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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style="">Marcus, interesting points. </div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style="">Alas, I suspect that <span style="background-color: inherit; font-size: x-large; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"> "ontology, epistemology, [and] genomics" can't yield the kind of "intelligence" you and I want about flying monkeys.</span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;"><br></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;">the late barbara ehrenreich said in discussing an introduction she wrote for one of my books that the first thing we do in studying a hummingbird's flight is kill the hummingbird. thus killing the very thing we want to understand.</font></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;"><br></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;">the living force of the hummingbird is one of those "group identities" i've been nattering on about. like a droplet or a cloud, it's an emergent identity. an immaterial property springing from material things. </font></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;"><br></font></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false" style=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><font size="5" style="background-color: inherit;">an immaterial property orchestrating those material things and being orchestrated by them. the way a wave passes over water and kidnaps, seduces, and recruits h2o molecules into serving its identity for a minute, then abandons them, while it travels 400 miles. still retaining its unique personality. a personality that is a nothing, a no-thing.</font></span></div><div style="font-size: 24px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 24px;" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span>with warmth and oomph--howard</span><br></div><div style="font-size: 24px;" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><br></span></div>
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On Monday, March 10, 2025 at 09:49:26 PM EDT, Marcus Abundis <55mrcs@gmail.com> wrote:
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<div><div id="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521"><div dir="ltr"><font size="4">Karl – </font><div><font size="4"><span class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">A</span>gain, thank you for your note.<br><br>Gordana – </font></div><div><font size="4"><span class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">Y</span>es, I can understand your surprise in that I have not explored ChatGPT. My foremost reason is that I am skeptical of statistical views of ‘intelligence’ – that is not how Nature works, instead requiring functional analysis. Also, in reviewing papers for ICLR 2025, I was offered a ‘trial’ ChatGPT bot for improving paper reviews. My impression was the ‘bot’ simply added a few flattering comments on my ‘good insights’, and then fed back my own views, with differently arranged but similar terms. It did inspire me to alter my review a bit to make it more ‘friendly/encouraging’ – but the essence was unchanged. Thus, I found it <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">somewhat </span>useful, but not radically so.<br><br>Also, I just now tried using ChatGPT’s writing: <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://siribot.cn__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!V1Nd33uMwIcvxeEhan-IFjU0VSqQXWz_zKPLGI3g7_2PdoJ9AfLfv5HC0Ie1Nw98pPtBuLKlY1foLTsr$" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">siribot.cn</a>, Academic Assistant Pro – I gave it my paper’s abstract to see what improvements it might offer. The result was disappointing and did not even reach the level of utility I saw for the bot I used for my ICLR review. It significantly obscured the abstract, <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">with </span>what might be considered a ‘traditional academic’ framing. Still, I will explore a bit more before abandoning ChatGPT wholly.<br><br>My overall impression of statistical models of intelligence is that they can present countless opportunities – say for example ‘flying monkeys’ – but no matter how many times a ‘bot’ presents/writes/draws a ‘flying monkey’ it will never produce a ‘flying monkey’. The bot cannot detail the ontology, epistemology, genomics, etc. of ‘flying monkeys’, such that we ever have <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">any </span>actual ‘intelligence’ about flying monkeys. <br><br>I believe such ‘statistical black-box bots’ merely extend Shannon’s ‘statistical surprise’, moving from entropically recombined <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"></span>d<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">iscrete</span> characters, onto recombined words, phrases, sentences, (growing in complexity), etc. until outputs <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">finally </span>resemble something looking like ‘intelligence’. The varied statistical (proprietary) filters one develops and <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"></span>u<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">ses</span> along this extended statistical chain is the only thing mak<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">ing</span> this possible<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">, but that is not *actual* intelligence.</span><br><br>Jason – on your thought experiment note. This problem of useful ‘thought experiments’ is the crux of the matter. For example, how does one from 200 years ago detail today’s experience of ‘modern air travel’ and all <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">that </span>it entails – <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"></span>a<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">kin to</span> Arthur C. Clark’s “sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic”? What you ask for goes beyond implied ‘simple tools’. Looking backward we easily see this (<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">innovation is </span>plainly evident), but looking forward is entirely different<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"> and defies simple description.</span><br><br>Karssimir – no, I was not suggesting collaboration, but suggesting your ‘definition’ could benefit from critical review here on FIS. My own interests long-ago moved onto deeper issues of intelligence (recent AI workshop submissions)<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">,</span> beyond what you <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"></span><span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">examine</span>. For example, Howard’s note on emergence points to just one missing aspect <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">one </span>need<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">s</span> to cover <span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default"></span>i<span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">n</span> a comprehensive definition of information.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">M</span><span style="font-size:large;" class="ydp1b362fdcyiv4030059521gmail_default">arcus</span></div>
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