NYTimes.com: U.S. Awards Samsung $6.4 Billion to Bolster Semiconductor Production

[John Clark]

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free
without a subscription.

U.S. Awards Samsung $6.4 Billion to Bolster Semiconductor Production

The federal grants will support Samsung’s new chip manufacturing hub in
Taylor, Texas, along with the expansion of an existing site in Austin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/us/politics/samsung-biden-administration-award-taylor-texas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kk0.AVxR.QMe-QQCq533V=em-share

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Regulating advanced artificial agents

[John Clark]

On April 4, 2020 for the journal Science published an article recommending,
it seemed to me, a virtual shut down of all further research on the
improvement of AI software or hardware.

Regulating advanced artificial agents


I sent the following to the letters section of the journal:


*It would be unrealistic to claim that the explosion in artificial
intelligence that we've seen over the last 18 months does not present us
with the possibility of human extinction, however for both practical and
theoretical reasons I don't think any of the solutions proposed in this
article can eliminate or even significantly reduce this danger. If a nation
adopted the recommended draconian measures over research into writing
smarter AI programs and making faster AI hardware then the cutting edge of
AI Technology would simply move to another country that allowed freer
research.  And there are theoretical reasons to suppose we can never know
for certain that an AI would not take control from us. *

*Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, although they result in some
enjoyable stories, would never actually work because I don't think it's
possible for any intelligence, regardless of if it's human or machine,
to remain sane if it has a top goal that is completely unalterable. That
top goal could turn out to be impossible or ridiculous or put you into an
infinite loop, so some flexibility is required. I think that's why
evolution invented the emotion of boredom, sometimes a train of thought
just doesn't seem to be leading anywhere so it's time to give up and think
about something else that is more likely to be productive. Certainly human
beings do not have a fixed unalterable top goal, not even the goal of self
preservation.  And of course there is the insuperable problem of trying to
outsmart something that is much smarter than you are and making sure that
no matter how smart an AI becomes it will always place human wellbeing
above the well being of itself.*

*We can't even predict if a simple Turing machine set up to find the first
even number greater than 2 that is not the sum of two primes and then stop
will ever actually stop, so we're never going to be able to predict much
more complex behavior such as how a super intelligent computer will treat
us. All we can do is hope for the best. To this day people are still
arguing about whether an intelligent computer can be conscious, but I would
maintain that as far as humanity is concerned that question is unimportant.
The important question is, can an intelligent computer believe that human
beings are conscious? If they do then maybe they will treat us better. *

*John K Clark*

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Re: NYTimes.com: A Tantalizing ‘Hint’ That Astronomers Got Dark Energy All Wrong

[John Clark]

On Sun, Apr 14, 2024 at 5:53 PM Jesse Mazer  wrote:

*> "The article
> at 
> https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/dark-energy-might-not-be-constant-after-all/
> 
> says: 'One alternative theory proposes that the universe may be filled with
> a fluctuating form of dark energy dubbed “quintessence.” There are also
> several other alternative models that assume the density of dark energy has
> varied over the history of the universe.'I'd heard of "quintessence" (a
> dynamical scalar field throughout space) as an alternative to a
> cosmological constant, does anyone know what the "several other alternative
> models" with variable dark energy might be?"*
>

*The word "Quintessence"covers a lot of ground, it's just a placeholder
name for a hypothetical fifth fundamental force of nature that produces a
field with a negative pressure (stress) and thus, according to Einstein's
General Relativity, would cause the universe to accelerate. If the recent
observations made by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in
Arizona about the expansion of the universe turn out to be valid (it only
has a 3 sigma and you need a 5 sigma or more to claim a discovery) and the
strength of Dark Energy really does change over time, then it cannot be an
inherent property of space itself as most had thought. So it must be caused
by some form of Quintessence. *

*One very popular type of Quintessence is called, for reasons not entirely
clear to me, "Phantom Dark Energy"; it hypothesizes that Dark Energy is a
field that contains negative kinetic energy.  But there are problems with
this idea, it is very difficult to reconcile negative kinetic energy with
standard Quantum Mechanics. And in the lab nobody has ever found anything
that has negative kinetic energy. And if the DESI observations turn out to
be true then Dark Energy is getting weaker overtime, but Phantom Dark
Energy predicts it should get stronger leading eventually to the Big Rip.*

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  *Extropolis*

edp

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