Fine-tuning - chance vs design? (including a designed simulation)

[excreationist]

....You are free to believe whatever you want, but there is no evidence to make this conclusion even remotely reasonable. We have no evidence to suggest the existence of supernatural, intelligent entities who created our universe for unknown purposes.

Like I've said before "I think ALL evidence of God and the paranormal can be explained by skeptics as coincidence, delusion, or hallucinations."

We have no evidence to suggest that we live in a simulation.

I think Elon Musk (who is an engineer worth $100b) has a good argument...
https://www.lifesplayer.com/
note he also specialises in AI and AI is very important in games such as the machine learning in Flight Simulator 2020.

I'm going to eventually make a page on the site that talks about physics related evidence including quantized time and space.

We have no evidence to suggest that this aforementioned simulation was initiated in the recent past, and that our memories, along with historic artifacts were all planted to make the simulation appear more real.

If there are billions of video games surely they'd start off where the player wants to begin rather than always have to wait to simulate the entire history of the universe each game...

You are simply heaping speculation on speculation, which gets you nowhere.

I find it interesting to ponder these things.

 

[excreationist]

Not only that. Warner Brothers and Village Road Show own copyright on The Matrix, so back the eff off.

This is the ONLY thing I found (vaguely) relevant about the Matrix movies:

The quote also includes "crops were lost" - which is dumb. I don't like anything else in the movies including people dying if they die in the Matrix.

Many sites and Facebook pages use "Matrix" in their titles....

e.g.
https://matrix4humans.com/

That site is even making money off of the Matrix brand:

https://matrix4humans.com/the-matrix4humans-store/

So surely they'd get legal action against them first....

The title "Life's Player" is completely original though.

 

[fromderinside]

I think Elon Musk (who is an engineer worth $100b) has a good argument...
https://www.lifesplayer.com/
note he also specialises in AI and AI is very important in games such as the machine learning in Flight Simulator 2020.

Memory.

Got in to a pissing contest with an AI phd at Boeing in the late nineties. We were MDC Human Flight Control Engineering leads on the Boeing/Lockheed/FAA team developing intelligent or assisted degraded flight support systems for flight crew. There's quite a bit of data and research on such support.

He was all in on an AI approach where pilot interviews would become a big part of an AI system augmenting presentation of screens in graceful system flight degradation protocol.

I was in favor of developing an experts' based set of system support displays paralleling existing flight control support in nominal commercial flight. Both of us wanted to do the research. My advantage was I had existing display and protocol lists, research in operational A/C, a substantial advantage in terms of both continuity and operability. All I needed to do was conduct research on existing systems, develop and certify new lists appropriate for degradation protocols via existing T&E processes.

He, on the other hand, had to justify new research to replace existing systems, justify and develop new systems and training for pilots in whatever criteria based protocol strategy he developed and to start new process for getting approval by Industry/FAA.

On the operability side my advantage was quite large. Since I didn't need to justify new methodology. He did.

Obviously today graceful degraded flight supportability is a continuation of existing methodology. I'm retired. He soon after this dust up went to UCSD to teach.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Life adapted to fit existing conditions. There's no reason to think conditions were intentionally designed to meet the needs of a yet nonexistent biota.

The stuff he's talking about are things that have to be right in order to have a situation that could possibly support life. If everything's hydrogen you don't have life. If you can't have stable stars you don't have life. If the universe dies quickly you don't have life. If you don't have a reasonable ratio between the electromagnetic force and gravity you won't have planetary chemistry and thus won't have life.

Then why can't I simulate life as death, that all the conditions necessary for life are really conditions necessary for death? Now the entire universe less a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny insignificant part is alive, and only that tiny insignificant part is inhospitable for life. Makes a lot more sense to me.

 

[Lion IRC]

Not only that. Warner Brothers and Village Road Show own copyright on The Matrix, so back the eff off.

This is the ONLY thing I found (vaguely) relevant about the Matrix movies:

[I M G] https://linenum.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/instagram/matrix-quote dot jpg [/I M G]

The quote also includes "crops were lost" - which is dumb. I don't like anything else in the movies including people dying if they die in the Matrix.

Many sites and Facebook pages use "Matrix" in their titles....

e.g.
https://matrix4humans.com/

That site is even making money off of the Matrix brand:

https://matrix4humans.com/the-matrix4humans-store/

So surely they'd get legal action against them first....

The title "Life's Player" is completely original though.

I vaguely recall there was a survey of Strong AI professionals many years ago which asked them to 'vote' on the ethics/morality of creating sentience which could 'feel' pain.

The overwhelming majority felt it would be unethical.

 

[excreationist]

I vaguely recall there was a survey of Strong AI professionals many years ago which asked them to 'vote' on the ethics/morality of creating sentience which could 'feel' pain.

The overwhelming majority felt it would be unethical.

What if it was part of a robot that has pain sensors to help with avoiding burns, etc?

On the other hand in some games players like to deliberately and needlessly inflict pain... e.g. in the Sims some players make the Sims burn to death... these NPCs are currently "philosophical zombies" though some players might still want to do it if they were more conscious....



