Dan Gish
@djgish
Followers
186
Following
17K
Media
159
Statuses
3K
Stepping stone collector.
Joined June 2010
This perhaps is the purest doomer debate I've seen. On one side, the rationalist convinced everything is an optimization problem. On the other, Ken Stanley explaining why it comes down to open-ended creativity.
📣 My AI doom debate with @Kenneth0Stanley, former Research Team Lead at @OpenAI Prof. Kenneth Stanley is a former Research Science Manager at OpenAI leading the Open-Endedness Team in 2020-2022. His book, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, argues that
2
2
10
A good test of the Popperian filter: Ending mail-in voting is prolly a good thing? But nationalizing elections seems bad. Maybe *really* bad if pushed through by just one side. Our quirky diversity in election procedures makes systematic fraud difficult. Someone like our
archive.ph
archived 3 Feb 2026 04:03:42 UTC
0
0
0
Once the dust settles from this tidal wave of insanely intelligent AI models and we're looking around realizing that something is still missing ... that's when things get really interesting. Then we turn our eyes to open-endedness and its incredibly deep implications.
0
0
0
> with agents programming feels *more* fun because a lot of the drudgery is removed and what remains is the creative part All kinds of juicy implications for the future of work and what makes humans special.
A few random notes from claude coding quite a bit last few weeks. Coding workflow. Given the latest lift in LLM coding capability, like many others I rapidly went from about 80% manual+autocomplete coding and 20% agents in November to 80% agent coding and 20% edits+touchups in
1
0
0
Here's some laws that could be passed in the future to provide justice independent of a corrupt executive: https://t.co/2ibAbDZfuW
@djgish Potential laws could include: - Reforming qualified immunity to ease civil suits against federal agents. - Codifying independent special counsels for executive misconduct probes. - Enhancing inspector general protections via acts like the Protecting Our Democracy Act. -
1
0
0
Unfortunately our system seems very weak when the Executive branch itself fails to uphold the laws. Not sure if independent judicial injunctions can bring justice to these shootings. Waiting years until the next elections is a bitter pill to swallow but it's all we have.
1
0
0
Gödel proved there are mathematical statements that cannot be proven. Turing proved there are computations that cannot be computed. Deutsch argues that since computers are physical objects, 'uncomputable' is just a statement about physics. Physical operations (like quantum
0
0
0
Ie. if you try to use a system to prove the system is flawless, you fail. (Godel's second incompleteness theorem)
1
0
0
The fallibility of "bulletproof" logic
@MaxDerakhshani @bnielson01 @DavidDeutschOxf @Andercot Think of the two slit experiment. According to the 'infallible' classical logic you claim is foundational, a single particle must go through slit A OR slit B. It is logically impossible for a discrete object to do both. Yet, when we run the experiment, reality gives us an
1
0
0
@m_ashcroft Our hang ups stem from psychosomatic tensions built up around thoughts (and downstream from that, feelings) that we subconsciously try not to have. This disrupts our natural creative problem solving. https://t.co/c8B1ppSACl
@reasonisfun My hypothesis is that starting as kids we get frustrated at some problems as unsolvable. This is highly disturbing and our only solution is to not think about them. This gets unconsciously internalized via tension over time. That's the block. AT teaches you to psychosomatically
0
0
0
@m_ashcroft So called "creative" pursuits like art & music are special cases of this natural creativity that's always occurring. Maybe conjecture & refutation is a focused application of it, resonating with how the world works and amplifying the process. Science a discipline of it.
1
0
1
It's constantly sub-consciously creating, rather outside of our conscious control. We're happy in a flow state letting this sub-conscious creative process do its thing. The trick as @m_ashcroft says is to give it less-than-zero conscious effort. The creativity is already
1
0
1
My theory of consciousness is that it's rooted in a sub-conscious creative process that's always running.
2
0
2
@ohabryka @SimonLermenAI @DavidDeutschOxf It's anti-progress because if we freeze our technological progress to avoid the risk of AI, we might herald our destruction by some other problem that AI could have helped us solve. In addition, enforcing a ban requires tyranny, leading to a static society. To ensure "no one
6
16
102
Popperian filter:
A great example of the open society's "Popperian filter." The good ideas get through, the bad ideas (usually) don't. So even otherwise bad ideas like socialism turn out to be positive influences.
1
0
1
An American president is overwhelming the headlines in every direction. And a lot is not good. Some perhaps is good, maybe even very good. Institutionally, how could the Popperian filter work here so that the United States and the world are better off in the long run?
3
0
2
As my daughter is growing, I love how she develops very particular tastes. She wants to eat sandwiches with cheese, but the cheese needs to be under the sandwich instead of on top. Of course, when she tries to eat it, the cheese falls off, and she gets upset. I find it
14
9
62
Tolerating all thought - starting with ourselves and extending to others - is the core of Critical Rationalism. And our resistance to that is deep & subtle on many levels. But it is possible to solve.
0
0
0
"God is subtle. But He’s not malicious." — Albert Einstein In other words, there is hope of figuring things out. — John Wheeler
1
0
0