Ben Finn

I like optimization of all kinds - productivity, creativity, happiness, investing, tea. Former music software entrepreneur; co-inventor of Sibelius

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@eigenrobot It’s true, our leaders, governments and defence policy have been quite embarrassing in recent years.

But compared with the US…!

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@odavies9 Probably why in 1968, 37% of Britons had no teeth. None at all

https://t.co/jigbv0azJm

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@MeganTStevenson Impossible to maintain there’s no real intellectual difference between someone like that and someone else who can do tasks 1000 times as complex

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@MeganTStevenson I suspect you don’t interact much with dim people (nor do I), who are of course a significant fraction of the population. I know someone who’s dim, IQ maybe 80. Hard to talk to - gets the wrong end of the stick all the time. Is confused by the simplest things. Sad but not rare

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@robinhanson But then you might start another war so you can ‘win’ it too

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@snewmanpv @satyanadella And we’ve seen similar AI arguments before, in chess. In the 1990s/2000s, even though chess programs beat top grandmasters, it was thought humans were still best at strategy, so a human + computer team would be best of all. But now it’s like a toddler helping to fly a plane

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@snewmanpv @satyanadella “Humans will set ambitious goals, connect dots across domains, build relationships, and recognize patterns that matter most.”

The only one of these where humans might have a lasting advantage is relationships, but human ones don’t seem irreplaceably essential to many businesses

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@snowmaker Though almost all ideas (good and bad) have been had before, as anyone who does a patent search soon discovers. So not convinced it’s a useful way of finding good/impactful ideas specifically

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@WalkerMarcus @andrewgadsden Also mature enough to have children themselves

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@robinhanson We have first person data on various conscious processes surely? (Also some data on morality from actual cases & thought experiments, insofar as there is general agreement on many of them, but by no means all)

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@StefanFSchubert But I assume economic benefits of soft power are hard to measure. Cf I heard an expert say recently that the James Bond films genuinely make foreign governments think the UK is very good at espionage, maybe also defence. Much cheaper than paying to be so

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@bentleygyeadon @ediz1975 Pedestrians often/usually walk into cycle lanes by mistake - they are not always obvious.

But cyclists who go through red lights or zebras crossings almost always do so deliberately

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@ubuto23 @robertwiblin Cf numismatics (the study of coins and banknotes) tells us nothing about economics.

BTW it sounds like you think consciousness isn’t real. Indeed that’s one philosophical position on it. Though hard to explain the apparent reality of sensations eg pain. This stuff isn’t obvious

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@ubuto23 @robertwiblin Not clear neuroscience can tell us much about what consciousness is. The brain, neurones etc don’t have labels marking conscious parts, or that say why they’re conscious. Only once we know what consciousness is might neuroscience have things to say about the biology of it

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@TheZvi Yes, the land of Babbage and Turing (plus Hassabis etc) is not bad at computing

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@paulg Similar story here - most of my company’s customers were classical musicians, who are very nice; even the famous ones, who are surprisingly humble.

(One of the few unpleasant customers was a B-list indie pop musician, who I won’t name!)

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@paulg Presumably their only concept of computers was from sci-fi tv & films of the time

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@paulg Oddly when I was a kid in the 1970s, it was quite widely believed by people who knew nothing at all about computers and had never seen one (ie most people) that computers kinda knew everything, could answer difficult questions, etc

[Ben Finn @optimablog]

@pmamtraveller And what are the owls’ eyes?