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From: "Jeffrey E." <jeevacation@grnail.com> To: Joscha Bach Subject: Re: Alex Wissner-Gross Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 20:17:39 +0000 what is your schedule? , deliniating boundary conditons, temporal and number of dimenisons always an issue, On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 3:48 AM, Joscha Bach < wrote: Dear Jeffrey, the recent AGI conference in Quebec was neat (I presented some research sponsored by the Jeffrey Epstein foundation), and I was treated to Alex' idea in the form of a keynote. (you sent this: http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_for_intelligence ) The attempt of selling F = T V St as the new E = mc2 is amicably bold, but might be a bit contrived. He presents his "causal entropic force" it not only as a formula for intelligence, but also as a law for the development of the universe in general, as core ingredient to an algorithm to beat the stock market etc. The main idea is not stupid: using maximization of future options is somewhat similar to Marcus Hutter's idea of AIXI (a theoretically optimal intelligent agent with unlimited resources). In practice, it is probably not what humans do; evidence suggests that people abhor uncertainty and try to avoid branching expectation horizons, i.e. they are willing to accept a smaller payoff if there are fewer possible outcomes involved. However, people are not so smart, of course. In my view, Alex' theory has the more serious drawback of being not falsifiable: if we find that an agent or a system does not maximize future options, we can always change the frame of reference until they do. I imagine a chess playing program: you would not want to maximize future options, but go for the win in as few turns as possible. But then, winning the game might give you more options to advance in the tournament later on. In practice, it can be used as a learning/decision making rule in some cases; in others, there are better heuristics. In my view, it is not a silver bullet. Alex is way too smart to not know that a non-falsifiable theory spells trouble, and he must have read the objections by Gary Marcus and others. I got a strong suspicion that he is deliberately selling snake oil. I hope that you are well! I certainly am. Cheers! Joscha please note The information contained in this communication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for EFTA00995416 the use of the addressee. It is the property of JEE Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by return e-mail or by e-mail to jeevacation@gmail.com, and destroy this communication and all copies thereof, including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved EFTA00995417