Hate to self-reply, but I've read the paper now – and it's definitely the source paper for the data in the posting (50% and 67% figures are right in the text). Given the paper was published december 2012 and reported a 3-year follow-up, and that the current report claims a 6 year followup, I have to wonder why it took them basically 3 years to publish the original study. In any event, a few more details:
9 subjects fell into the sub-50% range, 8 of these had further impairment at the time of publication (3 years), so presumably the holdout also ticked over in the subsequent 3 years. I've got to say that 9 is an awfully small set to draw strong conclusions from, with respect to positive identification.
43 subjects fell into the >= 67% range, and none of these worsened in three years. If we believe the current report, they're still ok.
40 fell between 50 and 67, and 9 of these got worse.
To summarize, about 43% of the sample fell in the grey area. Within that area, doing some hacky fiddling with the ROC curve they provide, the area under the curve is something like.56 – which ain't very good. So basically what the data says is that people who perform very poorly are likely to show cognitive decline. Of the remaining folk, 50% won't get worse, and 50% may or may not....
So we're not looking at a slam-dunk here. But it's got some promise.
The only peer review study I can find searching for "Neurotrack" and "Alzheimer’s" is "A Behavioral Task Predicts Conversion to Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease" (Zola et al, 2012; doi: 10.1177/1533317512470484). They had 32 mild cognitive impairment and 60 controls, and followed for 3 years.
From the abstract:
Scores on the VPC task predicted, up to 3 years prior to a change in clinical diagnosis, those patients with MCI who would and who would not progress to AD and CON participants who would and would not progress to MCI.
So it's hard to know what data is substantiating the claims we see in TFA. Certainly nothing at a clinical level, but it also seems quite promising. Probably a mix of genuinely encouraging early results and typical start-up exaggerations. I hope it lives up to its promise!
Arguably, this might be a much better use of sp than as a 'lie detector'. It doesn't matter that he's going to confabulate and just involuntarily spill out whatever the hell flies through his head. In fact, that's exactly what you might want if you're aiming to determine someone's sanity, mental stability, or what have you. Of course it's completely useless if you're trying to ascertain facts about real events. But if you're simply looking to gauge the state of the mind, cracking that sucker wide open – sans filter – is exactly what you want. It's like an amped up rorschach test...
Spot on. The cyber-warfare rhetoric has been in an upward spiral for ages, but now they're even dumping money into hollywood for the full fear-mongering propaganda treatment (Skyfall, anyone?). "We don't know who our enemies are. They work in the shadows, so we must work in the shadows." Probably the closest you could ever come to an honest policy statement.
There aren't any credible visible threats, so we're being indoctrinated to believe in invisible monsters. My fellow Canadians might resonate with our recent "rise in unreported crime" as justification for building new prisons...
Male-dominated forum completely unable to accept empirical data with deprecating implications for males! Frothing rationalizations, irrelevant diatribes, and repeated demonstrations of a failure to even read the summary ensue...
The data vs IRL angle isn't in and of itself an important distinction, but an entirely valid concern that is likely to fall out of this distinction (though needn't be a necessary coupling) is that the brain works and learns in an environment where sensory information is used to predict the outcomes of actions - which themselves modify the world being sensed. Further, much of sensation is directly dependent on, and modified by, motor actions. Passive learners, DBMs, and what have you are certainly able to extract latent structure from data streams, but it would be inadvisable to consider the brain in the same framework. Action is fundamental to what the brain does. If you're going to borrow the architecture, you'd do well to mirror the context.
Unfortunately, I suspect the virtual equivalent of picketing (mandatory redirect on access attempts?) would get you in even more trouble than a dos. Perhaps the questions that ought to be raised are 'given there are legal means of protest in the material world, what are the corresponding legal protections for activism in the digital realm?' or, perhaps, 'in any realm, what is an appropriate balance between laws enforcing social control and laws providing an outlet for grievances and civil disobedience?'.
