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Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

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Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#71
post #66

We're all already part of a society-scale, distributed hive mind--have been since the invention of language. Birds flock together, they eat together, they think together. Families, friend networks, cities, global societies, they all form communication topologies that have analogs in the brain. Thoughts bounce from person to person, memes spread amongst the computational fabric of groups of people. It's nothing new. W…

You are right, and it's not even a new idea. It's the premise of Douglas Adams' H2G2 books, where the Earth was literally built as a supercomputer by another supercomputer, named Deep Thought, after it finished computing the "Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" and realized that the answer was meaningless without the right question and that it would need a much more powerful computer to find it.

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#72
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a bad argument when it comes to "existential risk for all of humanity". Of course, so far no one has any idea how pragmatically it could play out. Maybe it'll start with something as banal as VisualStudio + Cortana providing an advantage to AI design, that helps designing a better Cortana, that helps designing a better Cortana, that ... Yes, of course, it's unlikely in the coming next 1-2 decade, because…

> That's quite a bad argument when it comes to "existential risk for all of humanity". It's not a bad argument. It's the standard for creating one. Engineers get paid to resolve risk/problems. So, if you claim there is one and it is fantastically an 'existential risk for all of humanity', one should at least be able to explain how exactly it exists in the most basic technical terms. I haven't heard a single example o…

[deleted]

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> AGI is computable on present day hardware if one has enough knowledge on how to correctly structure it. (...) Hardware reached capability in recent years. How could you possibly know anything regarding whether this is true or not, given that we know nothing about AGI? Also, may I ask what you mean by "AGI Developer"?

Sure. I am Jovan Williams from : http://www.monad.ai . I know its true because I am sitting in front of working aspects that I have been researching and developing full time for approximately 4 years. Some years ago, I was operating a full stack on a 4-core Intel processor. While resources were pegged, it only contributed to increased latency which is why I created my own simulation layer to continue my proofing work…

Hi Jovan. Thanks for being open about your background and good luck with your endeavour.

It's perhaps not my place to offer any sort of advise, but it might be a good idea to be a little conservative with your terminology ("AGI") on forums like HN. The wrong response may well hurt much more than your HN karma, especially if you're looking for funding.

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's quite a bad argument when it comes to "existential risk for all of humanity". It's not a bad argument. It's the standard for creating one. Engineers get paid to resolve risk/problems. So, if you claim there is one and it is fantastically an 'existential risk for all of humanity', one should at least be able to explain how exactly it exists in the most basic technical terms. I haven't heard a single example o…

>And if I told you the foundation of AGI has already been defined, the core computational model proofed, and that a functional system exists today how would anything change? AGI is here and there is no doomsday playing out. It's running on an 8-core processor, a GPU, and 32GB of RAM completing interactive exercises and going through a series of tests defined by its creator. The bowl of spaghetti above your head was d…

As I wasn't able to reply to [throwaway397537] directly, I'll reply here : > (1) What sort of tests is it going through?

* Latency/performance

* Scaling

* Data flow Observation trials

* Progressively difficult and open ended order following

* Language/Communication construction

A whole host of others...

> (2) How do you know it's self-aware (don't just say because you designed it that way)?

Not sure what to say beyond this nor do I think I should. I will say that centers on theory of what exactly that means which I cultivated full-time over the better part of a year. I can boot "identical" systems and get completely different behavior if I so choose in one of my models. Same outcome. Different behavior/execution getting there. And yes, this is based on new domain theories centers on mathematics/information theory.

> (3) How is this an improvement over SHRDLU (which also exhibited fairly complex behavior and "understanding" within a simulated environment)?

I've never heard of SHRDLU. I just parsed the wikipedia page for it. This is essentially environmental modeling/interaction based on a compiled language model. I scanned forward to the obvious limitation of such systems : "This led other AI researchers to excessive optimism which was soon lost when later systems attempted to deal with situations with a more realistic level of ambiguity and complexity."

