Reality = Manga?

Folks, first I want you to listen to this piece of japanese dialogue. → MangaticDemo

What do you think this is?

No, this isn't a record of a certain Yakuza comic (Anime) :)

Answer: It was recorded one week ago in Toyko incidentally and it is the playback of right-wing black cars trying to perform a demonstration but were blocked by the police in the middle of the road.

It really sounds like a manga, doesn't it?

Indeed, these guys may make well no distinction between Reality and the realm of mangas. 

Oh by the way, there may be no difference between Reality and Virtual Reality from the first place...

現実＝マンガ?

みなさん、まずはこれを聞いて下さい→ MangaticDemo

何だと思われますか？

いいえ、某ヤクザ漫画（アニメ）の放送録音ではありません；）

正解：本日、東京都内にて、たまたま「KUROI KURUMA」のデモにばったり会って、録音したものです。

マンガティックな発言とトーンでしょう。

彼達は現実とマンガを区別つけていない可能性は大だろうね。現実と仮想現実の違いはもしかしたらないし。

A.I.に専念するよりも、本来 人間がもつ能力を伸ばせばいいのでは？

進歩を促す・技術を進化させるには道のりは２つあります。

A.I. (人工知能）よりも、I.A.（Intelligence Amplification）はいかがですか？
Vernor Vinge氏が作ったことばで、かなり気に入ってる表現ですね。

詳細はこちらに：A.I.ならずI.A.を選べば「技術特異点」が起こらないはずです。

Intelligence Amplification (拡張知能)というのは生物学的知能を非生物学的知能と融合することです。

それらをコラボさせ、複合システムをつくるということです。

A.I.に専念するよりも、本来　人間がもつ能力を伸ばすだけでいいのでは？

ありでしょう。

Googleは計算機がどれくらい優れているか知り尽くしています。

それに対し、Appleは人間がどれくらい馬鹿なのか知り尽くしています。

中間はあるはずです。BunkerSofaのやつらはAscot Projectなどでその中心に位置づくつもりです。

A.I.ならずI.A.を選べば「技術特異点」が起こらないはずです。

E-mailでのやりとりの中でMichael Anissimov氏に勧められ、「技術特異点」理論の起点となった論文「 The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era (Vernor Vinge 1993)」を初めて読みました。
みなさんも読んで下さい。シンプルできっと納得いくと思う。
面白いのは、超人知能を果たすには、２つの方法があると述べている。
1) Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
人間の脳と完全に独立する、人間のような知能をもったマシーンをつくること。
2) Intelligence Amplified (I.A.)
脳とつなぐデバイスにより、知能を拡張する技術。

論文の中で、気に入ったクオートを引用しました。
- 技術による進化が自然による進化より早い理由について
"人間の脳は内部的に世界全体を再現できる能力をもっている。「こうすれば、こうなる。」といくらでも思考できる。よって、自然淘汰よりも何千倍速く問題解決できちゃう。"
- 人工知能について
"自意識をもった機械を作れるまでは、多分、ハードウェア的に人間の脳をはっきり上回る電子ハードウェアをまず作る必要があるでしょう。"
- 拡張知能について
"コンピューターネットワークや、ヒューマン・マシーンイターフェースなどは普通に日常生活に現れる技術なのに、もしかしたら技術特異点に導ける。より効率的に情報にアクセスしたとき、よりスムーズに他人と通信したとき、そういったときって、自分の知能を拡張したと同然なのではないでしょうか。"
"全く人工的に、コンピューターの中に知能を一生懸命に実装しようとするよりも、生物学的知能に　より一層任せて　複合体を作ればいいのでは。"

Vernor Vinge氏が問いかけているように、どっちの方がよいですかね。
個人的に、IAの方が起こり得ると思う。なぜなら、もう既に起こってるからです。

ノートパソコンにキーボードを打ってるときはパソコンとあなたがコラボしている。
iPhoneなどで、GPS位置を検索しているときはiPhoneとあなたがコラボしている。
Twitterでフォロワーに質問を投げ掛けるときもTwitterエンジンとあなたがコラボしている。
なので、現代人の知能は既に複合体で生物学的と非生物学的部分で成り立っている。
機械との融合は既に進行中。

従って、Vernor Vinge氏の論文が定義する技術特異点は起こらないと言えるわけです。
定義
"技術特異点とは現在使用・開発しているモデルが無効になる点です。"
要するに、例えば２０２８年における一般の人間がもつ知能や世界がもつ情勢が現代人にとって理解不能ということです。

言い換えると、「技術特異点」という概念は現代人にとってのみ意味をする。２０２８年の人間にとってはその概念は存在しないはずです。

Why being obsessed by AI when you can take advantage of humans' intuition?

