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Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

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Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#21

Post by girvo »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #6
nunocoracao wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. I wonder what "underestimating" something like AGI actually means though...

By the time AGI arrives, the world will have already been transformed in ways we cannot fathom by intelligence much lower than AGI. Look at the impact that computing has already had, and that is mostly accounting and simulation. Building and factory automation is on the order of a couple if statements. Most programmers can't implement a PID loop. I am not scared by AGI. But to get to AGI you have to pass through a co…

> Most programmers can't implement a PID loop.

Wait, really? I would expect that most programmers could absolutely implement one if they understood what they are, but perhaps I'm biased from living in embedded land

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#23

Post by t_mann »

lsy wrote: post #10

This law is true in some cases, but I think is too often used as the tech industry's version of "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win". The argument is that, sure, a technology's promise may have not panned out, but under Amara's law, we can expect a commensurately massive impact later. As Carl Sagan pointed out, "…the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply…

The general observation is of course true, but we're talking about a particular instance, and I think it could be a pretty good fit here.

The expectation when you first try modern image or text generators is sth like 'this will replace all artists, programmers, writers and probably most white-collar workers'. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the image generators fail on details like hands, and the text generators are too unreliable for production-grade code or writing articles. So the result in the short term is that you still need the same people with the same skills babysitting the models' outputs. They've just become a bit more productive. But in the longer run, even plain efficiency gains can have a large impact, and it seems like we might not need any more fundamental breakthroughs to make those tools actually production-ready (at least largely) on their own. The hands in the images, the bugs in the code and the hallucinations in the texts can probably be fixed with clever, but ultimately straightforward, iterations over the existing models.

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#24

Post by pixl97 »

darkerside wrote: post #15
ben_w wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it's aligned and we're still around… AGI? Lots of people are still talking like it will be an assistant, perhaps using the "centaur" metaphor, and refusing to believe that it could[0] result in everyone's mental capacities having all the economic relevance of equine muscle power. ASI? We don't know how far above us IQ can go, but it seems reasonable to guess that the smallest possible margin above us is such…

Why do we act like people all have an approximately uniform intelligence that will be surpassed by AI intelligence by orders of magnitude in all dimensions? In my experience, different people are smart about different things, sometimes yes by orders of magnitude. Couldn't an AI being smarter than some people be no more surprising than some people being smarter than some other people?

There are a lot of things we can define with physics because they can be easily measured. The particular problem with intelligence it is a measure of systems complexity which is something us as humans are very bad at measuring. As far as I know all measures of intelligence we have are relative. That is one person/system is more intelligent than another. But there is no meaningful measure if how intelligent a system can be. That is, what is peak intelligence?

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#25

Post by rossdavidh »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara > We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. Amara's Law is a good one, esp in these circles where we have many people working on cutting edge technology. They often give up because it doesn't see adoption, and then move on to something else. Two or three cycles later, when that technology is finally gaining…

While this is true, there is also a survivorship bias effect. Remember the semantic web? XML? When javascript was going to displace all other scripting languages, from backend to database queries? If a technology follows the trend described by Amara's Law, we will recognize this, because at the end it's bigger than we had imagined (by definition). When it doesn't, we are less likely to remember how those overhyped predictions just never came to pass, because of that very fact.

Maybe too early to say if blockchain will turn out to follow Amara's Law, but I have my doubts.

Someone using Amara's Law in the first or second AI winters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter) would, of course, have the option of just continually saying "it hasn't been long enough yet". But, you know, that very fact means that Amara's Law doesn't tell you much, even in the cases where it turns out the be true. And it doesn't, usually, turn out to be true.

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#26

Post by rossdavidh »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #12
nunocoracao wrote: post #2

Amara’s law aptly captures the dichotomy in our perception of technological advancements like AI. As we navigate the short-term challenges and excitement, it’s crucial to maintain a balanced perspective, acknowledging both the current limitations and the vast potential.

Even as meta commentary this hand is so over-played it's already cliche - and going up one level in meta doesn't improve it.

...but it's still true, and the fact that it's vapid and empty just demonstrates the fact.

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#27

Post by Terr_ »

nunocoracao wrote: post #8
nerpderp82 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time AGI arrives, the world will have already been transformed in ways we cannot fathom by intelligence much lower than AGI. Look at the impact that computing has already had, and that is mostly accounting and simulation. Building and factory automation is on the order of a couple if statements. Most programmers can't implement a PID loop. I am not scared by AGI. But to get to AGI you have to pass through a co…

Agree, the path might be quite bumpy but so could the endgame. Whether AGI wants to help or kill the human race will depend on how aligned it is to our goals. Now, since "our" goals will depend on whoever has the metaphysical ear of such AI this could be problematic.

I feel that even in just the phrasing of the question, "wants" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting.

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#28

Post by Terr_ »

nunocoracao wrote: post #8
nerpderp82 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time AGI arrives, the world will have already been transformed in ways we cannot fathom by intelligence much lower than AGI. Look at the impact that computing has already had, and that is mostly accounting and simulation. Building and factory automation is on the order of a couple if statements. Most programmers can't implement a PID loop. I am not scared by AGI. But to get to AGI you have to pass through a co…

Agree, the path might be quite bumpy but so could the endgame. Whether AGI wants to help or kill the human race will depend on how aligned it is to our goals. Now, since "our" goals will depend on whoever has the metaphysical ear of such AI this could be problematic.

I feel that even in just the phrasing of the question, "wants" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting. It's almost tied in a kind of "No True AGI" framing, where if it doesn't want something it's not really AGI, etc.

Re: Evolution of AI and Amara's Law

#30

Post by melagonster »

ben_w wrote: post #18
darkerside wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we act like people all have an approximately uniform intelligence that will be surpassed by AI intelligence by orders of magnitude in all dimensions? In my experience, different people are smart about different things, sometimes yes by orders of magnitude. Couldn't an AI being smarter than some people be no more surprising than some people being smarter than some other people?

> Why do we act like people all have an approximately uniform intelligence that will be surpassed by AI intelligence by orders of magnitude in all dimensions? I at least don't consider people to be uniform. If I act like I do, that's illusory. For orders of magnitude higher performance by AI: all have a massive intrinsic speed advantage already (which is currently balanced by an almost but not quite equally massive t…

yes, chatGPT had let people lose their jobs. this also prove that we have no chance when AI got everyone's job. do anyone care people who displace by chatGPT?
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