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AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

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Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#91

Post by sanxiyn »

ianbutler wrote: post #83
erwincoumans wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Deepmind's goals is AGI, so it is tempting to evaluate their publications for progress towards AGI. Problem is, how do you evaluate progress towards AGI? https://deepmind.com/about "Our long term aim is to solve intelligence, developing more general and capable problem-solving systems, known as artificial general intelligence (AGI)."

AGI is a real problem but the proposed pace is marketing fluff -- on the ground they're just doing good work and moving our baselines incrementally. If a new technique for let's say document translation is 20% cheaper/easier to build and 15% more effective that is a breakthrough. It is not a glamorous world redefining breakthrough but progress is more often than not incremental. I'd say more so than the big eureka mo…

Shane Legg is a cofounder of DeepMind and an AI researcher. He was pretty casual about predicting human level AGI in 2028.

https://www.vetta.org/2011/12/goodbye-2011-hello-2012/

He doesn't say so publicly any more, but I think it is due to people's negative reaction. I don't think he changed his opinion about AGI.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#92

Post by maroonblazer »

visarga wrote: post #74
mrshadowgoose wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The machine learning techniques that were developed and enhanced during the last decade are not magical, like any other machines/software. You might be using a different definition of "magical" than what others are using in this context. Of course, when you break down ML techniques, it's all just math running on FETs. So no, it's not extra-dimensional hocus pocus, but absolutely nobody is using that particular defi…

If recent philosophy taught us anything it's that brains are special. The hard problem of consciousness shows science is insufficient to raise to the level of entitlement of humans, we're exceptions flying over the physical laws of nature, we have free will, first person POV, and other magical stuff like that. Or we have to believe in panpsychism or dualism, like in the middle ages. Anything to lift the human status.…

> The hard problem of consciousness shows science is insufficient to raise to the level of entitlement of humans, we're exceptions raising over the physical laws of nature, we have free will and other magical stuff like that.

That's not my understanding of the 'hard problem of consciousness'. Admittedly, all I know about the subject is what I've heard from D Chalmers in half-a-dozen podcast interviews.

Can you point to a definitive source?

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#93

Post by sanxiyn »

falcor84 wrote: post #60
amusedcyclist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I'm not so impressed, because it seems like someones figured out the ventriloquist trick and and is just spamming it to make anything talk. Its fun enough, but unclear what this is achieving

>ventriloquist trick I don't understand your analogy here. It really is the machine talking; there is no human hiding behind the curtain.

I think better analogy is parrot speaking English. Certainly no ventriloquism there.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#94

Post by stephc_int13 »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #51
stephc_int13 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI has been over-hyped, that's all. The machine learning techniques that were developed and enhanced during the last decade are not magical, like any other machines/software. But people have different and irrational expectations about AI.

> The machine learning techniques that were developed and enhanced during the last decade are not magical, like any other machines/software. You might be using a different definition of "magical" than what others are using in this context. Of course, when you break down ML techniques, it's all just math running on FETs. So no, it's not extra-dimensional hocus pocus, but absolutely nobody is using that particular defi…

I strongly disagree that we've seen anything unexpected so far.

AlphaGo is nothing else than brute force.

And brute force can go a long way, it should not be underestimated.

But so far, this approach has not let to emergent behaviors, the ML blackbox is not giving back more than what was fed.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#96

Post by kristjansson »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #5
evrydayhustling wrote: post #3

I love this take. Most AI results provoke a torrent of articles listing pratfalls that prove it's not AGI. Of course it's not AGI! But it is as unexpected as a talking dog. Take a second to be amazed, at least amused. Then read how they did it and think about how to do better.

It's rarely productive to take internet criticism into account, but it feels like AI is an especially strong instance of this. It seems like a lot of folks just want to pooh pooh any possible outcome. I'm not sure why this is. Possibly because of animosity toward big tech, given big tech is driving a lot of the research and practical implementation in this area?

It’s like a lot of the crypto stuff. The research is really cool, and making real progress toward new capabilities. Simultaneously there are a lot of people and companies seizing on that work to promote products of questionable quality, or to make claims of universal applicability (and concomitant doom) that they can’t defend. Paying attention in this sort of ecosystem basically requires one to be skeptical of everything.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#97

Post by belter »

qualudeheart wrote: post #30

Which rate of progress are we ITT expecting from alphacode-like models? In another thread I predicted we’d see competitive programming “solved” in ten years or less. I didn’t rigorously explain what I meant by that in that thread, so I’ll clarify what I meant. I expect AI to beat humans at competitive programming at the same rate as AlphaGo beats human Go players. There could be diminshing returns soon but I don’t se…

I am willing take on your bet, as long you agree with my condition...you can't feed it with any of the millions of lines of code previously created by humans you aim to beat...;-)

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#98

Post by stephc_int13 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #38

Right on, I couldn’t agree more. We are living during a period of exponential progress. I like AlphaCode’s approach of using language models with search. In the last year I have experimented with mixing language models for NLP with semantic web/linked data tasks, so much simpler than what AlphaCode does, but I have been having fun. I have added examples for this in new additions to two of my books, but if you want a…

We're not seeing exponential rates of progress, in my opinion.

We've been on the steep part of an S-curve.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#99

Post by CuriouslyC »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #98
mark_l_watson wrote: post #38

Right on, I couldn’t agree more. We are living during a period of exponential progress. I like AlphaCode’s approach of using language models with search. In the last year I have experimented with mixing language models for NLP with semantic web/linked data tasks, so much simpler than what AlphaCode does, but I have been having fun. I have added examples for this in new additions to two of my books, but if you want a…

We're not seeing exponential rates of progress, in my opinion. We've been on the steep part of an S-curve.

100% this. Exponential progress is only a thing if potential progress is infinite. If the potential progress is finite (hint: it is), eventually the rate of progress hit progressively diminishing returns.

Re: AlphaCode as a dog speaking mediocre English

#100

Post by hutzlibu »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #98
mark_l_watson wrote: post #38

Right on, I couldn’t agree more. We are living during a period of exponential progress. I like AlphaCode’s approach of using language models with search. In the last year I have experimented with mixing language models for NLP with semantic web/linked data tasks, so much simpler than what AlphaCode does, but I have been having fun. I have added examples for this in new additions to two of my books, but if you want a…

We're not seeing exponential rates of progress, in my opinion. We've been on the steep part of an S-curve.

No one knows the future for sure. But with current trend of dividing the world again, I would agree on your assumption.

But I still have hope for a undivided world, that one day even abolish the patent system. Then I would see potential for exponentional progress.

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