The Halting Problem

The world is a sea of energyAnd I, a current through which it flows.The world is a tree of knowledge And I, a branch through which it grows. I am not a thing which walks about the world on two legs.I am a song which sings itself. Everyday I write one page. I am not an […]

Rationalists are Neoalchemists

It isn’t too hard to imagine someone writing something like this, in the distant future: “The rationalists were often popularly lampooned for their concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Many of them did sincerely worry about this outcome. And yet modern scholars generally agree that the idea of a rapidly self-improving artificial intelligence was […]

Ego and Free will are Fictions, not Illusions

Would you like to be better at accomplishing your goals and getting what you want from life? Perhaps what you need is some good old fashioned corporate propaganda! Every big company uses a mythology to convince people to do their part and contribute to the operation of the company. When I worked at Facebook, the […]