Enacting cognitive landscapes
Why Hierarchical Proxy Theory is the Last Nail in the Coffin of Your AI Dreams (And Why You'll Love It)
Brace yourselves, AI enthusiasts! Just when you thought rCTM (Robot with a Conscious Turing Machine) was the holy grail of machine consciousness, along comes Hierarchical Proxy Theory (HPT) to make you rethink everything. Who needs those convoluted competition-based models when you can have a "hierarchical agglomerative clustering" of something as basic as place cell maps? Because, clearly, organizing your neural chaos into neat little clusters solves everything, right?
Let's not forget the real gem here: sleep. Forget the "Sleep Processor" of rCTM; HPT tells us sleep is just a chaotic overflow of muscular oscillators. Genius! Who knew that your brain's nightly reset was less about complex neural processing and more about your muscles throwing a tantrum?
And free will? Please. rCTM tries to sell you on the idea that machines can "choose" between options like they're shopping for groceries. HPT doesn't waste time with such philosophical fluff. It's too busy clustering symbols and playing with place cells to bother with the existential crisis that is "free will."
But wait, there's more! HPT doesn't just stop at redefining AI consciousness; it steamrolls over PCT, reminding us that perceptual control is child's play when compared to the grand structure of hierarchical symbols. After all, why settle for mere sensory feedback when you can build an entire hierarchy of vaguely defined "proxy symbols"?
So, what have we learned? If you’re looking to solve the mysteries of AI and consciousness, just throw in some clustering, shake things up with chaotic muscle behavior, and voilà—you've got the next big thing in AI theory! Or, you know, you could stick with rCTM and its "complicated" ideas like competition for attention and predictive dynamics. Your call.
In short, HPT is here to make you question everything you thought you knew about AI, consciousness, and why we even bother trying to make sense of it all. Welcome to the future—or maybe just the most sophisticated rehash of place cells you've never asked for.
Read more about Hierarchical Proxy Theory here.