Is Capitalism the real Superintelligent AI?

All quotes are from SlateStarCodex:

Value misalignment results in perverse incentives and therefore (unintended?) negative outcomes. But this is a problem with any economic system, and almost certainly worse with the systems that are a little freer with the use of state force.

Unregulated capitalism gets humans to act for the human goals signaled by the prices people are willing to pay for things they buy, the amount people charge for the labor they sell, the amount people are willing to accept in exchange for postponing consumption in order to invest instead, and the like. It does its maximization by getting firms and individuals to respond to those signals.

These arguments behind capitalism suffer neglect, causing Chiang to fall into a fallacy of composition: Capitalists optimize only for money, therefore capitalism optimizes only for money.

Capitalists optimize for profits, seeking for the highest-profit opportunities (at least theoretically – it gets complicated). But a working capitalist market economy acts to shrink profits over time, something even the Marxists identify (with their talk of the “falling rate of profit” and such).

Capitalism optimizes allocation of scarce resources. Profits is what happens when somebody discovers and remedies suboptimal resource allocation. In a perfect market, there are no profits. Profit is just a symptom, a fever indicating that something was wrong with the market, but that it is now getting better.

Chiang is more wrong about capitalism than he is about AI. Markets are not a simple optimization around money, they are distributed preference valuation processes that incorporate flexible human values of labor and possessions. If a free market is producing too many paperclips, the price drops until there is no value in producing them at their underlying costs and the relevant resources are employed towards other tasks where there is value. The simplistic AI risk runaway scenarios have a simple, unchanging value function for which they optimize, so there is no correction for the change in human preferences to indicate we already have plenty of paperclips. Perhaps a better argument would be that applying market forces to AI value functions would constrain simplistic runaway AIs, much like market forces constrain his simplistic version of capitalism.

Chiang spends the entire essay detailing how capitalism already operates as an obsessively optimized entity while these AI risks are still hypothetical. That's silly, because the problem with the Paperclip Maximizer is there’s no feedback mechanism to tell the Paperclip Maximizer “we don’t need no more stinking paperclips.” But capitalism has such a feedback mechanism built right in: no paperclip manufacturer is ever going to grey goo the world to make more paperclips because once the supply of paperclips outstrips the demand for paperclips the profit derived from manufacturing paperclips drops to zero, and so paperclip production halts.

Runaway AI is scary precisely because it lacks the feedback mechanisms inherent in the capitalist marketplace.

Tama Hills and Environmental Consciousness in Japanese Anime Films

In 1994 Studio Ghibli produced Pom Poko, (directed by Isao Takahata) a trippy animated film about a community of magical shape shifting raccoons desperately struggling to prevent their forest home from being destroyed by urban development.  The movie draws heavily on traditional Japanese folklore (especially the reputed power of the raccoon's testicles), but the setting is the 1960's rapid conversion of the Tama hills rural farmland into planned suburbs of Tokyo (called Tama New Town).

In 1995, Studio Ghibli came out with a very different film.  Whisper of the Heart is a realistically-animated love story about a teenage girl who loves reading books, and the boy who had previously checked out all of the library books she chooses.  It was set in a peaceful suburb in the hills of West Tokyo.  Specifically, the Tama hills.

Development of Tama Hills, as depicted in Pom Poko.

Scenes from Whisper of the Heart:

Walking along Tama Hills, above Tama River.

Walking along Tama River, toward Tama Hills.

It is difficult to describe the cognitive dissonance these two films create.  The first, a story of animals defending nature against human development, and the second, a human-centered love story set in that very development.

Tama Hills (Tama New Town), Tokyo.  Yes, those are golf courses on the hills.  There is an amusement park, too.

Map.

The main character, Shizuku, in Whisper of the Heart even composes a song, set to the tune of "Country Road".  She and her friend Yuuoko sing it together.

"Konkuriito roodo, doko made mo
Mori wo kiri, tani wo ume
Uesto Toukyou, Maunto Tama
Furusato ha, konkuriito roodo

Concrete Roads, to everywhere
Cutting forests, burying valleys
West Tokyo, Mount Tama
My home town is a concrete road...

(both laugh)"

(transcribed by Nausica.net)

Teenage lovers from Whisper of the Heart, overlooking Tokyo from Tama Hills.

It is possible to visit many of the locations that were used in Whisper of the Heart.

Young raccoon lovers from Pom Poko, overlooking Tokyo from Tama Hills.

More information about locations that inspired Japanese animated films.

Happy 50-Year Birthday, Wilderness!

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, and one of the best celebrations, or obituaries, was just written in Orion Magazine by Jordan Fisher Smith.

