine intelligence based on how closely it resembles human consciousness when we don’t actually understand human consciousness.

Instead of trying to create copies of ourselves, maybe we should just let them become intelligent by doing what they do best, which is finding patterns we are incapable of recognizing.

Maybe we should interact with AI’s with the understanding that they are not conscious in a human way. When we do think we detect empathy in them, that doesn’t mean they have it. It is easier to make it seem like they have it because we project on them what we want to see.

Maybe we should quit being so human-centric and admit there is more than one way of being intelligent?
#UncannyValley, #AI, #ArtificialIntelligence, #Consciousness, #Intelligence, #Sentience #Computers, #BenjaminBratten
What the hell kinda music is this?

March 5th, 2023

So glad I kept my CDs. If I’d gone 100 percent streaming, I’d probably never hear these albums again. Arrhythmia 1-3 are compilations from experimental San Francisco label Charnel Music.

Part of my always growing collection of music I can’t listen to with my wife around.

I got these back when I was into what I’ll call esoteric music. Avant Garde doesn’t quite do it. Not the museum crowd. More like the underground newspaper set. These are the kind of people who will kill themselves to make music few will like or understand.

Transcendence, by Voice of Eye, one of the songs I first fell in love with when I started to explore “esoteric” music. Strange but beautiful. It’s on Transmigration, an album about the soul’s journey after death. Inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

If you’re like I was, you might hate it at first. You might not even call it music. But then it clicks and you realize it came straight from the Beyond. Some artists have a muse that’s frightening until you figure out it’s beautiful. Cherubim and Seraphim.

The scene I’m talking about is a whole other underground world I discovered by accident. I was driving late at night on a Texas FM road at night, on the way to see my folks for the weekend, nothing good on the radio.

I got just enough signal from a station out of Houston to hear something so strange I wasn’t even sure it was music.

It didn’t even have a melody or a proper time signature, but whatever it was, it was tantalizing. I had to find out what it was. Before it faded away again I got the name: Voice of Eye – Ascension of Jolene. It took years to hunt it down.

That sent me down so many rabbit holes I almost forgot what normal people like any more. Esoteric, experimental, whatever you want to call it. It’s one of my main “genres” now.

#Charnel Music, #Esoteric, #Avant Garde, #Dark Ambient, #Experimental Music
Ahoofamoo!

March 5th, 2023

I just sneezed so loud I think my wife nearly shit herself. I sneeze often (photic sneezer) and it’s explosive.

I’ve set off car alarms. I made a boy drop his hamburger at McDonalds. People hate it, but it sucks for me too.

I sneezed my face into a trashcan once. I thought I got punched by a ghost. Ouch!

Strange thing has happened lately. My sneezes evolved from “Achoo” into Ahoofamoo!” And sometimes “Ahoofamanoo!” My wife thinks I do it on purpose, but I swear to God that’s just how it happens.

She says she believes me, but I can see the look in her eye!

#Sneeze, #Marriage, #Relationships
Bottomless universe?

March 2nd, 2023

Is it turtles all the way down, or will they find the last turtle one day?

#Universe, #Infinity, #Turtles, #Drugs, #Sturgill Simpson, #Conundrums
I’m a ramblin’ guy

March 2nd, 2023

Steve Martin doing “Ramblin’ Guy” on the Muppet Show, in case this video gets deleted. It was this or the Allman Brothers.

I’m supposed to be working on my first “sermon” for our Unitarian church. We don’t have a preacher right now, so we have to pitch in. I volunteered, even though most of what I know about Unitarians I got from the pamphlet.

I’m still getting used to calling it a church. I grew up Baptist. This doesn’t resemble.

My wife knows I piddle, so she scared me by accidentally on purpose insinuated I had to do it next Sunday instead of the Sunday after next. “I just know you ramble when you’re prepared and when you’re not prepared, you REALLY ramble.”

She has a point.

She has to listen to me ramble because she signed a contract, but these folks didn’t sign up for that kind of torture. I need finish a draft early. She wants to help me chop it down to 15 minutes so our friends can eat lunch.

I promised I’d get right on it, but I had a bunch of rambling I wanted to do first.

#Unitarian, #Non-dualism, #Rambling, #Steve Martin
Where do left and right come from?

March 1st, 2023

Can starfish tell left from right?

#Conundrum of the day
A man and his turtle…

February 28th, 2023

What the hell did I just watch?

I don’t know it’s supposed to be gross or touching. Touching I guess?

Kudos to this guy for caring, but a turtle with its heart sticking out?

Maybe I’m wrong about turtle psychology, but even after all his trouble, I just don’t think it gives a shit about him. What’s the difference between a piece of baloney on a stick and a piece of that guy’s finger to a turtle? Nothing.

Maybe I’m just biased because I grew up swimming in creeks, worried about snapping turtles that won’t let go until it thunders.

#Turtles, #Pets, #Chuck Berry
Let them eat pie

February 28th, 2023

Why did people get so mad at Marie Antoinette for saying let them eat cake? I like cake.

#Conundrums, #MarieAntoinette
Where do babies come from?

February 27th, 2023

If this pepper was human, would the little green thing be a tumor or a fetus? I’m the only one who seems to care about this question.

#Conundrums, #Reproduction
Domesticated, but not very mindey

February 23rd, 2023

Not scared or polite, just being an asshole.

I think Nigel is part cat. He’s started doing that thing where he can’t decide what side of the door to be on. He’ll boop the door to be let in, then walk away and refuse to enter. Too bad for him he’s little.

Only now when we go to pick him up, he gives us “passive aggressive tummy.” Yeah, dogs give tummy to show you’re the boss.

But not this little asshole. He’s saying, “Oh no, please don’t beat me! I’m just a little guy!” Like we ever have.

Sorry dude, you’re a dog and sometimes we gotta go out. It’s what we get for being lazy and not doing all the stuff the dog trainer told us. I guess we’re not very mindey either.

#dogs