The need for diverse criteria of progress and success How neural networks and evolution avoid getting stuck in local optimaTuring completeness, Popper completeness, and other forms of universalityHuman cogni...

We discuss:Process-oriented fields like economics, evolution, and epistemologyLevels of abstraction and explanation vs. interacting domains of thoughtDifferent measures of complexity - of programs, ideas, organisms...

Godel, Escher, Bach & Hofstadter's focus on self-reference vs. David Deutschs focus on universalityComparing knowledge about what to do vs. what is true, and whether you should ever give adviceWhy the Blind Watchmaker...

1. Dolphins. Transplant human brains into dolphin bodies. How long before they build printing presses? More generally, what matters more: our hands or our brains?2. Set. Point. Search. Human power depends on three things: ...

What makes something an AGI? What requirements should it meet?1. Darwin. It should be able to explore many possibilities, via variation and selection.2. Turing.  It should have the widest set of possibilities ...

In this episode, I discuss:1. Progress. What makes progress possible? What makes it go faster? What makes it go further?2. Four elements of knowledge-creation. Variation, selection, attention, & knowledge.3.

Howdy! I'm Carlos, and I work on artificial general intelligence. In this episode, I discuss:My main research question: What makes human minds so powerful?Why the Darwinian ideas of variation and selec...