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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

#371

Post by codingslave »

randcraw wrote: post #339
ineedasername wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true though? It seems more like he's good at a medium difficulty problems in a narrow subdomain of software development, which is saying something a bit different. I might even say he's good at hard problems within that subdomain. How transferable those skills are is the most salient point. Assuming peak genius level intellect (which, I don't know, maybe ?) It would still take something like 4 or 5 yea…

Agreed. Deep learning has revolutionized AI and anyone hoping to contribute to AGI is going to have to master DL first, and probably a lot more AI like a variety of probabilistic methods. That's a challenging learning curve that's not much different from earning a PhD. And then, to stand out in AGI, you're going to have to integrate a dozen kinds of cutting edge components, none of which are anywhere ready for prime…

I actually don't think mastering deep learning is very difficult. Theres a gazillion papers and ideas floating around, but the core concepts, that actually work, things like batch normalization, gradient descent, dropout, etc are all relatively simple. Most of the complexity comes from second rate scientists pushing their flawed research out into the public in some form of a status game

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

#372

Post by libraryatnight »

leesec wrote: post #311

Wow, there are a lot of people in this thread arguing whether or not John Carmack has the right skills to help AGI, or about the specifics of his knowledge. Do you all realize you're arguing about nothing? Good for him for doing something he seems excited about. Maybe we should all stop gossiping and go do something we're excited about too.

My thoughts exactly. This is a man with a long and brilliant career. Let him work on what he wants. This comment thread is ridiculous.

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

#373

Post by noelsusman »

EamonnMR wrote: post #333
nradov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current ML technology probably has little or nothing to do with whatever technology will eventually be needed to produce true AGI.

I'm skeptical of this assertion. It mimics some bits and pieces of the only GI we know about right now; that's as good a start as any, right?

The mimicking is superficial at best. People seem to think that if we just keep marching on the road we're on right now then we'll eventually get there, but I think that's an assumption that is unlikely to be true in the end.

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

#374

Post by xamuel »

noelsusman wrote: post #370
xamuel wrote: post #319

I've been dabbling in AGI and it seems like the field has a lot of low-hanging fruit. I'll bet Carmack can offer some significant contributions. I'll take an opportunity to plug a paper I recently published on comparing relative intelligence. The punchline will illuminate the low-hangingness of the fruit in this field. Suppose X and Y are AGIs and you want to know which is more intelligent. For any interactive reward…

But the fact that there's so much low hanging fruit is kind of the point. AGI as a field is still in its infancy. It's pure research and will be for a long time.

So if you want "Carmack's Theorem" or "Noelsusman's Theorem" to appear in high school math textbooks 500 years from now, this is the best time to jump in. (Assuming there are still textbooks 500 years from now.) "Doom" probably won't be remembered by then.

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

#375

Post by ginko »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #355
jacquesm wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine AGI just fine. Doesn't get me one tiny little bit closer to being able to make one. There are several ways in which one could go about such a development, all we have for now is an existence proof and none of the paths pointed out so far have been viable. Whether John will come up with novel path is not really an imagination issue but one of very deep understanding of the problem space, what has been tr…

The parent's point was that reaching AGI isn't merely a research problem, in the sense of X amount of person-hours of research by typical researchers will solve the problem. Rather, we need new ideas and new conceptual frameworks, i.e. new imaginative leaps to reveal the path forward towards AGI.

That’s research.

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

#376

Post by retsibsi »

umvi wrote: post #177
ralusek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is very likely incorrect.

Want to put money on it? I bet $1000 we will not have a conscious computer within the next 50 years.

How would you define 'conscious' in an empirically testable way?

I'm not being a smartarse here, I'm sincerely curious -- because it seems that you're confident that non-biological consciousness is impossible, and also that p-zombies (beings that give every outward appearance of consciousness without actually possessing it) are impossible. So you probably have some specific beliefs about the necessary limits of non-conscious 'intelligence', and I'm interested in what they are and how you've arrived at them.

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

#377

Post by archagon »

Rapzid wrote: post #161
nickjj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack is practically a machine. He's openly talked about his work ethic in a bunch of places. He's the type of guy who after a life time of coding calculated he's 100% efficient up until 13 hour work days and then he drops off[0]. Although he did mention working those long hours is often best working on multiple things instead of 1 topic but maybe with AGI there's a bunch of different avenues to explore. [0]:…

He must have some very good advice on getting a good nights sleep. Makes all the difference IMHO.

He did tweet that unlike many engineers, he can't be productive unless he gets a full 8 hours of sleep (IIRC).

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

#378

Post by unityByFreedom »

Another one bites the dust. You only need to do a few problems on Kaggle to know AGI is a long, long way away, if achievable at all.

AGI proponents tend to claim that we know everything about physics and biology, and that replicating it is feasible. This is science fiction.

There are much more pressing concerns in the AI space. Godspeed Carmack.

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

#379

Post by dkural »

jacquesm wrote: post #168

AGI is not an engineering problem but a research problem. John Carmack is good at putting stuff together but how good he is at coming up with novel concepts for an open research problem remains to be seen. Even the rocketry example that is hailed here as a success mostly wasn't. That doesn't make me happy, it would have been far nicer if Armadillo had succeeded, more competition in that space is better. But for all t…

Please take this as nothing more than my subjective opinion: I believe that humans don't have GI but HI - we have a "world-view" that is very idiosyncratic to being human, which is essentially heuristics all the way down - in other words, I don't believe there is a magical novel concept that explains HI, but that it is a collection of party tricks that evolved over time, i.e. hacky engineered system.

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

#380

Post by unityByFreedom »

robotresearcher wrote: post #310
drcode wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few AI researchers (maybe around 5 or so) that could credibly claim technical accomplishments of any sort in the same ballpark as Carmack's. People with this level of track record should not be underestimated, there aren't many of them out there... They matter.

Carmack is an accomplished and inventive engineer. He is not and would never claim to be the most important graphics researcher of his generation. How can you rank him against AI researchers, a field where he has not attempted to contribute?

Not to mention all the mathematicians who contributed to the theoretical foundations of machine learning.

This announcement is meaningless IMO. Those who will make meaningful, core contributions to AI tech are doing it with pen and paper, not computers.

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