I think at some level this tension is due to the nature of the problems being solved. Fred Brooks notes in his “No Silver Bullet” that there is an important distinction to be made between “accidental complexity” and “essential complexity” of a problem (at least when it comes to programming).

It seems to me that at a very high level AGI has got rid of all the possible accidental complexity of the AI problem. What needs to be solved in a general AI problem can be stated very simply in terms of an optimisation. However, for any particular, practical problem there is essential complexity that cannot be overcome – representational choices, data processing, noise, etc. (I suppose this could be nicely formulated in terms of algorithmic information theory.)

I see this essential complexity may be the “complicated” that Good speaks of in his quote and sometimes the only way through it is with some good general principles driving some honest ad hockery.

Even for a native English speaker such as much self working out song lyrics can be really difficult. I often have to google.

I think there is a place for both. Much AI research is limited in its application due to being too ad hoc, while something like universal AI is limited by being too impractical. Most of us want practical and yet very general, however these seem to work against each other.

Ask if you need help with anything. You are great.

If you’re able to explain me how Existence can exist rather than not exist, without any such circular definition, that would make my day. Month. Life… whatever.
Descartes already tried, but in the end he was quite muttering (he’s was already rather old when I was a kid) so I couldn’t hear his last thoughts.

Anyway, happy birthday Shane!

“We can take this huge universe, and put it inside a very tiny head. We fold it.”

I’ve been reading Overcoming Bias (including the posts on the Map/Territory metaphor) WHILE listening to this song WITHOUT knowing what exactly the quote said! I’m not a native English speaker, so it’s sometimes hard to me to decipher spoken words correctly — imagine my surprise when I finally googled the phrase up!

Oh, and if you’re into electronic music, you might like the track as well.

“Shpongle — Around the World in a Tea Daze.”

Happy birthday!

Although we haven’t met, your request for gifts was compelling enough for me to want to contribute something.

I don’t have any wisdom of my own that I feel suitable for giving to a stranger so I’ll do the next best thing and share with you a piece of I. J. Good’s that I particularly enjoyed:

“In our theories, we rightly search for unification, but real life is both complicated and short, and we make no mockery of honest ad hockery.”

HappyBirthday!