Life 3.0 Week 3

Why Learning Math and Physics

I am at a loss when I come across paragraphs that contain mathematical or physical explanations, which is frustrating. The good thing is, I now understand the reason we learn them is to be able to imagine the world in an abstract way, which helps us project the future and make good decisions.

The existence of God?

I once had a discussion with a friend who believed in the existence of God. He believed that there is a being, who introduced thoughts into our mind. “Our brain is made of the material,” he said, “and our thoughts are intangible. How come the material produced intangible thoughts? There must be a god who puts thoughts in us in the first place. ”

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That question got me, and it still does. From the book, I know that when fed enough data and patterns, computers can make good decisions and perform tasks that required human intelligence. But in the very beginning, humans gave the computer a goal to set it off. In the same vein, is there a god who put in something in our mind to set us going? 

Life 3.0 Week 4

1. Once our brain gained consciousness of a thing, it will turn it into unconscious so the consciousness can focus on higher-level challenges

If so, then we need to keep learning new things to avoid losing consciousness of our life. 

I think the last chapter on consciousness is more relevant to my life, compared with other parts on AI.

To be honest, as I was reading the book, I constantly battle with the idea that I am not in the position to think about those concerns-I haven't quite figured out all the philosophical questions such as what happiness is and what is the meaning of life, so building up any thoughts for AI on a non-existent base would be too far fetched. I haven't figured out those questions, why should I be trusted on the discussion of AI?

The author said that once our brain gained consciousness of an action, it will gradually turn it into unconscious actions so that the conscious mind can focus on higher-level challenges. I think it is a good reminder of my life and career: try to maintain consciousness and avoid drifting into a zombie state of mind.

What can be done to achieve consciousness in life? My general list includes: 

a. read books to gain new knowledge and experiences
b. join discussions to exchange ideas
c. learn new skills
d. get on new adventures

A gym employee once told me that the gym started to be filled at the end of January, instead of right after the New Year as I thought. So I guess that now is a good time to take actions to live a more conscious life, and maintain the human part in us as much as possible.

2. Consciousness is substrate-independence twice over.

if consciousness is the way info feels when being processed in certain complex ways, then it is merely structure of the information processing that matters, not the structure of the matter doing the information processing. 

3. "It is not our universe giving meaning to conscious beings, but conscious beings giving meaning to our universe."

4. “theory was wrong, but it was scientific!” 

I gained new understanding in “scientific”-can be tested and falsified

Completed the Personal Training Sessions

Today I completed all my sessions with Joe from Fitness Club Personal Training. It was a no-pressure, no-judgment environment, and I felt good after each session. I did my first deadlift, and my sitting with the bars and forty pounds on my back. I learned that even with knee pains I can still train weights. I am ready to do it on my own in the gym!

Life 3.0 Week 2

Thoughts on robot judges

I find the thought experiments laid out by Tegmark are fascinating. Based on his, I had the following thoughts which might be part of a story.

Tegmark described the scenario of having robot judges to process all the evidence and give verdicts, which will lead to a more fair and efficient legal system. I think this conclusion is based on the condition that the laws are created fair. If, by human error or due to the changes in the definition of "fairness" as the society develops, the laws are no longer fair, robot judges' efficient execution of the laws won't make the legal system more fair.

A question that came to my mind is: what if the AI writes the law? I think that the first stage may be that AI writes laws for human being, so that human being may have laws that are more fair as the law makers are unbiased. It may lead to the second stage: AI writes the laws to govern AI or even the human being? Will there be a Human-AI board to write the laws governing Human-AI relationship? Will the world run by laws written by AI be an orderly one that follows the optimal path? Or will it be a nightmare for the human being if the AI law-makers turn out to be tyrants, or its laws are not quite compatible with the human society due to occasional technical glitch? Also, by the time AI can write laws, a lot of changes might have occurred in the human society. For example, the immigration law will change as the national boundaries may have disappeared by then, but possibly new boundaries based on AI/human content in a resident's body may be created...

On machine translation

Tegmark said that machine translation is quite good nowadays, but he was probably only talking about English <> Spanish translation, which are similar in syntax. For English <> Chinese translation, the results yielded by the machine translation in most cases cannot be used without human post-editing yet.

When I went to the American Translators Association conference last October, some senior translators expressed their concerns about AI. I didn't think much of it, but our discussion on career choices this and last week made me think of my future as a translator.

Life 3.0 Week 1

I found the way the author writes is worth pondering upon.
1. The author raised a question to readers: Do you think that superhuman AI might get created this century? If No, skip to Chapter 1. If Yes, continue to next page.
I wonder why those who are optimistic about the development of AI should read the prelude about an earth that comes to be dominated by AI, and those who are not can jump into the main body of the book sooner. Why does the author describe a story with AI gradually dominate the world? I look forward to finishing the book to find out why.
2. When the author describes the stages of AI's development, he moved from technological products to the media, to business, to community building, to politics. It reminded me of such a theory that the first generation immigrants should study science and technology, the second generation can try their hands at finance, and the third generation can consider joining the politics. It seems that science and technology is relatively classless, so the opportunity is equal to everybody. Politics is on the other side of the spectrum and involves more rhetoric, connections and social relations, which is controlled more by humans and is harder to be unraveled. What do you think of the sequence of the fictional AI conquering the world?

Response to a post on the structure of the book:
I am also interested in the structure of the book, mostly in the choice posed by the author in the very beginning: "Do you think that superhuman AI might get created this century? If No, skip to Chapter 1. If Yes, continue to next page." I chose Yes, and was led to the fascinating account of how AI dominates the world. As I proceeded to Chapters 1 and 2, I realized that the author designed an option to bypass the scenario so that readers with more understanding of AI can avoid reading something that does not interest them anymore and get to the major topics sooner. For a moment I wondered, did the author use AI to predict readers' behaviors when he was writing the book? :D

2018: New Year Wishes-finished on Jan 3

As I was about to type down "2018: New Year Resolution", I paused for a second and changed my mind. Instead of putting it as "resolution", I want to bring things down a notch and put the following as "wishes" instead. (I read a post about keeping up with New Year resolutions, that is to make specific goals. Therefore I revise my following goals and make them in red.)

1. Read books>read one book per month. Actually, when I was reading the book that I actually finished, When Breath Becomes Air, I felt I was living another person's life. The author's experience and reflections made me think and treasure what I have. Moreover, I have a strong feeling that my language is going backward. I often struggle with names or a sentence structure. I don't know if it was because I am exposed to a bad language environment, or because the language section in my brain is deteriorating.

2. Strengthen my knees>being able to ride 60 miles without knee pain. After the last two rides, I am scared of the knee pain. Worse still, the pain didn't go away after the last ride. I need to figure out if I need to adjust my seat. Then I need to do exercises to strengthen them.

3. Post one blog per month sharing knowledge. As I am the Twitter master for ATA Language Technology Division, I am devoting at least one hour every week to keep this account active. As I am reposting the blog posts, I am thinking: I can also share my experience as a paralegal/translator in my firm. It will provide useful information and hopefully grow my client base.

4. Pass court interpreter exam. I successfully registered the written exam today. Great first step! Just need a study plan and start studying!!


Here is a tentative breakdown for a weekday:
Read a book while standing against the wall: 30 minutes
Practice SI and CI: 20 minutes each

For weekends (2 days in total):
Read a book: 2 hours, standing against the wall: 1 hour
Practice SI and CI: 30 minutes each every day
Review: 1-2 hour
Write blogs and manage Twitter: 2-3 hours