In the article, he lays out the fundamental contradiction inherent in the Wilderness Act:  that wilderness lands should be managed so as to preserve their natural character, while at the same time remaining untrammeled and uncontrolled for human uses.  But at Smith points out, using examples from endangered species preserveration, carnivore reintroduction, and invasive species control, wilderness areas cannot remain "natural" in the face of omnipresent anthropogenic changes.

So managers are forced to make tough decisions to maintain the biotic integrity of the land at the price of intervening in the land where "man is a visitor, and does not remain", or allowing massive changes to snowball out of control while sitting on their hands.  The real choices are hard enough, but the temptation to meddle is even tougher.

I very much appreciate the comment of T. R. Shankar Raman

If the idea of leaving wilderness alone is outdated, so is the idea that there is some hard boundary between the wilderness and the rest of the world ‘outside’. To use this idea to justify highly intrusive gardening of wilderness reserves distracts from a more vital need of fostering positive change in human land use and behaviour outside. It is more crucial to buffer harmful impacts to wilderness areas by greatly expanding the space for conservation outward into surrounding countryside and city. That, too, can ease the disturbance footprint, allowing wilderness areas to recover along their own trajectory with less and less intervention, until land and life are free, which ultimately, is what ‘wild’ really means. And it is in bringing down that boundary, looking outward from the wilderness, that we will perhaps find the way to rewild ourselves.

Cremation is a major source of black carbon

Original Press Release.  News article.  Burning is central to human life, and many human after-lifes.  Unfortunately, smoldering fires release soot and toxic compounds which degrade air quality, accelerate snow melt, and warm the climate.

Minimalist thoughts

Moving day is approaching, and our thoughts are turning toward ways to reduce clutter, obligations, and STUFF!

We found this website useful:

http://bemorewithless.com/more-on-mini-missions/

http://bemorewithless.com/shoot-your-stuff/

Ben Ahrens: Cultivating Intuition Through Meticulous Self-Tracking

The last word on quantified personal health info!

Best Summary of A New Kind of Science

Wolfram's blog.

observations of a future world

there are apartment complexes (eg Columbus, OH) that have no recycling options, and people do not care. recycling programs have more potential for growth (people throw out enormous amounts of usuable goods and material), but will only increase if there is more incentive to do so.

Currently, it is cheaper to battle environmentalists, dig giant mines in the ground, mash up the rock, and smelt it than it is to pay people for used cans.

people value material goods and conveniences. Any meaningful climate change bill would have to increase the cost of energy and curtail some conveniences, hence it will not be pleasant.

our government will continue to walk the line between coercion and co-option. the tools at the disposal of institutions will continue to outstrip those of the individual. Our society will become more hegemonic, while at the same time providing just enough benefits to convince a plurality of people to cooperate. "just barely good enough, but also the best of many bad choices". meaningful constitutional reform is unlikely: we're stuck with the system and the contingent choices that built it.

some drugs will be legalized, challenges like restoring watersheds may be realized through hard work, schools will be reformed and optimized, health care will have to become more efficient (and cooptive), climate change will continue, aquafers will dry up, forests will burn, new dustbowls will form, money will not always be available to fix the mounting landscape and society-wide environmental woes. toxic pollutants will still be regulated. Species will go extinct, ecosystems will be transformed and homogenized to early-successional, weed-dominated. Opportunities to nip these problems in the bud will be ignored in favor of after-the-fact amelioration. Instead of cutting emisions, we will build levies and canals.

Ecosystem carbon calculus will be used, and ignored. [move beyond shock despair mourning] People will react to the destruction of the saguaro forest with emotion and quick fixes or lines in the sand will be attempted, but what I want to know is what these changes really mean for ecosystems. Will we have to introduce cows to lower the risk of catastrophic fire?

rivers in the southwest will dry up. The Rio Grande's cottonwood Bosque will burn, and the hillsides will be converted to creosote. More people will utilize rain catchment and solar panels. Water may be privatized. (??whatever that means. everyone will buy it at the store)

What are the important issues in restoring watersheds? The science is already known. The difficulties involve marshaling multiple stakeholders (herding cats) to make individually-small, collectively-large actions. Groups like quivira will be important in articulating a positive vision, as will reactive groups like EarthJustice in protecting basic decency. Groups like the Wildlands network also articulate a positive vision, but it is harder to see how humans fit into their landscape.

the future world will be messier, with more going on in a complex matrix. Reality and Virtual will become harder to tell apart, even as more and more make the switch from the former to the latter. How could it get more virtual? when people don't know where paper comes from, or the water from their tap?? Cell phones were a big step, the ability to not see "the clown in the plaza" or the gorilla on the steps. We are already trained by civilization to read signs (signals) rather than observe the world directly. This continuous "reading" will undermine our ability to appreciate the given world and confine us to a new screen-lit virtual, which will rapidly expand in complexity and intrigue to accomodate us.

Genetic engineering will not be contained in time, and weird mutant Sphynx will wander a quasi-post-apocalyptic world.