Good evening,

There are other paths to the technological evolution and progress.

Instead of A.I. , why not I.A. , namely Intelligence Amplification?

I like this word a lot, coined by Vernor Vinge.

More details on: http://www.bunkersofism.com/2010/02/singularity-wont-happen-if-we-choose-ia.html

Intelligence Amplification is about merging biological intelligence and non-biological intelligence.

It's about making them collaborate into a system that is a composite of both.

Why being obsessed by AI when you can take advantage of humans' intuition?

Google knows how smart computers are.

Apple knows how dumb humans are.

There should be a middle. The guys at BunkerSofa seem to be into that with the Ascot Project.

The Singularity won't happen if we choose I.A. over A.I.

By direct recommendation from Michael Anissimov in an email conversation, I read for the first time the paper said to be the foundation of the Singularity movement: The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era by Vernor Vinge (1993).

Read it, it's really simple and compelling.

What's interesting is that there are 2 ways to achieve Super-Human Intelligence:

1) Artificial Intelligence (AI), namely Humans building an intelligent machine that is external to the brain and a priori independent.

2) Intelligence Amplified (IA), namely Technology that you connect to your brain to enhance any intellectual ability.

The quotes (taken out of context) I liked are:

- On why Technological Evolution is much faster than Natural Evolution.

"We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection."

- On AI

"But it's much more likely that devising the software will be a tricky process, involving lots of false starts and experimentation. If so, then the arrival of self-aware machines will not happen till after the development of hardware that is substantially more powerful than humans' natural equipment."

"Or as Eric Drexler put it of nanotechnology: Given all that such technology can do, perhaps governments would simply decide that they no longer need citizens!"

"Good [11] proposed a "Meta-Golden Rule", which might be paraphrased as "Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors."  It's a wonderful, paradoxical idea (and most of my friends don't believe it) since the game-theoretic payoff is so hard to articulate. Yet if we were able to follow it, in some sense that might say something about the plausibility of such kindness in this universe.)"

- On IA

"But as I noted at the beginning of this paper, there are other paths to superhumanity. Computer networks and human-computer interfaces seem more mundane than AI, and yet they could lead to the Singularity. I call this contrasting approach Intelligence Amplification (IA). IA is something that is proceeding very naturally, in most cases not even recognized by its developers for what it is. But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence."

"Instead of simply trying to model and understand biological life with computers, research could be directed toward the creation of composite systems that rely on biological life for guidance or for the providing features we don't understand well enough yet to implement in hardware."

So, as Vernor Vinge says, "Which is the valid viewpoint?".

I personally think that it's definitely IA that will happen for the very reason that.. we have been actually already choosing it!

When you type on your laptop, it's a collaboration between you and your laptop.

When you locate yourself with your iPhone, it's a collaboration between you and your iPhone.

When you ask a question to your followers on Twitter, it's a collaboration between you and Twitter engine.

So our Intelligence is already composite, composed of biological and non-biological parts. 
We are already in the process of merging with machines.

And that's why I think that it can be argued that The Singularity, as defined by the paper will not happen.

Definition:

"It is a point where our models must be discarded and a new reality rules."

"One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue." (Paraphrasing John von Neumann)

"I think Freeman Dyson has it right when he says [8]: "God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension."

So actually, the Singularity only means that the state of the world and the intelligence that the average subject will earn, say in 2028, is just beyond the understanding ability for an average human subject pertaining to our current times.
Simply put, the Singularity is just relative to our poor human brains, with their current capacity.
But of course, as seen for an average subject pertaining to 2028 (i.e. a super-human relatively to us, an evolved version of us), the notion of Singulariy doesn't exist. 

