_{Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis}

Eric Holloway

Group of urban runners running on the street in New york city, conceptual series about sport and fitness

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
June 15, 2020

Categorized
Information Theory

Tagged
___longform, Conditioned entropy, Entropy, Running, Unconditioned entropy, Usain Bolt}

Why Information Theory Is Like a Good Run

_{Information theory can help us understand a wide range of fields besides computers} _{Eric Holloway

June 15, 2020

7

Information Theory}

Information theory is a deep field that is responsible for our modern internet and satellite TV. The field was pioneered by Claude Shannon to measure our ability to communicate meaning. But besides powering the information revolution, information theory is also very widely applicable elsewhere. Once you understand the basic intuition, you can see applications popping up all over the place. To prove the point, I’ll show how we can apply information theory to gain insight in the very low tech world of running. I’ve been running off and on for many years and I’ve noticed that information theory describes a good run. First of all, what is a good run? A good run is when your body feels as if Read More ›

Great bundle of various colored cables with various connectors

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Author
Eric Holloway
Date
May 12, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Global Technology, Surveillance, Technocracy

Tagged
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Eugenics, IBM, Michael S. Malone, Nazis, Scientific American, Soviet Union, William Davidow}

No, Scientific American, Don’t Starve AI!

_{Don't unplug AI; just make sure everyone shares in both the creation and the benefits} _{Eric Holloway

May 12, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Global Technology, Surveillance, Technocracy}

While many are concerned about all the jobs that AI will eliminate, no one is talking about the fact that AI needs humans. Information is the fuel that powers AI, and only humans can create this information. So, the real revolution that AI will bring is not data exploitation, but the empowering of people all around the world to power our economy through creation of information. What’s bad news for authoritarian groups like the Chinese Communist party is good news for everyone else.

red and blue hearts illustration

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 27, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health

Tagged
COVID-19, Southern hemisphere, Statistics}

Why Does COVID-19 Target the Northern Hemisphere?

_{A graph of death rates by latitude is revealing} _{Eric Holloway

April 27, 2020

4

Medicine and Health}

First of all, COVID-19 clearly does not attack the globe uniformly by latitude. The second standout feature is that it targets the northern hemisphere. How can a disease’s spread be affected by hemisphere, let alone latitude? Let’s look a little deeper for some clues.

Shirts

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 21, 2020

Tagged
Computers, Featured, halting problem, Language, Shirts without stripes (halting problem)}

Why Your Computer Will Never Talk to You

_{As a jokester recently demonstrated, even “shirts without stripes” is a fundamental, unsolvable problem for computers} _{Eric Holloway

April 21, 2020

3}

At first, “shirts without stripes” might not seem like much of an issue but it turns out that many important and interesting problems for computers fundamentally reduce to this “halting problem.” And understanding human language is one of these problems.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 1, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Broken Checkerboard Test, Turing Test}

A Scientific Test for True Intelligence

_{A scientific test should identify precisely what humans can do that computers cannot, avoiding subjective opinion} _{Eric Holloway

April 1, 2020

3

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

The “broken checkerboard” is not the ultimate scientific test for intelligence that we need. But it is a truly scientific test in the sense that it is capable of falsifying the theory that the mind is reducible to computation.

Shot of Corridor in Working Data Center Full of Rack Servers and Supercomputers with Internet connection Visualization Projection.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
March 31, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Programming

Tagged
Leonid Levin, NP-Complete (NPC) problems, Stephen Cook}

What’s Hard for Computers Is Easy for Humans

_{Some of the surprising things computers have a hard time doing and why} _{Eric Holloway

March 31, 2020

3

Artificial Intelligence, Programming}

We often hear that what’s hard for humans is easy for computers. But it turns out that many kinds of problems are exceedingly hard for computers to solve. This class of problems, known as NP-Complete (NPC), was independently discovered by Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin.

magician hands with magic wand showing trick

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
March 30, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Tagged
Alan Turing, Deception, Eugene Goostman, Scott Aaronson, Turing Test}

Current Artificial Intelligence Research Is Unscientific

_{The assumption that the human mind can be reduced to a computer program has never really been tested} _{Eric Holloway

March 30, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming}

Because AI research is based on a fundamental assumption that has not been scientifically tested—that the human mind can be reduced to a computer—then the research itself cannot be said to be scientific.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
March 29, 2020

Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
J. R. Lucas, Kurt Gödel, Leonid Levin, Logicomix (comic book), Vienna Circle}

Math Shows Why the Mind Is Not Just a Formula

_{The Liar’s Paradox shows that even mathematics cannot be reduced to a fixed set of axioms} _{Eric Holloway

March 29, 2020

4

Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind}

Gödel’s discovery brought back a sense of wonder to mathematics and to the rest of human knowledge. His incompleteness theorem underlies the fact that human investigation can never exhaust all that can be known. Every discovery builds a path to a new discovery.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
February 19, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Androids, Captain Kirk (Star Trek), Featured, I Mudd (1967), Richard Johns, Robots}

A Philosopher Explains Why Thinking Matter Is Impossible

_{He’s right but Captain Kirk tumbled to it before him. So did a medieval poet} _{Eric Holloway

February 19, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

According to analytical philosopher Richard Johns, we cannot represent ourselves completely mathematically so we cannot generate fundamentally contradictory thoughts about ourselves. Some part of us lies beyond mathematics. An android would not be so lucky, as Captain Kirk realized in an early Star Trek episode.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
January 31, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Cause, Efficient Causes, Final Causes, Purpose, Quantum Mechanics}

Quantum Mechanics Shows That Our Universe Has Purpose

_{Not only can two physically separated particles influence each other, they can influence each other through time} _{Eric Holloway

January 31, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Recent experiments in entanglement of particles in time as well as space show that our entire universe is imbued with final causality within its very fabric. This final causality must come from some source beyond the universe.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
January 21, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Tagged
Kernel, NP-Hard Problem, science, Support Vector Machines (SVMs), Vapnik–Chervonenkis (VC) dimension}

Will an AI Win a Nobel Prize for Science All by Itself One Day?