Essentially, there is no intelligence just programatic modeling. It of course falls apart when you scale the environment and abstraction level. I have no such limitations as i've centered on intelligence. Internal world Modeling/reasoning is the approach the industry is taking to try to extend Weak AI. I am not approaching the problem in this manner. I spent a considerable amount of time focusing on information theory and have constructed new and novel approaches. The industry desiring to rush to things to market/showcase and reflecting on what they are familiar with instead focus the next leg of Weak AI on language modeling. This is a shortcut that will run into the same problems : SHRDLU. There is no shortcut to the hard problem. You either tackle it head on and first and foremost or you're going to get lost in an abstraction of it.

> (4) Did you actually "invalidate a host of theories, [and] create new mathematics, new algorithms, and new theories"? Which ones?

Yes. The research phase of my work started approximately 4 years ago [full time]. It centered on : general biology, development biology, neuro-biology, neuro-chemistry, information theory, new branches of mathematics, new methodologies for computation scaling, new branches of philosophy, new branches related to the theory of mind, etc. I authored code only when I felt I had fundamental aspects that needed to be proofed. The majority of my work centers on new foundations. I proofed a number of components and began converging them into an over-all architecture in recent years. There were revisions to various theories/foundations as the pieces came together. There were points where I felt, once everything came together that I hadn't achieved what I set out to. I buckled down a number of times under a [one last attempt] mindset and eventually it came together. It came together in a fashion in which I can see its design across a number of things. I took a breather. I did some reading on social impact/considerations as I've done throughout all my work and then I centered on following it through. I have designs for yet to be produced hardware. I have a complete design for software. I now mainly author code on a day to day basis. It is operational and I am steadily implementing my research. Why no publications/white papers? I maintain a graduate degree and decided not to go through with a PhD for a number of reasons. I have observed what occurs in Academia in relation to politics/attribution.. I have noted a number of prominent individuals attribute other's work to themselves with only a footnote mention to the original source of ideation. I am opposed to openly disclosing highly powerful understanding and valuable IP of this nature. I have spent time observing the world and I deem it reckless doing so with something as powerful/open ended as AGI. So, as far as you're concerned, I'm a nobody w/o proof. I'll provide proof in due time so as to solicit securitization of my work. However, I don't aim to disclose significant details about how it was achieved. I'll openly work with reasoned council so as to decide what should be done in such a capacity...

And no, i'm not a crackpot =P. You're more than welcome to look me up on Linkedin.

> Did you actually "invalidate a host of theories, [and] create new mathematics, new algorithms, and new theories"? Which ones? Yes. Which ones? ... As I am of such a mind, I know if I begin detailing this, someone with adequate intelligence and of similar mind can begin piecing together some of more deeper aspects of my work. So, I respectfully won't disclose details beyond new foundations in information theory.

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#75
post #66

We're all already part of a society-scale, distributed hive mind--have been since the invention of language. Birds flock together, they eat together, they think together. Families, friend networks, cities, global societies, they all form communication topologies that have analogs in the brain. Thoughts bounce from person to person, memes spread amongst the computational fabric of groups of people. It's nothing new. W…

The "hivemind" argument seems to predict that as society scales up (either through massive population growth or through faster and better interconnectedness, such as through the internet) that as a result we should be seeing much faster gains in technological progress especially in the last few decades or so. However there are quite a few observations that a lot of this progress has sort of slowed down compared to the early 20th century (see the arguments for "technological stagnation"). At the very least, technological progress hasn't increased linearly with population growth and better communication. In other words, the rate of technological progress looks more discontinuous and not obviously a function of societal coherence.

