Is Google trying to build the first conscious computer?

“they’re trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test” - in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations.

George Dyson hints that there may be some evil intentions hidden behind Google’s loving exterior:

“When I was there, just before the IPO, I thought the coziness to be almost overwhelming. Happy Golden Retrievers running in slow motion through water sprinklers on the lawn. People waving and smiling, toys everywhere. I immediately suspected that unimaginable evil was happening somewhere in the dark corners. If the devil would come to earth, what place would be better to hide?”

For 30 years I have been wondering, what indication of its existence might we expect from a true AI? Certainly not any explicit revelation, which might spark a movement to pull the plug. Anomalous accumulation or creation of wealth might be a sign, or an unquenchable thirst for raw information, storage space, and processing cycles, or a concerted attempt to secure an uninterrupted, autonomous power supply. But the real sign, I suspect, would be a circle of cheerful, contented, intellectually and physically well-nourished people surrounding the AI. There wouldn’t be any need for True Believers, or the downloading of human brains or anything sinister like that: just a gradual, gentle, pervasive and mutually beneficial contact between us and a growing something else. This remains a non-testable hypothesis, for now. The best description comes from science fiction writer Simon Ings:

“When our machines overtook us, too complex and efficient for us to control, they did it so fast and so smoothly and so usefully, only a fool or a prophet would have dared complain.”

Good morning, my name is Ugly, and I am a loser. I have it in me to do serious financial damage to my account.

Dear Diary,
GMXR partied like a rock star.
Today I noticed an interesting thing. If you flip the chart on EXAS, to get the Painometer^TM (pronounced like ‘thermometer’ except ‘pain’ instead of ‘therm’), you see that the stock only stopped its descent when numbness set in.

This is worth noting as you may be able to time future falling stocks to cover your short position or go long at the point when numbness sets in.

Don’t forget to vote for the stock market blog remainder contest!

uglylinks

* user agreement — how to use ugly picks

I made my first trade today as a prop trader, basically just to give it a test run and make sure all systems are go. I am keeping my ‘R’ (risk per trade) low at first until I am confident enough to increase it.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

Here is a nice looking chart:

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

I just finished reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near. In it, he puts forth a convincing argument about the exponential growth of information technology. Long term (the next 10-20 years), Ray is very bullish in biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics and information technology in general. He is bearish real estate and commodities. As technology advances, commodities will be less important because they will be replaced by technology and even created with nanofactories. Real estate will become increasingly less in demand as more people move into and use virtual reality.

Manufacturing using molecular nanotechnology fabrication will also be far more efficient than contemporary manufacturing, which moves bulk materials from place to place in a relatively wasteful manner. Manufacturing today also devotes enormous energy resources to producing basic materials, such as steel. A typical nonfactory will be a tabletop device that can produce products ranging from computers to clothing. Larger products (such as vehicles, homes, and even additional nanofactories) will be produced as modular subsystems that large robots can then assemble. Waste heat, which accounts for the primary energy requirement for nanomanufacturing, will be captured and recycled.

The energy requirements for nanofactories are negligible. Drexler estimates that molecular manufacturing will be an energy generator rather than an energy consumer. According to Drexler, “A molecular manufacturing process can be driven by the chemical energy content of the feedstock materials, producing electrical energy as a by-product (if only to reduce the heat dissipation burden)…. Using typical organic feedstock, and assuming oxidation of surplus hydrogen, reasonably efficient molecular manufacturing processes are net energy producers.”

…Once we have full-immersion virtual-reality environments incorporating all of the senses, which will be feasible by the late 2020s, there will be no reason to utilize real offices. Real estate will become virtual.”

Alchemy of Trading, who is leading the polls in the current remainder vote, had a bit about Mark Cook and how he was publicly bearish in November. Actually Alchemy says “mid-November,” but I reported it in August. After posting about this, I got in touch with Mark - who happens to live very close to my hometown in Ohio - and we emailed a few times and spoke on the phone. He liked uglychart.com and was interested in having me write for his website, but after I told him I was going to trade for a prop trading firm (which he warned me not to do), he decided that he did not want to work together as it might connect him with the firm. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the prop firm.
A lot of people warned me against trading for a prop firm, saying that they are known as “commission mills.” Some proprietary trading firms make their money from commissions and want you to trade their system (hundreds of trades per day). The firm I am working for makes money as a percent of my trading profits. In exchange for this, they give me margin that I otherwise would not have access to.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

Good morning, my name is Ugly, and I am a loser. I have it in me to do serious financial damage to my account.

Dear Diary,
Friday the 13th was good luck for all owners of HANS.
TAYD went nuts and could likely provide an opportunity for a day trade.
GHDX is also one to watch.
There were some large chunks of volume tossed around on DAR on Friday, with a close that looks promising.
I am also biased in favor of OZN.

Don’t forget to vote for the stock market blog remainder contest!

uglylinks

* user agreement — how to use ugly picks