The evolutionary model, Avida, is best known for evolving the EQU function. In the supplementary materials for the 2003 Nature paper, the authors presented the shortest known program to compute EQU taking 19 instructions. They note that it hasn’t been proven that it was the shortest program. In fact it is not, and I present a program that computes EQU only using 18 instructions. IO IO nop-C push pop nop-A nand push nand swap nop-C swap nand nand pop nop-C nand IO  

What is function? What is functional information? Can it be measured? Let’s try to clarify those points a little. Function is often a controversial concept. It is one of those things that everybody apparently understands, but nobody dares to define. So it happens that, as soon as you try to use that concept in some reasoning, your kind interlocutor immediately stops you at the beginning, with the following smart request: “Yes, but what is function? How can you define it? So, I will try to define it. A premise. As we are not debating philosophy, but empirical science, we need to remain adherent to what can be observed. So, in defining function, we must stick to what can be observed: objects and events, in Read More ›

The UK Independent is noting how Stephen Hawking says of the Film on AI, Transcendence — plot summary here at wiki, that ‘Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence – but are we taking AI seriously enough?’ First off, I think “implications” is probably over the top — we seem to be more looking at materialist yearnings for eternity, resurrection and paradise. (As in, on the presumption that intelligence boils down to evolutionarily written software running on wetware neural networks, then we can upload ourselves to a machine of sufficient sophistication, and reconstitute our bodies as we will, then amplify intelligence and create paradise. Anyone who understands why power tends to corrupt will understand why even were that possible, Read More ›