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A so-called objective function, a mathematical means of scoring outcomes, can reward the algorithm if it guesses correctly. This process is how commercial AI works. YouTube, for example, wants to keep its users engaged, watching more videos so that they keep seeing ads. The objective function is designed to maximize user engagement. The algorithm tries to serve up content that keeps a user’s eyes on the page. Depending on whether its guess was right or wrong, the algorithm updates its model of what the user is likely to respond to.
Spirals of Delusion
foreignaffairs.com
The takeaway would seem to be that people who live close to one another are more tolerant and empathetic; they are more likely to know someone of a different color, a different income group, or a different sexual orientation. They rely on and appreciate the provision of public goods and public services (transit, parks, garbage collection)—even as they consume fewer public dollars than their red-state counterparts. And they have a deeper appreciation of the regulatory standards (guns, labor conditions, food, public health) that promise us a modicum of safety and security.
Declining Cities, Declining Unions: Urban Sprawl and U.S. Inequality - Dissent Magazine
98 percent
First-person, subjective experience—the feeling of being in the world—is known as “phenomenal” consciousness. Here we can group everything from sensations like pleasure and pain, to emotions like fear and anger and joy, to the peculiar private experiences of hearing a dog bark or tasting a salty pretzel or seeing a blue door.
What an Octopus’s Mind Can Teach Us About AI’s Ultimate Mystery
octopus test
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