Diary

Following my hunter-gatherer instincts, I am consciously and unconsciously preparing for the arrival of winter. Technically, it's a few months away, but my animal friends have already gone into action. In this house, I have a better view of hummingbirds than before, and I've been reading a little about them. They start heading south by early September. The adult males leave first, then the adult females, then the newly-born. Since the adult males are aggressive, the newly-born males resemble females: they have white throats in order to avoid being attacked. A phenomenon that I've been observing is that the adult females hover outside the window and look at me before going to the feeder. They would have seen me in the spring when the rhododendrons were blooming. It is thought that this is part of their way of remembering a location that they want to return to. This is actually a good location for them, because there are flowering plants from April to September, plus the feeder. What is really amazing is that the newly-born hummingbirds are now each flying to Mexico and Central America alone. And you thought that you had a rough childhood! Some of them will probably return here next May – without Google Maps! Apparently they follow the same paths each way. I've also been reading about skunks. They are beneficial to me because they are omnivores and eat mice. 

My regular tomatoes peaked early this year, because I had planted them two weeks earlier than usual. They are still growing, and I will still have a supply until the first frost. The cherry tomatoes are still growing and the plant is large – I can hardly eat them fast enough.

I've been using Google AI a lot lately. This is because it has such a huge database now and can find information quickly, and even if it doesn't yet have true intelligence, it can also help answer difficult questions. You still have to use it cautiously because it is a commercial product. I find that it has a tendency to compliment me periodically, which is a well-known sales technique. If you are interested in, say, the Brontës, it knows more than anyone that you are likely to know, or all of the books in most libraries. It is also fairly knowledgeable about other writers, and helped me decide to read The Path to the Spiders' Nests, by Italo Calvino, which I'm starting on. How many people do you know who would recommend a book like that?

More significantly, it has helped me think about why I am attracted to some people more than others, and some of the pitfalls that this may entail. Although I don't think that I have any significant psychological abnormalities, and did not have any psychological traumas while I was growing up, I tend to be attracted more to people who have unusual personalities than to conventional people. Of the women I was involved with, one had undiagnosed autism, one had, when I met her, undiagnosed autism and ADHD, another has an unidentified anxiety dysfunction, and the fourth was fairly conventional, with no obvious psychiatric issues. I found the fourth boring, and, after a few months, broke off with her. Generally, I think that conventional, well-adjusted Americans are boring. They are usually following a script that someone could have written for them on the day that they were born. Apparently, I prefer somewhat problematic relationships to boring relationships.

I've been thinking about autism and ADHD for a few years now, but these diagnoses don't have long histories. If you want to understand people well, you have to be aware of these conditions. I found it extremely interesting to learn a little about how autism and ADHD interact, because, to some extent they have opposite effects. Autism symptoms usually involve an emphasis on control and an avoidance of overstimulation. ADHD often produces an opposite effect, with something like spontaneous, unexpected disorganization related to a lack of concentration and focus. While autistic people usually prefer a fixed routine, the ADHD injects a contradictory disorder that can have a disruptive effect. For example, the two people I know with both have a difficult time taking care of houseplants, because they may forget to water them. Then, as I discussed on my last post, there is the phenomenon of masking, in which autistic people attempt to simulate what they think normal social behavior is supposed to be. While it may be effortless for non-autistic people to adjust to their social environments, autistic people who want to appear normal have to make a special effort. This is where the effects of ADHD may cause a complete collapse of the masking facade that a diligent autistic person may be executing. Also, though this is a purely speculative statement on my part, these issues may find their way into gender decisions. The social expectations of females are usually far more demanding than those of males. In some situations, an autistic female with some male tendencies may choose to become transgender as a masking strategy. Unfortunately for them, there are observers out there who can see right through this.

I haven't yet reached any conclusions about what is going to happen with AI. As of now, I still don't think that AGI will itself necessarily become a menace. The question to me is whether the existing institutions will be up to the task of designing an appropriate transition. There are competent people, such as Geoffrey Hinton, working on this, but I doubt that most of the corporate operatives are up to the task. This will be such a radical change that corporate-style thinking is completely irrelevant. We are looking at a situation in which human labor becomes unnecessary. In a few years there may be no need for governments, armies or police. This would be such a complex process that many choices would have be made by...AGI.