_{No, but Support Vector Machines (SVMs) can allow scientists to frame questions so that a comprehensible answer is more likely} _{Eric Holloway

January 21, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Programming}

AI can certainly help scientists. But to understand why AI can’t do science on its own, we should take a look at the NP-Hard Problem in computer science. The “Hard” is in the name of the problem for a reason…

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
December 16, 2019

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Brain waves, Tetris}

Playing Tetris Shows That True AI Is Impossible

_{Here’s a look inside my brain that will show you why} _{Eric Holloway

December 16, 2019

4

Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind}

The intensity of my mental processing brought about an observable brain state. The causality did not go in the other direction; the magenta brain state did not increase my conscious process. This type of observation causes a problem for those hoping to duplicate human intelligence in a computer program.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
December 2, 2019

Categorized
Business and Finance, Machine Learning

Tagged
Empirical Generalized Information (EGI), Gini metric}

What Vehicle Would Bob Buy?

_{Both empirical generalized information (EGI) and the Gini metric can generate useful information} _{Eric Holloway

December 2, 2019

10

Business and Finance, Machine Learning}

Contrary to traditional Fisherian hypothesis testing, it is possible to create models after viewing the data and still quantify the generality of the model.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 25, 2019

Categorized
Machine Learning

Tagged
Empirical Generalized Information (EGI)}

Machine learning: Harnessing the Power of Empirical Generalized Information (EGI)

_{We can calculate a probability bound from entropy. Entropy also happens to be an upper bound on the binomial distribution} _{Eric Holloway

November 25, 2019

5

Machine Learning}

We want our calculation to demonstrate the notion that if we have high accuracy and a small model, then we have high confidence of generalizing. Intuitively, then, we add the model size to the accuracy and subtract this quantity from the entropy of having absolutely no information about the problem.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 23, 2019

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Science fiction, TruMind serial}

Arctang Knows He Must Choose

_{Arctang stood aghast. “How could you believe any of this? Do you really think you are just a program on a computer?" —Trumind Serial, Part 8} _{Eric Holloway

November 23, 2019

9

Arts & Culture}

“I can give you a taste of the future even before you undergo the operation,” Eclar explained, “I have a nouspace unit right here with me.”

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 20, 2019

Categorized
Machine Learning

Tagged
Clue (board game), decision tree, Entropy, Probability}

Machine Learning: Decision Trees Can Solve Murders

_{Decision trees increase our chance at a right answer. We can see how that works in a mystery board game like Clue} _{Eric Holloway

November 20, 2019

6

Machine Learning}

Entropy is a concept in information theory that characterizes the number of choices available when a probability distribution is involved. Understanding how it works helps us make better guesses.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 18, 2019

Categorized
Machine Learning

Tagged
Occam's razor, Probability}

Machine Learning: Using Occam’s Razor to Generalize

_{A simple thought experiment shows us how} _{Eric Holloway

November 18, 2019

4

Machine Learning}

This approach is contrary to Fisher's method where we formulate all theories before encountering the data. We came up with the model after we saw the cards we drew.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 16, 2019

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Science fiction, TruMind serial}

Empath—the Ultimate Technology—Cares About You

_{Arctang discovers how empathy can be manufactured—Trumind Serial, Part 6} _{Eric Holloway

November 16, 2019

7

Arts & Culture}

Arctang was one of the few outsiders who knew TruMind's secret. Long ago, his elder brother had entered the fortress-like facility, never to be seen again.

^{Type
post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 12, 2019

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Tagged
Featured, Google, halting oracle, IBM, Kolmogorov complexity, Quantum Computing, Quantum Supremacy, Solomonoff induction}

Google vs. IBM?: Quantum Supremacy Isn’t the Big Fix Anyway

_{If human thought is a halting oracle, then even quantum computing will not allow us to replicate human intelligence} _{Eric Holloway

November 12, 2019

8

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming}

Google’s quantum supremacy claim is certainly fascinating and controversial, but even if true, it ultimately only amounts to an incremental and even inconsequential improvement in the state of AI and ML, due to the still-unmet need for a halting oracle.

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 11, 2019

Categorized
Machine Learning, Programming

Tagged
Data snooping, Occam's razor, Probability}

Occam’s Razor Can Shave Away Data Snooping

_{The greater an object's information content, the lower its probability.} _{Eric Holloway

November 11, 2019

4

Machine Learning, Programming}

One technique to avoid data snooping is based on the intersection of information theory and probability: An object’s probability is related to its information content. The greater an object’s information content, the lower its probability. We measure a model’s information content as the logarithmic difference between the probability that the data occurred by chance and the number of bits required to store the model. The negative exponential of the difference is the model’s probability of occurring by chance. If the data cannot be compressed, then these two values are equal. Then the model has zero information and we cannot know if the data was generated by chance or not. For a dataset that is incompressible and uninformative, swirl some tea Read More ›