Of course, if we choose to be realistic, it's painfully obvious that A: no laws granting additional rights will be passed any time in the near future, and B: no form of disobedience that actually has a chance of being effective will ever receive legal protection. Since acts falling under the 'hacktivism' moniker have already shown their teeth, there's no way these kinds of behaviours would ever be given legitimacy, regardless of any equivalencies with existing laws in the material sphere...
The trouble, or part of the trouble, is that the finding that there's no significant difference between the drug and the placebo doesn't mean there's no effect – it's just that the effect is mostly placebo. This is problematic, because placebos don't work as well when people know they're placebos, and likewise placebos don't work as well when they're cheap. So the conclusion we have to arrive at is that the best treatment we have is placebo, but it has to be expensive, and people have to believe it's actually doing something. In this context, given that SSRIs actually do have some kind of an effect, at least some of the time, it's not unreasonable to continue to prescribe them. It becomes a problem because the associated business models are profoundly lucrative – leading inexorably to unscrupulous behaviour. It's a dilema.
It should also be remembered that drugs are always part of a treatment program, which also involves considerable therapy – which is absolutely known to be effective, within reason (e.g., CBT). So it's a bit of an overstatement to disparage the entire field in one stroke, though it's certainly equally naive to consider it faultless...
At risk of another overly-elaborate answer, I suspect what's happened is a bit of a confusion of levels. The parent to your original assertion, who claimed all games were finite, was indeed technically incorrect – as you pointed out. However, what they presumably meant was that in practice all games will be finite. I think everything that followed was a fairly pointless back-and-forth between the spirit and the letter of the argument, with no one (myself, regrettably, included) bothering to worry about the fact that there wasn't any actual disagreement at all...
Still. I can appreciate your frustration. Sometimes simply pointing out a fact can lead to all manner of trouble.
Unless you define something like 'work' in the statespace – so that closed paths can be excised / condensed, regardless of length. Or similarly, iso-utility moves could be ignored. While it would nonetheless remain true that the game, in practice, need not be finite – from an algorithmic perspective it could be treated as such.
Of course the problem is even simpler given that most chess algorithms are presumably intended to win chess, as opposed to producing an exhaustive catalogue of possible games. Iso-utility moves don't breed new trees.
... but my impression was always that the time on this particular doomsday clock was not meant to represent 'time to doom', nor even 'likelihood of doom', but rather something to the effect of 'margin of error for doom'. i.e., "given the present circumstance, how big of a mistake do we need to make to seriously fuck shit up?" This isn't prophesying, nor is it inconsistent that it hasn't much changed over the years. It is simply a reaffirmation that the potential for great harm remains, and very little effort would be required to tip that scale... According to these guys, 5 minutes worth – but how about we don't dwell too much on the metaphor?
Not quite a fair comparison. In construction, you hold tools (often braced) in a wide variety of postures, with considerable rest periods (and I'm not taking a jab at lazy contractors) – whether in the form of actual rest, or simply as a result of transitional postures and tool exchanges. I've done a fair chunk of construction, and while you're absolutely correct that it involves a lot of arm work, it's a different beast entirely from just holding your arms out in front of you for an extended period of time...
A hundred times this. I distrust GMO, but not because I distrust the technology – I think it's vital, incredible, and we've barely scratched the surface of its potentials. The race and the planet could both benefit tremendously from increased adoption of GMO tech across the board (from food to medicine to materials engineering, etc.). However, companies like Monsanto are demonstrably not trustworthy. And, indeed, the entire capitalist mindset is was makes this kind of technology so profoundly and obviously dangerous. But this has nothing to do with the science, and everything to do with cutting corners, forcing work-arounds through idiotic patenting of naturally-occurring genes, generating cheap monocultures, breeding for superficial (i.e., sellable) phenotypes like size and colour as opposed to breeding for nutritional optimality and ecological fit, etc. etc. And of course, you can take the prescient (and terrifying) perspective that Bacigalupi offers and realize that monopolizing the food market is better than sex - and the best way to do that is to patent resistance to engineered food pathogens. GMO has the potential to be a global panacea. GMO + capitalism has the potential to end us.
