> So even though a robot might never replicate the full sensory richness or > biochemical subtlety of the human body, it may not need to....Think of > calculators: they’re completely clueless about context, but they’ll beat any > of us in a mental arithmetic race, every time. even a well-handled abacus or slip-stick can do this of course, but yes
Special case contra-examples. When I was consulting in India, several of the software developers were proponents of "Vedic Math" procedures derived from Vedic Scripture. Demonstrated ability to add columns of 10+digit numbers spoken to them. Correct results much faster than if you had to manually enter them into a calculator. And Gauss "added the numbers from 1-100) in far less time than it would have required to enter them into calculator and press the + key. davew On Sat, Jun 21, 2025, at 4:17 PM, steve smith wrote: > Pieter wrote: >> Just one thought to toss into the mix: humans didn’t evolve to do >> astrophysics, drive Ferraris, or detect sarcasm on Twitter.... > The human *genome* did not evolve *specifically* to do all these things, > however at some point, our facility for symbolic language and abstraction > *did* evolve to support and enhance those more fundamental needs. It is on > top of that symbolic abstraction where *culture* began to evolve and this is > where our ability to do astrophysics/ferraris/sarcasm emerges. And it might > be apt to notice that AI is much closer to driving ferraris, doing > astrophysics and detecting (or generating) sarcasm that it is at being an > effective hunter-gatherer on the tundra/savanna/jungle/boreal-forest. >> Now, if we set out to design a robot to function in today’s environments — >> say, hospitals, homes, or corporate boardrooms — we’re working with a very >> different set of goals. ... > If our goal is to replace *one more* set of skills or abilities, then it is > correct that we don't "need all that". It does seem that a hallmark of > modern human activity (neolithic forward?) has been to replace ourselves, one > feature at a time. Lithics to replace (enhance) our teeth/claws, cooking to > replace (enhance) our digestive abilities, animal husbandry to > replace/enhance our brute-labor and translate low-grade photosynthesis to > human-digestables (turning grass and leaves into milk, meat, eggs, blood). > Wheels and levers and sails and hulls and millstones and kilns and forges and > hammers and anvils and looms and ... and rocket-ships and a > dyson-sphere-of-computronium all represent a scaffolding of escalating > replacements for the things we did with our own biochemistry (from hair and > nails to lymphocytes and neurons)... >> So even though a robot might never replicate the full sensory richness or >> biochemical subtlety of the human body, it may not need to....Think of >> calculators: they’re completely clueless about context, but they’ll beat any >> of us in a mental arithmetic race, every time. > even a well-handled abacus or slip-stick can do this of course, but yes >> I wouldn’t bet on a human-equivalent robot appearing next year — but ten >> years? Maybe. Especially if we stop trying to replicate every biological >> quirk and instead design for function. And when I say “function,” I mean not >> just doing what a human can do, but doing what the job needs — which is >> often a very different thing. > The point, I would claim is that we aspire (with AI, starting with Golems and > Frankenstein's monster and enlightenment age humanoid mechanicals) to replace > our "generalist" abilities. Many domestic animals have been > adopted/bred/trained to be "generalists" around a large portion of our needs, > whether it be converting simple carbs into high grade fats/proteins for us, > or hauling burdens, or even (think elephants) delicately manipulating things > way to heavy for us. Some even have diverged from direct, immediate > response to our needs to more abstract needs we have (e.g. show animals > whose functional abilities might never be exercised outside of the > training/show-rooms). >> Take Demis Hassabis’ current project: trying to simulate a single biological >> cell to improve drug discovery. Sounds simple — it’s just one cell — but >> it’s turning out to be a mammoth challenge. Meanwhile, a useful robot >> doesn’t need even one biological cell. It just needs actuators, sensors, and >> some reasonably clever code. This illustrates a broader point: biological >> systems are complex because evolution took the long road. Engineering can >> often take a shortcut. > And while I am very much a fan of engineering, I do believe Evolution to be > more than "less efficient Engineering". AI/ML has been an effort in > *reverse-engineering* our greatest cognitive abilities, up until the recent > generations of "model-less modeling" that in fact seems to be to try to > reverse-engineer evolution (exemplified by genetic algorithms and neural nets > and ???) > >> >> So yes, the human body is a marvel — a product of billions of years of trial >> and error. But that doesn’t mean it’s the most efficient solution for every >> task. It’s just the one that happened to work well enough to keep our >> ancestors from being eaten. >> >> After all, birds fly beautifully. But when we wanted to fly, we didn’t grow >> feathers. We built jets. > In a certain sense yes, but not particularly in virtually every other sense? > I have had lucid dreams about flying since I was very young, spanning many > forms from sailing/soaring to flapping, to pumping my arms as with a > hydraulic jack to telekineticing, swinging from vines or spider-man-shot > webs, and more recently to following stellar/planetary geodesics with my > intention, spreading my electromagnetic pinfeathers in the > solar/wind/magnetic fields of the sun/planets/moons/belts/rings/clouds. But > no jets... or any mechanical contrivance really... even icarus/daedelus > wings-o-wax... > > <aviation tangent> > >> While I have flown a (vintage) light plane, even through minor aerobatics, >> and ridden hundreds? of thousands of miles in commercial jets, none of it >> really matches the experiences I *aspire*/*imaginate* to have in those >> dreams... I can't (until DaveW or maybe Glen turns me on to the right >> entheogen) project my spirit into the Ravens frolicing on the canyon edge or >> the bats echolocating their way through a flux of airborne foodstuffs. >> >> But yes, Jets, hypersonics, space rockets, interplanetary bussard ramjets, >> ultra-lights, gyrocopters, etc. They are marvels and each in their own way >> more "capable" than any given bird/species and there are probably unpiloted >> winged vehicles which will rival the Wandering Albatross reputed to spend >> 95% of their time in the air and expending order 2x their basal metabolic >> rate. See Gossamer Condor/Albatross/Penguin and note that Aerodynamic >> Engineer on the first two projects, Peter LIssaman hung at SFx with us for a >> while? >> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human-powered_aircraft >>> >> How soon will we have a Lissaman/MacReady equivalent AI (throw in >> pedal-pusher Bryan Allen for good measure)? Or leonardo DaV or Archimedes, >> or... ? Can they exist/arise/emerge without the larger culture that >> spawned them? Maybe we can identify to an AI their achievements and >> reverse engineer their solutions, but can we frame the context that lead >> them to pursue those challenges. >> >> I *suspect* that if given the opportunity/motivation that suites of AI/ML >> agents might well develop minimalist human-scaled prosthetics so that I (my >> grandchildren) can literally have those experiences direct. Some >> proprioception/motion-platform/haptics added to visual/auditory synthetic >> sensoria and even I might be soaring virtually over the surface of mars or >> through the braided rings of Saturn as-in-my dreams? >> > </tangent> > > And in the immortal *Tears in Rain* words of Roy Batty: > >> **"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.* >> Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. >> I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.* >> >> **All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.** >> >> **Time to die."** >> > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > *Attachments:* > • OpenPGP_0xD5BAF94F88AFFA63.asc > • OpenPGP_signature.asc
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