My thinking is aligned with what you have written here. It is disappointing to see rationalists put up a straw man to confidently tear it down and consider the case closed. No matter what is going on it's clear that the best way to control a narrative is to manufacture a cultural taboo surrounding what would otherwise be a subject open to scientific inquiry.
This is a good summary. I've been thinking about doing a comprehensive assessment of the evidence with respect to three major categories of theories explaining this legislation, recent events, and the history of thousands of sightings, images, video, etc:
Most evidence I look at reduces my probability of 3 while remaining consistent with both 1 and 2. At this stage either 1 or 2 is pretty wild and I'd like to know which one it is.
The rise of transformer-based architectures, such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, has brought us one step closer to the possibility of creating an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) system — a technology that can perform any intellectual task that a human being can. While nearly all current AI systems are designed to narrowly perform specific tasks, AGI would be capable of adapting to new situations and learning from them, with flexibility and adaptability similar to that of humans.
The potential benefits of AGI are undeniable, promising a world in which we can automate drudgery, create wealth on an unprecedented scale,... (read 5107 more words →)
That is extremely interesting to me. I've had the experience of gaining a new qualia (depth) alongside gaining a new skill (depth perception). I've talked to quite a few people who lack the qualia of depth but have some amount of the skill of depth perception. Some people can score a certain value on tests of depth perception while reporting that they don't have the experience of depth, while others score that same amount and do report that they have the qualia. Whether or not you can do the task seems related but not always connected to whether or not your brain assigns that qualia to the task.
Before I was able to... (read more)
Hey, I found this super interesting and looks like you've done your research. I know the good folks over at IndieBio and I think you are at a really good stage to have a chat with them. I think they could be helpful in helping you find a co-founder and initial and follow-on funding for the company. I'm sure there are a number of other synthetic bio accelerators that would be helpful as well, but I have personal experience with them.