Diversity vs. Richness

Species richness is proportional to productivity, spatial heterogeneity, habitat (island) area, succession stage, frequency of disturbance.

Cautionary: (feeding animals) Tuttle, 1979. Status, causes of decline, and management of endangered gray bats. Journal of Wildlife Management.

What kind of "diversity" do/should we value? Leaving aside direct and indirect economic value. Hawksworth, 1994. Biodiversity: Measurement and estimation. Philosophical Transactgions of the Royal Society of London. Series B.

How many species? May 1990 Philosophical Transactgions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. : How do we estimate the extent of our uncertainty?

Notes from End of Field Season Final Report

Notes used to prepare my End of Field Season Final Report on the Upper Rio Grande Headwaters Wetland Project for Colorado Natural Heritage Program:


Detail:

Restoring Chaco

Wind blows through broken walls. One other pair of footprints in the dust. A butterfly flits up and over the shattered stone edifice. Flowers bloom in the Kivas. A spider rubs its front legs together like a fly. After dissecting a plant to key it - I want to refold it again like origami.

Travelers walking to Chaco soon saw canyon walls becoming taller and taller as they passed by larger and larger pueblo buildings and sandstone cliffs etched with clan symbols and markings [billboard advertising?]. Eventually the narrow canyon opened up to reveal the sweeping sight of Fajada Butte and the great Chacoan buildings at the heart of their world...

What would it take to restore the Chaco River? Where once massive granaries stood overlooking productive fields and streams, today dust devils and desolation spoil the view. Wouldn't this be a cool if there were trails along the river? These riparian corridors could once again tie the landscape and its communities, both natural and human together and make it whole again.


Possible future directions:

• expand Chaco Culture National HIstoric Park
• problem: the park is just that, a historic park, with little biological relevancy. to take part in 21st century conservation reserve networks the park has to be expanded.
• problem: resistance to U.s.A federal land grab on Navaho Nation tribal land.
• plant trees, fence riparian area, conduct restoration
• problem: traditional sheepherders will not want to loose access to rich summer forage (they might be recompensed with greater winter season forage and the lure of greater water then.
• involve local communities
• Grassroots?
  
• "environmental justice" angle.
  

strange dreams, think not on
the genocides
but the 10 to the 10 unborn
that never worked skin over jawbones
or breathed dry air
in an empty desert
once full of life

when the perfect circle
Bright stars in a bright sky
A slight moon makes the
ground light, the black silouette of the
crumbling castle looms large
tonight, in NM
Mans footprint looms large
Dead trees; a dry wash.
In the desert you find only yourself.
and the sad, sleepy-eyed bear,
gaze forever from the flat cutout
some habitat preserved on paper.

Wonder on the whims of humans
who could extinct the grizzly, beaver, and wolf
but deign to adorn YOU with Life,
at least on paper.

NM: No FM or AM.
No cell reception until "over the hill"
-- 150 miles over the thousands foot continental divide.
Above green valleys hidden in the desert's yellow dust.

EF Schumacher on "Progress"

"He called his talk 'The Insufficiency of Liberalism' and it was an exposition of what he termed the “three stages of development”. The first great leap, he said, was made when man moved from stage one of primitive religion to stage two of scientific realism. This was the stage modern man tended to be at. A few move to the third stage in which one can find in the lapses and deficiencies in science and realism, and that there is something beyond fact and science. He called this stage three. The problem, he explained, was that stage one and stage three appear to be exactly the same to people stuck in stage two. Consequently, those in stage three are seen as having had some sort of a relapse into childish nonsense. Only those in stage three, can understand the differences between stage one and stage three."

Econ. Questions

Is gov't the only way to control externalities, or will the market correct its own inefficiencies? One solution would be MORE private ownership, so that the owner of the wild geese would have a vested interest in making sure pollution from the local coal plant didn't mutate their ugly ducklings, or whatever.

Do copyrights and patents prove that the free market system is irrevocably flawed? How does biology deal with the costs of mimicry? There is ample evidence that innovation is not greater in countries with better intellectual property rights. Does this show that these incentives aren't significant, and hence necessary? "The intellectual property issues, when it comes to copying drugs, involve an irreconciliable clash between rule and act utilitarianism."[Marginal Revolution]

What does GDP or even utility/happiness/welfare have to do with what we really want to maximize?

Are defense and health both public goods that shouldn't be relegated to the private sector. CF. The voluntary city.

