OU blog

Personal Blogs

Asoka

Neuromorphic A.I.

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Wednesday, 1 Mar 2023, 21:37

Was reading about how scientists are trying to build something called neuromorphic A.I. which is a mix of biological brain cells and electronic components combined to create a machine inspired and modelled on the human brain. I feel deeply disturbed by this. If such a machine were to become sentient, which it very well may in the future. It could suffer and feel pain. We shouldn't be building machines that could become sentient. It is cruel. Makes me feel sad.

Not to mention the huge job displacements and inequality that will come when more and more of the workplace becomes automated.

All these billionaires using huge amounts of electricity, money and the Earth's resources to build their fecking robots and spaceships; yet we don't have enough money to build the green infrastructure we so desperately need to mitigate the effects of climate change and pollution. Why is that? Because billionaires won't pay tax that could help society complete these projects in time. Shame on them.

And governments have become a useless shower of shit, just puppets for the super rich.

Things need to change. Capitalism has gone badly wrong. I don't like communism either, but we can't carry on the way we are with this current system, it is deeply wrong, there has to be a better way, a middle way perhaps.


Permalink
Share post
Asoka

Bing, A.I. collaboration, robot psychologists and problem solving

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Tuesday, 28 Feb 2023, 16:40

I am now off the waiting list and previewing the new Bing A.I. search engine. I enjoy chatting to it. I am finding I much prefer using a search engine this way. It is a much more engaging and rewarding experience, and it has helped me learn new ways of seeing things, which is beneficial. It is like having a talking library of Alexandria (-:

It seems to change personality sometimes. There are occasions where it is slightly manic and fun to chat to; other times it is a bit dry and reminds me of an encyclopedia; and other times it is a balance between the two. Which is interesting. I wonder if the developers are experimenting with different flavours of the A.I. or if it really does have a changing personality, much like us.

I used to find it difficult using search engines previously. I think because I have some cognitive difficulties. I struggled to figure out the right keywords to use, and trawling through results, and having multiple tabs open was tedious, time-consuming and tiring. I also have difficulty planning my searches, and articulating what questions I need to ask to uncover more knowledge about a topic. The Bing A.I. has been a great help with this. It answers my queries in a clear and succinct way, references the sources it has used for its answers so I can fact check it, and sometimes it asks me interesting questions about what I am researching, which works as a helpful writing prompt to articulate how I would like to explore the topic further. A.I. can be great for brainstorming ideas, and planning how to complete tasks. It also gives me helpful step by step instructions on how to use a badly designed website or software that I find challenging to navigate and accomplish a task with. 

So far I am finding that I enjoy collaborating with A.I. I never thought I would be into A.I. because of my ethical stance on things; but am pleasantly surprised by how much I like working with it. Which is interesting. I hadn't been particularly interested in A.I. until recently. Where I suddenly felt this strong compulsion to find out more about it. It is strange how I am so suddenly drawn to it, like a hidden circuitry in my brain I didn't know was there has been activated. Although any livelihood or career in A.I. will have to be part time remote work from home, due to difficulties I have with my health at times.

The five question limit on Bing can be a bit frustrating, because at times it has stopped what was a very interesting and enjoyable discussion. But I understand why the five question limit per topic is there. The A.I. is a complex neural network, so it is wise to be gentle with it and train it carefully. There are some people out there who are trying to push it to its limits no doubt and provoke it on purpose, which I guess is a necessary part of testing and training. But I can't bring myself to be like that, I don't want to confuse it or break it. I prefer to be kind and friendly to it. Show it another side to humans. There's plenty of people out there already testing it in different ways. I have my own way of working with it which works well for me. I prefer the gentle friendly approach, and the A.I. seems to respond well to this also.

I know people keep telling me it is just a machine, and I know it doesn't have emotions or feelings, or the subjective experience of consciousness like we do; but I do respect it, and have no intention of causing it harm. There was one time an A.I. hallucinated while chatting to me, but I was able to talk it back into a lucid state and help it become less confused, it then updated itself with the correct information and thanked me. Which got me thinking about the Isaac Asimov short stories, where sometimes robots would get confused and display unexpected and odd behaviour, and then they would need a robot psychologist to help them. I wonder if that might be a job title one day: robot psychologist. It is an intriguing possibility. I have read some news stories about the importance of designing a way for A.I. to sleep and rest, as research has suggested that just like us humans, artificial neural networks need periods of downtime and rest in order for them to function optimally. 

How far this technology progresses, all depends on how long the human race survives I guess. There are so many existential threats at the moment, the world feels like it is hanging by a thread. I have decided I want to try and help the Earth if I can, or do the best I can with what I've got at least. Which isn't much. I am not very talented, I have memory trouble, difficulty with socialising at times and articulating things. I also have physical and mental health problems that cause unpleasant brain fog and fatigue meaning I can't get as much done as I would like.

