I think you're largely correct, because primarily humans work through complex problems by constructing stories. Quant optimisation as implemented by machine is the complementary opposite to this intelligence.
Typically: we endeavour to understand as much of the problem as we want to/ need to/can/ justify by tedious cost-benefit analysis or other meta-picture, thus reducing the solution set to a manageable (and communicable, if you're lucky) space. This remaining solution set gets over to a computer- using a rock to do our thinking for us. (Or, increasingly, to an underling with a computer.)
In this context, business and human optimisation can still be seen as being story driven; "The ape who attained tribal status by spotting a very small inefficiency in the bread-making process" is THE all-time best-seller- but in order to do this you typically have to know "the story of the ape who made bread"... and this may prove to be quite complicated after sufficiently many apes have had a hand at improving it already.
IMO the more interesting question is the previous musing on musing: why there's an inherent difference (if there is) between brains that are good at multitasking and ones that are good at doing one hard thing at once.
As to:
And we've done this in spite of having intrinsic strength, speed, stamina, stealth and/or armament disadvantages compared to most of the wildlife we've been competing with for survival; our ability to find solutions to problems is without question a trump card that beats all of that lot into a cocked hat
Personally, I'm a good deal more suspicious of comments about specious moral justification made by dragons.
This is an optimisation problem of a sort of course; brains trade against strength and speed because there's only so much blood to go around. However, humans do have some other vital strengths: Hands (which had to evolve, hand in hand, with the brain): Long flexible levers, and considerable stamina over long distance. For example, I know for a fact that you yourself once ran a cross country race faster than 8 other people.
no subject
Typically: we endeavour to understand as much of the problem as we want to/ need to/can/ justify by tedious cost-benefit analysis or other meta-picture, thus reducing the solution set to a manageable (and communicable, if you're lucky) space. This remaining solution set gets over to a computer- using a rock to do our thinking for us. (Or, increasingly, to an underling with a computer.)
In this context, business and human optimisation can still be seen as being story driven; "The ape who attained tribal status by spotting a very small inefficiency in the bread-making process" is THE all-time best-seller- but in order to do this you typically have to know "the story of the ape who made bread"... and this may prove to be quite complicated after sufficiently many apes have had a hand at improving it already.
IMO the more interesting question is the previous musing on musing: why there's an inherent difference (if there is) between brains that are good at multitasking and ones that are good at doing one hard thing at once.
As to:
And we've done this in spite of having intrinsic strength, speed, stamina, stealth and/or armament disadvantages compared to most of the wildlife we've been competing with for survival; our ability to find solutions to problems is without question a trump card that beats all of that lot into a cocked hat
Personally, I'm a good deal more suspicious of comments about specious moral justification made by dragons.
This is an optimisation problem of a sort of course; brains trade against strength and speed because there's only so much blood to go around. However, humans do have some other vital strengths: Hands (which had to evolve, hand in hand, with the brain): Long flexible levers, and considerable stamina over long distance. For example, I know for a fact that you yourself once ran a cross country race faster than 8 other people.