Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

Post by peferron » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:49 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #43

thefalcon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is unfair (and unwise?) to throw in modifiers such as "very long-term" in the quoted sentence, or "very distant" in: > It is hard for me to empathize with Musk’s fixation on evil super-intelligent AGI killer robots in a very distant future. The truth is we don't know, (we can't know,) and we (on the whole) are making enormous strides. And it could take one small breakthrough to find ourselves "very" sudd…

My issue is that, while of course you're right that one can't know for sure, some people conclude that simply not being able to know justifies whipping up a frenzy and (in all likelihood) wasting part of a billion dollars that could go to, say, more productive research even within AI/ML. Anyone could make a long list of things it's impossible to know for sure that would destroy humnaity. Many such things are vastly m…

Post by backpropaganda » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:50 PM UTC

jph00 wrote: post #15

phreeza wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it an "Atari problem" sounds quite disparaging and misses the point. It's like calling a convolutional network doing the ImageNet task a "Doggy-detection" problem. That may be the original development problem, but the final product still helps detect cancer in CT scan images... Same goes for advances in reinforcement learning made on atari games.

Perhaps, but the jury is still very much out. The vast majority of RL applications are game playing. Very few examples of valuable applications to society or the economy. There's also plenty of evidence already that RL isn't really the right way to tackle the credit problem. E.g random search is only 10x slower.

Post by RodericDay » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

_qbjt wrote: post #44

RodericDay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: 1) The Myth of a Superhuman AI ( https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ ) 2) The Terminator Is Not Coming. ( https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559576/the-terminator-is-n... ) 3) idlewords : Superintelligence - The Idea That Eats Smart People ( http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm ) The frustrating thing is that people with…

> In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: Appeal to authority. You're not presenting any substantive rebuttals, just assuming it's not a concern because someone else with credentials said so. It's identical to alleging that I'm only worried because Elon Musk says so. > The frustrating thing is that people with insane amounts of resources and disposable income get swallowed up by these Basilisk-…

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:55 PM UTC

daly wrote: post #60

I've worked in a lot of AI-related projects and was around when the AI winter arrived. These various techniques that currently work by training, either supervised or self-training, can have fatal flaws. Take, for example, some high-tech camera technology. Use it on a drone to take pictures of warships from thousands of angles. You take pictures of U.S. warships, Russian warships, and Chinese warships. You achieve 100…

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 11:58 PM UTC

_qbjt wrote: post #40

jph00 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. The issue isn't what the end result could look like, but whether we'll actually get there if basic societal needs aren't met first. Prioritize things which are needed now and in the near future.

[flagged]