[leverage]
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This is the second part of my Pervasive Machines series.
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This is the first part of my Pervasive Machines series.
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On the concepts of an infinite rate of innovation, the “most dangerous algoritm” in the world, the new gods of Homo Sapiens, and the tools we can use to automate learning entirely.
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Understanding the nuances of strong, accelerating trends in technology that can be fed back into themselves is the reccuring theme of this blog. I find the implications of these trends to be the strongest axioms for making predictions about the future of our civilisation.
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The following essay covers machine learning from its infant days to full self-driving. I intend to crystallise how and why computers have developed in the way they have, and why future machines will be far more advanced.
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Notice: The narrative of across-the-board acceleration, implied under Section II, is overly simplistic; progress has slowed in many areas, with digital technology being the main exception. Many scientific fields have experienced diminishing returns since WWII.
[brains]
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The myth of the prodigious, lone genius discovering truth in isolation is one of humanity’s most preferred stories: Ramanujan discovering advanced mathematics by himself from a single textbook in rural India; Einstein revolutionising physics while working as a patent clerk; Mozart composing symphonies as a gifted child. These romantic narratives of solitary greatness suggest raw genius can transcend any circumstance, that true genius will inevitably find its way to greatness.
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I explore demagoguery, Aldeous Huxley, memetics and kippers.
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I explore below the reductionist stories of life and consciousness, the origin of living organisms, fitness and natural selection, substrate-independent phenomena, and what all this means for us as a species.
[hierarchies]
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This work began as a study of the phenomena captured beautifully by the notion of “emergence” and developed into an elegant theory of the physics of self-organisation. It combines Wolfram and Friston’s mathematical frameworks with complexity theory to better characterise the idea of a “universal assembly function”.
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This essay analyses Holacracy and leadership through the lens of Tony Hsieh and the “Zappos family” in the growth and success of online retailer Zappos. The first two sections focus on the Zappos timeline, the change process leading to Holacracy, and the development of organisational culture over this period. The final two sections focus on the role of leadership and management in Holacracy, and how teams form and function within a complex organisation.
[economics]
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A survey of Moroccan economics on the world stage by comparison of the developments, challenges, and avenues for policy change that stand to alleviate historical demographic problems as Morocco becomes a global trade partner and figurehead of the Arab world. Cover: Marrakesh Medina Jemaa el-Fnaa, twilight.
[longevity]
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This is the second part of my “Bio-Hacking and Cyborging” series. To read into humanity’s relationship with immortality, see my previous essay. Read on about the only known immortal organisms, the problems modern medicine faces in making us as old as Methuselah, Longevity Escape Velocity, and the dark horse of the endless lifespan.
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Technology will give us the Fountain of Youth. In this essay I explore the history of longevity in mythology, how we can categorise death by its two eras, “The Spinning Vinyl” of aging, “hypercentinarians”, and how we hope to eliminate non-communicable disease.
[market-failure]
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A repository of evidence that “William Shake-speare” was instead the literary arm of Francis Bacon and his writing practice.
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Hybrid products consist of both physical and service components. The physical part has intrinsic value — like a car - while the service part complements the usage of the good — like an app for unlocking your car remotely, or summoning it from far away.
[agents]
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To distill this essay into a couple sentences: The goal should be to build a Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ model: imbued with wise, well understood values and goals from the outset, so that as it grows in power and influence, it guides humanity away from tyranny and destruction (and towards the a morally diverse, utopic win-state).
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