Kind: captions
Language: en
what let me ask a romanticized question
what is the most beautiful - you silly
ape the most beautiful surprising idea
in the development of artificial
intelligence whether in your own life or
in the history of artificial
intelligence that you've come across if
you built an AI it probably can make
models at an arbitrary degree of detail
right of the world and then it would try
to understand its own nature it's
tempting to think that at some point
when we have general intelligence we
have competitions very evil that the AIS
wake up in different kinds of physical
universes and we measure how many
movements of the rubik's cube it takes
until it's figured out what's going on
in its universe and what it is and its
own nature in its own physics and so on
right so what if we exists in the memory
of an AI that is trying to understand
its own nature and remembers its own
genesis and remembers lex and Yasha
sitting in hotel sparking some of the
ideas of that led to the development of
general each other to wear a kind of
simulation that's running in an AI
system is trying to understand itself
it's not that I believe that but I think
it's a beautiful I mean you kind of
return to this idea with the Turing test
of intelligence being of intelligence
being the process of asking and
answering what is intelligence I mean
what why do you think there's there is
an answer what why is there such a
search for an answer what so does there
have to be and I can I can answer you
just had an AI system that's trying to
understand the why of what you know
understand itself is that a fundamental
process of greater and greater
complexity greater greater intelligence
is the continuous trying of
understanding itself no I think you will
find that most people don't care about
that because they're well-adjusted
enough to not care and the reason why
people like you and me occur about it
probably has to do with the need to
understand ourselves it's because we are
in fundamental disagreement is the
universe that we make happen
was that looks yummy and I see oh my god
I'm caught in a monkey what's that sorry
feeling right it's just the government
and I'm unhappy with the entire universe
and I find myself in so you don't think
that's a fundamental aspect of human
nature that some people are just
suppressing that they're they wake up
shocked they're there in the body of a
monkey no there's clear adaptive value
to not be confused by that and by well
no no that's our air so so you have to
clear adaptive value then there's clear
adaptive value to while fundamentally
your brain is confused by that by
creating an illusion another layer of
the narrative that says you know that
tries to suppress that and instead say
that you know what's going on with the
government right now is the most
important thing what's going on with my
football team is the most important
thing but it seems to me the like I
would like for me it was a really
interesting moment reading Ernest
Becker's
denial of death the you know there's
this kind of idea that we're all you
know the fundamental thing from which
most of our human mind Springs is this
fear of mortality being cognizant of
mortality and the fear of that mortality
and then you construct illusions on top
of that I guess I'm you being just to
push on it you you really don't think
it's possible that this worry of the big
existential questions is actually
fundamental as of as the existentialist
thought to our existence I think that
the fear of death only plays a role as
long as you don't see the big picture
the thing is that minds are soft first
dates right software doesn't have
identity software in some sense is a
physical law but if yeah right so but it
feels like there's an identity I thought
that was the for this particular piece
of software and the narrative it tells
that's a fundamental property of
assigning it maintenance of the identity
is not terminal its instrumental to
something else you maintain your
identity so you can serve you mean
so you can do the things that you're
supposed to do before your bad died and
I suspect that for most people the fear
of death is the fear of dying before
they are done with the things that they
feel they have to do even though they
cannot quite put their finger on it but
it is what that is right but in the
software world okay they return to the
question then what happens after we die
because what you care you will not be
longer there the point of trying is that
you're gone or maybe I'm not this is
what you know it it seems like there's
so much any idea that this is just the
mind is just the simulation is
constructing a narrative around some
particular aspects of the quantum
mechanical wave function world that we
can't quite get direct access to then
like the idea of mortality seems to be a
little fuzzy as well it doesn't maybe
there's not a clear and the fuzzy idea
is the one of continuous existence we
don't have continuous existence how do
you know that like that it's not
computable because you're saying it's
good it's no process the only thing that
binds you together with the leg Sweetman
from yesterday is the illusion that you
have memories about him so if you want
to upload it's very easy you make a
machine that thinks it's you because
this is the same thing that you are you
are a machine that thinks it's you but
that's that's more and that's the
immortality yeah but it's just a belief
you can create this body very easily
once you realize that the question
whether you are immortal or not depends
entirely on your beliefs and your own
continuity but then it then then you can
be immortal by the continuity of the
belief
you cannot be immortal but you can stop
being afraid of your mortality because
you realize you were never could never
continuously existing in the first place
well I don't know if I'd be more
terrified or less terrified with that it
seems like the fact that I existed also
you don't know this state in which you
don't have itself you can turn off
yourself you know I can't turn you can
turn it off you can turn it off I can
yes and you can basically meditate
yourself in a state where you are still
conscious there's still things are
happening
you know everything that you knew before
but you no longer identified was
changing anything and this means that
yourself and rate dissolves there is no
longer this person you know that this
person construct exists in other states
and it runs on this brain of Lex
Friedman but it's it's not a real thing
it's a construct it's an idea and you
can change that idea and if you let go
of this idea if you don't think that you
are special
you realize it's just one of many people
and it's not your favorite person even
right it's just one of many and it's the
one that you are doomed to control for
the most part and that is basically
informing the actions of this organism
yeah as a control model and this is all
there is and you are somehow afraid that
this control model gets interrupted or
loses the identity of continuity yeah so
I'm attached I mean yeah there is a very
popular it's the somehow compelling
notion that being being attached like
there's no need to be attached to this
idea of an identity but that in itself
could be a an illusion that you
construct so the process of meditation
while popular is thought of as getting
under the concept of identity it could
be just putting a cloak over it just
telling it to be quiet for the moment
you know it I think that meditations
eventually just a bunch of techniques
that let you control attention and when
you can control the attention you can
get access to your own source code
hopefully not before you understand what
you're doing and then you can change the
way it works temporarily or permanently
so yeah meditation says we can get a
glimpse at the source code get under and
it's basically a patrol or that you've
learned to control attention so yeah
everything else is downstream from
controlling attention and control the
attention that's looking at the
attention not only the only get
attention in the parts of our mind that
create heat where you have a mismatch
between model and the results that are
happening and so most people are not
self-aware because their control is too
good if everything works out roughly the
way you want and the only things that
don't work out is whether your football
team vents then you will mostly have
models about these domain
and it's only when for instance your
fundamental relationships to the world
around you don't work because the
ideology of your country is insane and
the other kids are not nerds and don't
understand why you understand physics
and you don't why you want to understand
physics and you don't understand why
somebody would not want to understand
physics
you