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The Last Invention of Man

nautil.us

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Re: The Last Invention of Man

#61

Post by crooked-v »

jonloldrup wrote: post #45
komali2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If organic matter can survive (bones and even sometimes tissues), we can be very assured that hardened structures would. Furthermore, there's nothing in the fossil record suggesting humans were around very^very long ago, so it'd have to have been a different intelligent species.

That's a bold statement. Read Forbidden Archeology, and you'll see quite a few oddities in the archeological realm. Such as metal spheres with odd, precise features, that are very very old ( http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oiiiI75kDic/TdRv4ZsspWI/AAAAAAAAAC... ) (Yes, you can now give me the defaults: "if this was true we would have heard of it" "if he says something that is unconventional, he's probably a retard/arbitrari…

Those are not metallic and are naturally formed, with the "precise" examples cherry-picked from the minority not obviously lopsided or malformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klerksdorp_sphere

> As proposed by Cairncross, the grooves represent fine-grained laminations within which the concretions grew. The growth of the concretions within the plane of the finer-grained laminations was inhibited because of the lesser permeability and porosity of finer-grained sediments relative to the surrounding sediments. Faint internal lamina, which corresponds to exterior groove, can be seen in cut specimens. A similar process in coarser-grained sediments created the latitudinal ridges and grooves exhibited by innumerable iron oxide concretions found within the Navajo Sandstone of southern Utah called "Moqui marbles".

> Similarly, the claims that these objects consist of metal, i.e. "...a nickel-steel alloy which does not occur naturally..." according to Jochmans are definitely false as discovered by Cairncross and Heinrich. The fact that many of the web pages that make this claim also incorrectly identify the pyrophyllite quarries, from which these objects came, as the "Wonderstone Silver Mine" is evidence that these authors have not verified the validity of, in this case, misinformation taken from other sources since these quarries are neither known as silver mines nor has silver ever been mined in them in the decades in which they have been in operation.

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#62

Post by 21 »

sien wrote: post #15

Andrew Ng has a good quote: "Fearing a rise of killer robots is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars" https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/andrew_ng_baidu_ai/ But he might be wrong... (And he'd admit it) Perhaps Andrew Ng will write a piece about what he thinks about Cosmology.

You can say the same thing about global warning.

A lot of worry about the fact that global average temperature will increase by 2 degrees in the following 50 years which will cause widespread disasters (50 years from now)

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#63

Post by saulrh »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #30
andrewla wrote: post #24

I think it’s a little absurd that we would make the leap to machine super-intelligence without going through the step of machine low or medium intelligence. If I could write, I’d write a companion story to this called “Omega-1, the artificial super intelligence that wasn’t really that good at things”. They try to have it write mini-AIs to solve MT problems, but it’s slow and inaccurate. They have it write and produce…

Yeah. Maciej wrote a pretty good piece rebutting AI alarmism and kind of alludes to that as one of several points. http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm > With no way to define intelligence (except just pointing to ourselves), we don't even know if it's a quantity that can be maximized. For all we know, human-level intelligence could be a tradeoff. Maybe any entity significantly smarter than a human being…

You're betting everything on vacuous what-ifs. I mean, let's turn this around:

With no way to define intelligence (except by pointing to ourselves), we don't even know if we're good at it. For all we know human intelligence is a dead end. Maybe any entity that is not a product of evolution, free of genetic detritus that becomes maladaptive around advanced technology, will outstrip human civilization like human civilization outstripped evolution.

I don't doubt the book is full of entertaining soundbytes, but given these two quotes I am unconvinced that it is any more than entertainment.

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#64

Post by crooked-v »

apsec112 wrote: post #55
thaumaturgy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Maciej wrote a pretty good piece rebutting AI alarmism and kind of alludes to that as one of several points. http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm > With no way to define intelligence (except just pointing to ourselves), we don't even know if it's a quantity that can be maximized. For all we know, human-level intelligence could be a tradeoff. Maybe any entity significantly smarter than a human being…

Rebuttal to that essay by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (AI safety group): https://intelligence.org/2017/01/13/response-to-ceglowski-on...

That write-up seems to mainly try to shrug off the "what is intelligence" issue by virtue of "maximization", while ignoring that when dealing with human intelligence, selecting for maximization of a single field gets you autistic savants, not Lex Luthor-grade manipulative geniuses.

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#65

Post by pdimitar »

jancsika wrote: post #39

I don't understand how in 2017 the author completely ignores the problem of avoiding detection in the Mechanical Turk phase of the story. Let's handwave away the initial secret epiphany that creates the AI compiler in the first place. You've still got to get it to solve the following problems: * route around or trick the various Narus devices located at unknown places on the internet to get the software up and runnin…

The story has a few weak points, and having to fight against powerful adversaries with metric tons of vested interest in virtually all areas the AGI would disrupt is probably the biggest.

As you said, it would require much more chess moves.

