5 ms·

If only folks at Google’s Bayview Campus could learn to not piss all over the single occupancy bathroom’s toilet seats..

by leoh 2y ago

0_____0 2y ago
Bit of a tangent but occasionally I wonder how close we are to people disappearing into cyberspace for 10 hours at a time and thus using a Texas catheter à la Neuromancer. It seems like there are a notable minority of tech people who regard meat and meat space as an annoyance to be dealt with. How many of you would be happy at this moment to upload yourself to the cloud if it meant low latency, unmitigated access to computers, the internet, LLMs etc?
- kadushka 2y ago
  upload yourself You mean “upload a copy of yourself”, right? I guess I would be happy for my uploaded copy to live forever while I continue to age.
  - thfuran 2y ago
    Perhaps that depends on your position on the you of Theseus.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    From the perspective of each consciousness, the other is the copy...
  - 542354234235 2y ago
    It depends on how you were uploaded. If they scanned your brain and recreated it, that would be a copy. But what if they scanned your brain once a week and each week, replaced a billion neurons with cloud-based ones? There would never be a time where there were two “yous” and whatever personality changes that came from having faster and more accurate digital neurons would be spread out over several years, much like children growing into adults.
    - kadushka 2y ago
      Let's explore the concept of "cloud based ones" neurons. Let's say your brain has just three neurons, connected with each other. You remove one of them, and connect the two remaining one an external terminal - a physical device capable of transmitting electrical currents, being controlled by some complicated software "in the cloud". That physical device becomes the third neuron. Instead of one terminal, it could be two different devices, together playing the role of the original third neuron for each of the two other original neurons. For simplicity, let's assume there's just one terminal, serving both remaining original neurons, just like the third original neuron did. From the point of view of the two remaining biological neurons, nothing has changed. But from the point of view of the third neuron - the replaced one - the system did change. Now it is connected to three other terminals: two original one, and one other physical terminal "in the cloud". That other terminal in the cloud is part of the software, so it is connected to potentially billions of other terminals (e.g. transistors). And all of them are now involved in playing the role of the original third neuron that we replaced. So we effectively replaced a system of three interconnected neurons with a system of billions of interconnected neurons. This can have a profound effect on the "consciousness" of the original brain (in quotes because I don't consciousness is possible with just three neurons). Can you poke holes in the reasoning above?
      - 542354234235 2y ago
        >Can you poke holes in the reasoning above? I don’t see why I would. It would change you and I said that in my original comment. But it would change you slowly over time on the order of years, much like how children change dramatically from say 7 to 17. They are still the same person even though their mental capacity and personality of grown and evolved significantly. I should have said a billion neurons a month, instead of a week though, since weekly would be replacement in less than two years but monthly would be over 8 years. >So we effectively replaced a system of three interconnected neurons with a system of billions of interconnected neurons If I had any quibble, it would be this statement. I while I would say it replaces a system of 3 parts with one with billions, I wouldn’t say it is effectively billions of neurons. In the same way I would say that emulating a mechanical watch in software would have much more transistors per watch part emulated, I wouldn’t say there were effectively billions of second hands.
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
Not sure if that's the cause of the problem here, but this is why having urinals is a good idea and even legally required in some countries. I couldn't care less about whether the sit-down toilets are mixed or separated by gender, but replacing most/all urinals with gender-neutral sit-down toilets yields results that suck for everyone involved.

If only folks at Google’s Bayview Campus could learn to not piss all over the single occupancy bathroom’s toilet seats..

by leoh 2y ago

If only folks at Google’s Bayview Campus could learn to not piss all over the single occupancy bathroom’s toilet seats..

0_____0 2y ago

Bit of a tangent but occasionally I wonder how close we are to people disappearing into cyberspace for 10 hours at a time and thus using a Texas catheter à la Neuromancer. It seems like there are a notable minority of tech people who regard meat and meat space as an annoyance to be dealt with. How many of you would be happy at this moment to upload yourself to the cloud if it meant low latency, unmitigated access to computers, the internet, LLMs etc?

kadushka 2y ago
upload yourself You mean “upload a copy of yourself”, right? I guess I would be happy for my uploaded copy to live forever while I continue to age.
- thfuran 2y ago
  Perhaps that depends on your position on the you of Theseus.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  From the perspective of each consciousness, the other is the copy...
- 542354234235 2y ago
  It depends on how you were uploaded. If they scanned your brain and recreated it, that would be a copy. But what if they scanned your brain once a week and each week, replaced a billion neurons with cloud-based ones? There would never be a time where there were two “yous” and whatever personality changes that came from having faster and more accurate digital neurons would be spread out over several years, much like children growing into adults.
  - kadushka 2y ago
    Let's explore the concept of "cloud based ones" neurons. Let's say your brain has just three neurons, connected with each other. You remove one of them, and connect the two remaining one an external terminal - a physical device capable of transmitting electrical currents, being controlled by some complicated software "in the cloud". That physical device becomes the third neuron. Instead of one terminal, it could be two different devices, together playing the role of the original third neuron for each of the two other original neurons. For simplicity, let's assume there's just one terminal, serving both remaining original neurons, just like the third original neuron did. From the point of view of the two remaining biological neurons, nothing has changed. But from the point of view of the third neuron - the replaced one - the system did change. Now it is connected to three other terminals: two original one, and one other physical terminal "in the cloud". That other terminal in the cloud is part of the software, so it is connected to potentially billions of other terminals (e.g. transistors). And all of them are now involved in playing the role of the original third neuron that we replaced. So we effectively replaced a system of three interconnected neurons with a system of billions of interconnected neurons. This can have a profound effect on the "consciousness" of the original brain (in quotes because I don't consciousness is possible with just three neurons). Can you poke holes in the reasoning above?
    - 542354234235 2y ago
      >Can you poke holes in the reasoning above? I don’t see why I would. It would change you and I said that in my original comment. But it would change you slowly over time on the order of years, much like how children change dramatically from say 7 to 17. They are still the same person even though their mental capacity and personality of grown and evolved significantly. I should have said a billion neurons a month, instead of a week though, since weekly would be replacement in less than two years but monthly would be over 8 years. >So we effectively replaced a system of three interconnected neurons with a system of billions of interconnected neurons If I had any quibble, it would be this statement. I while I would say it replaces a system of 3 parts with one with billions, I wouldn’t say it is effectively billions of neurons. In the same way I would say that emulating a mechanical watch in software would have much more transistors per watch part emulated, I wouldn’t say there were effectively billions of second hands.

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago

Not sure if that's the cause of the problem here, but this is why having urinals is a good idea and even legally required in some countries. I couldn't care less about whether the sit-down toilets are mixed or separated by gender, but replacing most/all urinals with gender-neutral sit-down toilets yields results that suck for everyone involved.