SuperMinds
Superminds
I got this book into my hands while researching potential models for human & AI Apprentice cooperation. The wonderful essence of Tom’s book is to imagine how people and computers will interact on a massive scale to create intelligent systems. The author is both a management consultant and organizational theorist, as well as a Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His thinking about the impact of technology and the harnessing of both human and artificial minds make most of our thoughts on that subject seem… infantile.
Quotes and concepts
Here’s my visual depiction of quotes & concepts I listed when thoroughly reading the book:
Core concepts of the book:
- Collective intelligence — the result of groups of individuals acting together in ways that seem intelligent. 3 important factors in this regard are: (a) social perceptiveness (guessing mental states of the other participant), (b) the degree of equal participation and (c) the proportion of women in the group (a higher proportion of women makes the group more intelligent)
- Superintelligence with a formula to recognize it (as a group of individuals, their actions, interconnections and goals with respect to which evaluation can occur)
- Consciousness of groups – the line of reasoning attributing consciousness to corporations such as Apple, calling them superminds, having analogous experiences to what we humans have.
- Integrated Information Theory 3.0 – Due to a lack of any broad scientific consensus about how to measure consciousness, probably the best known and best developed attempt is the Integrated Information Theory. It defines different degrees of consciousness in different systems depending on how the information they process is integrated.
- The origin of the word Robot and its introduction in 1920 by the Czech play R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robot.
- The logic of human destiny – at every stage of human development, there has been a tendency—not an absolute law, but a general tendency—for humans to form larger and larger groups that lead to a net improvement in human welfare.
- General collective intelligence understood as group versatility and adaptability.
- General AI as a form of collective intelligence – A “society of mind” emerges from the interactions of many smaller “agents,” none of which is very intelligent as an individual but all of which, together, create an overall system that is intelligent.
- Smarter Learning and two modes of learning – by Exploitation and Exploration
- Cyber-human learning loops will let machines watch humans prepare more complex returns and gradually learn what actions humans take in different situations. At first, the machines may just suggest actions to humans. Eventually, the machines can just automatically take the actions that humans always approve.
- How differences in structuring intelligent participants (hierarchies, markets and communities) correspond with needs.
- Human and cyber-sensing – letting the machines do the low-level sensing, then letting people do the higher-level reasoning. “Our great-grandchildren may find it hard to understand how the organizations we belong to in the early 21st century could have made so many of their decisions with their eyes—figuratively—closed.”
Superminds
by Thomas W. Malone
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Published: May 2018
Length: 384 pages
Time to read: 9h
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“Conscious”
The book “Conscious: by Annaka Harris is an ambitious undertaking in providing insights on how the conscious is integrated with matter. Its aim is to pry loose as many false assumptions about consciousness as possible and shed some light on less than common-sensical intuitions. And, in a sense, it delivers what is promised, aside from the fact that it is far from being a, quote, “brief guide” on such a deep topic. It is brief, but lacks the qualities of being a guide. Rather, the book serves as a dispatcher, highlighting concepts within the current state of knowledge. This shortcoming, as some would call it, is actually a benefit to me, as it only took me one day to read it from cover to cover and extract core concepts and references for further study.
Quotes & concepts
Here’s my visual depiction of quotes & concepts I listed when thoroughly reading the book:
Core concepts of the book:
- How our intuitions make it difficult to recognize consciousness (see example of Locked-in Syndrome), and thus how hard it is (or will be) to recognize consciousness outside of animal life, if you’re thinking of AI.
- How consciousness is often “the last to know” in the process of perceiving reality (I love the reference to Michael S. Gazangia’s book, “The Mind’s Past,” on the phased construction of experience).
The “Panpsychism” – as the possibility that all matter is imbued with consciousness in some sense (see David Skribna’s publication where he surveys of the history of scientific arguments for panpsychism).
The current state of technology in detecting consciousness – the method of arriving at a measure of a “perturbational complexity index” value, that is finding a critical threshold being the minimum measure of brain activity supporting consciousness. This method is called “Zap and Zip”
- How both conscious and nonconscious states seem to be compatible with any behavior, even those associated with emotion, so a behavior, in itself, does not necessarily signal the presence of consciousness (see examples of plant responses to the environment that are analogous to those of animals).
- How our seemingly conscious behavior can be easily affected by infections (author uses effects of Toxoplasma to illustrate that).
- “Umwelt” as a term introduced by biologist Jakob von Uexkull to describe a given experience based on the senses used by a particular organism, and how Umwelt links to the definition of Consciousness used throughout the book.
- The hard problem of matter – Since consciousness is, in fact, the only thing we truly understand firsthand, then, according to Strawson, it is a matter that’s utterly mysterious, because we have no understanding of its intrinsic nature.
The book is a good introduction to the concepts related to consciousness and the current state of thinking on the topic for those that are already aware of the subject. I find it as a brief and concise summary of the subject that has updated me on the matter (as it might others interested in giving it a go).
Conscious
by Annaka Harris
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Published: June 2019
Length: pages
Time to read: 6h
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- Feb 2, 2021“The ultimate guide to using the magical power of funny as a tool for leadership and a force for good.”—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author
- Oct 30, 2020How computer scientists and philosophers are defining the biggest question of our time - how will we create intelligent machines that will improve our lives rather than complicate or even destroy them?
- Sep 19, 2020How to integrate data teams into organization in an effective way, enabling executive data science practices.
- Feb 8, 2020An account of the cultural and intellectual history of how Americans have lived with image and information since XXI century. It blends historical synthesis with insightful orienting narratives of eras, analyzing particular dimensions of them.