A lot of the arguments/heated debates on HN stem from a failure to define key terms. Less so in threads on compsci-related topics, but almost always on threads with econ-related topics. Especially universal basic income. Once you identify this common issue it becomes easy to avoid these frustrating (and frustrated) conversations altogether.

Eno has taken a pretty liberal view of "AI" but he makes a good point about specialization. I would define the concept he's getting at as "collective social memory," but I enjoyed his musings nonetheless.

>A lot of the arguments/heated debates on HN stem from a failure to define key terms. ... Especially universal basic income.

Can you recommend some definitions that are a good starting place for basic income discussions that we could helpfully point to when discussing that issue?

There are actually two slightly different ideas that are called UBI.

The libertarian variant is a relatively small guaranteed income (usually roughly the current minimum wage), is usually paid for with a VAT or sales tax, and replaces most or all of the current welfare programs. The main objectives are to provide a safety net for the poorest citizens in a fairer and less bureaucratic manner and to somewhat equalize the bargaining power between low-wage workers and their employers, usually as an alternative to unionization.

The socialist variant is significantly larger (living wage), is usually paid for with graduated income or capital gains taxes, and supplements rather than replaces the existing welfare programs. Its main goals are to provide a direct mechanism for income redistribution and to facilitate non-profitable professions (artist, full-time volunteer, professional student, stay at home caretaker, etc.) for those that want or need them.

There's obviously a lot of overlap between the two, and most proponents support both sets of objectives to some degree. That said, most of the contentious arguments seem to derive from critics either not understanding the difference between the two proposals or strawmanning their interlocutors into one extreme or the other.

It's generally accepted that any intelligence that isn't from a living being is artificial. Global Civilization isn't living, per se.

Could you offer an abstract definition of "life" and "intelligence" (or maybe even 'thinking' or 'consciousness') ?

For example, if you're trying to figure out whether something is 'moving', you would define the term in such a way that it could apply to planets or animals or other things/systems. If you define 'motion' = 'humans putting one leg in front of another', then of course non-human animals or anything else couldn't move. But, that definition is too restrictive. If you're trying to say that animals can't move, then provide a more abstract definition of 'motion' (e.g. 'change in location') and then you will see animals and many other things start moving.

Here is a video with a good explanation of how a lack of an abstract definition results in confusion:

  https://youtu.be/_Wvv-bt9SzI?t=11s

No, I couldn't. It's terribly difficult to define, and the more you try, the harder it becomes. I think it's a bit easier if you try to generally define it in terms of what we think it isn't: the average layperson would consider any intelligence created by humans to be artificial, such as "artificial cells" or other "AI" like Watson. That's what I meant by "generally accepted" but I realize that my comment reflected very little of the thoughts I had when I made it.

Using that definition, Global Civilization, regardless of how complex it has become, is nearly entirely created by humans. Ignoring the "human" part of Oxford's definition for civilization[1], you could say that certain groups of animals do have a form of civilization: some dolphins and killer whales, for example, teach their children very specialized hunting and recreational methods that others within their species do not know. But no other animal engages in anything at the scale of Global Civilization. In that sense, Global Civilization is an artificial construct (intelligence, if you like).

I'm not arguing that it isn't intelligence. It's almost like a virus, really, in that it can't do anything by itself (it requires humans), but it certainly has life-like characteristics when powered by a "host."

[1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

I'd argue that Global Civilization is nothing but living!

I read a comment on HN a while back arguing that today's companies are essentially human-powered AIs. It made me think quite a lot -- large companies especially take a lifeform of their own. They tend to mostly care for themselves. Actions are taken "for the company" without any one person being actively aware of why. Higher-ups have some form of backdoor access to the direction the company takes; a symbiotic relationship with what is, in a way, a parasite.

You can argue that that's true of all large enough or complex enough organisations. The emergent behaviour deviates from any one individual.

Reminds of my favourite law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

I was thinking about this fascinating topic recently in the light of Brexit.

The EU has traditionally been more supportive of the rights of indivduals as opposed to those of companies and other organisations, in the belief that companies emerge from human behaviour and even though they operate in their own (ie commercial) environment, they exist to serve the population.

The US has by contrast given companies more freedom to operate, in the belief that by doing so they provide an environment for individuals to fulfil themselves. I fully believe a post-Brexit UK government will go the same way.

I think the key term here is "motivation". If the motivations of the company and individual align, all's well. If not, who's going to cover your back?

There was a talk at the 30C3 where the speaker argued that we do not need to fear AIs. A human-level AI is an information processing system (what we have already, and which is not harmful) plus a motivation system. The latter is the one that's to be worried about, but it already exists in the form of corporations (which fittingly also work against our collective interest in many ways, e.g. environmental protection).

There was an interesting TED talk a while ago about this idea applied to cities, how they 'live' and communicate and grow but how we have never really seen one die. Less about AI I suppose and more about new life.

Many larger systems are more than the sum of their parts. Enough that you could consider the grouping it's own entity. Ant hills are the canonical example because individual ants are recognizable as 'animals', but the function of an anthill clearly relies on a complex interaction between more simple ants.

Just as we are made of tiny organisms, bigger systems could be considered to be made of us.

Hofstadter wrote a nice piece on how an ant colony could be thought to be an entity in itself. My favourite quote pasted from an online source:

Anteater: "I reject holism. I challenge you to tell me, for instance, how a holistic description of an ant colony sheds any more light on it than is shed by a description of the ants inside it, and their roles, and their, interrelationships. Any holistic explanation of an ant colony will inevitably fall far short of explaining where the consciousness experienced by an ant colony arises from."

Unfortunately, this argument proves too much. Replace "and colony" with "human" and "ant" with "cell in a human body" - can you explain where the consciousness experienced by a human cell colony arises from?

(To avoid debating materialism vs idealism use another creature, say "chimp", instead of "human" - assuming that you agree that chimps have a consciousness.)

I am not fond of the holistic / emergent idea but I don't think "we can't figure out the exact place where the sum becomes larger than its parts" is a good argument against it.

Hofstadter's anteater is a character in a dialog. You shouldn't assume it presents the author's conclusions directly. Indeed the point of the anteater is that with respect to ants, it's hardly an impartial source.

A simpler type of holism might simply state that information generated by a system is distinct from the individuals that compose that system. Bits form a computer, but only in groups.

Its more complicated with businesses because we are aware of the greater system and attempt to influence it.

Holism is inescapable. An ant is a holistic thought. When you talk about the parts of an ant hill you don't talk about the atoms in the ants. You talk about the ants. In that same way when you want talk about the ecosystems that contain ant hills you don't talk about individual ants. An anteater relates to the whole ant hill. The relationships a thing has are just as significant to what it is as the things it's composed of. Reductionism can only look inside things.

well, if you follow the point of view of materialists, you have to accept that the united states of america are a living, conscious, entity, of which you (maybe) are a part.

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconsci...

Kind of ironic to think that exist something like 7 billon of IA around, but the judgment about them is mostly

meh.

The AI effect is a real thing, but this is taking it to extreme. I think it's worth distinguishing "artificial general intelligence", AI that is general and can do everything a human can, from "weak" AI. "Weak AI" may or may not be progress towards AGI, but we certainly haven't had AGI for thousands of years.