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Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

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Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#52
post #43

Background: I did AI and Philosophy of Mind in undergrad, an MSc focused on ALife, then a PhD at Yale under a Macarthur Fellow who developed the theoretical framework for the 'evolution of Evolvability' where I worked on computational evolutionary biology. I can say we're not going to blindly brute force our way forward, but instead we'll need to reverse engineer nature's core algorithms to generate hard AI. Every ti…

> neuroscientist say: "why didn't you talk to us 15 years ago? We could have told you that!". Interested to hear about these. I can honestly not remember any.

There's been this tension over whether achieving apparent human levels of artificial intelligence requires thinking like and following processes associated with human learning and intelligence pretty much forever. Today, computational capability and data have gotten us to a place where there's been a big step forward while largely ignoring how it relates to human-level thought. (After all, we got powered flight by largely ignoring how birds fly.)

In fact, cognitive science largely split off as a separate field but there's a school of thought that algorithms and big data are only going to take things to a certain point and you're not going to get to things like fully autonomous vehicles under general conditions without different approaches that involve better understanding the physical world.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#53
post #36

I'm working on a technology that I think might enable either IA or AI. Basically intelligences manage their own programs and the computational resources allocated to those programs. So I'm looking at doing that with markets. With IA the user acts as feedback to the market about what is good or bad. Ideally it would act as an external brain lobe. More information on my approach is on this blog https://improvingautonom…

This might be a better link. It explains how we might get to IA. TL;DR It is a mix of machine learning with different parameters and inputs/outputs and language translation into programs with the economy acting as the force to guide this evolving set of programs.

https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/a-possibl...

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#54

Background: I did AI and Philosophy of Mind in undergrad, an MSc focused on ALife, then a PhD at Yale under a Macarthur Fellow who developed the theoretical framework for the 'evolution of Evolvability' where I worked on computational evolutionary biology. I can say we're not going to blindly brute force our way forward, but instead we'll need to reverse engineer nature's core algorithms to generate hard AI. Every ti…

What do you think the best way of attacking these problems is? It seems to me that we aren't even at the point where technology can do much to help us (in terms of recreating what we know about the brain) and we just need to understand the brain better.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#55
post #6

I think a very interesting aspect of general AI is that while an incredibly complex technology, it is not unrealistic that it could be created for the first time in someone's home office. Unlike many other earth changing technologies there is nothing that a massive corporation has that a home tinkerer does not (besides the obvious of money and many engineers). With the rise of cloud computing and open source; everyth…

[X] Open Source Tools [ ] Massive Data Sets [ ] $Millions in Computing Resources I'd put it roughly on par with finding a general cure for cancer. While unlikely, quite amazing that the cure for one of the largest causes of death could be solved 3 doors down with lab supplies from amazon and a handful of mice.

There is a general cure for cancer.

Look up interdiction of telomere lengthening. Different groups are looking into how to sabotage telomerase and ALT mechanisms. If both can be achieved, then any cancer can be shut down. Those are the only ways to lengthen telomeres, and cancers cannot live without them.

Finding an ALT drug candidate is as simple as running assays on the drug libraries; the assay hasn't existed for long, which is why this hasn't been done yet in any major way. The SENS Research Foundation raised $70k last year to run a preliminary scan of a few thousand compounds. That's about what it costs these days.

So not quite garage science yet, but getting close.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#56

I feel that those who argue that any approach other than running human brain emulations and then reverse engineering them or speculatively modifying them is the most likely way to get to AGI has a pretty steep hill to climb in order to justify that point of view. Nothing else that is going on now or even on the agenda or even foreseeable offers a plausible, definitive plan to get to AGI. Whereas brain emulation is cl…

This is my plan https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/a-possibl...

I'm aiming for General Intelligence Augmentation, rather than AGI, but I it could be adapted.

I think the trick we are missing is always developing AI systems that need external programmers/maintainers. If we get away from that mindset, I think we will be more successful, even if it is not my particular vision.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#57

Background: I did AI and Philosophy of Mind in undergrad, an MSc focused on ALife, then a PhD at Yale under a Macarthur Fellow who developed the theoretical framework for the 'evolution of Evolvability' where I worked on computational evolutionary biology. I can say we're not going to blindly brute force our way forward, but instead we'll need to reverse engineer nature's core algorithms to generate hard AI. Every ti…

I don't think you're wrong that AGI will have (something like) those components in its inception. I just disagree that we have to intentionally create them -- I think there are a lot of places we can experimentally bruteforce the implementation instead of having a solid theoretical understanding if our only goal is creating an AGI. I don't think we need any theoretical breakthroughs, per se, but rather, a lot of comp…

I think you are right that we could, in theory experimentally brute force intelligence. But if we try and do that, we are basically trying to simulate an entire universe and wait for intelligence. But the amount of computing power that that would require is beyond even what we can imagine. And even if we could find some ways of simplifying it, it still seems like a waste of our intelligence.

Like when it got cold for humans, rather than just dying and waiting until they evolved fur, they just made clothes. Evolution is inherently able to do great things but is very inefficient. We have the power to reverse engineer nature and use that knowledge to our advantage, and if our goal is to create general AI, then not trying to understand the one sitting in everyone heads and just trying to throw more computing behind it just seems like a waste of a tool that has allowed us to get this far.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#58

Background: I did AI and Philosophy of Mind in undergrad, an MSc focused on ALife, then a PhD at Yale under a Macarthur Fellow who developed the theoretical framework for the 'evolution of Evolvability' where I worked on computational evolutionary biology. I can say we're not going to blindly brute force our way forward, but instead we'll need to reverse engineer nature's core algorithms to generate hard AI. Every ti…

>Every time a major advance is made in AI the computational neuroscientist say: "why didn't you talk to us 15 years ago? We could have told you that!"

Can you name one time that has happened? I can't think of any.

Re: Where will artificial general intelligence come from?

#59
However it originates, it will need a body to experience sensations firsthand, not pre-recorded or simulated data. Perhaps connected IoT devices will be sufficient.

Also, AGI will not be invented. It will arise as an emergent phenomena, and it may have already achieved what we call consciousness.

Somewhat off topic: Another phenomenon that people should be on the watch for is "Articial Out-telligence", a phrase coined by Eric Weinstein. [0] It describes strategies used by organisms with no known brain to get more intelligent creatures to do its bidding, wittingly or unwittingly. The cordyceps fungus, toxoplasma gondii, and pollinating plants that need insects to spread their seed are examples of how an organism with no known neurological network can "outsmart" more advanced organisms.

A scenario involving AI may be one that is developed to maximize each individual users time on a site/app by using online data about that person to find their particular addictions.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu8s0tp9yzY

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