[Art]

@ Ivan and all...
Quite an interesting idea you suggested about google "borrowing" our processor time.

I often think about that and how possible it would be for all of us to be "working" on a collective project without even knowing it.

How about every time one of those Apps needs to do an update on our phones or we're asked to Upgrade to a newer, better, more featured version of the same thing we've been using all along.
What's really being upgraded? Are there simply packets of data that our devices have been analyzing and exchanging with every one of these "Upgrades?"

Just how many improvements can be made to or for the Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses games that we've all learned years ago? There are many other games and apps that routinely "need" to be upgraded or updated for one reason or another. This constant behavior really sets off alarms in my head for some reason.

Just as that FLASH or ADOBE update rears its ugly head every month or so.

I recently read that if someone (a really dastardly person) wanted to slip in a virus to a lot of people in a short time, they would accomplish it by means of an update to ADOBE or FLASH or some similar method.

Always be on guard...about this and to monitor one's processor's behavior from time to time. Is your phone running HOT to the touch? Why? Is your old computer's Hard Drive (for those not using SSD's) whirring and making disc access noises? Hmm... Again, Why?

Something actually Does compute, somewhere.

[ivan.moony]

I have a rather long distant plan to do logic induction (which is computationally intensive) distributed over nodes that use the same web operating system running inside browser (think of webassembly as a base). Maintainers (together with me) would compete for a percent of processor time and users would choose where to invest their idle processor time. An user could also pick up several projects and adjust some sliders to contribute some or all of them and be notified when a progress is being made. Maybe a processor time could even be a marketable item, but I don't believe one leacher could ever pay a mass of seeders, so I think the idea could work only for some projects of public interest.

How in the earth can that happen? Well, there is a thing I thought of. To start it up, users have to boot up the operating system into browser (something like Google Apps), which means there has to be enough web apps written for the operating system. Programmers could be motivated to write quality apps and libraries by collecting a share from special app store and forwarding a fixed percent (maybe 10%), distributed to all authors on whose work the app is based. Forwarding those 10% could be a guarantee for maintaining a quality programming libraries made for the OS, making the OS an attractive platform for programmers of all sorts. The circle then closes, and the money is flowing as a reward to inventive library makers which in turn attract end-app makers that actually earn everyone's bread. There is also a space for free apps, and 10% of $0 is $0. Once that there is enough users, interesting things from beginning of the story can be made, regarding to sharing processor time.

Just an idea, not much, but it could work.

[AgentSmith]

What is this calculation that needs to be done many times and faster? Please write it completely down in math in this thread.

AGI is not only about calculating, but also learning/optimizing. These things are not the same. A calculation has a deterministic outcome. An optimization has not (in general). It provides some single solution out of possibly infinite many ones for a given problem. The human brain clearly has the ability to learn and to optimize itself.