> It's basically a grand victory for the fields of AI and Machine Learning that still tells us basically nothing about how an actually existing, embodied mind has to function
Special relativity tells us basically nothing about how an actually existing, physical spaceship has to function; but it does constrain our speculation about space travel (ie. no FTL, the fact that accelerating massive objects requires more and more energy, etc.).
It also provides some handy little suggestions that we may not have anticipated; eg. that mass can be converted into energy, which is certainly useful when trying to come up with practical designs.
But AIXI, I don't see how it constrains anything. It introduces a classification: AIXI type algorithms, and other algorithms. But we don't really know if this is a useful segmentation of the search space, or perhaps as useless as considering the merits of red spaceships vs. spaceships painted with other color.
Special relativity tells us basically nothing about how an actually existing, physical spaceship has to function; but it does constrain our speculation about space travel (ie. no FTL, the fact that accelerating massive objects requires more and more energy, etc.).
It also provides some handy little suggestions that we may not have anticipated; eg. that mass can be converted into energy, which is certainly useful when trying to come up with practical designs.