Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#401

Post by feanaro » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

benl wrote: post #372

mitchellgoffpc wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask for evidence to support your claim, but I think Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword probably applies in this case.

Yes, I used to hold that view too. But actually it turns out that the null hypothesis is that mind is at least partly immaterial, because all attempts to demonstrate the opposite philosophically are fraught with difficulty. I’ve found that the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas, when explained by modern philosophers, best explains to me why that’s the case.

> ... because all attempts to demonstrate the opposite philosophically are fraught with difficulty.

Can you give at least a rough sketch or gist of the argument you are referring to?

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#402

Post by Quarrelsome » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

mritchie712 wrote: post #293

Quarrelsome wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A few, or even one, brilliant mind(s) could make a break thru in AGI in a matter of months. same goes for warp drives doesn't it? The point is that people don't see how we build THAT out of these tools we currently have. We only build pastiches of intelligence today and either we have an arrogant view of the level of our own intelligence or we can't make THAT with THIS. But maybe warp-drives, maybe world-peace too?

No, way wrong, there would be enormous hardware costs to building a warp drive. There are near zero costs (possibly) of building AGI.

Mythical man month. I feel like you're seriously underestimating how hard this is. Its got to be one of the greatest engineering challenges of our species and to flaunt that its "near zero cost" is offensive.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#403

Post by tim333 » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

benl wrote: post #370

noir_lord wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But philosophy does - and it tells us you can’t get mind from matter, no matter what configuration you put it in. Curious - do you think humans have mind? because if so we are very much matter and if not well that's an interesting thought as well.

That’s right - we have minds therefore we must be more than just matter. I used to think the opposite, but reading the philosophy on the subject changed my mind. There are a lot of different takes on the topic, but what most added up for me was the philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas. There are many great expositions of their work out there.

AGI in the sense of robots that can do the jobs people can, design better robots and so on would be a game changer in itself. You can leave to philosophers to argue if they have true feelings and that.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#404

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #237

pron wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It comes down to whether you believe AGI is achievable. No, it does not. I very much believe AI (or AGI, as you call it) is achievable, but may I remind you that some years after the invention of neural networks, Norbert Wiener, one of the greatest minds of his generations, said that the secret of intelligence would be unlocked within five years, and Alan Turing -- a component of your very own post-pre-AGI era's AG…

If AGI is achievable (seems likely given brains are all over the place in nature) and achieving it will have consequences that dwarf everything else then doesn't it make sense to focus on it? Yes, historically people were way too optimistic and generally went down AI rabbit holes that went nowhere, but two years before the Wright flyer flew, the Wright brothers themselves said it was 50 years out (and others were sti…

> If AGI is achievable

It almost certainly is. Humans make new intelligences all the time.

> and achieving it will have consequences that dwarf everything else

It probably won't, humans make new intelligences all the time. Hanging the technology base for that doesn't have any significant necessary consequences.

A revolution in our ability to understand and control other intelligences might have consequences that dwarf anything else, with or without AGI, but that's a different issue, and moreover one whose shape is basically impossible to even loosely estimate without some more idea of what the actual revolution itself would be.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#405

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

gdb wrote: post #62

mattferderer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "guess" is they're offering $1B worth of Azure services. Which costs MSFT probably much less than $1B. My "guess" is that it means MSFT has access to sell products based off the research OpenAI does to MSFT's customers. Having early access to advanced research means MSFT could easily make this money back by selling better AI tools to their customers. Also a great time to point out that while "Microsoft is not a ch…

> My "guess" is they're offering $1B worth of Azure services. Which costs MSFT probably much less than $1B. It's a cash investment. We certainly do plan to be a big Azure customer though. > My "guess" is that it means MSFT has access to sell products based off the research OpenAI does to MSFT's customers. Having early access to advanced research means MSFT could easily make this money back by selling better AI tools…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#406

Post by throwawaywego » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:30 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #385

marvin wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought from day one that the name «OpenAI» would at best be a slight misnomer, and at worst indicative of a misguided approach. If AGI is close to being achieved, sharing key details of the approach to any actors at all could trigger a Manhattan Project-type global arms race where safety was compromised and the whole thing became insanely risky for the future of humanity. Glad to see that the team is taking a prag…

The atomic bomb was based on science theory. A computer can run many programs and do a great many things, but it will never be able to think by itself.