... is that bringing up the subject of intelligence on a forum for nerds basically just turns into a huge fucking circle-jerk, and a whole lot of falsely-humble anecdotes...
I imagine it never helps to have training in the subject matter, but this whole thread felt like a particularly acute case of: "research about X" --> "opinions about X with no basis in research, reflecting neither an understanding of the actual question being addressed, nor of the state of consensus among experts regarding said question."
Anyway - you got to the point about as succinctly as possible, and have soothed my embrittled temper. Thank you!
Building a prototype will not keep "the little guy" out any more than it does already. [...] Someone with the resources to create something useful isn't going to have a hard time getting funding to build a working model.
On the first point, here's how that works: Little guy has big idea. Little guy pitches idea to venture boys to secure necessary funding to build prototype. Venture boys, knowing patents aren't awarded without prototype tell little guy they'll think about it. Venture boys sell idea to one of their golf buddies who already own a fab lab. Little guy gets fuck all.
On the second point: that is the point. If you have the resources to build a prototype you won't have a hard time getting the resources to build a prototype. No kidding.
[...] because central wealth distribution has been shown time and again to disincentivise people from actually doing something useful with their lives.
I predict a meter/day of trolling posts (let's say 12 pt font) to CC updates within the next year (or are we there already?). I don't even know where to start with my mod points...
I think the bigger issue would be to coax the eye into not trying to focus (the lens does actively change shape to accomodate – albeit not by a huge amount). Displaying light from the surface of a lens in such a way that an image can be resolved on the other side isn't trivial, certainly, but it shouldn't be a huge issue if you can trust the lens to stay the same shape...
Slashdot Mirror
Hate to self-reply, but I've read the paper now – and it's definitely the source paper for the data in the posting (50% and 67% figures are right in the text). Given the paper was published december 2012 and reported a 3-year follow-up, and that the current report claims a 6 year followup, I have to wonder why it took them basically 3 years to publish the original study. In any event, a few more details:
9 subjects fell into the sub-50% range, 8 of these had further impairment at the time of publication (3 years), so presumably the holdout also ticked over in the subsequent 3 years. I've got to say that 9 is an awfully small set to draw strong conclusions from, with respect to positive identification.
43 subjects fell into the >= 67% range, and none of these worsened in three years. If we believe the current report, they're still ok.
40 fell between 50 and 67, and 9 of these got worse.
To summarize, about 43% of the sample fell in the grey area. Within that area, doing some hacky fiddling with the ROC curve they provide, the area under the curve is something like .56 – which ain't very good. So basically what the data says is that people who perform very poorly are likely to show cognitive decline. Of the remaining folk, 50% won't get worse, and 50% may or may not....
So we're not looking at a slam-dunk here. But it's got some promise.
The only peer review study I can find searching for "Neurotrack" and "Alzheimer’s" is "A Behavioral Task Predicts Conversion to Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease" (Zola et al, 2012; doi: 10.1177/1533317512470484). They had 32 mild cognitive impairment and 60 controls, and followed for 3 years.
From the abstract:
Scores on the VPC task predicted, up to 3 years prior to a change in clinical diagnosis, those patients with MCI who would and who would not progress to AD and CON participants who would and would not progress to MCI.
So it's hard to know what data is substantiating the claims we see in TFA. Certainly nothing at a clinical level, but it also seems quite promising. Probably a mix of genuinely encouraging early results and typical start-up exaggerations. I hope it lives up to its promise!
Arguably, this might be a much better use of sp than as a 'lie detector'. It doesn't matter that he's going to confabulate and just involuntarily spill out whatever the hell flies through his head. In fact, that's exactly what you might want if you're aiming to determine someone's sanity, mental stability, or what have you. Of course it's completely useless if you're trying to ascertain facts about real events. But if you're simply looking to gauge the state of the mind, cracking that sucker wide open – sans filter – is exactly what you want. It's like an amped up rorschach test...
