When I read Robert Coram’s Boyd [wc] I was fascinated. Here was a fellow who appears to have been two things: 1- a strategic genius and 2- a really fast thinker. Coram (and others, including Chuck Spinney) have long held Boyd forward as a innovator who re-invented the art of war, but I respectfully must disagree.
Doubtless, large swathes of this story are covered by blankets of classification; it’s one of the governments’ best tools for hiding incompetence. Because – not to mince words – the only way this thing could have happened is massive incompetence.
I’m kind of a nexus of weird among a largeish circle of computer security people, photographers and artists, and bladesmiths. That means that when something comes along that is a bit off the beaten track, there’s a good chance it gets forwarded to me. This little gem hit my in-box yesterday afternoon and I’m still playing with it and scratching my head.
I’ll make a few comments about it and I’ll offer my opinion and some thoughts at the end, if you’re concerned about spoilers just read down to the divider. The comment section is open for spoilers, so fire away; I’d like to hear your thoughts on this stuff.
It took me a while to figure out what seems to have been going on. [wp]
This needs a cool name. There’s “The Singularity” – how about “The Feedback Loop” or perhaps “The Oroboros Loop”?
When does a lifeboat look like a Scotch Terrier? It would appear that, if you’re an AI, the difference is a few pixel-shifts, and that’s got interesting implications.
A friend of mine just had some open heart surgery (isn’t modern medicine amazing!?) and is recovering nicely. His wife is a great and brilliant artist with a fantastic memory, and she recalled a discussion we’d once had about Fentanyl…
We all love stories about AI supplanting humans. Or face-planting, while trying to outdo humans.
This appeals to my sense of the absurd. Instead of taking an AI and training it to turn photographs into converted images “in the style of” some training set, what if we plug the pipeline in backwards?
Just when you thought it was impossible for the world to hold more existential dread, researchers at MIT are experimenting with an AI that is learning to write scary stories.