> The atomic bomb was based on science theory.

Our study of (automated) intelligence is based on science too.

> A computer ... will never be able to think by itself.

Turing wrote an entire paper about this (Computing Machinery and Intelligence), where he rephrases your statement (because he finds it to be meaningless) and devises a test to answer it. He also directly attacks your phrasing of "but it will never":

> I believe they are mostly founded on the principle of scientific induction. A man has seen thousands of machines in his lifetime. From what he sees of them he draws a number of general conclusions. They are ugly, each is designed for a very limited purpose, when required for a minutely different purpose they are useless, the variety of behaviour of any one of them is very small, etc., etc. Naturally he concludes that these are necessary properties of machines in general.

> A better variant of the objection says that a machine can never "take us by surprise." This statement is a more direct challenge and can be met directly. Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. This is largely because I do not do sufficient calculation to decide what to expect them to do, or rather because, although I do a calculation, I do it in a hurried, slipshod fashion, taking risks.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#407

Post by chrshawkes » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:30 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #365

giancarlostoro wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. We've not gone back to having well funded research facilities like this one since Bell Labs. Those were amazing days where we saw a lot of amazing breakthroughs. I wish companies like Microsoft and the rest would invest in external research institutes more.

I often think that if I were a billionaire,I'd rather spend hundreds of millions on some cool R&D projects rather than having some 100 meter boat that one uses a only a few times a year. I could at least walk around in 20 or so years and say "I funded this" rather than pointing at a rusting boat nobody will ever care about.

In many cases people will be more interested in your boat rather than a bunch of startups nobody's ever heard of.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#408

Post by DuskStar » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #385

marvin wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought from day one that the name «OpenAI» would at best be a slight misnomer, and at worst indicative of a misguided approach. If AGI is close to being achieved, sharing key details of the approach to any actors at all could trigger a Manhattan Project-type global arms race where safety was compromised and the whole thing became insanely risky for the future of humanity. Glad to see that the team is taking a prag…

The atomic bomb was based on science theory. A computer can run many programs and do a great many things, but it will never be able to think by itself.

> A computer can run many programs and do a great many things, but it will never be able to think by itself.

A computer being able to simulate a brain that thinks for itself is the logical extrapolation of current brain-simulation efforts. Many people think there are far less computationally intensive ways to make an AI, but "physics sim of a human brain" is a good thought experiment.

Unless you think there's something magic about human brains? Using "magic" here to mean incomprehensible, unobservable, and incomputable.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#409

Post by mritchie712 » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #402

mritchie712 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, way wrong, there would be enormous hardware costs to building a warp drive. There are near zero costs (possibly) of building AGI.

Mythical man month. I feel like you're seriously underestimating how hard this is. Its got to be one of the greatest engineering challenges of our species and to flaunt that its "near zero cost" is offensive.

Not offensive in the least, it's a compliment to what our species has done to date. We are all standing on shoulders and the shoulders have never been higher. Think of the things you can build in a day that were impossible to build 30 years ago. To think that there isn't at least some chance someone will build AGI in the next 30 years is foolish. Again, I'm just saying there is a reasonable chance, like hitting a homerun. It's not likely for any given plate appearance, but given the number of games and players it happens every summer day.

Re: Microsoft is investing $1B in OpenAI

#410

Post by marvin » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #389

nradov wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to worry. No one is anywhere close to achieving true AGI so any safety concerns are a moot issue. It's akin to worrying about an alien invasion.

> No one is anywhere close to achieving true AGI No one knows how far off true AGI is, just like no one in 1940 (or 1910) knew how far off fission weapons were. EDIT: I quite liked this article from a few years back [0], and the fission weapon prediction example is stolen from there. 0: https://intelligence.org/2017/10/13/fire-alarm/

The Manhattan Project is a very apt analogy. Even if you believe that AGI is impossible, it should be possible to appreciate that many billions would quickly be invested in its development if somehow a viable pathway to it became clear. Even if just to a few well-connected experts.

This is what happened when it became known nuclear weapons were a viable concept. The technology shifted power to such an extreme degree that it was impossible not to invest in it, and the delay from «likely impossible» to «done» happened too fast for most observers to notice.