Mind Matters

Here are some of Ada Lovelace's notes on Menebrea's paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-lovelace-notes.html

> Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine . . . Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

Some AI generated music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA03iyI3yEA

> It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exaggerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Analytical Engine. In considering any new subject, there is frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be already interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort of natural reaction, to undervalue the true state of the case, when we do discover that our notions have surpassed those that were really tenable. The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or…

> Mathematician Gregory Chaitin deeply admires Kurt Gödel’s work, viewing the incompleteness theorems as monumental. However, rather than relying on the liar’s paradox like Gödel, Chaitin reframed incompleteness through information theory and computer size (using the Berry paradox). He argues that Gödel’s proof makes incompleteness look like a rare, pathological exception, whereas his own information-theoretic approach shows it is natural, universal, and everywhere in math.

Google AI. Trust me bros, he said something along those lines. Understanding Godel's proof is terribly challenging even for teenage Chaitin.

Found this lovely anecdote

>Robert J. Marks: So you cold called him then. [...]

>Gregory Chaitin: So he said, “Okay, send me a paper of yours on this topic. I’ll take a look at it. And if like it, maybe I’ll give you an appointment to visit.” [...] So he had taken a look at it and immediately perceived a crucial aspect of the definition of complexity that I was proposing. And he gave me an appointment. [...]

>Gregory Chaitin: I was all set for the great day — and it snowed! And this was the week before Easter. So that’s unusual, a spring snowstorm but it wasn’t a big snowstorm. Nothing was going to stop me from visiting my hero. So there I am in my office at the IBM Watson Center, about to leave. I figured out how much time I needed. About to leave and unfortunately — very unfortunately — the phone rang. It was Gödel ’s secretary saying Gödel is very careful…

The upside is now I can finally buy that hummer I have been eyeing. Gas prices at historic lows, it wil be even more of a bargain!

Incredible word-salad here:

"“Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the ‘reaction time’ needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the ‘intervention time’ left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse,” said Steffen."

Momentum in human systems? Reaction time? Trajectory of collapse? This is what gives science a bad name. Scientists were against masks because of "lack of evidence". Result: 10s of thousands are dead who could have survived. No consequences for said scientists who simply forgot that absence of evidence is not evidence of absences. Now other scientists want to flip lack of evidence on its head and spin up grotesque scenarios that require wholesale planetary changes, sacrifices, death and economic destruction not to mention inter-governmental coordination. Scientism at its finest.

Climate change when it happens and devastates us will owe more to this activist catastrophic doom-mongering and condescension than human apathy or inaction. If climate scientists really care about the environment, they need to come down from their high horse and talk to people respectfully as scientists…

So the same mentality as startups then, like Uber's CEO "Innovators Shouldn't Have To Ask For Permission Or Forgiveness"[1] or Facebook's original motto for developers being "Move fast and break things"[2].

Also here's a list of 11 startup entrepreneurs who "broke all the rules and achieved great success" according to this article[3]. Also found several people claiming that "Disrupters don't play by the rules"[4][5][6], and startups love to consider themselves "Disruptors for X technology"[7] to the point of parody in the HBO's Silicon Valley tv show, and even an entire startup convention named after it (TechCrunch Disrupt)[8].

Unfortunately, I think it will be tough to pin down anyone claiming anything is their "libertarian playground" (including the techbros that you're pretending are saying that), so I have to leave that one untouched.

Also, if getting hacked is all that's needed in order to get the mockery and derision of HN, then you pretty much all should be mocking yourselves, since the past few years have shown that there's almost no company of any decent size that doesn't eventually get hacked, and there's a good chance you're working for a company that has been hacked or will in the next five years.

In the last few years I alone have gotten notifications of having possible leaked data from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Netflix, Target, Michael's, Equifax, and probably at least a dozen more companies, and I'm sure probably at least a dozen more on top of that…

Let's not again confuse natural intelligence with artificial intelligence. You do not have artificial consciousness, you have genuine consciousness. Further, the brain is not a machine. To explain why, I'm just going to quote this excellent piece from mindmatters:

A machine is an artifact. It is a human-built assembly of materials that have no natural inclination to work in unison. Silicon and copper, plastic and glass have no natural propensity to compute. We make artifacts, for example computers, out of these materials to serve our purposes. But they are not the materials’ natural purposes.

In the classical hylemorphic (Aristotelian) perspective, an artifact is an artificial composite of substances and thus it has an accidental, not substantial, form. Machines work as they do “accidentally”; that is, their function as machines is not inherent to the matter that comprises them. Rather their function is imposed on the disparate parts by human intelligence.

Unlike a machine, the brain is an organ, a functional part of a living organism. It (along with the body) has a substantial form; its activity is natural to it. One might say that the brain's activity is intrinsic to it, not imposed on it extrinsically, as is the activity of a machine.[1]

[1] https://mindmatters.ai/2018/10/yes-your-brain-is-a-machine-if-you-choose-to-see-it-that-way/

Nortel was the main reason this all happened.
They were the ones that were doing all the cutting
edge wireless network research and when they
collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the
best in the wake of said collapse.

Err ... not sure if you're aware, but it's common knowledge that Nortel's sensitive IP was hacked by the Chinese.

In fact it went on over almost a full decade, from the late 1990's to 2009 when it was brought widely to light. [1]

Say what you will about Chinese companies but
damn some of them execute well.

Well, I mean, especially the ones benefiting from nation-state level corporate espionage.

Of course empires stealing tech from each other has happened many times historically; we don't have to all act shocked that it can happen.

But neither is it irrelevant that it did, in fact, happen, and specifically in the case that you mention of Nortel and Huawei.

It's definitely not just a simple case of "generous credit", though the wider point about Western governments not supporting their core digital infrastructure companies in strategic ways during those years is certainly correct.

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[1] https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-look-oddly-familiar/ -- well-sourced article referencing much of the earlier reporting on the matter