The Future is Electric

Our fictional, machine-learning, neural-net, robotic velociraptor learns to open doors through massively parallelized simulation while 'asleep'. This is strongly related to the recent success of open.ai in teaching a pair of neural nets to manipulate a robotic hand to solve Rubik's Cube one-handed, showing that the state of the art for neural net control of sophisticated robots is a lot closer than it appears. This podcast is of the article of the same name on the TFIE Medium publication.

I spend a lot of time critiquing solutions for low-carbon transformation, and that leads, inevitably, to people asking me: what works? What should we be doing? Most recently, that came in the form of a question on Quora that was well enough formed to trigger me to write down the solution set: “What exactly is the current scientific consensus on steps to combat climate change?“ This podcast has a written version in the TFIE Medium publication. 

Peterson is merely the current front-man for the recurrent and always mythical crisis of masculinity. Last time around it was Robert Bly, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Johnson who were the foci. This crisis of masculinity occurs in relatively affluent younger, white males with too much time on their hands. The focal points for action are always older white father figures. The repetition is merely tiresome and predictable. This podcast is the oral version of the article of the same title.

Two groups with billions at stake are pouring money into disinformation campaigns at a time when media is facing the 20th year of an existential crisis. Well-funded PR machines are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the press, and Tesla and Elon Musk are at the intersection of their attacks.

What follows are suggested guidelines for techno-optimism. They are imperfect, but are the start of riverbanks to suggest the flow of thinking and to be able to articulate what solutions are worth being optimistic about. As with all good lists, it has exactly 7 items, not 12. The full text is available on the Future is Electric in the article A manifesto for pragmatic techno-optimism.

This is a story from the evolution of Plastic Dinosaur aka PD, a fictional robotic velociraptor that the authors, David Clement and Michael Barnard, are using to explore aspects of machine learning. Read the first articles in the series for the mechanical and neural net architecture of the robot. 

PD and its creators have been playing a game. The game is simple. PD is the goal keeper. The goal is a soccer net. The balls are tennis balls hurled from tennis ball machines. PD is rewarded when it intercepts a ball before it hits the net and gets a tiny punishment when a ball hits the net. Yes, punishing an AI dinosaur is going to go well.

This podcast continues the exploration that David Clement and I are making into machine learning via Plastic Dinosaur, a robotic velociraptor guided by neural nets. It’s a fictional exercise to introduce and play with concepts of robotics and machine learning, and to explore aspects of where machine learning is today. The first piece was about PD’s physical body. This piece is about his brains, what makes him tick and also occasionally lunge at small dogs with his rubber teeth.

Plastic Dinosaur is a fictional robotic velociraptor guided by a set of machine-learning neural nets. David Clement and I are using him as a foil in our exploration of the current state of the art in machine learning, a way to make some interesting corners of the space more accessible to a general audience. After all, what's more accessible than an AI predator with teeth? This episode is the narration of the first article in the series, on the physical structure of the robot. Other articles deal with the neural net architecture, training the robot to play goalie and perceptual gaps we have in understanding what neural nets are doing. 

This is another article in the series David Clement and I are collaborating on to introduce interesting aspects of machine learning in its current state. Our foil is a fictional neural net driven robotic velociraptor, because what’s more fun than a terrifying AI predator? Articles so far have introduced its mechanical body and sensorium, its neural net architecture and explored how it might learn to play goalie. And now, it’s turned out to be a racist. What could possibly go wrong?