sonink

> I suppose it would be interesting to have an online space to discuss where things are headed on a logical level, without emotion and ideals and the ridiculous idea that humanity must persevere.

Absolutely. Happy to be part of it if you are able to set it up.

> If so, then sensory inputs and interaction with the physical through them were absolutely a crucial part of how minds evolved, so I find your approach a priori very unlikely to have a chance at success.

If that was the case, people who were born blind would demonstrate markedly reduced intelligence. I dont think that is the case, but you can correct me if I am wrong. A blind person might take longer to truly 'understand' and 'abstract' something but there is little evidence to believe that capability of abstraction isnt as good as people who can see.

Agree that sensory inputs and interaction were absolutely critical for how the minds evolved, but model training replaces that part when we talk about AI, and not just the evolution.

Evolution made us express emotions when we are hungry for example. But your laptop will also let you know when its battery is out of juice. Human design inspired by evolution can create systems which mimic its behaviour and function.

> If people succeed in making that truly lifelike and humanlike, it will actually out-compete us for resource control. And will no longer be a tool we can use.

I believe it is almost certain that we will make something like this and that they will out-compete us. The bigger problem here is that too few people believe this to be a possibility. And when this becomes certainty becomes apparent to a larger set of people, it might be too late to tone this down.

AI isn't like the Atom Bomb (AB). AB didn't have agency. Once AB was built we still had time to think how to deploy it, or not. We had time to work across a global consensus to limit use of AB. But once AI manifests as AGI, it might be too late to shut it down.

The model is interesting. This is similar in parts to what we are building at nonbios. So for example sensory inputs are not required to simulate a model of a mind. If a human cannot see, the human mind is still clearly human.

> What frightens me is the scenario of human thought being overwhelmed and left in the dust. Not being aided or abetted by computers, but being completely overwhelmed, and we are to computers as cockroaches or fleas are to us. That would be scary.

I suspect our expectation of GAI is unreasonable and we will sooner or later have to reconcile it with a different and less anthropomorphic expression of intelligence and consciousness. It might not be required for AI to be (anthrophomorphically) intelligent or conscious for it to 'take over'. Infact it might be a huge advance over mankind that it is not.

It was a bit shocking to me when I first walked into an American super market to see tomatoes all the same big size and shining red color. This is in sharp contrast to what we get in India - they come in all sizes and different shades of orange, green and red.

Even though the American ones were instantly attractive, it slowly dawned on me that perhaps something is wrong. Now I appreciate the Indian vegetables a lot more.

Everything that you mentioned is most likely a shortcoming of the current version of Bitcoin. That being said, it is not a big leap of faith that each of these will be rectified in due course. If not with updates to Bitcoin, then with another coin.

My post wasnt just about Bitcoin specifically, but around the entire blockchain ecosystem.

Fundamentally, Bitcoin is software eating the Fed-Bank-Retail ecosystem. The Fed governance is replaced by code. The banking utility is replaced by miners.

I think the march of bitcoin is actually a better example of how AI is taking over the world. People in AI are fascinated by AGI - but the bitcoin ecosystem is actually a real world example of how AI will take over the world.

Specifically, the march of AI won't happen at 'edge' nodes, it won't be incremental, it won't happen by replacing humans with machines. The march of AI will start at the core, at a rethink of the fundamental infrastructure that powers an industry making it more amenable to machines and 'hostile' to most humans.

People underestimate the amount of resources required to articulate monetary policy by a central bank. Bitcoin can already do that much better than maybe 70% of the worlds central banks. India, China and US can think about banning/regulating bitcoin. But there are countries in Africa who can already do better by simply leapfrogging to bitcoin and ditching their national currencies.

Bitcoin is here to stay. And it cant be stopped.

The author might be missing the woods for the trees. ICO's are at heart a rethink on the angel-vc-ipo funding cycle. ICO's offer very clear advantages in terms of increasing distribution, decreasing friction, aligning investors to product success and builds upon emerging ideas around equity/control structuring.

