Why the singularity may never arrive • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#31

Post by pchristensen » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 11:17 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #24

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Actually Intel did not really "find a way around the problem". CPU speeds have barely improved since then, instead it's all about multi-core. If passively parallel was all it took, we could have AI today, but we can't. And it doesn't look like CPU's are going to get any faster. The curve did exactly what the linked article said: it turned into an S curve. Moore's law still works because that's a measure of cost, but…

...since no one knows how to program AI

Do you think no one will ever figure this out? There's a bunch of stuff that no one used to know how to do but is common now. Why would AI be any different?

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#32

Post by mixmax » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 12:16 PM UTC

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Kurzweil is just replacing points on a graph with s-curves on a graph.

This doesn't change the fundamentals of the argument in any way.

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#33

Post by mixmax » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 12:20 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #13

mixmax wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Kurzweil knows about Malthus. The point is that nowhere in nature or sociology is there such a thing as unlimited exponential growth - it is always stopped by lack of resources. Why should computation be any different?

The Malthusian curve occurs because progress impedes progress. The more you grow, the less resources you have to grow with. Technology doesn't work that way. Technology feeds technology. Therefore, the curve will not look like the Malthus curve. Kurzweil doesn't claim it'll actually go forever. That's a strawman. He simply observes that technology feeding technology is a different shape. Technology feeding technology…

Interesting argument...

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#34

Post by swombat » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 12:41 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #33

jerf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Malthusian curve occurs because progress impedes progress. The more you grow, the less resources you have to grow with. Technology doesn't work that way. Technology feeds technology. Therefore, the curve will not look like the Malthus curve. Kurzweil doesn't claim it'll actually go forever. That's a strawman. He simply observes that technology feeding technology is a different shape. Technology feeding technology…

Interesting argument...

It's one of the cornerstones of the singularity possibility. If you didn't get that argument, you didn't really get the whole singularity movement...

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#35

Post by glymor » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 1:01 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #24

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Actually Intel did not really "find a way around the problem". CPU speeds have barely improved since then, instead it's all about multi-core. If passively parallel was all it took, we could have AI today, but we can't. And it doesn't look like CPU's are going to get any faster. The curve did exactly what the linked article said: it turned into an S curve. Moore's law still works because that's a measure of cost, but…

I don't know what all, or any, general intelligence algorithms would look like but they only one we have currently available, the human brain, appears to be intrinsically parallel.

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#36

Post by coffeeaddicted » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 2:13 PM UTC

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Not only does Kurzweil deal with the "S-curve", but unlike every article which I've seen so far where he was criticized he actually explains and defends his numbers. The main reason why I currently think that Kurzweil's numbers are probably the best estimation of the singularity is that I still haven't seen anyone else seriously trying to do the numbers themselves.

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#37

Post by coffeeaddicted » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 2:35 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #24

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Actually Intel did not really "find a way around the problem". CPU speeds have barely improved since then, instead it's all about multi-core. If passively parallel was all it took, we could have AI today, but we can't. And it doesn't look like CPU's are going to get any faster. The curve did exactly what the linked article said: it turned into an S curve. Moore's law still works because that's a measure of cost, but…

Right now not many people have enough calculation power available to really experiment much with AI. I'm only working with game AI where the bots run around in a simplified model world with a simplified set of available actions. But even with those constrains the by far biggest challenge is is the available processing time. You still have to pre-calculate much stuff that people can work out in a second.

The current state of AI feels to me similar to the state the 3D graphics felt to me in Amiga times. You can already do a few nice effects in real-time, but for real cool stuff you still have to run the computer 3 days. The basics are already mostly there even if they might be used in new compositions in 20 years.

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#38

Post by aswanson » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 2:40 PM UTC

And it came to pass that the light from the self-sustaining fusion reaction danced upon the surface of the orb that would be known as Terra, and this dance would cause the essence of the orb's surface to dance in unison, in ways that would sustain itself and yet change it's cadence and routine slightly with each generation...

This in turn would feed another improbable series of creations that would form their own yet again....and these would reflect...only to say that their own ability to shape the dance is impossible...

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#39

Post by acro » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 3:34 PM UTC

I would like to point out to the author that many natural phenomena like rabbit populations are tightly constrained by environmental factors, mainly available living space and food. Its these environmental factors that cause the S-curves. These same constraints do not apply to technology.

Re: Why the singularity may never arrive

#40

Post by troystribling » Thu, Nov 27, 2008, 3:44 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #24

mhartl wrote: post #14

Kurzweil deals with this "S-curve" phenomenon extensively in his books. He shows that each individual computing technology follows an S curve, but the exponential price-performance of computation continues through a smooth transition to the next method. For example, as vacuum tube computing saturated, transistor computing picked up. This is not a coincidence; as one technology reaches saturation, resources flow to th…

Actually Intel did not really "find a way around the problem". CPU speeds have barely improved since then, instead it's all about multi-core. If passively parallel was all it took, we could have AI today, but we can't. And it doesn't look like CPU's are going to get any faster. The curve did exactly what the linked article said: it turned into an S curve. Moore's law still works because that's a measure of cost, but…

CPU speeds have not changed much in about a decade but that does not mean that the current GHZ barrier will never be passed. There are indications that THz transistors are possible at room temperatures see http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36946/113/ and http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17368&#...