March 2011
3 posts
February 2011
8 posts
Intelligence, Consciousness, and Motivation
When we think about computers becoming more intelligent, it is natural to begin to ascribe to them human characteristics. Homo sapiens is the most intelligent machine we have experience of, and we are used to thinking of other machines as becoming more human as they become more intelligent.
Such thinking, however, has lead us to conflate a number of different characteristics that ought to be...
“Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all...”
– I. J. Good (1965)
“The risks in developing superintelligence include the risk of failure to give it...”
– Nick Bostrom
“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is short, simple and wrong.”
– H. L. Mencken
“I wonder why. I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder
I wonder why I wonder why
I...”
– Richard Feynman
“If you want to know what molecular nanotechnology is, look yourself in the...”
– Eric Drexler
October 2010
1 post
The Apple Acquisitions Book
There have been a lot of rumours recently about possible M&A targets for Apple. With more than $50B in cash reserves and $4B a quarter in post-tax profits they are certainly in a good position to make some strategic acquisitions, but who will they go after? If I were to open a book, I might offer the following odds:
Dropbox - 3/2
Spotify - 4/1
Facebook - 9/1
Netflix - 20/1
Twitter - 30/1
...
July 2009
3 posts
June 2009
1 post
May 2009
3 posts
“I felt like I was almost looking at a secret… that humans weren’t supposed...”
– STS-125 Astronaut Mike Massimino on seeing the Earth from orbit.
“My First Reaction Was to Look Away From It….It Was Too Beautiful” - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
April 2009
10 posts
“C’est l’Ennui! —l’œil chargé d’un pleur involontaire,/Il...”
– It’s Ennui! — his eye brimming with spontaneous tear/ He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah./ You know him, reader, this delicate monster,/ Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother!
On Baudelaire’s 188th birthday, an extract from the preface to Les Fleurs du mal.
March 2009
2 posts
February 2009
14 posts
“This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of...”
– John Maynard Keynes, “The Great Slump of 1930”
January 2009
10 posts
“HOSPITAL managers have called in an exorcist after shaken workers complained...”
– Words fail.
Surgical spirit - spooked managers call in exorcist to Derby’s new Royal Hospital | The Sun |News
