MW #4 | The Future is So Artificial
A path to Artificial General Intelligence, the Implications of Accessible Deepfakes, AI Interpreting Emotions in Art, Upcoming Events
Welcome to Mind Whoosh! An inter-dimensional trail of noodling thoughts, learnings, and speculations following my spelunking journey through minds, metaverse, and this messy human meat-space we call ‘reality.’
Author’s Note
Thank you for dropping by to see what Mind Whoosh is all about! It continues to evolve by the week, so I’d like to pause for a moment to reflect on why we’re here. Often, it’s not until you’ve already embarked that you begin to understand why you felt compelled to the journey.
I aspire to create the sparks of serendipity here; those unexpected realizations, discoveries, connections, and new opportunities to learn from one another.
I’ve endeavored to share more of my process over time, not just the polished pearls at the end of neatly packaged labors of love. It’s the imperfect, raw, and encouraging perspective my younger self could have used. If serendipity is the goal, openness and vulnerability might create just the right convergence of minds and moments for someone to be intrigued or empowered to dive a little deeper and forge ahead on their trail of exploration.
Okay! Without further adieu, let’s keep this conceptual chaos rocket hurtling forward! I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride; may we uncover many deliciously novel Nutella-covered notions along the way.
In this issue:
- Towards the End of Deep Learning and the Beginning of Artificial General Intelligence
- Reflecting on the implications of deepfakes
- Artist’s Intent: AI Recognized Emotions in Visual Art
- Upcoming Virtual Events: on Philosophy, Encryption, Natural Language(NLP), Entrepreneurship, Vaccinations, and Thought Experiments
A recently published book, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, seems to reveal promising new insights on the brain for intelligence and conscious experience.
If that interests you, take the plunge with me to get a more thorough understanding of the theory and its implications for future AI development. I also currently host virtual Brain Meets every month. If you happen to drop in for the next one on April 7th, we’ll probably spend some time digging into this particular topic and the book. I hope to see some of you there!
What I’ve gathered thus far:
- The Neocortex is multi-modal, ~150,000 columns of neurons ( like a symphony of players all coalescing around different notes and melodies )
- It’s predictive, dynamic, and democratic ( metaphorical conductors distributed across the symphony guide their players’ notes to synchronize with one another so they can converge on a single piece of music or ‘thought’ )
Artist’s Intent: AI Recognized Emotions in Visual Art
Researchers created a deep learning model that can generate natural language describing an image or painting’s emotional experience. There is a lot to unpack when interpreting reported emotional experiences across myriad individuals and cultures. The implications of a machine’s “understanding” of emotional content are still the subject of extensive research and debate. Regardless of whether ‘ARTeMIS’ or other emotional AI approaches can be said to “understand” human emotions, these applications have incredible potential in any context of human-computer interaction.
More Food for Thought
- Individual reporting and self-perception is unreliable( ref. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell)
- Emotional experience is highly subjective to individuals and cultures (ref. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett)
- Applications using emotional AI should be trained with data from the cultural context of their intended audiences.
Perspective | Anyone with an iPhone can now make deepfakes. We aren’t ready for what happens next.
Deepfakes is essentially a method of easily fabricating videos of people. For example, it has been used to manufacture convincing videos of presidents saying things they never actually uttered during a filmed speech. In a sense, the growing ease of this kind of “photoshop” method for videos and recordings makes it easy to create a convincing record of things that never happened. Lies can be seen, not just written.
Below are a series of thought nuggets that came to mind from reflecting on this article, dealing with fake news, deepfakes, and challenges that lie therein:
- Social fantasies no longer need to be limited to one’s thoughts, for better and worse.
- Fake news and deepfakes evolve differently on multiple scales: from personal filter bubbles to tribal internet communities to nationally controlled intranets.
- We will probably see standardized methods arise in an attempt to identify modified content or media online.
- Social norms will evolve, and new digital instincts will emerge: Younger generations and those more tech-savvy will develop proactive ‘intuitions’ while many more become increasingly vulnerable due to limited awareness.
- What unique challenges arise in an era where digital fabrication of videos and even voice becomes widely accessible?
Openness to Experience: The Gates of the Mind
This article is a reminder of how we actively shape and manifest the outcomes in our daily lives. In not so many words, choosing a lens of optimism can reframe uncertainty, discomfort, fears, and failures as opportunities to learn from and grow.
Cognitive Reappraisal
We could all stand to work a bit on our emotional temperance these days. Cognitive Reappraisal outlines methods to intentionally reshape our perceptions through a more purposeful and constructive lens.
More on Cognitive Reappraisal here.
Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events
Contemporary Iranian Philosophy
Venturing into Your Entrepreneurial Journey: Live Q&A
Intro to Natural Language Processing
Understanding the Potential of Homomorphic Encryption with Randi Hindi
Everyday Philosophy | On Mandatory Vaccinations
Jiyuan Yu| The Moral Self and the Perfect Self in Aristotle and Mencius
I hope you found something to get excited about here! If you appreciate any of the things I’ve gathered or written about here, consider sharing this with other like-minded humanauts in your circle. Right now, the best thing you can do is help find a larger community of people who can benefit.