There are laws against animal cruelty so I guess there would be laws about cruelty to conscious NPCs in many areas of the world.

 

[fromderinside]

Doesn't matter. Robots are a product of man which, by extension, must adhere to man's constraints on behavior. The primary reasons AI? theorists and builders shy away from attributing to robots are those things men argue about regulating. Not settled.

 

[excreationist]

Doesn't matter. Robots are a product of man which, by extension, must adhere to man's constraints on behavior. The primary reasons AI? theorists and builders shy away from attributing to robots are those things men argue about regulating. Not settled.

Even though animal cruelty and human cruelty is banned in most areas of the world it still happens. In the future (even if it is in thousands of years' time) there would be people who torture conscious NPCs in a game like they do in the Sims. It might be banned in mainstream games available to the public but there could be an underground market like there is for cockfighting.

 

[fromderinside]

Doesn't matter. Robots are a product of man which, by extension, must adhere to man's constraints on behavior. The primary reasons AI? theorists and builders shy away from attributing to robots are those things men argue about regulating. Not settled.

Even though animal cruelty and human cruelty is banned in most areas of the world it still happens. In the future (even if it is in thousands of years' time) there would be people who torture conscious NPCs in a game like they do in the Sims. It might be banned in mainstream games available to the public but there could be an underground market like there is for cockfighting.

Like I said. Not settled.

I'm talking about ethical AI. There's always gonna be outlandish shitheads doing outlandish shit. Think of the programmers who were induced to work around normal aerodynamics solutions and get the 737 MAX certified in the first place. The f...ing engine is too large for the plane. That thing looks like a goose in hawk clothing. Not only that there weren't adequate back up alternatives. No fallback, no failsafe. Who ever heard of an automatic system overriding manual override. It took a crazy pilot overriding normal takeoff out of NY crashing the plane to get an movement toward procedures for actually regaining in-pattern control and that is limited to TO and Landing.

 

[atrib]

Doesn't matter. Robots are a product of man which, by extension, must adhere to man's constraints on behavior. The primary reasons AI? theorists and builders shy away from attributing to robots are those things men argue about regulating. Not settled.

Even though animal cruelty and human cruelty is banned in most areas of the world it still happens. In the future (even if it is in thousands of years' time) there would be people who torture conscious NPCs in a game like they do in the Sims. It might be banned in mainstream games available to the public but there could be an underground market like there is for cockfighting.

Like I said. Not settled.

I'm talking about ethical AI. There's always gonna be outlandish shitheads doing outlandish shit. Think of the programmers who were induced to work around normal aerodynamics solutions and get the 737 MAX certified in the first place. The f...ing engine is too large for the plane. That thing looks like a goose in hawk clothing. Not only that there weren't adequate back up alternatives. No fallback, no failsafe. Who ever heard of an automatic system overriding manual override. It took a crazy pilot overriding normal takeoff out of NY crashing the plane to get an movement toward procedures for actually regaining in-pattern control and that is limited to TO and Landing.

There was no 737 Max crash in NY; those were in Indonesia and Ethiopia. And the crashes weren't related to takeoff and landing; the rogue MCAS nose down trim was only triggered with flaps fully retracted, i.e. with a clean configuration. Finally, the engines on the Max are not a problem; the problem is badly programmed flight control software. Most modern commercial jets have large engines which tend to push the nose up under thrust - the Max is simply a somewhat extreme example of this design.

 

[fromderinside]

The crash to which I was referring was one out of Kennedy in 1999, back in the day. It was an example of an event when FAA and Airlines got serious about defining parameters of automation and priorities. Here is a wiki of the incident.  EgyptAir Flight 990

Sorry I got two items mixed up in your reading. They seem to have taken you to TO/L versus 737 MAX accidents rather than design and automation/manual control in 737MAX which are the real problems exposed by those crashes which, by the way, I had already addressed.

Face it. I'm 80, sometimes cutting corners.

 

[atrib]

The crash to which I was referring was one out of Kennedy in 1999, back in the day. It was an example of an event when FAA and Airlines got serious about defining parameters of automation and priorities. Here is a wiki of the incident.  EgyptAir Flight 990

Sorry I got two items mixed up in your reading. They seem to have taken you to TO/L versus 737 MAX accidents rather than design and automation/manual control in 737MAX which are the real problems exposed by those crashes which, by the way, I had already addressed.

Face it. I'm 80, sometimes cutting corners.

The Egyptair 990 crash was caused by the First Officer's actions - manually switching off AP and the Flight Directors, manually retarding thrust on both engines, manually putting the aircraft in a steep dive using the elevators, and finally manually switching off both engines when the captain returned to his seat and tried to recover from the dive. It was a deliberate act of suicide, not a mechanical or software problem with the aircraft. Also, 990 was not in the departure pattern from 22R at JFK, it was cruising over international waters at the time of the incident.

