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Maximize mindfulness?

Vladimir Dietrich · July 8, 2020 ·2 min read

By simply asking it to "maximize the number of points obtained," an artificial intelligence broke the scoreboard of "River Raid" - an old video game. It had to play "zillions" of times, something that artificial intelligence does in a few minutes. The method matters less than the end result. It became a master at the game, forever.

It applies to any game. It doesn't have to be a little plane flying over little rivers for it to work. It has no fuss. Just objectives.

"Tell me if this lung x-ray has cancer." Also, trained with previous results, it became a master forever.

Now the novelty.

When are they going to "plug" a neural network into someone's or some people's feelings?

And I start with a simple goal: to maximize not "points" - there is no scoreboard - but feelings.

Feelings that we can tell it are "better than others." (I know, sadness is as important as joy, I will pretend this wisdom doesn't exist to at least simplify the reasoning).

Maximize "warmth," "joy," "mindfulness." We can lengthen the list. It - the artificial intelligence - has no prejudice. It endures everything. It just wants objectives.

How will it act?

We can let it decide, this is the best answer, actually.

But I started thinking about this post humbly just thinking about music.

Humbly letting just a Spotify choose playlists for us humans.

But then, less humble, it already came to me: better yet to let it compose music.

Note that, like "River Raid," at every moment it scores, or not - measuring heartbeats, blood oxygenation, hormones, endorphins, synapses, face image, skin softness, everything.

You realize that such "movements" score less, that moving "like this" before "roasted" scores more than the movements in isolation. It composes. Maximizing what? Everything good.

But even less humble is not to restrict oneself to music, in the game of life.