Sunday, August 28, 2011

// // 5 comments

News: Coming up - on probabilities, logic, language, developmental psychology, bottom-up pattern discovery and prediction etc.

I've been involved a lot in working on my artistic career some months ago, but recently I've been turning on the research thread again - joined AGI mail list to notice the community there about the two AGI university courses taught in Plovdiv, and started to spend some time in AGI studies and reflection.

A comment of mine on Narrow AI-niks, in an Ben Goertzel article on "AI Nanny".

http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/08/17/does-humanity-need-an-ai-nanny/

Matthew: Ben, I respect the opinion of AGI experts but because I have no programming expertise, I find it hard to ignore the plurality of “narrow” AI experts who believe AGI is not coming for a century of maybe never."

Todor: AGI is not about programming (unlike the AI-niks think) - it's about understanding how mind works. Programming would be the easiest part, once we do understand intelligence.

Plurality is not a strong argument - the majority of a population is supposed to have the minority of intelligence, and people who stick to the mainstream often are not "right", they're just obedient and narrow-viewed, have no own vision, and no guts to do anything radical on their own.

Regarding understanding - the boring narrow AI-niks are not trying to understand intelligence (they don't believe they could), rather they're coding and engineering on problems, which seem intelligent, but are obviously quite solvable and flat, just need some "tinkering" and testing to get done. Such as self-driving cars etc., which is one of the best achievement of the top narrow AI-niks.

Read More

Thursday, August 4, 2011

// // Leave a Comment

Участието на Тош в онлайн реалити шоуто "Програмист търси жена" - Todor's Participation in a Funny Online Reality Show (Interview/Picture Story)




Гледайте участието ми във веселото Интернет риалити шоу "Програмист търси жена".

Уникалното интервю-фоторазказ с мен, "всестранно развития пънкар", Китаристът и др. излезе в сряда, 27/7.

(...няколко малки фрагментчета...)

(...)

С какво се занимаваш?
- С всичко... Обаче дамите ще ме изкарат самохвалко, ако тръгна да изреждам, затова после ще ти кажа част от нещата, които може би най-много ще ги... развълнуват.

Как така? Не си ли програмист?
- Ти не знаеше ли? Не че не създавам софтуер и че последният ми проект не подмина 30 хиляди реда код на С++, но го правя... По голяма нужда... Трябва ми, за (...)

(........)

Според теб какво търсят жените в един мъж?
- Обикновено – скучни "неправилни" неща; поне според правилните мъже. Да си говорим откровено, това което реално търсят мнозинството жени няма (...)

-- ...вижте цялото интервю... --


My beloved ones by ~toshko on deviantART



Crushed by ~toshko on deviantART



Photographer's Love by ~toshko on deviantART


Думи: риалити, реалити, смях, забавно, интервю, фото, снимки, секси, комедия, медия, медии, любов, секс, връзки, жени, мъже, отношения
Read More

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

// //

Why shorter Stature and Lower camera angle are Unconsciously associated with "Inferiority"? Memories from childhood (Nature or Nurture)


I think this one is very obvious, I'll share my view on it:

We've felt like this as children, when we've seen the bigger ones and adults from down below and had to bend our necks to look up to see their eyes. Bigger and older ones made us feel inferior, and we really were - back then. (*See also below)

Similarly, we felt superior to the smaller ones, and that's why looking from higher angle feels like being "superior" to the subject on the picture.

Both are for pictures displaying people, particularly faces, and of course - particular emotions on the faces reinforce this feeling. Like low angle and insidious laughing face, or high angle and face blinking with eyes or seeming confused.


I guess the stature stereotype is of the same origin - shorter ones are associated with "smaller one" - children, which is associated to own memories of being weaker and inferior to taller ones. I guess that's why in general short actors are more rarely the protagonists, especially superheros, than taller ones. (Another reason probably is statistics - taller, handsome etc. is more rare ("special") than ordinary).

By the way, it is not "spiritual", "collective unconsciousness", "archetype" etc. like other common phenomena such as similar myths around the world. It's just similar conditioning, repeating experiences at different locations in similar/repeating circumstances, processed by similar generalization "processors".

* I'm not an expert in dog behavior, but I think this is related to the behavior of dogs. As little ones, they had to bend their necks up to see their mother's eyes, and this physically determined behavior is conditioned as a symbol of displaying inferiority or/and loyalty. Eventually dogs demonstrate similar body language towards their master/leader/provider (partially also for physical reasons - their heads are lower than ours, but not only - dogs try to look you in the eyes and come closer to your head).

More generally, I guess one of the discriminating skills of "social" animals is to be smart enough to understand and recognize those "providers" or "leaders", and to understand and "think" about inferiority and superiority of other agents, as grading expected benefits and dangers coming from them, which ultimately goes toward fight or flight decisions/reactions. This skill allow social animals to behave appropriately to maximize benefits according to other agents (whatever benefit is for the particular agents and circumstances).

See Also: (Search: Nurture or Nature)
Read More