Data, information and knowlege: does AI change the game?

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True, but when has humanity not bungled into unknown worlds much too quickly, and unleashed things we are not ready for?

The human race would never be ready for the atomic age, with all of our dangerous, nonsensical foreign policy, and out right kleptocratic imperialism, and yet here we still are. We have not yet blown each other into the stone age.

AI is both a blessing and a curse to be sure, like the atomic bomb, which has staved off WW3, at least for now, but continues to give us anxiety.

Everything comes in 2. We can not know what light is, if there is no darkness; nor can we know what form is, if there is no empty space behind it.

I believe corporate AI is already giving shape to its antithesis, right here on this forum, as we keep the flame burning for a brighter future.

We are entering another renaissance. And Its always just a handful of visionaries like you and David, and others here, that somehow save humanity. Sorry, I must be drunkā€¦

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Another rabbit hole. Lots to consider these days. I take no stance on this one. :wink:

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Like any tool can be used for good or ill. I donā€™t think itā€™s overhyped though - at least in the sense of what it can potentially do - remove the bottleneck between people and expert-level knowledge.

In order to leverage the best of AI though - not a gatekeeper and expert-level knowledge for all, then it definitely needs to be decentralized with Safe Access For All.

Given libp2p offers SAFE the ability to have special services connecting up to it - maybe other ways to, but possibly this is an easy gateway API. People with the right hardware could join in and ā€˜mineā€™ SNT for providing any service imaginable. A vast range of future add-on abilities, like AI.

There is no collective ā€˜weā€™ ā€¦ for sure many wonā€™t be ready for it - but this is true to one extent or another for anything new in the world.

ā€¦ reading to the end of the thread I see that I overlapped later thoughts on the topics. Confirmation of my thinking I suppose.

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Personally Iā€™m just not among the camp who think AI is just like anything else in history thatā€™s new and unpredictable. The injection of a new form of intelligence into the universe is something different.

Anyway, I donā€™t want to derail this thread any further!

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Just want to semi-jokingly prod here and argue everything comes in 3ā€™s. We cannot know either light nor darkness without one to perceive it. :thinking:

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Things may only seem to come in twos because we tend to think that way. Quarks come in threes BTW.

I was recently debating whether we can consider none existence of the universe (ie of anything at all) to be implied by what humans call existence of the universe, and Iā€™m leaning towards no, because I think itā€™s an assumption based on either-or thinking.

It is extremely hard for humans to think differently than the way we naturally think at whatever cognitive stage weā€™ve reached. It takes a lot of effort to become aware of how we think and then begin to include that within something more capable. Especially if nobody else is around to show us the way.

So look at the limitations of how you and other humans think and beware of how that affects what you can conceive.

Try some questions that lie outside the everyday, such as is none existence of the universe an option? And if you find them easy to answer and if you are confident in your answer try explaining why. How hard or easy is that? Etc.

Hang on, some men are at the doorā€¦ theyā€™re wearing white coats. :thinking:

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I think a better, more fundamental, question is:

Does consciousness manifest within the world, or does the world manifest within consciousness?

If I HAD TO answer one or the other, I know what experience leads me to, but itā€™s much more entertaining and edifying to put one over each eye and see what sort of parallax emerges.

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Very interesting - I hadnā€™t really thought about AI in this way, but you are absolutely right. In terms of language todayā€™s AI does just that. It can reduce a language down to itā€™s core elements and in fact I have heard it can translate between languages even when itā€™s one it has never seen before because of these elemental similarities.

However, what I fear is that every AI has a bias whether intentional or not. It is inevitable as is incomplete data forming the summary. So too much trust in AI is the big risk in my mind. Many, many times 95% accurate, for example, is ā€œgood enoughā€ which will breed dependence. But every once in a while the devil is in the details and the 5% contains all the value. Missing that is always a risk and the more accurate AI gets the more likely what is missed will be dramatic, though the instances less frequent. But itā€™s likely made up for the fact that overall the risk is lower. Self-driving cars will fall into this category. Itā€™s great that you are thinking about these things as information compression and summarization will be critically important topics.

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Humility or Sociopathy ā€¦ Depending on oneā€™s viewpoint how one interacts with that perceived world could perhaps vary substantially.

