91–100 of 122 posts
while (1)
{
status = GetRadarInfo();
if (status = 1)
LaunchMissiles();
}Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh for fuck's sake, I had forgotten about this. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk
RationalWiki, and in particular this article, should not be taken as accurate. Here is one rebuttal: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibo...
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>>> 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 would be crippled by existential despair, or spend all its time in Buddha-like contemplation. The only intelligence that I believe is important is problem solving…
Feelings regulate actions. People don't blindly follow rules that would lead to disaster because of more fundamental regulatory mechanisms such as feelings. In order to make an AI that is as flexible as a smart human, it can't be brittle, and therefore will need ways to break out of logical traps. That is what a general problem solver must be like, inherently.
A couple of weeks ago I went to see Max Tegmark (the author of this piece) speak about his new book "Life 3.0: being human in the age of artificial intelligence" in San Francisco and saw the same speculative AI intelligence explosion crap we're seeing all over the place. I was disappointed because I'm a fan of Max's work as a scientist, his "Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality" book…
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 que…
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…
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>>> 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 would be crippled by existential despair, or spend all its time in Buddha-like contemplation. The only intelligence that I believe is important is problem solving…
Feelings regulate actions. People don't blindly follow rules that would lead to disaster because of more fundamental regulatory mechanisms such as feelings. In order to make an AI that is as flexible as a smart human, it can't be brittle, and therefore will need ways to break out of logical traps. That is what a general problem solver must be like, inherently.
"start building a series of massive computer facilities around the world"
The AI can be quick as a wink designing these things, but the supply chains for huge buildings takes a lot of time. Acquiring talent, training operators, construction crews, as well as location scouting, surveying, zone approval, geological testing, and various other tasks takes years. Sometimes a decade or more. And sometimes it all falls apart and you have to start somewhere new, because locals don't want you there. Politicians can be fickle bastards.
Construction is a lot of people shaking hands and discussing things, phone calls, walking back and forth for supplies, waiting on permits, advice, et cetera, and you cannot AI that to be faster. The plans always have to be modified because reality intrudes, and buildings where the architect does not visit are poor ones. Worse, when the architect has no practical experience.
Simple example in point: I was in a beautiful house where a hallway was juuust a bit too narrow. You could get a normal sized dresser and armoire down the hall, but couldn't quite turn objects of that size enough to get through two of the bedroom doors. A bed springbox was iffy. The builder quickly realized this(and made a quip about the owners buying IKEA flatpack furniture), but everything looked fine on the plans. Because of the rest of the layout, especially where municipal services entered the (already poured) foundation, the house could not be modified. A hand's width would have made all the difference.
Worse, when the architect does not have a human body.
Every building on earth has quirks like this. They have to be solved in-situ.
Creating the plans is a tiny portion of the task, and not much of a time saving.
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> 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
I think it was done first, and probably better, in Flowers for Algernon.
Daniel Keyes should be more famous and the story more widely known.
And now for something weird: http://www.unboundworlds.com/2008/10/challenged-and-banned-f...
How anyone could think of banning one of the most affecting and humane books ever written is beyond me.
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)
We don't have the technology to populate Mars -> We can't overpopulate Mars.
and
We don't have the technology to create sentient computations -> robots won't decide to kill us.
Your analog would have been:
We don't have the ability to affect the climate -> no anthropogenic disasters.
But, we know the antecedent in this case is false. Now I'm not asserting that anthropogenic disasters will occur (based on these arguments), but just pointing out the flaw in your logic.