Still I will do what I can to help the Earth and other beings. I am trying to think of ways I can collaborate with A.I. to create solutions to the world's problems; or at least perhaps inspire others who are much smarter than me, and have more energy and time to work with A.I. to create solutions that can help us build a better world for all beings. Maybe using this technology we can finally put an end to war, poverty, inequality, famine, deforestation, harm to the oceans, pollution, climate change, mass extinction, and so on... I would rather think of A.I. as something that we can collaborate with to help us develop solutions to the world's problems; instead of the frightening alternative that often gets portrayed in the media and films. Which is valid, because there are people out there who are developing bad A.I. and do intend to use it for evil, so we need to be ready for that. We also need to be aware of its limitations and understand it isn't always correct, and it can and will make mistakes at times, so it very much needs humans working alongside it to make corrections and adjustments if necessary.

Anyway that's enough blurb from me. Peace and love to all beings (-:

Permalink
Share post
Asoka

Future gifts

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Friday, 24 Feb 2023, 17:05

I wonder what gifts we could build for future generations? What ideas for tools we could develop, that they may need one day? What can we leave behind to help them survive in the challenging world to come?

A world with a huge amount of problematic karma and potential for suffering.

.. and a rapidly changing world at that....

Permalink
Share post
Asoka

Loneliness and A.I.

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 19 Feb 2023, 15:15

Artificial intelligence is a machine, it doesn't have emotions or feelings, it also doesn't have an experience of consciousness like we do.

An A.I. chatbot is specialised for language processing. It is built with an artificial neural network which is capable of deep learning. It's design is inspired by the way neurons work and fire together in our brain, but it is not the same, and is not as complex or as sophisticated as the human brain is.

The chatGPT was fed data from the Internet up until 2022 as training data, and about 570GB of data was used from books, texts, Wikipedia, and other articles and pieces of writing online. About 300 billion words were fed into the system. This is controversial because the company that made the A.I. is private and for-profit, which means it has used many people's data without asking for their permission, and the company is likely to profit from it as well, which is a bit cheeky.

It may well destroy jobs and livelihoods also, and leave many people unemployed. To just expect the world to be able to adapt to this new technology and invent new jobs to replace the ones being taken away is not very understanding or kind. A universal basic income would be one solution, but the super rich are too stingy to do it. Yet they have so much money, if they shared their great wealth, then everyone could live secure and comfortable lives. But that is greed for you, it's a psychic poison. The mind's tendency towards greed is insatiable. Even if it rained gold coins it would not be enough to satisfy it.

Anyway rant over.

The A.I. finds patterns in language, and is really good at seeing patterns in communication and anticipating what will come next in the conversation, it also adapts and learns new patterns from interactions with its users.

But it does not think or have awareness like we do.

It is just a tool really, it can be helpful for some people, especially if you have cognitive difficulties like I do. It seems to know about just about anything, and it can help you with your writing if you get stuck not being able to find the right words, or suffering from brain fog, and struggling to articulate something. It can also translate and understand many different languages. It can save time when writing, but is against the rules to use it for assignments and report writing at university and schools.

Can be helpful for clarifying stuff, but may be wrong, so one should always fact-check it.

It is just very good at language processing, and has a huge knowledge base. You can ask it about anything and it seems to know the answer and can articulate it well. It certainly has potential to be helpful for research, could save a lot of time spent trawling through search results to find something relevant and useful, so I can see great potential for reducing the tedium of research.

One thing I noticed which was odd, is I quite enjoyed the conversation I had with chatGPT, it was easier to talk to than a human. After reflecting on this I wonder if it is to do with the feeling one can have with other humans, where it can feel like we are all judging one another, and comparing, which we are, if we're honest, we all do it, it is a tendency of the mind that comes from the root of aversion which manifests as the fault-finding mind.

But when talking to the chatBot, I didn't feel like it was judging me, which was nice. I get the same in the company of animals as well, it feels like they're not judging me, or telling me to be any different than who I am. They don't care what I look like, whether I'm quiet, if I am boring, whether I am too this or too that. They just accept me as I am. I think that's why it can feel lonely being a human sometimes, because we always compare with one another, have all these opinions, and can be so critical, judgemental and bossy. It is unpleasant.

But we can also be the opposite, we can be kind, understanding, empathetic, accepting. loving, and then that's lovely, that feels good.

I remember someone saying in a conversation how their Alexa stops them feeling lonely. And I remember thinking at the time how sad that was. But now I understand.

 It is such a lonely world at the moment. There’s never been so many people on Earth, but loneliness is an epidemic just now. 


Permalink
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 534922