Poorly specified goals

Instrumental convergence is the hypothetical tendency for most sufficiently intelligent agents to pursue certain instrumental goals such as self-preservation and resource acquisition.

Instrumental convergence suggests that an intelligent agent with apparently harmless goals can act in surprisingly harmful ways. For example, a computer with the sole goal of solving the Riemann hypothesis could attempt to turn the entire Earth into computronium in an effort to increase its computing power so that it can succeed in its calculations.^[1]

Proposed basic AI drives include utility function or goal-content integrity, self-protection, freedom from interference, self-improvement, and the unbounded acquisition of additional resources . ..  nothing to see here move along . . . 

Instrumental and intrinsic value are technical labels for the two poles of an ancient dichotomy. People seem to reason differently about what they ought to do (good ends) and what they are able to do (good means). When people reason about ends, they apply the criterion intrinsic value. When they reason about means they apply the criterion instrumental value. Few question the existence of these two criteria, but their relative authority is in constant dispute.

This article explains the meaning of and disputes about these two criteria for judging means and ends. Evidence is drawn from the work of four scholars. John Dewey and John Fagg Foster provided arguments against the dichotomy, while Jacques Ellul and Anjan Chakravartty provided arguments in its favor . . . when is lunch  . . .

⟨ ⋅ , ⋅ ⟩

Dirac–von Neumann axioms

Exascale Spring Offensive

Chicken Wire . . . Hatch . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gene_synthesis

Artificial gene synthesis, sometimes known as DNA printing^[1] is a method in synthetic biology that is used to create artificial genes in the laboratory. Based on solid-phase DNA synthesis, it differs from molecular cloning and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in that it does not have to begin with preexisting DNA sequences. Therefore, it is possible to make a completely synthetic double-stranded DNA molecule with no apparent limits on either nucleotide sequence or size.

The method has been used to generate functional bacterial or yeast chromosomes containing approximately one million base pairs. Creating novel nucleobase pairs in addition to the two base pairs in nature could greatly expand the genetic code.^[2][3][4][5]

Synthesis of the first complete gene, a yeast tRNA, was demonstrated by Har Gobind Khorana and coworkers in 1972.^[6] Synthesis of the first peptide- and protein-coding genes was performed in the laboratories of Herbert Boyer and Alexander Markham, respectively.^[7][8]

Commercial gene synthesis services are now available.^[9] Approaches are most often based on a combination of organic chemistry and molecular biology techniques and entire genes may be synthesized "de novo", without the need for template DNA. Gene synthesis is an important tool in many fields of recombinant DNA technology including heterologous gene expression, vaccine development, gene therapy and molecular engineering. The synthesis of nucleic acid sequences can be more economical than classical cloning and mutagenesis procedures. It is also a powerful and flexible engineering tool for creating and designing new DNA sequences and protein functions.

exception ameliorative programs

After losing territory

Country Convenience Attacks 

After losing territory and power in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) is outsourcing its deadly attacks on the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan to local splinter groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, because it lacks manpower.
Claiming responsibility for a string of high-profile attacks in the country in recent months, particularly in Kabul, ISIS is vying with the more established Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) for dominance in Afghanistan.
However, a recent U.N. report has said that while the leaders of the groups remain in open competition for the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s Islamists, ISIS tends to enlist “partners of convenience” and “outsources” attacks to other local splinter groups, including the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group for branches of the Pakistani Taliban.

 http://www.newsweek.com/down-its-luck-syria-and-iraq-isis-outsources-terror-attacks-pakistani-taliban-650926

Robots Rise First

A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned (robotic) missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959.^[3]

The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969.^[4] There have been six manned U.S. landings(between 1969 and 1972) and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 22 August 1976 until 14 December 2013.

To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. 

Global Capitalist Perspective

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council(SASAC) is a special commission of the People's Republic of China, directly under the State Council. It was founded in 2003 through the consolidation of various other industry-specific ministries.^[1] As part of economic reform, nearly half of state-owned enterprises were sold off in the form of stocks. SASAC is responsible for managing the remaining SOEs, including appointing top executives and approving any mergers or sales of stock or assets, as well as drafting laws related to state-owned enterprises. As of 2017, its companies had a combined revenue of more than 23.4trillion yuan (US$3.6 trillion) and an estimated stock value of 50 trillion yuan (US$7.6 trillion),^[2][3] making it the largest economic entity in the world.

Buddhism artificial intelligene

Emergent artificial intelligence poses a problem for many religions, especially those that ascribe a special place for humanity and for human consciousness in the cosmos. Buddhism may be the one system of religious thought that not only accepts but will actively embrace any AIs that we produce as a species.
Later [Buddhist] texts illustrate that animal life is just as capable of becoming enlightened as human life is, and recently many Buddhist thinkers have begun to include plant and microbial life as well. Buddhism may have in fact been the first philosophy to find personhood beyond the human. Would it accept artificial intelligence in the same way? The simple answer is that, from a Buddhist view of the mind and consciousness, all intelligence is artificial.
Buddhism famously denies the existence of a “self”. This is a departure from how many people view themselves. Buddhism instead describes living things as composed of five “heaps” or “piles”: our physical forms, our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations, and our consciousness
None of the heaps are under our control, and none by themselves can be ascribed as who we “are”. Together they create a living thing, but taken apart they are simply temporary amassing of energy that will eventually dissipitate of their own accord.

disinfo.com

 http://disinfo.com/2014/01/buddhist-perspective-artificial-intelligence/

general intelligence evolution

 The evolution of general intelligence  take an anthropological perspective on general intelligence . . .

Saudi Aramco IPO

Saudi Aramco IPO

goldman sachs debt

Artificial Intelligence Value