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I'm sorry, Dan. I'm afraid I can't do that. But seriously, I think he's just imagining something like a butler, who anticipates your information needs, or at l

by 10ren 16y ago

I'm sorry, Dan. I'm afraid I can't do that. But seriously, I think he's just imagining something like a butler, who anticipates your information needs, or at least your context and where you're coming from. It's a kind of AI, as he says, moving toward do what I mean. Unfortunately, these Frankensteinian quests have always ended up closer to Office Assistant Clippy, in practice. Historically, mental amplification has been a more fruitful approach, where the user remains in control.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I read somewhere a professor was saying that when you retweet, or vote up articles, or any other of a dozen activities in which you're simply reacting mechanically that you are no longer an individual but part of a hive mind. Sounded a little extreme, but I get his gist. Years ago I worked on a warehousing system. Used to be that folks would get a list of stuff to pick, then go get that stuff, then get a new list. This became more and more automated. Soon the computer was talking to workers over wireless headsets, giving them step by step directions of where to go and what to do. I imagine the next step, after "where do I go and what do I do?" will be people writing articles about how much more happy they are now that they have a clear purpose in life. How the system actually knows better at what makes them happy than they do themselves. I liked the super-brain, immortal demigods sci-fi future much more than I do the borg one we're actually getting. Hey kid! Get off my lawn! :)
- 10ren 16y ago
  I think I see what he means, but upvoting etc isn't necessarily mechanical. The mechanical conformity he's talking about sounds like social conformity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments That warehousing system sounds like GPS car navigation systems - but this is still amplification (so far), and I doubt it can or will be extended. I saw a reddit post about how army life can be very appealing, because of the "clear purpose in life": the matter at hand is urgent, so you don't worry about any other problems in your life, and the bigger picture is taken care of by the higher-ups. aside: I think the ideal life, as organized by a super-brain/demigod (or, from a different point of view, what heaven would be like), would be still have ups an downs (as in the earlier matrixes/ices, people rejecting utopia), but these ups and downs would be more clearly meaningful to the person, like a composed heroic journey, without the meaningless clutter. For people who had grown more, it would include the meaningless clutter, so that part of the "ups and downs" would be to discern the meaning. ie. living in heaven would be indistinguishable from on earth.
  - 10ren 16y ago
    Here's that reddit post: Great post explaining a soldier's mindset, written for redditors http://www.reddit.com/tb/d19pt http://www.reddit.com/tb/d19pt

by 10ren 16y ago

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I read somewhere a professor was saying that when you retweet, or vote up articles, or any other of a dozen activities in which you're simply reacting mechanically that you are no longer an individual but part of a hive mind. Sounded a little extreme, but I get his gist. Years ago I worked on a warehousing system. Used to be that folks would get a list of stuff to pick, then go get that stuff, then get a new list. This became more and more automated. Soon the computer was talking to workers over wireless headsets, giving them step by step directions of where to go and what to do. I imagine the next step, after "where do I go and what do I do?" will be people writing articles about how much more happy they are now that they have a clear purpose in life. How the system actually knows better at what makes them happy than they do themselves. I liked the super-brain, immortal demigods sci-fi future much more than I do the borg one we're actually getting. Hey kid! Get off my lawn! :)

10ren 16y ago
I think I see what he means, but upvoting etc isn't necessarily mechanical. The mechanical conformity he's talking about sounds like social conformity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments That warehousing system sounds like GPS car navigation systems - but this is still amplification (so far), and I doubt it can or will be extended. I saw a reddit post about how army life can be very appealing, because of the "clear purpose in life": the matter at hand is urgent, so you don't worry about any other problems in your life, and the bigger picture is taken care of by the higher-ups. aside: I think the ideal life, as organized by a super-brain/demigod (or, from a different point of view, what heaven would be like), would be still have ups an downs (as in the earlier matrixes/ices, people rejecting utopia), but these ups and downs would be more clearly meaningful to the person, like a composed heroic journey, without the meaningless clutter. For people who had grown more, it would include the meaningless clutter, so that part of the "ups and downs" would be to discern the meaning. ie. living in heaven would be indistinguishable from on earth.
- 10ren 16y ago
  Here's that reddit post: Great post explaining a soldier's mindset, written for redditors http://www.reddit.com/tb/d19pt http://www.reddit.com/tb/d19pt