Thanks for reading, Aki! I'm glad you found it helpful. I know At Work in the Ruins has been generative for your own recent writing as well. I love seeing the many ways the book has rippled outwards into the world.
I know this is way off topic, but it seems like the people in the replies might know the answer.
Has anyone ever tried to build an independent, self-sustaining AGI?
What I mean by this is a mobile machine that exists independently, can detect failures in its system and can order/repair them with external parts, has a battery but must seek a power source to recharge it, and lastly, can communicate these needs to seek help from other systems.
So far it seems we’ve built a Wernicke/Broca area of a brain but haven’t connected it sufficiently to the other brain analogues that we’ve built.
Getting all the pieces together is the threshold that will actually get me worried.
As I understand it, this is what people like Sam Altman are trying ultimately to build. They haven't succeeded yet, but they seem confident that the pieces will come together in the coming years and decades. Whether or not they're ever successful, it says a lot that this is the outcome some people are aiming for.
Great read, and a blend of ideas I find very congruent to my own recent writings. In case you would be interested I wanted to provide a couple of works that I have found enlightening on this topic, in addition to Hine's At Work in the Ruins:
Your tracing of our crises as "a revelation of a truth which had been hidden by the logic of the very systems it places under threat" seems to coincide nicely with my own analysis of the metacrisis as arising from 'wicked loops' wherein (narrow boundary, short-term) limitations in our world views and designs land us in traps that act to reinforce misaligned world views and designs (more on which here: https://tmfow.substack.com/p/the-metacrisis-analysis)
Thanks for this illuminating essay! The point about the world's 'winners' acting from within their own life experience of succeeding at most things they attempt is very interesting, and rings true.
Thank you for synthesising the important work of so many writers so lucidly and with your own voice and thoughts!
Thanks for reading, Aki! I'm glad you found it helpful. I know At Work in the Ruins has been generative for your own recent writing as well. I love seeing the many ways the book has rippled outwards into the world.
I know this is way off topic, but it seems like the people in the replies might know the answer.
Has anyone ever tried to build an independent, self-sustaining AGI?
What I mean by this is a mobile machine that exists independently, can detect failures in its system and can order/repair them with external parts, has a battery but must seek a power source to recharge it, and lastly, can communicate these needs to seek help from other systems.
So far it seems we’ve built a Wernicke/Broca area of a brain but haven’t connected it sufficiently to the other brain analogues that we’ve built.
Getting all the pieces together is the threshold that will actually get me worried.
As I understand it, this is what people like Sam Altman are trying ultimately to build. They haven't succeeded yet, but they seem confident that the pieces will come together in the coming years and decades. Whether or not they're ever successful, it says a lot that this is the outcome some people are aiming for.
Great read, and a blend of ideas I find very congruent to my own recent writings. In case you would be interested I wanted to provide a couple of works that I have found enlightening on this topic, in addition to Hine's At Work in the Ruins:
- Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Andreotti.
- Development in Progress by The Consilience Project (available here: https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/)
Your tracing of our crises as "a revelation of a truth which had been hidden by the logic of the very systems it places under threat" seems to coincide nicely with my own analysis of the metacrisis as arising from 'wicked loops' wherein (narrow boundary, short-term) limitations in our world views and designs land us in traps that act to reinforce misaligned world views and designs (more on which here: https://tmfow.substack.com/p/the-metacrisis-analysis)
Thanks for reading, Severin. And for sharing these books and essays. Will check them out!
Thanks for this illuminating essay! The point about the world's 'winners' acting from within their own life experience of succeeding at most things they attempt is very interesting, and rings true.
Thank you for reading! It really means a lot that some of my writing is resonating!