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Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

nature.com

151–160 of 403 posts

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#151

Here is, to me, the relevant line: "Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. One of Dreyfus’ main arguments was that human knowledge is partly tacit, and therefore cannot be articulated and incorporated in a computer program. " I have not read the rest of the article but in the introduction it's stated: "The article furt…

I'm not sure. If we think about it mechanically, and the output of the a computer system is a function of it's input, then perhaps we are woefully underestimating the role of the body as both a monitor and input system.

So build a body.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#152
post #2

I posted the article because it is thought provoking, although I disagree with it. The reason is for example statements like this "The real problem is that computers are not in the world, because they are not embodied." "And I shall argue that they cannot pass the full Turing test because they are not in the world, and, therefore, they have no understanding." First I think that whether something is embodied or not do…

I'd recommend Daniel Dennett's talk If Brains are Computers, Who Designs the Software? as a counterpoint to this article [1]. Dennett's talk is a bit long but I mostly enjoyed it, especially when he points out the computerphobia of many of his colleagues.

Of course, it's easier for me to agree with Dennett than for many other people, because I'm a computationalist in the philosophy of mind and suspect that consciousness is an emergent property of certain computations. It might in theory even be possible to realize that by analytical insight - though probably not in practice. I'm generally not a fan of the philosophy of mind, though, because it mostly consists of speculation and intuition pumping.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTFoJQSd48c

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. If we think about it mechanically, and the output of the a computer system is a function of it's input, then perhaps we are woefully underestimating the role of the body as both a monitor and input system.

So build a body.

I don't see why they need the same 5 or more senses we have.

Self-driving cars have rudimentary visual input, proximity sensors, location data, and other inputs.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#154

Here is, to me, the relevant line: "Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. One of Dreyfus’ main arguments was that human knowledge is partly tacit, and therefore cannot be articulated and incorporated in a computer program. " I have not read the rest of the article but in the introduction it's stated: "The article furt…

I don't think it has anything to do with souls. Most "knowledge" deep learning systems have seems tacit to me: it would be practically impossible for people to write programs that articulate and incorporate that knowledge without machine learning (people tried, for decades), and it certainly isn't "derived from formal principles of reasoning" in anything but a tangential mathematical sense.

(I too have not read the whole article; I'm just replying to this comment.)

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the burden of proof is on someone claiming something is impossible? I skimmed the article but I didn't see any support for his argument beyond pointing to the limitations of existing technology, and asserting that these limits were insurmountable.

If I said I can fly by flapping my arms quickly I would assume the burden of proof would be on me to prove it as opposed to others proving that it's impossible

The argument here is more like: people can’t fly by flapping their arms, therefore human flight is impossible.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. If we think about it mechanically, and the output of the a computer system is a function of it's input, then perhaps we are woefully underestimating the role of the body as both a monitor and input system.

So build a body.

At this stage at least, the recreation of the interaction between that artificial body and the environment will be impressionistic at best...

Like we don't even have a full conscious understanding of what we are made from, or what we need to survive.

How do we 'install' those ideas and that imperative in an agent, when we don't fully understand it ourselves?

I'm not entirely supporting one side or another, but I think it's reasonable to bet against the imminent arrival of AGI at this stage, unless some radical discovery comes to light soon.

And if (when?) that discovery eventually comes, I'd suspect it to be a biological one. But then, who knows...

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#157
post #154

Here is, to me, the relevant line: "Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. One of Dreyfus’ main arguments was that human knowledge is partly tacit, and therefore cannot be articulated and incorporated in a computer program. " I have not read the rest of the article but in the introduction it's stated: "The article furt…

I don't think it has anything to do with souls. Most "knowledge" deep learning systems have seems tacit to me: it would be practically impossible for people to write programs that articulate and incorporate that knowledge without machine learning (people tried, for decades), and it certainly isn't "derived from formal principles of reasoning" in anything but a tangential mathematical sense. (I too have not read the w…

> it would be practically impossible for people to write programs that articulate and incorporate that knowledge without machine learning

That could be true, but I think that's a different argument. That's more like claiming that it is impossible for a computer to become intelligent unless it can experience its environment and remember those experiences. That seems like a much more plausible and less dualist claim.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. If we think about it mechanically, and the output of the a computer system is a function of it's input, then perhaps we are woefully underestimating the role of the body as both a monitor and input system.

So build a body.

What is "a body" other than inputs and outputs to interface with the environment, and perhaps a mechanism of perceiving the environment and remembering what was perceived?

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#159
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My audiophile friends would vehemently agree with this statement :)

Call us when they can back up this assertion in double blinded tests.

They can rather easily discern between the two in double blind tests. The vinyl recording has a noticeable amount of noise in it. Vinyl record players can't exceed the kinds of signal to noise ratios that human hearing can detect. The more ridiculous claims are the audiophiles who pretend to distinguish between ultra high sample rate audio and 44100Hz or 48000Hz sampled audio.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the burden of proof is on someone claiming something is impossible? I skimmed the article but I didn't see any support for his argument beyond pointing to the limitations of existing technology, and asserting that these limits were insurmountable.

If I said I can fly by flapping my arms quickly I would assume the burden of proof would be on me to prove it as opposed to others proving that it's impossible

The more analogous claim would be "it's impossible to flap two arm-like appendages quickly and achieve flight," and the burden of proof would indeed be on you for making that claim. (Of course, in that case it would be easy to disprove by pointing to birds or even with computer simulations and toys if birds did not exist).
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