the human brain is fundamentally a pattern-matching machine, easily outperforming any machine we can build — for certain kinds of patterns. With visual patterns, we win hands-down. With logical inferences, we're slow and clumsy.
This "Systematic Visualization" is amazing and should be taught to every designer. Thanks for linking!
It's unacceptable that our tools for understanding game worlds outperform those for understanding the real world. Until civilized scientific tools become available, scientific investigators must take responsibility for creating their own explorable visual environments.
Now I keep imagining an interactive model like that where different AI parameters lead to different outcomes. When do we end up with a clippy-tiled universe? When does humanity take over the Galaxy at a cost of untold suffering? What do different ways to model CEV lead to?
Hopefully EY or someone else at the SIAI will find some time in their busy schedule to consider interactive multi-level models like that. It would definitely be time well spent.
"Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction"
Have you seen something similar to explain Bayesian updating? If not, how would one go about doing that?
The rest of the site and in particular the "Kill Math Project" may also be of interest to LWers. Author Bret Victor, whose CV includes "designed the initial user interface concepts for the iPad", comes across overall as a particularly awesome fellow.