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Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

nautil.us

51–60 of 84 posts

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#51
post #28

How vs why I started learning genetic algorithms (random permutations selected/promoted for picking better combinations of Hamiltonian paths for solving NP-C problems obtaining near-optimal solutions quickly) and neural networks (mainly backpropagation, using different topologies) circa 1995 (college). It was like magic: you learn how to use those techniques easily in order to solve problems. However, the why was not…

>Do people really understand what complex neural networks do

From a biological sense, the only neural net we have a decent understanding of is the C elegans nematode worm with a few hundred neurons. Large neural networks like that of our brain are beyond our understanding and I suspect the same is the case for ANNs.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#52
If you don't know why a neural network suddenly reports that video static is a cheetah, the main reason for that is that you also don't know, in the first place, why it reports that a picture of a cheetah is a cheetah!

To emphasize our lack of understanding of the false classifications is misleading.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#53
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, computer chess, with its alien moves, opened up human thinking on chess, which ties in with the article's point about neural nets causing humans to see our own world differently.

Indeed (was just editing to clarify on that :) ). It led to something of a renaissance in chess theory. What I'd love to see (and have been tempted to take a crack at) is an engine built purely to play like a strong human with variable strength (things like not always taking the strongest move but not playing like god and then blundering either, not always avoiding mate in 27 plies and such). Shredder does it pretty…

That would be interesting. It would have to simulate human distraction and emotional ebbs and flows. I imagine ot taking into account feelings like impatience, boredom, and overeagerness.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#54
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a firm believer that it's a mistake to ask machines to do X in the hope that they'll do Y. We can't train an ANN to classify images then ask it to explain its reasoning; that's not the task we trained it for! How might we train an ANN to explain its reasoning? One approach would be to learn programs: have the ANN write programs which classify images. Then we have a classifier (run the program) and an explanation…

that's not the task we trained it for! Yes, exactly. We're not training consciousness networks. That's not even a goal of all this research. We're training dumb high-speed classifiers. How might we train an ANN to explain its reasoning? There are networks that exist today that'll happily explain an entire scene to you (the whole "this picture contains a pizza sitting on an oven in a kitchen and there is a dog in the…

> There are networks that exist today that'll happily explain an entire scene to you (the whole "this picture contains a pizza sitting on an oven in a kitchen and there is a dog in the corner"), which is closer, but still just pairwise training. The "thought" process isn't recurrent or turing complete so it can't make progress on its own.

Aren't those generated by RNNs, which are Turing complete?

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human brains do not think. They perform a series of computations, and arrive at a result. It is not intelligence. It is a very useful tool for solving problems that can be translated into neural inputs.

And what evidence do you have that human neurons do any kind of computation at all? Generally, they are stimulated by some sensation until they reach a certain threshold that causes them to fire. That is the basic kind of functionality that nodes in a neural network try to simulate. But human neurons are not dependent on numbers and change in much more complex ways than a few parameters. The brain requires a lot less…

And what evidence do you have that silicon transistors do any kind of computation at all?

Generally, they are stimulated by some voltage until they reach a certain threshold that causes them to change state.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what evidence do you have that human neurons do any kind of computation at all? Generally, they are stimulated by some sensation until they reach a certain threshold that causes them to fire. That is the basic kind of functionality that nodes in a neural network try to simulate. But human neurons are not dependent on numbers and change in much more complex ways than a few parameters. The brain requires a lot less…

And what evidence do you have that silicon transistors do any kind of computation at all? Generally, they are stimulated by some voltage until they reach a certain threshold that causes them to change state.

A transistor is not doing computation. It is flipping a bit. Those bits are flipped in binary patterns with logic gates to do the computation.

And a transistor is not a neural network node.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what evidence do you have that silicon transistors do any kind of computation at all? Generally, they are stimulated by some voltage until they reach a certain threshold that causes them to change state.

A transistor is not doing computation. It is flipping a bit. Those bits are flipped in binary patterns with logic gates to do the computation. And a transistor is not a neural network node.

That just answered why I think that human brains are doing computation. The neurons fill the same role as transistors, and the patterns of neural connections fill the same role as how the transistors are wired together.

I'm not saying that these are simple computations, or ones that are easy to understand, or ones that can be done in reasonable timeframes on silicon.

For more useful discussion, I'd like to hear what you think the definition of "computation" is - I suspect we're using slightly different meanings for the word.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#58

We saw this in Chess engines about 20 years back (when they started getting seriously strong) they play Chess incredibly well but looks very little like what a human playing does. It was fascinating to watch the changes in chess theory through that period as the machines validated or invalidated concepts and ideas that GM's had posited but been unable to prove one way or the other. John Speelman wrote an intro to The…

Keep in mind that chess engines are heuristics based hill-climbers (essentially they enumerate all their options, then optimize that process). That these don't respond the way a human mind does is quite understandable.

Deep-learning networks should already be a lot closer to how a human mind would react.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#59
post #58

We saw this in Chess engines about 20 years back (when they started getting seriously strong) they play Chess incredibly well but looks very little like what a human playing does. It was fascinating to watch the changes in chess theory through that period as the machines validated or invalidated concepts and ideas that GM's had posited but been unable to prove one way or the other. John Speelman wrote an intro to The…

Keep in mind that chess engines are heuristics based hill-climbers (essentially they enumerate all their options, then optimize that process). That these don't respond the way a human mind does is quite understandable. Deep-learning networks should already be a lot closer to how a human mind would react.

I disagree. Only because the architecture reminds one more of a brain this doesn't imply that it "thinks" even remotely similar to a brain, a human brain at that.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Weirdly Inhuman

#60
post #58

We saw this in Chess engines about 20 years back (when they started getting seriously strong) they play Chess incredibly well but looks very little like what a human playing does. It was fascinating to watch the changes in chess theory through that period as the machines validated or invalidated concepts and ideas that GM's had posited but been unable to prove one way or the other. John Speelman wrote an intro to The…

Keep in mind that chess engines are heuristics based hill-climbers (essentially they enumerate all their options, then optimize that process). That these don't respond the way a human mind does is quite understandable. Deep-learning networks should already be a lot closer to how a human mind would react.

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