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John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

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Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#191

Post by pron »

pyentropy wrote: post #33

Progress in AI is due to data and computational power advances. I wonder what kind of advances are needed for AGI. 1. Biological brains are non-differentiable spiking networks much more complicated than backpropagated ANNs. 2. Ion channels may or may not be affected by quantum effects. 3. The search space is huge (but organisms aren't optimal and natural selection is probably local search) 4. If it took ~3.8b years t…

> even rodents can outperform state of the art models at general tasks.

Rodents? Try insects [1]. In the late 40s and early 50s, when neural networks were first explored with great enthusiasm, some of the leading minds of that generation believed (were convinced, in fact) that artificial intelligence (or AGI in today's terms) is five/ten years away; the skeptics, like Alan Turing, thought it was fifty years away. Seventy years later and we've not achieved insect-level intelligence, we don't know what path would lead us to insect-level intelligence, and we don't know how long it would take to get there.

[1]: To those saying that insects or rodents can't play Go or chess -- they can't sort numbers, either, and even early computers did it better than humans.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#192

Post by soulofmischief »

sailingparrot wrote: post #167
soulofmischief wrote: post #144

I'm happy. Carmack has done a lot of good with Oculus, but it hurt seeing my hero working for Facebook. I understand the need to remain in a consulting position, but at least now he's no longer under the corporate leash. If anyone can hack AI, it's Carmack, and so when I read this headline I had a moment of fright thinking this meant Carmack was working on AI for Facebook .

> If anyone can hack AI, it's Carmack Pretty sure you don't get to AGI with some hacks.

Don't be trite; You're well aware that hack in this context means to understand/make progress.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#194

Post by AareyBaba »

catalogia wrote: post #62
pyentropy wrote: post #33

Progress in AI is due to data and computational power advances. I wonder what kind of advances are needed for AGI. 1. Biological brains are non-differentiable spiking networks much more complicated than backpropagated ANNs. 2. Ion channels may or may not be affected by quantum effects. 3. The search space is huge (but organisms aren't optimal and natural selection is probably local search) 4. If it took ~3.8b years t…

From what I understand, quantum effects being essential to the process is a fringe belief. Penrose is probably the most famous 'serious person' (sorry Deepak Chopra) to espouse the idea, but I'm inclined to believe that might be a Linus Pauling/Vitamin C sort of scenario. Penrose started from the perspective of believing there must be quantum effects, then began fishing for physical evidence of it.

"The Secret of Scent" by Luca Turin [0] if I remember correctly goes into research that indicates that there may be quantum effects that explain how shape/chirality of molecules affect smell. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Scent-Adventures-Perfume-Scien...

So it is plausible that nature may have evolved to be affected by quantum effects.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#195

Post by nwsm »

What a joke. Carmack is going to sit at home and solve what teams of scientists can't do in decades.

I'm complaining less about Carmack wanting to spend his time doing this and more about the comments here acting like he is some 10000x research scientist.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#196

Post by friendlybus »

carlosdp wrote: post #68

This doesn't surprise me at all. He went on a week long cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere trip about a year ago to dive in to AI (that's all this guy needs to become pretty damn proficient). (edit: I'm not claiming he's a field expert in a week guys, just that he can probably learn the basics pretty fast, especially given ML tech shares many base maths with graphics) As recent as his last Oculus Connect keynote, he exto…

He had a lot of help behind the scenes and has been credited with things that aren't his. I respect his achievements more as a regular smart guy than a bonafide genius. He described the math in rocketry as being basically solved in the 60s and video games being far more complex as a project, so that was really a step down in difficulty. His VR role is the same field as his primary skills, impressive work but not an entirely unique role.

I'm glad to see he's aiming big with his billions and time. This is what rich people should be doing. Hl3 Gaben!

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#197

Post by ddingus »

echelon wrote: post #122
mochomocha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He went on a week long cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere trip about a year ago to dive in to AI (that's all this guy needs to become pretty damn proficient). You must be joking, right? I'm as much of a Carmack fan as anyone here, but overstating the skills of one personal hero does no good to anyone.

What a weird future it would be if Carmack turns out to be the one to figure out the critical path and get it all working. An entire field of brilliant researchers be damned. History books (for as long as those continue to exist) would cite AGI as his major contribution to society, and his name would be more renowned than Edison or Tesla. An Einstein. None of his other contributions will matter, as the machines will…

The way I see it, people like this when they have the time and inclination, should make an attempt.

You never know. Fresh eyes can sometimes see what others may not.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#198

Post by b3kart »

teawrecks wrote: post #88
glofish wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would being born in the current century preclude one from making fundamental contributions? You are making a common mistake of assuming that just because someone is good at something like programing computers the same skill would translate identically to a completely different domain. If anything he is lucky to have been born in an era where his skill of programming computers could be put to use - otherwise his t…

He's "good at programming" like Galileo was "good with telescopes." Computers, telescopes, hammers, they're all just tools, and Carmack has proven himself as far more than just a handyman. He's the kind of person where, if you show him what you're working on and he doesn't understand it, you probably need to go back to the drawing board.

Cult of personality much? Don't get me wrong, Carmack is one of a kind. But seriously, "if Carmack doesn't understand your idea => your idea is hopeless" -- this can not be healthy.

EDIT: I'll elaborate a bit. In my experience in both industry and academia I've witnessed numerous occasions when brilliant people would get things wrong, ignore a brilliant idea, follow a hopeless research direction, etc. etc. Authority matters, but _nobody_ is flawless.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#199

Post by jorblumesea »

zwaps wrote: post #173
jorblumesea wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few, at least for STEM fields. If you look at notable scientists in any given field, their main contributions were in their expertise area before the thing that made them famous. Teller had already made serious contributions to physics before the atom bomb. Jennifer Doudna (CRISPR, CAS9) was the first to see the structure of RNA (except for tRNA) using an innovative crystalline technique. Planck is mainly known…

Even Einstein I would not say didn't have formal training. He had been in and around academia for most of his life. He was obviously far ahead of the curve, but he did accumulate the formal training. His stint in a regular job was more of an anomaly than his affinity to academia and physics.

Right, even Einstein had some serious academic training and mathematical chops. But I would argue that he was a bit of a wild card, because he was unable to secure a teaching positions and looked very mediocre from an academic perspective. But fair point, even the geniuses had formal training and instruction.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#200

Post by coldtea »

zaroth wrote: post #109
carlosdp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying he's LeCun, I'm just saying he gets up to speed absurdly fast. So it's not unreasonable to suppose that by now, he's learned enough to start seriously contributing to this kind of problem. edit: to be clear, all I'm saying is he can catch up to the body of research already out there quicker than the average bear, and he's shown a real knack for designing solutions and being crazy productive. I'm not pr…

No, you can’t push the envelope in AGI after a week in the woods. That must come off as pretty insulting to the hundreds of world class scientists who have been working in the field for decades.

If you consider the quality of most academic research papers, then some insults are called for...
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