Spot on. The cyber-warfare rhetoric has been in an upward spiral for ages, but now they're even dumping money into hollywood for the full fear-mongering propaganda treatment (Skyfall, anyone?). "We don't know who our enemies are. They work in the shadows, so we must work in the shadows." Probably the closest you could ever come to an honest policy statement.
There aren't any credible visible threats, so we're being indoctrinated to believe in invisible monsters. My fellow Canadians might resonate with our recent "rise in unreported crime" as justification for building new prisons...
Reply to clear errant downmod...
Male-dominated forum completely unable to accept empirical data with deprecating implications for males! Frothing rationalizations, irrelevant diatribes, and repeated demonstrations of a failure to even read the summary ensue...
Except that actually the predictions have fit quite well [nature].
The data vs IRL angle isn't in and of itself an important distinction, but an entirely valid concern that is likely to fall out of this distinction (though needn't be a necessary coupling) is that the brain works and learns in an environment where sensory information is used to predict the outcomes of actions - which themselves modify the world being sensed. Further, much of sensation is directly dependent on, and modified by, motor actions. Passive learners, DBMs, and what have you are certainly able to extract latent structure from data streams, but it would be inadvisable to consider the brain in the same framework. Action is fundamental to what the brain does. If you're going to borrow the architecture, you'd do well to mirror the context.
Unfortunately, I suspect the virtual equivalent of picketing (mandatory redirect on access attempts?) would get you in even more trouble than a dos. Perhaps the questions that ought to be raised are 'given there are legal means of protest in the material world, what are the corresponding legal protections for activism in the digital realm?' or, perhaps, 'in any realm, what is an appropriate balance between laws enforcing social control and laws providing an outlet for grievances and civil disobedience?'.
Of course, if we choose to be realistic, it's painfully obvious that A: no laws granting additional rights will be passed any time in the near future, and B: no form of disobedience that actually has a chance of being effective will ever receive legal protection. Since acts falling under the 'hacktivism' moniker have already shown their teeth, there's no way these kinds of behaviours would ever be given legitimacy, regardless of any equivalencies with existing laws in the material sphere...
The trouble, or part of the trouble, is that the finding that there's no significant difference between the drug and the placebo doesn't mean there's no effect – it's just that the effect is mostly placebo. This is problematic, because placebos don't work as well when people know they're placebos, and likewise placebos don't work as well when they're cheap. So the conclusion we have to arrive at is that the best treatment we have is placebo, but it has to be expensive, and people have to believe it's actually doing something. In this context, given that SSRIs actually do have some kind of an effect, at least some of the time, it's not unreasonable to continue to prescribe them. It becomes a problem because the associated business models are profoundly lucrative – leading inexorably to unscrupulous behaviour. It's a dilema.
It should also be remembered that drugs are always part of a treatment program, which also involves considerable therapy – which is absolutely known to be effective, within reason (e.g., CBT). So it's a bit of an overstatement to disparage the entire field in one stroke, though it's certainly equally naive to consider it faultless...
I'm sympathetic. (honestly)
At risk of another overly-elaborate answer, I suspect what's happened is a bit of a confusion of levels. The parent to your original assertion, who claimed all games were finite, was indeed technically incorrect – as you pointed out. However, what they presumably meant was that in practice all games will be finite. I think everything that followed was a fairly pointless back-and-forth between the spirit and the letter of the argument, with no one (myself, regrettably, included) bothering to worry about the fact that there wasn't any actual disagreement at all...
Still. I can appreciate your frustration. Sometimes simply pointing out a fact can lead to all manner of trouble.
Unless you define something like 'work' in the statespace – so that closed paths can be excised / condensed, regardless of length. Or similarly, iso-utility moves could be ignored. While it would nonetheless remain true that the game, in practice, need not be finite – from an algorithmic perspective it could be treated as such.
