Michael Levin: belief

Transcript context

…Do you think that there is going to be in all kinds of systems of varying complexity things that the system wants to do and things that it’s forced to do? So, are there these unexpected competencies to be discovered in basically all algorithms and all systems? That’s my suspicion, and I think that it is extremely important for us as humans to have a research program to learn to recognize and predict. We make things… Never mind something as simple as this. We make, you know, social structures, financial structures, Internet of Things robotics, AI, so we make all this stuff, and we think that the thing we make it do is the main show. And I think it is very important for us to learn to recognize the kind of stuff that sneaks into the spaces. What if, what… It’s a very counterintuitive notion. By the way, I like the word emergent. I hear your criticism and it’s a really strong one, that emergent is like you toss your hands up, but I don’t know the process, but it’s just a beautiful word, because it is… I guess it’s a synonym for surprising. And I mean, this is very surprising, but just because it’s surprising doesn’t mean there’s not a mechanism that explains it.…

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