My 2010 Wish or How Can Computanomics Contribute To A Much Better Society

Yesterday, I went and saw at Toho Cinemas (Tokyo, Ginza) the latest movie from Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story .
It was of course completely cynical towards the U.S.A and presented Capitalism globally as a "sin", "evil", "contrary to Compassion" and even destructive for Society and Progress.
But independently of the expressed political tonality, it made an impression on me. 
In fact, it was a bit of a revelation. I realized somehow that economic problems that we are facing like Poverty, Wealth Distribution or even the last Financial Crisis could be solved by finding just the right conceptual paradigm to think about them. In other terms, just by the power of ideas.
And here we are, it triggered the writing of this post.
By the way, George Soros has been attempting to find new paradigms for years with his Theory of Reflexivity, which is charming but I think too complicated to be efficient.


My take on Capitalism after the screening of the movie is the following.
On the one hand, we got the proponents of Capitalism who see it as the only system that allows anyone to do what one has freely chosen to do for a living (and hence maximize one's utility).
And on the other hand, we got the critics who see it as a system allowing the ones who own already something to own even more on the basis on what they already own (and hence find potentially themselves exponentially richer and richer, to the contrary of the poor who find themselves exponentially poorer and poorer...)
I'd say both are right but lack a lot of precision and exactness in their view.


The proponents of Capitalism are clearly unconvinced that improving the condition of other Society members and caring for them, directly impacts and improves (and I believe, actually improves in an exponential fashion) their own wealth and conditions for the very reason that they fail to see that our Society is in fact a Computational Society ruled by the Law of Accelerating Returns. Their egoistic greed is arguably naive.
The critics of Capitalism are clearly unconvinced that it's fair that there should be a direct correlation between work/merit/social utility and wealth for the very reason that they fail to see that each man and woman represents no less, no more a proper and a certain amount of computation within the Computational Society. Their ideal that everybody is "equal" is fallacious and naive too.


You see the idea coming... 
My wish for 2010 is to construct a new paradigm to approach Economics, which I have let myself coin Computanomics, so that we might solve the issues raised by the movie.


The paradigm is based on the main axiom that the human brain is a computational device running software. Other propositions (that are assumptions at this stage, but hopefully will be proven later) state that Money is an approximation of Instruction and that our Society is a computational one, that is as per my definition "a hierarchized and organized network (i.e. Society) of computational devices (i.e. human beings, electronic devices, machines, cyborgs, animals, robots etc...) exchanging literally Information and Instructions."


Please help me in my endeavor! :)  by reading, spreading the word or contributing to www.computanomics.org , BunkerSofa's wiki and of course www.bunkersofism.com 

An epistemology of the sense of taste

[This post was translated by Pascal Hideki Hamonic from the Japanese original post "味覚の認識論" written by Michinori Fukushima]


The sense of taste is particularly a virtual sense. What the body feels like eating is perceived as delicious?

Strangely enough, oftentimes you would find yourself eating up a dish that you dislike, or find yourself eating repeatedly the same dish that you dislike. Sometimes, even if you think that a particular dish is good, you won't eat it twice.

"The sense of taste is something unique. First, your tongue will feel it as quite refreshing. Then, your tongue will deeply feel the light sweetness."

This quote from the famous manga "Oishinbo" illustrates one wonder of taste. (By the way, hotness and "mattari" are tactile perception, they are not exactly savors.)
Now, let's say that your tongue is paralyzed and you feel nothing. What would happen? Below is an excerpt from a report.

"Dysgeusia, the disorder of taste is very tough. Whatever you eat, you feel like chewing sand. It's as if someone was forcing you to eat rubber or clay. In some cases, you even vomit what you have just ingested. You may become hypersensitive to sweetness.
Healthy individuals are certainly unable to understand that situation."

The world is completely changed. Completely transformed.
Tastiness, light sweetness do not exist anymore. They become completely virtual, only entities produced by your brain.

From now own, I'd like to express my personal opinion. Transmitted from the sensory system of the tongue, the taste of something may be perceived as lightly sweet and therefore interpreted as good or it may be perceived as disgusting. But I think that those perceptions are based on a mechanism related to Evolution.
Originally, the five senses of taste were all informational inputs and in order to determine whether or not something was positive or favorable for the human body and brain, the question was not "Is it delicious?" but "Is it nutritious?". Also "Is it necessary for my brain?", "Is it poisonous?" were other such questions.