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#76
post #66

We're all already part of a society-scale, distributed hive mind--have been since the invention of language. Birds flock together, they eat together, they think together. Families, friend networks, cities, global societies, they all form communication topologies that have analogs in the brain. Thoughts bounce from person to person, memes spread amongst the computational fabric of groups of people. It's nothing new. W…

The "hivemind" argument seems to predict that as society scales up (either through massive population growth or through faster and better interconnectedness, such as through the internet) that as a result we should be seeing much faster gains in technological progress especially in the last few decades or so. However there are quite a few observations that a lot of this progress has sort of slowed down compared to th…

I'd argue that what we're seeing is both a centralization of computational infrastructure as well as a massive infiltration of everyday life with digital (computational) technology, often for no good reason other than it's a way to make money. We certainly have not stagnated w.r.t. to hardware or software, but just keep trying to scale to the stars. I'm cynical in that I believe the "AI first" movement is basically offloading the next phase of computational progress on computers themselves, because we either too tired or ran out of ideas or can't keep up, or it's necessary as a competitive business strategy, or it's simply cheaper.

Technology keeps giving people nice gizmos and plenty of flashy entertainment, but it's mostly self-serving, technology begetting yet more technology without clear purpose, as evidenced by stupid shit like Bluetooth toothbrushes (https://www.lookfantastic.de/oral-b-pro4000-x-action-toothbr...) and the insane number of cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes. Toothbrushes that need a freaking network connection and bits worth absolutely nothing. The crescendo of our civilization! Well done. If there's an overmind, it's feeding us shit.

(Sorry again, I'm cynical.)

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#77
post #66

We're all already part of a society-scale, distributed hive mind--have been since the invention of language. Birds flock together, they eat together, they think together. Families, friend networks, cities, global societies, they all form communication topologies that have analogs in the brain. Thoughts bounce from person to person, memes spread amongst the computational fabric of groups of people. It's nothing new. W…

The "hivemind" argument seems to predict that as society scales up (either through massive population growth or through faster and better interconnectedness, such as through the internet) that as a result we should be seeing much faster gains in technological progress especially in the last few decades or so. However there are quite a few observations that a lot of this progress has sort of slowed down compared to th…

I don't think your interpretation of that prediction is accurate. Rather it would be that there are "bursts" of technological progress followed by slower or no gains while the world "catches up." That seems to more accurately follow the history of technological progress.

I think a better interpretation would be that those "bursts" happen at tighter intervals, and if you look at the course of history that seems to be the case.

For example, the period between the introduction of horses/plows widely adopted in agriculture in the 1700s and the wide adoption of internal combustion in the 1940s was ~300 years. From Internal Combustion to wide adoption of transistors (1970s) was about 30 years from transistors, transistors to internet about 20 years, internet to ? (Deep Learning 2012) looks like about 15 years.

Not sure if that's a perfect fit but I think it represents a pretty compelling case.

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what you're arguing but it seems like my key point wasn't communicated well. It was and quite well. Were speaking the same language. We just have different conclusions. > Yes, every narrow AI is a system of systems to an extent. So expand on that concept but outside of a single firm/system. Such that the self driving car system is one single solution path solving "transportation" which would comprise a…

You still have nothing more than a system of systems of optimization algos. If you think this is what intelligence is, I'm not sure what to say. Until someone comes up with a better definition of intelligence that's what I'm sticking with. I think you're looking for an elegant solution right out of the box - the "one algorithm to rule them all" and I don't think that is feasible from an engineering perspective if for…

> Until someone comes up with a better definition of intelligence that's what I'm sticking with.

You'll get a capability demo instead. It wont fail to impress. Definitions and designs are for another day.

> I think you're looking for an elegant solution right out of the box - the "one algorithm to rule them all" and I don't think that is feasible from an engineering perspective if for no other reason than no singular system has anything near the data collection nodes needed for specificity on the range of tasks that would suffice any definition of "General."

