An interesting day.

First, wrapping up this round of investigation into category nodes, a recently implemented grouping and associative mechanism before I leave on my weekend trip.

Interesting stuff.

Also, we had the first of what may become weekly lunches and discussions here at a2i2. We raised more general and philsophical issues, in terms of assumptions, differences of opinion, and so on. Being that we work as we do, most of it centered around AI, of course, but we did manage to have a bit of discussion of Objectivism, personal histories, etc.

One of the more interesting topics was a discussion of whether or not human intelligence represents anything unusual in intelligence-space, that is, if intelligent entities would have any reason to reach human intelligence, or have any special difficulty surpassing it.

Also raised, the subject of whether external safeguards and engineering caution can reduce the risk of mislaid cognitive design, or pathological goal systems. (Me and Peter agree, No)

Also raised, and tabled till next week, whether or not an intelligent being can be directed by an explicit goal system without the being 'escaping' out from under it, either pathologically, or intentionally. (Strong Disagreement here, I state that a properly designed goal system can be known to be directional, consistent, and stable(the consistency and desireability of the goals.. another issue). Peter states that goal systems can't 'constrain' intelligence systems knowably. We'll see next week.)

Also:

group discussion of our efficacy as a team, with specific inquiries into my habits, productivity, communications, role, etc. Mostly positive of course(being such a genius and asset to any such team ;-) but some useful criticism, and some genuinely new ideas emerge.

As I said in the meeting today, it is my goal to grow as a person, to become the person that I want to be. And I'll do that by hook or by crook. I'm willing to accept certain unpleasantries or detours to get it. I've always found Crocker's Rules to be self-evident, if properly interpreted.

the common and (in my opinion) far less useful definition being the suspension of social niceties for communicative puposes. My own interpretation being that it's formatting exchanges for communication first, which in many cases includes social niceties as a consideration. Humans are social creatures with social instincts. Ignoring that would be stupid.

Communication is about getting the other person to understand, which requires some consideration of a great many factors, not just making the information available. (to take extreme case: it has to be in the right language for the recipient)

Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane, to go to SLC to visit people I miss. Crystal, Josh, Liz, Jer, Loren, Andy, Liz, Tavish, Cory, Zac, my brother aaron, andrea, and even my mother (my father is out of town.) all will see me, and I haven't seen them in some time.

I plan on enjoying myself a great deal on my little mini vacation, and probably will be incommunicado to anyone not on the above list.

I'm back on Tuesday, and will no doubt be full of stories, new ideas, and new energy(since I'm such a sluggardly, uncreative, silent person at the moment ;-) .

But who knows, maybe I'll answer some email while I'm there. You could try....