Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• The Myth of a Superhuman AI

  by Kevin Kelly

  Yet buried in this scenario of a takeover of superhuman artificial intelligence are five assumptions which, when examined closely, are not based on any evidence. These claims might be true in the future, but there is no evidence to date to support them. The assumptions behind a superhuman intelligence arising soon are:

  1. Artificial intelligence is already getting smarter than us, at an exponential rate.
  2. We’ll make AIs into a general purpose intelligence, like our own.
  3. We can make human intelligence in silicon.
  4. Intelligence can be expanded without limit.
  5. Once we have exploding superintelligence it can solve most of our problems.

  In contradistinction to this orthodoxy, I find the following five heresies to have more evidence to support them.

  1. Intelligence is not a single dimension, so "smarter than humans" is a meaningless concept.
  2. Humans do not have general purpose minds, and neither will AIs.
  3. Emulation of human thinking in other media will be constrained by cost.
  4. Dimensions of intelligence are not infinite.
  5. Intelligences are only one factor in progress.

  If the expectation of a superhuman AI takeover is built on five key assumptions that have no basis in evidence, then this idea is more akin to a religious belief -- a myth.

• How fascist is Donald Trump? There's actually a formula for that.

  Grading the billionaire on the 11 attributes of fascism.

  Add all this up, and you get 26 out of a possible 44 Benitos. In the fascist derby, Trump is a loser. Even Spain's Francisco Franco and Portugal's António de Oliveira Salazar might score higher. While there is a strong family resemblance, and with some features an uncanny likeness, Trump doesn't fit the profile so well on those points where the use of violence is required. Projecting an air of menace at rallies, uttering ambiguous calls for assassinations, tacitly endorsing the roughing-up of protesters, urging the killing of terrorists' families and whatever else Trump does -- while shocking by the standards of American politics -- fall far short of the genuinely murderous violence endorsed and unleashed by authentic fascists.

  Also see, Donald Trump isn't a fascist.

  A leading expert on 1930s-era politics explains that Trump is a right-wing populist, not a fascist -- and the distinction matters.

• Scientists, Stop Thinking Explaining Science Will Fix Things

  Respondents who knew more about science generally, regardless of political leaning, were better able to identify the scientific consensus--in other words, the polarization disappeared. Yet, when the same people were asked for their own opinions about climate change, the polarization returned. It showed that even when people understand the scientific consensus, they may not accept it.

  The takeaway is clear: Increasing science literacy alone won't change minds. In fact, well-meaning attempts by scientists to inform the public might even backfire. Presenting facts that conflict with an individual's worldview, it turns out, can cause people to dig in further. Psychologists, aptly, dubbed this the "backfire effect."

• David Chalmers Thinks the Hard Problem Is Really Hard

  Consciousness will still mystify us even if we scientifically solve it, philosopher predicts.

  John Horgan interviews philosopher David Chalmers

  I've always found him an admirably clear thinker, who doesn't oversell his ideas (unlike Daniel Dennett when he insists that consciousness is an "illusion").

• Contra Tyler, on "Is rationality a religion?"

  Tyler Cowen called the rationality community a "religion" on Ezra Klein's podcast the other day.

  Julia Galef's quick reaction:

  Basically all humans are overconfident and have blind spots. And that includes self-described rationalists.

  But I see rationalists actively trying to compensate for those biases at least sometimes, and I see people in general do so almost never. For example, it's pretty common for rationalists to solicit criticism of their own ideas, or to acknowledge uncertainty in their claims.

  And another response to Tyler Cowen's comments to Ezra Klein from Bryan Caplan What's Wrong With the Rationality Community.

• Disabled, or just desperate?

  Rural Americans turn to disability as jobs dry up

  Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million. The federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.
  ...
  Across large swaths of the country, disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults live on monthly disability checks, according to a Washington Post analysis of Social Security Administration statistics.

• How America made Scandinavian social democracy possible

  The researchers suggest the migration flows, which were small relative to the native population of America but equivalent to about 25 per cent of the total population of Scandinavia, changed the character of Norwegian and Swedish society by removing the most ambitious and independently-minded people.

  In other words, Scandinavian social democracy might not be possible without America's historic willingness to absorb those who refused to follow the "Law of Jante".
  ...
  Had it not been for America's willingness to embrace enterprising nonconformist Scandinavians, "individualism" in Norway and Sweden would have been much greater and their particularly successful form of social democracy might never have been able to take root.

Some web links on the topic of inequality.

• It's Not Just Unfair: Inequality Is a Threat to Our Governance

  Book review: THE CRISIS OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS CONSTITUTION --
  Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic,
  

  In his fine book, both history and call to arms, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that the contemporary explosion of inequality will destroy the American Constitution, which is and was premised on the existence of a large and thriving middle class. He has done us all a great service, taking an issue of overwhelming public importance, delving into its history, helping understand how our forebears handled it and building a platform to think about it today.
  ...
  As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich. The rich tend to see themselves as better than the poor, a proclivity that is enhanced and even socially sanctioned in modern meritocracies. The poor, with little prospect of economic improvement and no access to political power, "might turn to a demagogue who would overthrow the government -- only to become a tyrant. Oligarchy or tyranny, economic inequality meant the end of the republic."

• What Inequality Doesn't Mean

  Is inequality a death sentence for the American republic? Two recent books vigorously argue both sides of the case--with the naysayer pulling out ahead.

  Before accepting the conclusion(s), see the previous March 31 item What Do Economists Actually Know?

• Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality over the millennia

  Professor Walter Scheidel examines the history of peace and economic inequality over the past 10,000 years.

  "It is almost universally true that violence has been necessary to ensure the redistribution of wealth at any point in time," said Scheidel, summarizing the thesis of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, his newly published book.

  Surveying long stretches of human history, Scheidel said that "the big equalizing moments in history may not have always had the same cause, but they shared one common root: massive and violent disruptions of the established order."