Greetings, from the Mediterranean coast

[ash]

After many months of pondering, I’ve decided to join this space.

I’ve been following Jeff Hawkins’ work for about ten years now. It was pivotal for me in many ways, and I’m immensely grateful to him, the team at Numenta, and the late Matt Taylor, for bringing this research to us mere mortals, asking these questions out in the open - and even letting us join the discussion in some capacity.

A software engineer by trade, thirteen years in total, with the past eight years in infrastructure (bare metal, clouds, architecture, many many things). It’s easier to count languages and platforms I haven’t worked with, but Python has been my main personal tool for anything moderately complex and up.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been fiercely skeptical of the situation around “AI” and its trajectory, as well as much of the ongoing research conducted in the field and motivations behind it, for many years now. Acknowledging that, and therefore to avoid any unnecessary friction, I’m going to deliberately avoid most theoretical/philosophical discussions here, focusing on the software side of things instead. This is where I feel I could positively contribute to the project the most.

Currently I’m finishing up a major activity at my daily job. Once it’s done, I’ll be able to dedicate more of my time and brain power to Monty, which I’m quite looking forward to. While I categorically disagree with the project’s long term goals, I can definitely get behind the short term ones, where Monty becomes a packaged piece of software available to people to fiddle around with. This reminds me very much of Processing, which was huge back in the day - thanks to how accessible, yet powerful, it was. There was, and still is, a community, a library, etc. Shadertoy is another good example. This is close to how I see what Monty could become, at least in one of its first iterations.

[tslominski]

Welcome @ash!

Ahh.. Processing . I remember it. I didn’t get too much into it though. Got exposure through my friend who put together an interactive visualization for his Strange Loop talk.

I’m looking forward to your contributions. We can definitely use the help on the software side of things.

[brainwaves]

Welcome to the forum @ash !

[vclay]

Hi @ash , welcome to the forum! Greetings back from the Mediterranean coast

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve gotten a bit behind with replying here. Thanks for the great posts you’ve already made on this forum!

I’m curious why you categorically disagree with the project’s long-term goals, although happy not to get into a deep philosophical debate and focus on the more short-term, software side of things, as you mentioned. I am just wondering if there is maybe a misunderstanding about our goals. If you are curious, this is our vision and mission:

Vision: The future of AI and robotics will be based on sensorimotor learning.

Mission:

• Create core sensory-motor algorithms guided by neuroscience.

• Create an open-source platform for creating sensory-motor products.

• Increase awareness of sensory-motor technologies for AI and robotics.

Best wishes, and I am looking forward to reading more from you here,

Viviane

[ash]

I’ve been noticing that there’s quite a few of us here from that specific region! Which is great, although it’s been rainy/snowy and overall cold in some parts of it lately, but it should pass soon.

As for goals… Ten years ago, a friend of mine recommended me a book. It was my first serious introduction to systems thinking; but it also taught me that no technology comes from nowhere, and no technology lands into a vacuum. There’s a context to what we’re doing. We may not see it, we may not think about it, we may even deliberately ignore it, but it’s always there. And within that context, goals like these stop being as good and innocent as they might seem at first glance. Should this technology still evolve? Yes, because it can’t not to, unfortunately. Should it be available to everyone? Not in this context. Unless participants of this forum are ready to live in a world where this technology is used to commit atrocities, because the way things go, they will be committed. And not just somewhere far away, but in our countries, in our cities, against our fellow citizens, neighbors, and ourselves. Not like those living far away deserve any of that either. But that concludes my thoughts on this, this isn’t the right place to have that conversation.

As for writing, thank you, I also went ahead and wrote something in Github too, not requiring immediate attention from anyone but I think it looks promising already.

And, again, thank you so much!

Kind regards