That they offer a diversification of bitcoin is merely an oversight in the grand scheme of things.

Very interesting. I immediately liked the product when I read this, but giving it a few minutes of thought and it doesnt seem too exciting anymore.

The fundamental problem I see is that it kind-of 'corrupts' gratification. When I make a post, or do a vote, or write a comment, I dont want to think about the monetary value of it. There is 'value' inherent in creating/sharing interesting content and thats all I want to think about.

Adding money to the mix makes it a distraction from a 'pure' experience and takes away value than adding it. Ads do something similar - but imo ads are less distracting than putting a monetary value on an upvote.

Still this is very interesting experiment. Would love to follow updates on hn.

It is complicated for sure, and it took me some time to get my head around it. But it seems to me that the complications arose because of compromises needed to be done to get this passed. Also, the current dispensation is to make it simpler over time.

This GST was probably what was possible right now and full marks to the govt. for getting it done. They made compromises which will nullify immediate gains, but at the same time made sure that the structure is put in place to get full benefits over time.

That being said, even in the current form it seems to be a huge jump from what we had.

Absolutely. Pre-GST business could get by without computer/online. GST works online ONLY. This will result in short term pain and cost but bulldoze all these guys online. Companies like ClearTax (YC) will make a killing.

Considering the impact of this reform, and the historical messiness of doing something of this scale in India, it is surprising that the govt. even pulled it off.

On the ground in Bangalore, the clock stuck 12 and every retail shop started giving receipts with the simplified tax system. Im sure there will be hiccups ahead but the start looks pretty neat.

The Indian govt. should be given honorary entry to YC. The world's biggest startup is going lean.

I guess, the complexity of the billing system in the US is the outcome of an insurance driven market which has kept a status quo due to vested interests.

India also has a complicated insurance system, but it is kept in check by a parallel free-market and state funded system. There is competition not just between carriers, but also pressure on them to keep their policies simple, lest customers circumvent and pay themselves.

You are right about enforcements about drug patent, but if I am not wrong this is true only for a small set of medicines which are marked essential. My guess is that vast majority of drugs sold are generic copies of off-patent drugs.

I might not know too much about the topic, but imo American healthcare system has a lot of learn from the Indian healthcare system. My guess is that America should simply copy-paste India's model and it should be good to go.

For the resources that it spends on healthcare, the Indian healthcare systems offers perhaps the most efficient system in the world. There is insurance if you want, but you can choose your health providers in the free market too.

Hospitals, Doctors, Medicines, Tests, Procedures, Post-op care/services - everything can be comparison shopped. And if you have more time than money, you can show up at any one of the almost-free govt. funded hospitals to get treated by who is often a very good doctor.

The inefficiency of the American system might as well be a result of extensive litigation around healthcare, but I suspect that its simply an oligopoly defended by pocketed politicians.

I would guess that for any hospital expense above a few thousand dollars, and for someone who cant afford, it might make a lot of sense to just hop on a plane to India.

There is a lot of good advice here on perspective and going ahead one step at a time.

The only thing I would like to add to it is that you will feel better in due course even if you dont do anything much. Time will fix burnout by itself, and your pessimism will lift.

Try not being anxious about not wanting to do anything. Knowing that it will fix itself should help - maybe make this time enjoyable even. Let the world go by and have faith that your time will come.

Auto-rickshaws are already ALL electric in some cities. Haridwar for one.

India. Because it will go from 100mn internet users to 1200 mn, enabled by a massive 4G/fiber deployment currently underway.

I know a friend who did something similar in a 'crowded' SaaS market. He thought it will take him 6 months to make a hundred grands an year - it took him 3 years, but he kept at it.

Now it makes a few hundred grands an year to pay for his nomad vacation lifestyle and he has hired help to grow.

I think growing an existing SaaS is one of the safest business to build online. The market is already proven and you will find a niche over time even if it is not pricing. The most important thing - dont die.

Wow, thats a lot of money - I am guessing for a lot of Americans too ?

What you guys think about getting therapists over skype from India ? It would be a lot cheaper for sure, if it works.