What else is one looking for who claims they're trying to solve the Intelligence problem? Marketing an optimization algorithm as the next coming might make you rich in the short term but it doesn't bring you closer to the truth. It does in fact take your further away. So, 'the elegant solution'/'the hard problem' was the only thing I set out to tackle some years ago. Otherwise, i'd have been wasting my time/not being truthful with myself. It's feasible from a research and engineering perspective. Few commit themselves to the TRUE task and the likelihood of failure. I was ok with that it and stuck with it. I self-funded my work. It mainly centered on research. Thus, there were no exits. I either saw it through and achieve it or I didn't.

As far as :

> no singular system has anything near the data collection nodes needed for specificity on the range of tasks that would suffice any definition of "General."

Sure it does. Look in the mirror and log onto the web. I've let the misses play online for a bit now ;).

> Having raised three other humans and observing them while building DL systems myself for a living, I feel more strongly everyday that human intelligence is a hodgepodge of "weak AI" systems glued together with an exceptionally efficient executive function. AGI is as much a community building and humanity wide input collection challenge as it is a math problem. We need to think about it that way.

My graduate work centered on the underpinnings of DL (Distributed Optimization). After years of industry experience, I searched for a new challenge. After some open ended research in physics/photonics, I came to Artificial Intelligence. I scratched my head for 3-4 months as to why (Distributed Optimization) was being called Artificial Intelligence. I took the broad lot of it and threw it in the trash as prominent figures are only now stating : https://www.axios.com/artificial-intelligence-pioneer-says-w...

You're thinking about AGI as if its a chain of DL systems because that's what's made you money and where your work has centered on over the years. I took the broad majority and trashed it as Hinton now indicated others should do and started from scratch. I have no such bias. However, as my graduate work centered on the fundamental underpinnings of statistical optimization / distributed optimization, I know exactly what its limits are.

The human race is far more than a hodgepodge of optimization algos w/ an executive function (whatever that might be given the clearly varied forms of it).

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that information is crucial to achieve a 'win' for many goals. Given today's amount of information on the Internet as well as electronic money and access to most officials, barring some sort of inviolable built-in moral core, an AGI would be able to use any methods, overt and covert, direct and cunning, technical and social, to achieve its information goals. [1] Since an AGI can copy itself and be available a…

[AGI Developer] A controller/overseer can easily limit/block this sufficiently and securely. Were talking about hardware/software. There are systems/standardized approaches to solving this problem. The 'Control/Safety' problem for AI are lauded as theoretical and new. However, they are not. They are solved by industry standard approaches day in and out. Any seasoned/experienced engineer in this field could solve this…

It's funny that your handle is "sidechannel". I'm chuckling at "industry standard" because "industry standard" chip design have blatant architectural flaws in the form of sidechannels. Given Meltdown and Spectre, you really think an AGI in a machine isn't going to have oodles of time to analyze side channels and learn the secrets to unlock itself? Failing that, considering that it might be an intelligence far smarter than the humans ultimately operating the controls, do you really think it can't find a way out?

Re: Likelihood of discontinuous progress around the development of AGI

#80
post #38

About AlphaZero particularly, a few things must be kept in mind. First, AlphaZero still makes use of a Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm to search for good moves. MCTS is a powerful algorithm with a very limited scope: zero-sum, perfect information games. So for instance, it would be very difficult to see how to use MCTS-based AlphaZero in, e.g., training self-driving cars. Second, the AlphaZero architecture is preci…

Those vectors are only used to generate the move trees though. That part of the architecture is common to pretty much all MCTS board game AIs ever. The value in AlphaZero is in the neural nets used for the expert policy and the value functions and those don’t have anything about the game rules encoded into them at all. I agree it’s probably quite constrained in the range of possible applications. Everyone was expecti…

> Everyone was expecting Deep Blue to revolutionise AI applications too.

That doesn't match my memory at all. The reaction then was dominated by the likes of "this is super-narrow, not real intelligence". (The 80s did have a lot of hyped expectations of related tech, it's true, but that was around 10-15 years earlier.)

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