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Now going even deeper off topic, the Short answer is yes.

The Long answer is, a Zen master, if he would speak to us at all, would say that everything perceptible is painted on the canvas of consciousness. (This is also part of the Biocentrism theory.)

consciousness is the only true reality.

And yet unlike form, which can only be perceived by the empty space behind it, we will never be able to understand what consciousness is. We have no method of making a comparison, no contrast to consciousness, so to speak.

Can a fish explain the water it swims in?

The one thing that does not have an opposite is consciousness, subconsciousness is just another shade of consciousness.

Thus, not being able to step outside of consciousness, and look back at it, so to speak, means we will never truly be able to understand it.

Some gurus consider consciousness to be god. So to explain it, means we have the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and Everything, which I think is the number 42? Cheers

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Pertinent to the discussion on the archiving of public data, some interesting background:

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This is a question for the one who believes in space and time, in other words believes in duality and this is confusing the map with reality.

In metaphysics or in the void this question is either meaningless or is simply answered by saying that they are the same and indistinguishable.

Several examples

Is it the mirror that reflects my form ? or is it my form that is reflected in the mirror ?

Is reality a fiction ? or is fiction a reality ?

Is the heads of a coin the opposite of the tails of a coin ? Or is the tails the opposite of the heads?

Is it the walls that make up a house, or is it its emptiness, ? from one emerges the appearance from the other the utility.

Do not try to adjust your mind to reality, it is reality that is wrong.

Therefore time and space do not exist and neither does cause_effect, the Universe is eternal, uncaused and spontaneous, it is born and dies incessantly without fatigue, its beginning and end follow each other reciprocally, it lacks consciousness because it is Everything.

the paradox of Boecio

if god exists, where does so much evil come from and if god does not exist, where does so much goodness come from?

God lacks all evil and all goodness, therefore he can only be Good.

Sorry for the crazy and satirical diatribe.

God give me coffee for what I can do and wodka for what I canā€™t do.

:grinning:

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Everyone knows the sound of silence so is the sound of silence a sound? :exploding_head:

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Hi @dirvine, your question has been answered in the field of information science (also used in intelligence agencies, for obvious reasons), known as the DIKW pyramid (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom).

Data is just raw unorganized, unstructured pieces of facts that are useless due to the lack of context and lack of interpretation.
(ie. a stream of signals captured in thermometers across the oceans)

Information is processed and structured data, that becomes useful, relevant and meaningful.
(ie. analyzed that data and I realize there is a trend in the temperature in the oceans across the globe)

Knowledge would be basically structured information, from several sources, including empirical experience and context, which allows us to knowing how all these sources of information are all related to each other, and knowing how to apply that information.
(ie. I get more information from satellite images, weather stations, ocean currents and migration of sea animals, historical records. I have at least an hypothesis of why and how it is happening that fits all this information.)

Wisdom is the amalgamation of knowledge that allows us to ponder about why is it appropriate, right or wrong to apply or not that knowledge. It allows to see the bigger picture and decide with the long term consequences in mind.
(ie. We should stop doing X and Y to prevent natural catastrophes in the future)

Another way to categorize these four layers would be:
data: know-nothing
information: know-what
knowledge: know-how
wisdom: know-why

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Each layer of that pyramid depends on the one below and ultimately the base, data layer.

If you lose any layer, the ones above become like a religion.

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Of course, accurate factual data gathering is the base of the pyramid.

Even our intuition gets affected by it, our brains are empirically gathering data all the time.
Our intuition is just the subconscious accessing the library of experiences that you had in the past. If that data gathering is based on shitty sources, it will turn your intuition completely wack.
For example, I have met girls who their experience of the world was through watching Korean dramas, and their intuition about people was comically archetypically and stereotypically based on tropes. Her intuition was completely shit. When I tried to explain that it is not how the real world works, she would refuse to listen to me.

Talk about a post-modern take of the allegory of the cave.
The worst part is that trollfarms have weaponized this, and in result we see irrational extremism in both side of the spectrum.

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I hear you, but I also think that data in itā€™s raw form, whether bad sensor data, failed experiments (bad physical data, i.e. incorrectly measured) and so on do not come to represent knowledge at all. So not all data becomes knowledge and do we store that bad data too? Then we have to ask what data si worth storing, is it very bit of data.