Very cool idea.

Is $165/session competitive with what one would pay outside of Kip ? Seems too high to me, though I don't stay in US.

Would love to know any details about the last point to multi-point part segment.

Do customers need to install wifi receivers on their roof tops ?

Can you go inside flats ?

Do you need line of sight to the towers from homes ?

How far can a house be from the tower ?

Now cut that hungry human's arm and legs, and it can at best only shout for food and wait for another human to 'plug' it in.

On the other hand, a Rhoomba can seek out power to stay alive, probably better than a 2 year old.

'If we program them correctly, helping us will be their only goal' - I think this is too optimistic a view of the future. I suspect that it is also a bit simplistic.

Even if we assume that we have a way to 'program' them, the problem is that we ourselves dont know what it means to 'help' humans.

If those humans were a part of the US military facing a situation similar to ww2, it would mean that AI 'help' those humans drop some nuclear bombs. If those humans belong to a religious fundamentalist group, it might mean that the AI help further the cause of their gods.

One probable outcome, that this chain of thought leads to, is that perhaps the last AI standing will be the one which kills all other AI, or has the capability to. A possible corollary being that to do so the last AI standing will be the one which is able to prioritise its own survival over everyone else - even other humans. Which was not the plan that we started with.

We don't. But maybe only because we havent asked this question enough. And maybe because the answer might yield a future without a role for humans in it. And perhaps we don't have the means to account for such a fate.

The human form evolved in an environment of scarcity. Early humans had to provide for food three times a day, and often risked their lives to procure it. On the contrary, the average AWS instance almost never shuts down for lack of power.

We might not have a better model right now, but it seems extremely unlikely that AI will look anything close to the model we are talking about.

Not too sure.

All programs have a very explicit goal - a lot more specific than most humans do. You will have to try very hard to write a program to not have a goal.

Your laptop has a need of battery life. It lets you know of the same when it is out of it. Not very different from humans being hungry.

AI might not have hopes or dreams. But a lot of recent game playing AI can simulate possible future scenarios and develop responses for them. Not very different from hopes and dreams.

If you write a C program, in some ways, the only thing in the 'programs mind' is to finish its goal and terminate itself. In a hurry to finish our goals and terminate ourselves is also perhaps how an Alien intelligence would describe the human race looking in from the outside.

Humans can provide the drive only because we make bigger plans than AI. And our plans are a direct expression of our computing power. There is no good reason why AI wont beat that processing power.

I think maybe both Elon Musk and Ray are looking at it wrong. The ideas behind neural lace/neocortex has an implicit human-centric bias. In some ways this is similar to how a hundred years ago some people thought earth to be the center of the universe.

AI is coming on a vastly different 'hardware platform'. There is little reason to believe that it will be limited by cognitive constraints implicit to the human form. Extrapolating the rate of growth in processing power makes it extremely likely to surpass human scale processing very soon.

What both these things imply is that AI has little to gain by 'tieing' itself down to humans through a neural lace or the neocortex.

Looks neat ! Like the way you are leveraging India stack.

Qs for you:

1. Shouldn't a new age lending platform not use old school mechanisms like CIBIL. I would guess that a new age lending platform build its own CIBIL.

2. Doesnt the requirement of Salary Slips preclude the very same people from accessing loans who do not otherwise have access to ? Also I am guessing that this will be like 1% of the population.

3. If you have the means to coinvest 50% and if you guarantee market beating outcomes, why don't go all the way to 100% ?

Thats because that published science is born of a prejudiced mind. I have spent my entire life in this country and been a part of the political process in many different ways. Pick any random person from the street in India and he will tell you as much.

> Indian politicians being more likely to have criminal allegations against them is an easily verifiable claim.

Unlike America, India's court are more accessible to each and everyone. Cases are filed liberally in the political process - in some ways this is reminiscent of our freedom struggle where going to jail was considered a right of passage, and rightfully so.

If you use this to assert that Indian politicians are criminals, you are basically using means at your disposal to assert your prejudice.