No amount of automation can prevent a suicidal pilot from deliberately crashing an aircraft. Or an incompetent one from doing the same, for that matter (the Atlas Air 3591 crash). You could theoretically hand fly a modern passenger jet for 10 hours with most of the flight control automation turned off, but using automation, for everything from capturing VORs and approaches to keeping the aircraft trimmed at all times is far safer and less prone to human errors.

 

[fromderinside]

No amount of automation can prevent a suicidal pilot from deliberately crashing an aircraft. Or an incompetent one from doing the same, for that matter (the Atlas Air 3591 crash). You could theoretically hand fly a modern passenger jet for 10 hours with most of the flight control automation turned off, but using automation, for everything from capturing VORs and approaches to keeping the aircraft trimmed at all times is far safer and less prone to human errors.

Except for the fact they there are now systems in place to prevent such suicidal maneuvers by pilots, that would have gotten a ''duh" from me way back in 1983 when I was working Navy aircraft systems at PMTC.

The point I made to which you didn't actually respond regardless of whether in-flight degraded systems or TO/L control is that of automated A/C control interacting/interlacing with manual flight command and control. ...and I now the EgyptAir 900 crash was after TO hand off - that is inflight - from pilot to first Officer. What I wrote was that after flight 900 FAA and US manufacturers and AL companies got serious about integrated manual/automate flight command and control.

It's not that difficult to see the thread between the three events in terms of FAA, A/C manufacturers/Airlines policy advances for automation-manual coordination and sharing in flight. There are trades where either pilot or automated responses are necessarily shared and arbitrated during critical flight.

 

[fromderinside]

. Finally, the engines on the Max are not a problem;

 Boeing 737 MAX

Really? They had to be mounted further forward, they required lengthening nose strut by about 10 inches to accommodate the large fan size and balance was changed by weight changes to secure the engine to the wing requiring other modifications to the fuselage.

Like I said the took a hawk and changed it to a goose.

One doesn't usually slap on bigger engines on an old airframe without redesigning the airframe. The new avionics failed because it didn't account for all the variables involved in the new A/C which was due to both the want for lower manufacture cost and lack of foresight about effects of engine size on the particular airframe.

 

[atrib]

No amount of automation can prevent a suicidal pilot from deliberately crashing an aircraft. Or an incompetent one from doing the same, for that matter (the Atlas Air 3591 crash). You could theoretically hand fly a modern passenger jet for 10 hours with most of the flight control automation turned off, but using automation, for everything from capturing VORs and approaches to keeping the aircraft trimmed at all times is far safer and less prone to human errors.

Except for the fact they there are now systems in place to prevent such suicidal maneuvers by pilots, that would have gotten a ''duh" from me way back in 1983 when I was working Navy aircraft systems at PMTC.

I don't understand. What systems? Are you talking about airline policies and protocols, or flight control software to prevent the aircraft from being destabilized? For every modern commercial airliner that I can think of, the pilot has absolute authority to turn off AP/FD and configure the aircraft manually any way they want, including crashing it through intent or incompetence.

 

[atrib]

. Finally, the engines on the Max are not a problem;

 Boeing 737 MAX

Really? They had to be mounted further forward, they required lengthening nose strut by about 10 inches to accommodate the large fan size and balance was changed by weight changes to secure the engine to the wing requiring other modifications to the fuselage.

Like I said the took a hawk and changed it to a goose.

One doesn't usually slap on bigger engines on an old airframe without redesigning the airframe. The new avionics failed because it didn't account for all the variables involved in the new A/C which was due to both the want for lower manufacture cost and lack of foresight about effects of engine size on the particular airframe.

Slapping bigger, more efficient engines on an older airframe is not the optimal solution from an engineering standpoint, but there is no problem with such a solution as long as the flight control system is designed to appropriately handle the engine characteristics, and pilots are trained properly on the new variant. Boeing has been doing this over many previous generations of the 737 type, adding new engines and stretching the fuselage. Airbus does this too, notably with the A320, where they slapped on bigger engines to an existing airframe, which is what triggered Boeing's decision to introduce the MAX.

With the 737 Max, Boeing screwed up
1. By implementing a flawed software module that forced a potentially deadly runaway trim condition under certain situations, and
2. By not requiring pilots transitioning from older generations of the 737 type to be trained on the MAX variant.

 

[fromderinside]

The point here is with the software, as you pointed out, because there were no adequate antecedents from which to work. Not only did the training problems you suggest, but failure to provide secondary overrides and go-tos for the pilots and software who/which relied on the input from a single sensor - an engineering no no of the first magnitude - all more or less guaranteeing failures. Primary requirement for commercial A/C design is to design in redundancy for all critical and most all primary systems.

These kinds of things have become increasingly likely over time, since the eighties through 2002 at least, when I participated in such projects. Budget rather than safety and sound design kept taking bigger and bigger bites out of concepts. With the MAX I think we've reached the maximum extent to which an originally sound design breaks down.

IOW we agree the S/W was inadequate. I tried to point to reasons this was likely to happen.

With the amount of strengthening , mostly due to weight required in the fuselage, I fully expect cracks to become increasingly likely failure with this A/C.