Then up the pyramid to knowledge, how much of that is work keeping, I would argue 100% of it, even the wrong assumptions as they can be valuable.

Deep right enough.

So personal data can. be anything and we store any data on SAFE for perpetuity. That means a person can store

  1. Their own notes, diary, photos etc. (much of it unlikely to add to knowledge, especially that which is not shared)
  2. The Internet archive, Wikipedia etc.
  3. Group data

So we have this conundrum of personal data, if a person stores X and shares it then itā€™s shared further it becomes societies knowledge, but we did not publish it as maidsafe or whoever, but the people did and maybe apps get created to search or do things like NRS/DNS and so on. It seems likely that will happen, but not necessarily essential.

Rather than the project (whatever that means) going out and looking to store data for dataā€™s sake, perhaps humanity can store what it considers valuable and shares that with however they think agrees. Very much like what happens in real life, not marketed to death or falsely pushed to the top of some SAFE search engine (we have seen the do no evil corps before), but through real connections, interests and convictions.

/still brainstorming

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I agree in general terms that storing all is good, but then we need to be able to discern the type, which we need to do even with all good data. Knowledge is built upon good data and bad data, gotta know what you donā€™t want and wisdom requires experience (however small or large) of the bad and the good.

But in practical terms it will be decided upon by the person/entity that pays to store that data.

I feel that while its nice to consider ideals we also need to be very mindful of the practical where people decide what is being stored. In a sense this is a filtering process where generally economics decide what is stored.

Allowing personal data to be deleted allows the removal of bad data that has no use (eg repeated bad data)

In the end for Safe the storing of data will be determined by economics of the people/entities storing the data.

The ā€œunlikely to add to knowledgeā€ I disagree with

  • It will serve to enhance that personā€™s knowledge
  • that personal knowledge always will filter into group/public knowledge in one form or another
  • and as you mention some of the personal data may be shared at a later time and if never stored (ie lost) then it cannot be shared later on.
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regarding what data is worth storingā€¦

I guess I still feel like it will eventually look something like:

  • anyone can store whatever data they wish, because only the individual knows what is useful/meaningful to them or not. ā€œAIā€ will never change that.
  • there will be some kind of least-recently-accessed content expiration happening at the node level.
  • least-recently-accessed expiration can be bumped up by paying more for storage, either originally or at a later time.
  • there will be some sort of mechanism for users to gauge if their uploaded content is in danger of being expired or not.

I feel that something like this can work in a stable population of nodes/users, ie once saturation is reached.

At an earlier stage, content expiration might not be necessary because if the network is growing rapidly, new nodes may be coming online faster than data. But this is analagous to a ponzi, as it relies on growth/expansion forever which is not possible.

show me Iā€™m wrong?

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Honestly I donā€™t see the conundrum.
The network stores all data, and thatā€™s it.

The stages of information and above requires someone to do the work, by turning it into something useful. There is no role for the SafeNetwork to process it.

And if I decide to publish it, it doesnā€™t become ā€œpublic knowledgeā€, it is still data. It becomes public data, and that picture is merely a data point.

It is only when someone comes across that picture and starts to look at it closely that it starts turning it into information (ie. make annotations about the picture that I am wearing a slipknot t-shirt, I am posing with a girl, there are no rings in our fingers, the Eiffel tower is in the background, etcā€¦)

Knowledge phase would be gathering more pictures to see a pattern that confirms the high likelihood that I am a metal fan, I like traveling to Europe in holidays with the same girl and can predict my future behavior considering that there will be a hard metal festival in Germany.

The SafeNetwork would have zero incumbency in anything beyond storing data.
Or are you saying that the Safe network should have the capability of discerning qualitatively the value of data? It goes way beyond of the scope of its design, isnā€™t it?

The network should just store data and let users use it as they want it. It is the users and their apps that will turn public data into information->knowledge.

Edit: also, re. the private data, it could become personal knowledge. If you have our own AI trained with your own personal data so you can have an AI secretary who knows your most confidential information, for example, without the risk of any leaks or gossips. Or an AI psychologist.
The SafeNetwork would be the only network that can assure me that my AI is truly mine, and that no other third party is datamining it. If it can achieve that, it will be marvellous.

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