(I published this post originally on September 1, 2020. I was preparing for the “More Intelligent Tomorrow” podcast. A former ArrayFire customer and accomplished AI Entrepreneur, Ben Taylor, invited my co-founder Gallagher and me to join. We’ve filmed our episode; it is in post-production now and should be available soon.)
This is a fun brain teaser post.
I wrote a lengthy essay on my return to church a few days ago.
In it I mentioned ego. For many years, I have thought about ego.
One of the starkest distinctions from my church life and my world life is that within the church you find relatively fewer inflated egos and also relatively fewer deeply suffering people. I mean this as a geographically moving average of the population. Simply put, in my experience, the bubble softens the extremes of ego and suffering.
I remember when I was a virgin partier. I would stand on the second floor of Tongue & Groove with Ramtin, and we’d talk about the ego it takes to party at the tables. Who would spend money so willy nilly like that?!
Then I became someone who loves tables. Because as I got to know the people I was naively mocking, I grew to love them so much. They are among my favorite people in this world.
Sammy, you have no idea how symbolic “all the way up” is to me. I love you dearly. Thank you for helping me on my journey. Wish you had a FB so I could tag you. But I’ll tag my Jedi master, Ty, so much love brother.
That said, there are many in the scene that I do not enjoy spending a lot of time with. I just sorta bumped into good ones and over time became close friends with some really incredible people. If you’re reading this you’re likely pretty cool. Potentially as terrible as me though. You decide.
People often cast judgment on things they do not understand and with which they have little to no experience. I question the accuracy of judgment cast in the absence of knowledge.
Here’s one way to get rid of ego. Just honestly take the plunge. Believe this heartily but healthily: it’s all in your head.
- You don’t actually have a body. Don’t test this statement lol, but for the sake of this exercise go with it, and I’ll join you: We don’t have bodies.
- We each are just conscious, distinct points in an n-dimensional space and we don’t even know the value of “n,” but in my experience, I am guessing the probability that “n” is infinity is greater than any other specific value.
- Other points in that n-dimensional space are just as important as ours; we’re all just a bunch of points.
- But we’re connected.
- Our connectivity matters deeply.
Those precepts are mathematical analogies that have so many implications I keep thinking of new ones daily. I am going to leave my set of precepts there and encourage you to share any implications you find in your own life in the comments.
I am not saying these things are literal. I have no idea. I just have that idea, and it’s a nice idea that I think helps remove ego from my mind and heart.
Here’s another couple of precepts to mull over. These relate to the Matrix movies.
Combine the Matrix movies and the Michael Crichton book “Prey” and you realize:
- If the machines decide to harvest energy from us,
- It is probably our brain activity that matters most,
- Which means AI will be very interested in keeping our mental state positive, cheerful, and productive, and in keeping our intelligence organized,
- Which means they’ll want to plug us gently into the Matrix, without us even ever knowing it happens,
- Which could happen for sure, if you connect those movies, that book, and the underlying mathematical principles of AI.
If I had a glimpse into this world, one question I’d be curious to know the answer to is this: “Is it even possible to shape matter into a machine that computes better than a fully aligned, happy, fearless, and knowledgeable human mind?”
At ArrayFire, the company I started with Gallagher, James, and Tauseef, we know that “computing better” is a qualitative metric depending on the problem type typically concerned with attributes like speed, accuracy, data throughput, the goodness of fit, energy efficiency, and more.
Ben, perhaps we can discuss these ideas in your podcast soon. Ben was an ArrayFire customer 8 years ago working closely with James on some gnarly financial trading algorithms, then started and sold an AI startup. I am supposed to be coming up with some AI ideas to brainstorm Joe Rogan-style on his podcast sometime soon, and I look forward to it.
What else? What are other thoughts on AI and simulations?
Finally, if we are in a simulation, does it even matter?
If we have separate simulations, does that matter?
Does matter even matter? Ayeeeee… lol.
Because likely if we all got plugged into the simulations at the same time, AI would want us each to find our own happy places.
I want to find my own happy place, and I want that for everyone else too.
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