I personally think the plot of the movie "Transcendence" is more believable -- if your AGI is fond of you (for one reason or another; you might even program it that way in a way that's not overridable) you can just freely let it loose in the internet and only give it instructions. The movie demonstrated how that AGI first made very sure to survive and then started to both expand itself and help its human creator and benefactor.

That being said, this story was still very enjoyable but I feel it lacked conflict. "As if they fell into a well-placed trap" is just not that captivating. And yet again, there are a lot of powers in our current world, most of which unseen and unofficial. For me to really like such a story, I want to see how the AGI will deal with them. I am 99% sure that any respectable AGI will eventually win but the journey to there would be extremely interesting!

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#66

Post by crooked-v »

pdimitar wrote: post #48
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first intelligent AIs will be weak and have limited influence on real world human affairs. The worst we have now is poorly supervised automatic trading systems that can shift massive amounts of money through electronic markets. However, once AIs can design and implement their own successors all bets are off. I would also be concerned about the development of non-theraputic neural implants and the ability of an AI…

In the absolutely epic space opera "Hyperion" (and its sequel "Endymion") the author Dan Simmons theorizes -- through the plot, not through a monologue! -- that AI creatures would offer us tech that we could never invent -- impossibly minituarized personal computers (the size of a discrete and thin silver bracelet, an earring or even smaller implants under the skin, and which are basic AI by themselves), and real-tim…

That kind of falls apart in this context because a set of mysterious unreachable AIs bearing gifts are a de facto foreign nation and would be treated appropriately.

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#67

Post by sampo »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #30
andrewla wrote: post #24

I think it’s a little absurd that we would make the leap to machine super-intelligence without going through the step of machine low or medium intelligence. If I could write, I’d write a companion story to this called “Omega-1, the artificial super intelligence that wasn’t really that good at things”. They try to have it write mini-AIs to solve MT problems, but it’s slow and inaccurate. They have it write and produce…

Yeah. Maciej wrote a pretty good piece rebutting AI alarmism and kind of alludes to that as one of several points. http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm > With no way to define intelligence (except just pointing to ourselves), we don't even know if it's a quantity that can be maximized. For all we know, human-level intelligence could be a tradeoff. Maybe any entity significantly smarter than a human being…

> Maybe any entity significantly smarter than a human being would be crippled by existential despair

This was addressed in a Spider-Man story where a villain enhances his intelligence, then first becomes a very successful crime boss, then writes novels and music, and then falls into existential despair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Rhino

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#68

Post by crooked-v »

paganel wrote: post #60
ahussain wrote: post #4

I feel like many of these speculative AI pieces seem to ignore that for every incredible breakthrough, there is a large amount of work which is required to build the scaffolding which allows the breakthrough to have real impact in the world. Even if the AI solves "Fermat's Last Theorem" type problems quickly, it seems to me that the vast majority of problems it faces will be "misplaced the database keys", "can't sche…

> Even if the AI solves "Fermat's Last Theorem" type problems quickly, It won't. This latest fad with AI becoming self-aware reminds me of how obsessed people were about finding the philosopher's stone back in the 18th century. It didn't happen for alchemy (we got chemistry instead, which is nice), it won't happen for AI (we'll probably get something like chemistry instead, which will be nice, but we won't get any ar…

I personally think that more-or-less sentient AIs appearing eventually (on a long enough timescale) is likely, but the idea of some endless ability to self-upgrade (beyond simply buying more RAM and processors like the rest of us) is extremely unlikely.

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#69

Post by crooked-v »

AgentME wrote: post #56
minikites wrote: post #13

I agree more with this essay: http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm >What it really is is a form of religion. People have called a belief in a technological Singularity the "nerd Apocalypse", and it's true. > >It's a clever hack, because instead of believing in God at the outset, you imagine yourself building an entity that is functionally identical with God. This way even committed atheists can rationaliz…

I feel like you could substitute AI for any existential threat in that to try to make people look silly. "Climate change ... really is a form of religion" ... add some analogies to Catholic punishment fantasies and doomsday prophecies to make it sound just like the type of thing humans have been talking about forever, criticize scientists for guilting people into giving them money to study their apocalypse fantasy, e…

The difference is that environmental protection evangelists never literally just reinvented Pascal's wager except with an all-powerful AI instead.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk

Re: The Last Invention of Man

#70

Post by panic »

dqpb wrote: post #47

When they shifted their focus toward products that they could develop and sell, computer games first seemed the obvious top choice. Prometheus could rapidly become extremely skilled at designing appealing games, easily handling the coding, graphic design, ray tracing of images, and all other tasks needed to produce a final ready-to-ship product. Moreover, after digesting all the web’s data on people’s preferences, it…

Here's a question: how can an AI tell whether you liked the game it made? You can't just measure engagement: you'll end up with something addictive, but not necessarily something you'd enjoy playing long-term. Asking the person directly might work, but it's easy for people to lie if there's anything actually at stake (e.g., the tactical way some Steam users give low ratings to "punish" developers).

Here's another question: what distinguishes an AI optimizing engagement from a corporation optimizing engagement? Doesn't Facebook already embody an engagement-optimizing process?

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