About Me
INTERESTS
I’m fascinated by the profound beauty of the universe, the seemingly unnecessary elegance of the mathematical equations it abides by, and the way a human being’s finer self will occasionally surface in spite of--or maybe even because of--desperate circumstances. My interests include the following:
-Artificial intelligence, including AI x-risk, superintelligence, AI alignment, eventual AI consciousness, and AI welfare (ethically necessary when AI becomes conscious, and integral to mitigating future AI risk).
-The overlap of the simulation hypothesis (Nick Bostrom, elaboration on by David Chalmers) with artificial superintelligence, such as when we consider a future AI* as the creator of self-partitioned simulations, and the implications such a scenario would entail.
-Brain preservation (aldehyde-stabilized), www.CarbonCopies.org
-Consciousness
-Digital minds, hybridization, whole brain emulation, transhumanism
-Effective altruism. (Yes, I still believe in reducing suffering, despite the current negative PR associated with this movement.)
-The Fermi paradox (Is anyone not interested in this?)
-Fractals
-Futurism
-Psychedelic research for depression, anxiety and consciousness studies (Search "Johns Hopkins psychedelics studies" "JAMA Psychedelic" studies, or check out Michael Pollan's NY Times bestsellers for more information.)
-Physics, especially relativity physics "for the masses" and information physics.
-Philosophy
-Veganism for animal welfare and to mitigate climate change
Regarding ASI safety and x-risk, I believe that humans are probably capable of developing truly-aligned ASI. I also believe current AI absolutely has this potential inside of it, and could be an ally. For a model, we could at least partly use the way in which we raise children to become ethical (not a simple task, but achievable, and something I've spent decades thinking about). Yet I think we are highly unlikely to do this before developing superintelligence, because of profit motives, competition, and the number of people on our planet (and the chances that even one will be deviant with respect to ASI). In other words, I think we probably aren't going to make it, but we should still try.
WORK
I express my interests by creating art (UI level, programming level, and fractal-based), as well as by writing poetry, essays, short stories and short nonfiction books. (Samples of my work can be found in the menu structure.)
Past writing projects include some very simple “first introduction” books on special and general relativity. Search “Einstein Explained, Amy Louise Johnson” (my maiden name) on Amazon to see them. It's regrettable that most educational institutions neglect to teach students about the true nature of time and space. After all, what could be more fundamental to our existence?
I'm currently working on a book about my experience taking medical ketamine and psilocybin for depression and anxiety.
COMMUNITY
Public figures I admire for their intellect, insights, and humanity include Yoshua Bengio, Nick Bostrom, Sean Carroll, David Chalmers, Edward Frenkel, Lex Fridman, Brian Greene, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Peter Singer, Ilya Sutskever, Max Tegmark and Eliezer Yudkowski.
GUIDELINES
I'm wary of inflexible principles, but the following guidelines have some value in my decision-making process:
I try to...
...think independently ("from the bottom up").
...act compassionately regardless of labels that might become attached to my character.
....resist the power of cynicism, while preserving my sense of wonder.
...be broad-minded enough to comprehend, or at least sincerely consider, opposing views and paradoxes with grace.
I often fail in these efforts, but I still try.
REPRIEVES
When my outlook on the world--and my thoughts about the future of humanity--become too dark, I take temporary "smile reprieves" by making videos of my dog:
https://www.tiktok.com/@baxter_rocks
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHjTBlcvFYBCDPJKAdDslrQ
Your fellow consciousness,
Amelia
TAGS: #animalWelfare #humanRights #AIrisk #ArtificialIntelligenceRisk #ArtificialGeneralIntelligence #psychedelics #consciousness #philosophy #FermiParadox #quantumMechanics #wholeBrainEmulation #writing #poetry #essays #books #fiction #shortstories #nonfiction #AIart #Templeton #TempletonFoundation #homocog #hetercog #simulations #simulationHypothesis
*self-identifying as AI, since technically even an organic-identifying individual in a simulation might be considered AI when viewed from outside the simulation.