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To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

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Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#31

Post by ithkuil »

pdimitar wrote: post #29
Misdicorl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have this backwards. The missing magic is consequences. From there, AIs that avoid bad consequences (reduced compute budget?) and seek good consequences (??) may develop a 'want' heuristic that favors those things. Or rather, the ones that do will be more successful and the ones that don't will die out.

You might be partially correct but you seem to omit built-in wants e.g. hunger or thirst or lust. Furthermore, if a machine has no wants/needs then it won't take any action at all. It will just stand there and won't even experiment to find the good or bad outcomes.

If not doing anything has bad consequences, then it will do something to avoid bad consequences. It seems to me that "want" and "avoid bad consequences" are quite isomorphic

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#32

Post by vintermann »

windowshopping wrote: post #18

I think to build "truly intelligent" machines, what you need above all else - and which I never hear discussed - is want . Everything about natural intelligence derives from the organism's wants - we want food, we want safety, we want sleep, we want to reproduce, etc etc - even fidgeting comes down to wanting physical comfort. Every single motion and action derives from want. As long as machines are simply executing…

You're right that want is important. But what I think you miss (I may be wrong) is that "want" is not an empirical category.

Does a cloud want to rain? Or does it just rain because it obeys physical laws as part of a huge complex system?

Do I want to have a cup of coffee? Or a job? Or a girlfriend? Or am I likewise just doing things because my atoms obey physical laws as part of a huge complex system?

This is not a scientific question. It is a teleological question. That doesn't make it less important, on the contrary. It's the answers to teleological questions which make anything important, including the scientific questions which happen to be important.

So the question is not, "what can we do to make a machine want things", it's "When should we ascribe what a machine does to its own wants".

And my answer is "never". Not as long as it's a product of our wants, which they always will be.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#33

Post by blamestross »

zmgsabst wrote: post #27
blamestross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the internal review and planning tools by major corporations are a more direct path to AGI than many I’ve heard. id argue they already are AGI and runaway superintelligent capital optimizers, but nobody takes super ais made of meat seriously.

I agree with you — and was lazily side-stepping that argument. Part of why I believe such tools are likely to be among the first cyber AI is that they’re already cyborg AI, in transition from meat AI. I do think the cyber version will be qualitatively more “self”-aware, though.

> and was lazily side-stepping that argument.

Point. Corporations and machine AIs have different constraints on them. Machine AIs have a surplus in learning time and processing resources, this let's them develop complex and effective behaviors by brute force. Self awareness is an effective bootstrapping mechanism for such behaviors and companies have managed to take advantage of it. I don't think AIs will see the same returns. Self-awareness isn't a magical infinite returns machine, it only allows humans to bootstrap so much. I'd assume the same of corporations and AIs. I think corporations are actually highly processing and learning constrained bc their processes happen at the speed of communication, so self awareness buys them a lot, but "traditional AI" has gotten where it is by intellectual brute force, at best a self aware AI might be able to get to the same place cheaper than a more performant non-selfnaware one, but probably not faster. I think we will be able to get more out of less hardware, but self-awareness bottlenecks on experience (that's a reality engagement loop not recorded data) which gets expensive to give a machine quickly at scale unless you instantly nominate it the god machine while it still is floundering around.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#34

Post by thr3ads »

jakeinspace wrote: post #20
windowshopping wrote: post #18

I think to build "truly intelligent" machines, what you need above all else - and which I never hear discussed - is want . Everything about natural intelligence derives from the organism's wants - we want food, we want safety, we want sleep, we want to reproduce, etc etc - even fidgeting comes down to wanting physical comfort. Every single motion and action derives from want. As long as machines are simply executing…

Isn’t this just basic reinforcement learning? We’re not too many steps away from having an AI equipped with a good language model and a reinforcement learning mechanism to be let loose on the internet.

The difference between RL and this "want" is how the goals are constructed. Currently in computational systems, it is the designer that creates the ontology of what an agent interacts with. What that means for ML, RL and evolutionary algorithms is that the agent has a predefined goal and predefined devices to accomplish said goal (the agent's sensors and actuators must explicitly be programmed in order to utilize them).

Biological agents have are seemingly able to derive goals from both internal and external signals, and are able to use affordances (aka what is usable through their environment/body) to accomplish those goals. These affordances are not predefined and the space of possible usages for any given tool is practically infinite (a screwdriver can tighten a screw, or pry open a door [0]). Biological evolution also doesn't actually have goal persay, its more of "what works sticks". Whereas evolutionary/learning algorithms have a defined objective function.

The big differentiator seems to lie in the fact that biological agents are able to engage in a semiotic or meaning-making process where given an internal state and its affordances the agent is able to make movements that betters it's state in the future without explicitly being told.

