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

"Un-install sleepy"

张哥这几天赶着黑五，亚马逊网店冲了好几单生意，心情大好。计划着下周回国去跟厂家谈生意监工赶生产。说什么说到卸载睡眠，然后说了个un-install sleepy，笑死我们了。
张哥让我们记录下来他的语录，于是就在这记一笔。经典的还有：服子（胡子），服思乱想（胡思乱想）

戴头灯做饭

房子较老，由于香港夫妇用大功率电器，结果屋子线路烧毁，换了一条后又烧毁，于是一条一条烧毁后，终于有一天厨房也没灯了。张哥戴起头灯做饭，而电饭煲有电，还可以烧汤。竖起一根手电筒当蜡烛，在天花板上照出一个圆形。
给房东发去黑漆漆厨房头灯做饭的张哥的照片，这次她回得快了。后来她爸爸还打来电话，感觉这个问题百出的房子（更重要的是有了个跟他们不对付的孙姨）要把他们逼得焦头烂额。这次我没有吼，没有逼问维修时间，懒得理论，主要是不会有什么结果。今天张哥发了个公寓的图，在这住满半年后应该就会搬走了。
晚上张哥收拾东西，明天飞机就要回中国了。给我介绍了如何使用他的显示器、键盘等。等我妈来了我们两个可以用这两个房间了，空间大一些。他回去跟厂家谈生意等，希望可以有丰富收获。

The Holiday

这是Nancy Meyers导演的浪漫圣诞影片，室内装修和演员服饰都非常好看，令人舒服。主角做的都是富有创造性的工作：报纸作家、图书编辑、片花剪辑、影视作曲。两个女主角受到情伤，于是交换家度假。然后作家找到了best friend，曾经享誉盛名的好莱坞编剧爷爷，同时遇到好男人；剪辑公司老板遇见了脸帅情深的图书编辑。最终四人齐聚伦敦，度过了幸福美满的除夕之夜。

相比情节，我更喜欢整个氛围的营造。我喜欢LA圣诞前后的阳光和温暖，还有santa anas季候风，如同春天的暖风让人沉醉；也喜欢白雪覆盖的伦敦郊区，一栋装满书和瓷器的温暖小屋。电影中的洛杉矶总是公路两边棕榈林立，又有大海，其实跟现在的生活略有出入。不过，也可不时的提醒自己：生活在这样美好的环境中，不要忘了去欣赏和探索。

现实中的工作是单调的、需要耐心的，而刺激的生活即使到来，也势必带来目前没有的烦恼。做好准备，在暗夜中耐心打磨自己，才能从容面对以后的挑战吧。

Grateful for the good things that are happening on me

Tonight is the singing night. I told my teacher that I wanted to stop taking lessons. At first, she said ok. Then as I was practising the tunes, she reminded me of the opera pieces that I love. "O Mio Babbino Caro". As soon as I heard the melody, I was captured, as always. Then I blurted out: "Oh, I'll give it another month perhaps."

From that class, my another takeaway was to be committed to a gesture or movement. Show the audience you are enjoying yourself, even it is a small movement, a dance move, commit to it. Otherwise, the audience would feel bad for you too.

Tonight, I proposed to teach Ken English. His language barrier holds back his career progress. If he speaks good English, he would be able to stand on a much much higher platform.

我的室友张哥应该是我见过的最有趣的人了吧，符合我小时候对理想生活的想象。户外运动（骑行跑步轮滑滑板上周又加一个皮艇）、电子元件（机械灯、机械手）、电脑编程（职业）、画画（以前专业学的），样样都是我感兴趣的。在他的鼓励下准备十月份开始一个project ，另外发展水上运动。今天主动提出教他英文，不太确定怎么教，按照我以前的教法会太harsh，估计会打消人家积极性。从我的唱歌老师那里学到，其实可以gently push you forward。