Haven’t been here in a long time and it feels really weird. May or may not come back. But… my thing, my rules, so:
Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I think. And about how others expect me to think. I am quite good at thinking fast, but it doesn’t work for everything. Activities like writing (or almost anything that I would describe as creative) need some flow that, for me, only comes from pause.
Derek Sivers wrote this interesting and somewhat non fashionable piece about how he thinks.
https://sive.rs/slow
https://sive.rs/slow
https://sive.rs/slow
To be read slowly. Or not.
(Link via the fascinating Tom McCallum).
Work needs to affect others if it is to be considered truly great.
Curiosity driven algorithms make observations about the world and then try to predict what will come next. If the thing that happens next is not what the AI predicted, it counts that as a reward. As it learns to predict better, it has to seek new situations in which it doesn’t yet know how to predict the outcome. For those curious about it, there is a more formal description here:
https://pathak22.github.io/noreward-rl/
https://pathak22.github.io/noreward-rl/
https://pathak22.github.io/noreward-rl/
What would happen if we behaved more like a curiosity driven AI? What would happen if the reward was to find the unknown? We are living in a society that values finding the answer since we are children (exams, anyone?). So we stop asking questions when we are little. I find this problematic, and would like to figure out more ways in which we can stimulate each other to ask more questions, to be more driven by curiosity, perhaps.
I have strong opinions, but they are loosely held.
I did not even remember how to log back in. But I have been writing a lot lately, for a few different reasons. And I thought maybe I could share some.
Am I back? Time will tell.
What are we risking by speaking up? Everything, certainly. But the far riskier business is not speaking up at all.
Kameron Hurley
The Geek Feminist Revolution
Kind words cost nothing
Bucharest, July 2016.
My so called life* 