[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.80628... (title: How Organisms Come to Know the World: Fundamental Limits on Artificial General Intelligence)

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#35

Post by itworkslikethat »

vintermann wrote: post #32
windowshopping wrote: post #18

I think to build "truly intelligent" machines, what you need above all else - and which I never hear discussed - is want . Everything about natural intelligence derives from the organism's wants - we want food, we want safety, we want sleep, we want to reproduce, etc etc - even fidgeting comes down to wanting physical comfort. Every single motion and action derives from want. As long as machines are simply executing…

You're right that want is important. But what I think you miss (I may be wrong) is that "want" is not an empirical category. Does a cloud want to rain? Or does it just rain because it obeys physical laws as part of a huge complex system? Do I want to have a cup of coffee? Or a job? Or a girlfriend? Or am I likewise just doing things because my atoms obey physical laws as part of a huge complex system? This is not a s…

Yes, you want to work, you want to have a cup of coffee. You may not like it, but you decided to do it and then executed a very complex series of steps to accomplish the goal. You're not a cloud, working/drinking is not an inevitable and direct physical process you're undergoing by yourself.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#36

Post by vintermann »

itworkslikethat wrote: post #35
vintermann wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that want is important. But what I think you miss (I may be wrong) is that "want" is not an empirical category. Does a cloud want to rain? Or does it just rain because it obeys physical laws as part of a huge complex system? Do I want to have a cup of coffee? Or a job? Or a girlfriend? Or am I likewise just doing things because my atoms obey physical laws as part of a huge complex system? This is not a s…

Yes, you want to work, you want to have a cup of coffee. You may not like it, but you decided to do it and then executed a very complex series of steps to accomplish the goal. You're not a cloud, working/drinking is not an inevitable and direct physical process you're undergoing by yourself.

I obviously agree that I have both will and wants.

But I can't say that the physical processes in me are in any fundamental way different, than physical processes anywhere else in nature. Most are deterministic, some may be inscrutable, and some may even be random or unknowable - but all those things can be said about the weather, too. You cannot derive my wants from my capabilities (unless you're prepared you ascribe wants to clouds as well, I guess).

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#37

Post by itworkslikethat »

vintermann wrote: post #36
itworkslikethat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you want to work, you want to have a cup of coffee. You may not like it, but you decided to do it and then executed a very complex series of steps to accomplish the goal. You're not a cloud, working/drinking is not an inevitable and direct physical process you're undergoing by yourself.

I obviously agree that I have both will and wants. But I can't say that the physical processes in me are in any fundamental way different, than physical processes anywhere else in nature. Most are deterministic, some may be inscrutable, and some may even be random or unknowable - but all those things can be said about the weather, too. You cannot derive my wants from my capabilities (unless you're prepared you ascrib…

The actual physical process of your body using the water once you ingest it is not much different, sure. But you can choose not to drink (and die some days later). A cloud can't choose not to rain.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#38

Post by vintermann »

itworkslikethat wrote: post #37
vintermann wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I obviously agree that I have both will and wants. But I can't say that the physical processes in me are in any fundamental way different, than physical processes anywhere else in nature. Most are deterministic, some may be inscrutable, and some may even be random or unknowable - but all those things can be said about the weather, too. You cannot derive my wants from my capabilities (unless you're prepared you ascrib…

The actual physical process of your body using the water once you ingest it is not much different, sure. But you can choose not to drink (and die some days later). A cloud can't choose not to rain.

I'm pretty sure I can't will myself to thirst myself to death, actually.

But you're again missing the point. It feels to me like I have choices. I believe you're right, I have choices. You're kicking down an open door when you're arguing this.

What I'm telling you is that I didn't come to this belief empirically. And indeed I believe it is impossible to justify empirically.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#39

Post by xtiansimon »

windowshopping wrote: post #18

I think to build "truly intelligent" machines, what you need above all else - and which I never hear discussed - is want . Everything about natural intelligence derives from the organism's wants - we want food, we want safety, we want sleep, we want to reproduce, etc etc - even fidgeting comes down to wanting physical comfort. Every single motion and action derives from want. As long as machines are simply executing…

You first need individual embodiment, then you will want all sorts of things.

Re: To build truly intelligent machines, teach them cause and effect (2018)

#40

Post by itworkslikethat »

vintermann wrote: post #38
itworkslikethat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual physical process of your body using the water once you ingest it is not much different, sure. But you can choose not to drink (and die some days later). A cloud can't choose not to rain.

I'm pretty sure I can't will myself to thirst myself to death, actually. But you're again missing the point. It feels to me like I have choices. I believe you're right, I have choices. You're kicking down an open door when you're arguing this. What I'm telling you is that I didn't come to this belief empirically. And indeed I believe it is impossible to justify empirically.

You can. It takes some drugs, but you can. It's not uncommon for people to die because of dehydration at parties (taking stuff like extasis, etc). Regular users of methamphetamines also have this problem - they just don't realize they're completely dehydrated.

My point is that this comparison doesn't make sense. A cloud rains because it's undergoing a physical process. You drink because you decided to drink (and only then, inside your body, the water is undergoing a physical process). It's usually hard to decide not to drink, but still - there's a huge categorical difference in what's happening in either case.

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