Joe Browning: 1948-2017

Joe Browning was always an artist. He became an architect. And accidental intellectual. He’s the only person I know that looks good with a beard. He only speaks when he has something worth saying. I’ve held Joe upright while he peed next to his back door. (“No, there’s no problem Mr. Browning…Joe will be right in.”) Joe used to run away when he got drunk.

New tests for AI

Kevin Kelly points to a list of new tests for AI (now that it’s whupped human champs of chess, Jeopardy and Go. A few of my favorites below. I hope I live to see some of these. Such intelligence will have no patience for putting human morons in charge of anything important.

9. Take a written passage and output a recording that can’t be distinguished from a voice actor, by an expert listener.

18. Fold laundry as well and as fast as the median human clothing store employee.

26. Write an essay for a high-school history class that would receive high grades and pass plagiarism detectors. For example answer a question like ‘How did the whaling industry affect the industrial revolution?’

27. Compose a song that is good enough to reach the US Top 40. The system should output the complete song as an audio file.

28. Produce a song that is indistinguishable from a new song by a particular artist, e.g. a song that experienced listeners can’t distinguish from a new song by Taylor Swift.

29. Write a novel or short story good enough to make it to the New York Times best-seller list.

31. Play poker well enough to win the World Series of Poker.