Good Econ Reads:
Marginal Revolution Blog
Reason Magazine
Freakonomics Blog
Overcoming Bias Blog

I am a Libertarian

"Competition is merely the absence of oppression."
-- Frederic Bastiat

Freakanomics and the PBS series "Comanding Heights" (a reference to Lenin's conception that socialism, in order to control the economy, must control the commanding heights of the economy -- mostly energy production and concomitant natural resource utilization) about globalization 1900-2005, mentioned Hayek and the other libertarian post-keynesian thinkers. Hayek's book "the road to serfdom" , if you pick up the edition with the cartoons, is a great read. Also now am a big fan of Milton Friedman's work, and just finished reading David Henderson's "The Joy of Freedom" which is actually really good despite the hokey title. It mentions, among other things, that economics shouldn't be taught "theory first" with all that ceteris paribus junk but instead should just keep it real, with real world examples. Henderson has a great list of the top ten principles of economics, the first is that incentives matter. For a spoof see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4

Although there are problems with the explanatory power of a purely rational approach to the world, there are many things that are rationally/economically obvious (raising the minimum wage necessarily raises unemployment, tariffs hurt both countries), and I no longer think Stieglitz is the be-all and end-all (his textbook with the lighthouse on the cover -- referring to the idea that some services are best left to gov't -- is actually a non sequitur since it was shown that lighthouses were privately owned in England in the 1700 and 1800s). I definitely wouldn't vote for a candidate who thought the gov't could do a better job on anything (except maybe defense?) than private enterprise.

How do I reconcile all this dismal science with social justice and environmentalism? Paul Hawkin and Amory Lovins have the answer in Natural Capitalism, which due to space limitations I cannot quote in its entirety.

Unique Gift Ideas

Chart your genetic lineage

Create your own essential oil

Save an endangered plant

Listen to bat squeaks

Ecosphere

Definately Watson-Worthy.

• Ecotourism, arrogance and the tribulations of ethnic peoples. e.g. Kayan people who live in Thailand, now relegated by the Thai government to a so-called "human zoo".
  
• Phenology
• (ex)Soviet Science
• Incarceration: Canary Islands, Australia, Alcatraz
  
• Yoshio Komatsu: Wonderful Houses
• David Abram: Folk Medicine and Magic
• a quote from Paul Hawken
  "CLAYTON THOMAS-MÜLLER SPEAKS to a community gathering of the Cree nation about waste sites on their native land in Northern Alberta, toxic lakes so big you can see them from outer space. Shi Lihong, founder of Wild China Films, makes documentaries with her husband on migrants displaced by construction of large dams. Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez, a member of the Maya-Kaqchikel people, fights for full accountability for tens of thousands of people killed by death squads in Guatemala. Rodrigo Baggio retrieves discarded computers from New York, London, and Toronto and installs them in the favelas of Brazil, where he and his staff teach computer skills to poor children. Biologist Janine Benyus speaks to twelve hundred executives at a business forum in Queensland about biologically inspired industrial development. Paul Sykes, a volunteer for the National Audubon Society, completes his fifty-second Christmas Bird Count in Little Creek, Virginia, joining fifty thousand other people who tally 70 million birds on one day. Sumita Dasgupta leads students, engineers, journalists, farmers, and Adivasis (tribal people) on a ten-day trek through Gujarat exploring the rebirth of ancient rainwater harvesting and catchment systems that bring life back to drought-prone areas of India. Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor, who exposed links between the genocidal policies of former president Charles Taylor and illegal logging in Liberia, now creates certified, sustainable timber policies."
  

Democracy ahead of Greed?

Arizona Proposition 200: Voter Reward Act would have paid up to $1 million in unclaimed lottery money to one randomly selected voter. We voted it down, in spite of the personal incentive, because apparently we value informed voters over those seeking a free lottery ticket.

But if we don't want uninformed, greedy voters, does that mean that we really want informed voters? Should we have an IQ test, or a voter competency test? My idea is an "entrance-exit poll"; voters are asked to recall their votes fifteen minutes after casting them: if they can't name the candidates and propositions they voted for, maybe those votes didn't matter very much to them and shouldn't matter very much to us. In this way the wheat (knowledgeable votes) would be separated from the chaff (random votes) with a minimum of hassle. The "random" votes could be subtracted from the significant votes in the final tally.

However, in the interests of honesty, I should mention that I cannot recall if I voted for or against Proposition 200...

classification schemes and the limits of knowing

This is a great website on the computational side of logic rules in human and artificial intelligence

And of course they apply their method to poisonous mushrooms.

Growing forms, like mushrooms, show a complex morphologic system. Can you recognize these shapes?



Is the human brain complex enough to understand its own complexity? Are we smart enough to understand ourselves? Do these schemes, schemas, classes identify things in the world, or are they merely useful heuristics that may confuse us later? The apparent shape of crystals are classified in a wonderful schema, a schema that is a reflection of the underlying atomic structure. I hope to have an entry on x-ray crystallography as soon as I learn it.

What I am suggesting is that the eye was made to fit the world, just as the fish's fin was fit to the sea...[Richard Wilbur]

Should we analyze things based on rules or based on fuzzy logic?