Imagine, to misquote John Lennon. No information. And no computation too! It’s easy if you try … (So how can I Build an AI …).
Let me start Monday with a little bit of gentle heresy. You won’t get this from the usual fan-boy and fan-girl posts on AI or even the detractors. But that is why discerning reader you subscribe to #JabeOnAI.
(Imagine) There is no such thing as information. Or computation. In the same way that we think about the ‘engineering concept’ of aerodynamic lift, it is a convenient concept, but has no objective existence as a foundational aspect of the world other than summarising other causal patterns.
Which is a radical departure as some hold computation to be foundational to existence, and those that don’t go quite so far, have a rather lazy way of considering the ontological status of information and computation, that allows a whole bunch of issues to slip through the cracks. Let’s not be so ‘slack’.
“Imagine No Information” Apologies to the late great John Lennon (https://www.johnlennon.com)
Imagine there’s no information
It’s easy if you try
No A.I. below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today… Aha-ah…
Imagine there’s no computation
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no data, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace… You…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no algorithms
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brother(sister)hood of (wo)man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world… You…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one (or zero)
Beware the “#humblebrag”, this is a placeholder _ I have been super busy with the day job, some cool things coming, but more on that separately _ and will be writing more on this topic as a full article in due course. In the meantime if you want some inspiration, you can “search up” Andrew Smart’s book: “Beyond zero and one” which has a great take on this subject. More soon!