NaClhv

Theology, philosophy, math, science, and random other things
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

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What do we want? Reflections on AI and morality

Essentially, these AIs solve all kinds of "how" problems for us. We now know how to play a good game of chess or go, how to reply to any text prompt, and how to create an image from just a text description. This leaves us with the "what" problem. What do we want? What do we value? This is a hard question. Can an AI answer it for us? No, I don't think so. At least not any of the AIs as we have them today. Remember, the fundamental function of all the AIs we've discussed is to take in data, and give us what we said we wanted. So it seems that there's some kind of bootstrapping step missing, in that we have to give the AI "what we want" as an input, but expect "what we REALLY want" as an output.

A record of the total solar eclipse on 2023-04-20

I chose to observe this eclipse from Australia. I'd considered Indonesia and East Timor, but eventually decided against them: Australia had better weather for the eclipse, I could cross it off from the list of continents, and I wanted to keep the trip in English. So my plan was to observe it in Exmouth - a small town in the northwest corner of Australia. Then I threw in the Philippines as another English-speaking country in the area that I had heard good things about.

From my job: technical career storyline

I've mentioned before that I work as a data scientist. I've been at it for a long while now. Long enough, in fact, that they interviewed me at my job about what it was like to be me, and published the interview internally as part of their "technical career storyline" feature. The following are the contents of that interview, reproduced with permission and some minor editing.

My multi-purpose home office setup, with two 85-inch TV monitors

I've been working on a new home office, which has been challenging enough that I thought I should write about it. The centerpiece of my setup are two 85-inch TVs, which I'm also using as computer monitors. Not only are they large and delicate "furniture pieces" in and of themselves, but they also required rearranging […]

The justice of the reprobates' eternal punishment in hell

Hell does not necessarily impose an infinite punishment, and the sins of the reprobate are not necessarily finite. Biblical Christianity is perfectly flexible on both of these points. Either one of them, in isolation, is enough to fully answer the objection of "infinitely disproportionate punishment", and we have both. So we can say with confidence that the reprobate in hell will get exactly what they deserve - the exact right level of punishment commensurate with their sins.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

...is my favorite Christmas carol. It has been so since I heard Jewel's rendition of it on a random road trip, and I somehow understood all the lyrics in all the verses, through the music and the poetry to their meaning. The second and third verses hit me particularly hard in their novelty, as I hadn't heard them before. Here are the lyrics:
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