Of course the problem is even simpler given that most chess algorithms are presumably intended to win chess, as opposed to producing an exhaustive catalogue of possible games. Iso-utility moves don't breed new trees.
... but my impression was always that the time on this particular doomsday clock was not meant to represent 'time to doom', nor even 'likelihood of doom', but rather something to the effect of 'margin of error for doom'. i.e., "given the present circumstance, how big of a mistake do we need to make to seriously fuck shit up?" This isn't prophesying, nor is it inconsistent that it hasn't much changed over the years. It is simply a reaffirmation that the potential for great harm remains, and very little effort would be required to tip that scale... According to these guys, 5 minutes worth – but how about we don't dwell too much on the metaphor?
Not quite a fair comparison. In construction, you hold tools (often braced) in a wide variety of postures, with considerable rest periods (and I'm not taking a jab at lazy contractors) – whether in the form of actual rest, or simply as a result of transitional postures and tool exchanges. I've done a fair chunk of construction, and while you're absolutely correct that it involves a lot of arm work, it's a different beast entirely from just holding your arms out in front of you for an extended period of time...
Or we could at least attempt to maintain sufficient precision in our language to be able to communicate cogently...
Making an assertion without evidence invites requests for evidence. Why is that hard to understand?
Citations needed. Why the hell is this insightful? How would you even in principle collect the evidence needed to support either of your hypotheses?
A hundred times this. I distrust GMO, but not because I distrust the technology – I think it's vital, incredible, and we've barely scratched the surface of its potentials. The race and the planet could both benefit tremendously from increased adoption of GMO tech across the board (from food to medicine to materials engineering, etc.). However, companies like Monsanto are demonstrably not trustworthy. And, indeed, the entire capitalist mindset is was makes this kind of technology so profoundly and obviously dangerous. But this has nothing to do with the science, and everything to do with cutting corners, forcing work-arounds through idiotic patenting of naturally-occurring genes, generating cheap monocultures, breeding for superficial (i.e., sellable) phenotypes like size and colour as opposed to breeding for nutritional optimality and ecological fit, etc. etc. And of course, you can take the prescient (and terrifying) perspective that Bacigalupi offers and realize that monopolizing the food market is better than sex - and the best way to do that is to patent resistance to engineered food pathogens. GMO has the potential to be a global panacea. GMO + capitalism has the potential to end us.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
... is that bringing up the subject of intelligence on a forum for nerds basically just turns into a huge fucking circle-jerk, and a whole lot of falsely-humble anecdotes...
For the love of { }, thank you.
I imagine it never helps to have training in the subject matter, but this whole thread felt like a particularly acute case of: "research about X" --> "opinions about X with no basis in research, reflecting neither an understanding of the actual question being addressed, nor of the state of consensus among experts regarding said question."
Anyway - you got to the point about as succinctly as possible, and have soothed my embrittled temper. Thank you!
Building a prototype will not keep "the little guy" out any more than it does already. [...] Someone with the resources to create something useful isn't going to have a hard time getting funding to build a working model.
On the first point, here's how that works: Little guy has big idea. Little guy pitches idea to venture boys to secure necessary funding to build prototype. Venture boys, knowing patents aren't awarded without prototype tell little guy they'll think about it. Venture boys sell idea to one of their golf buddies who already own a fab lab. Little guy gets fuck all.
On the second point: that is the point. If you have the resources to build a prototype you won't have a hard time getting the resources to build a prototype. No kidding.
[...] because central wealth distribution has been shown time and again to disincentivise people from actually doing something useful with their lives.
Citation needed.
I predict a meter/day of trolling posts (let's say 12 pt font) to CC updates within the next year (or are we there already?). I don't even know where to start with my mod points...
I think the bigger issue would be to coax the eye into not trying to focus (the lens does actively change shape to accomodate – albeit not by a huge amount). Displaying light from the surface of a lens in such a way that an image can be resolved on the other side isn't trivial, certainly, but it shouldn't be a huge issue if you can trust the lens to stay the same shape...