That means that even if that tastes terrible at the beginning, as long as it's nutritious, you will find it eventually very tasty. That's my point.
In other words, let's say that you wanna sell something that tastes terrible. Well, you just need to put on top of it nutritious elements and ultimately people will find it tasty and buy it.
That's possible. Why not?

To test the idea explained above, I tried and had some of Aojiru....It tasted terrible...orz

A virus remover for your body

This post was originally written in Japanese by Takako Endo and has been translated into English by Pascal Hideki Hamonic
The original post is: "ウイルス除去ソフトを体内に。"


[Don't you dream of a body that will never catch a cold?]
With such a virus remover, you'll be able to input a software inside your body, that will be constantly updated whenever a new virus comes up.

That will result in a body that is constantly healthy.

If possible, I want to get it right now but it still seems difficult to accomplish such a biological virus remover.
Is it a fantasy or delirium from my side?
Well I think that it's in fact realistically possible.

An example: the ranking of the most deadly diseases from 1900 to 2001.
http://www.ipss.go.jp/syoushika/tohkei/data/popular/05-24.htm
1920's first cause of death is pneumonia.

Nowadays almost nobody dies from pneumonia. Why? Because there are vaccines for pneumonia.

In 90 years of scientific progress, the mechanisms that lead to pneumonia have been discovered. Therefore vaccines have been created.
In addition, the speed of progress is increasing.
Therefore, we don't die anymore from AIDS if we use the right drug. It's even said that medicine whose goal is to reduce the
activity of the virus has already been created in the USA.
This is what has been told recently.

No doubt that 2010 is the year of the 3D: 3D cinema, 3D TV...
LG, the Korean company has already released such TV sets.
But why 3D has been become possible?.
Well, because the mechanisms that lead to a 3D perception have been isolated.
The 3D feeling is produced when each eye sees the same 16 images per second.
And the human brain is fooled.

Once the mechanism is understood, then innovation becomes possible.
In not too distant years, it will be possible to get a software that will remove almost instantly all the viruses living inside your body.
And it's also possible that a new world, the world of 4D, will show up.
But we have to assume that there will be no "evil" people that would want money and power, to the detriment of technological progress...

味覚の認識論

味覚は特にバーチャルだ。体が欲するものを、「美味しい」「食べたい」と「変換」している。

不思議なことに、ある料理を「特に好きじゃない」、と言いつつも残さず食べてしまう、あるいはリピートしてしまう時があるし、「美味しい」と思いつつも、なかなかリピートしない、ということは良くある。

味も独特でひんやりと舌がすずしいような感じがする、そしてその甘さは軽やかなのに深く舌にしみこむ。

-『美味しんぼ』より

などと味覚を表現したりするが、実のところ感じているのは、甘味、酸味、塩味、苦味および最近発見された「うま味」などの、「味覚の五感」の複合である。（ちなみに辛味や、「まったり」は触覚であって、正確には「味」ではない。）

この感覚刺激が麻痺するとどうなるか。あるレポートより抜粋。

だが味覚障害はとても辛いと言っていた。何を食べても砂を噛むようだったり粘土やゴムを無理やり食べるような感じだったりすると言う。場合によると戻してしまう。甘いものを過敏に感じることもあるらしい。この感覚は健康な人にはわからないだろう。

まったく世界が激変するのである。

つまり「美味しさ」も「軽やかな甘さ」も実在しない、認識上のもの、すなわちバーチャルな存在なのだ。

さてここからは個人的な見解ですが、

舌から伝わる感覚刺激が、言葉になって「軽やかな甘さ」などになり、好意的な印象が残ったり、「不味い」と記憶されたりするわけですが、そこは進化のメカニズムでそうなったんだろうと思う。

本来は「味覚の五感」がすべて（input）であり、そのデータを好意的に評価するかどうかは、「美味しいかどうか」ではなく、「栄養があるか」で「評価」されていると思うのです。または脳が欲しているとか、心理的なもの、すなわち中毒。

ということは、

非常に栄養があれば、不味くても、いずれそれを美味しい、と思えるようになるのではないか。

逆に言うと、不味くても売りたい「物質」がある時、それに高い栄養をトッピング出来れば、美味しいと思われてバカ売れするかも？

・・と思って試しに「青汁」を飲んでみたが、不味かった。orz