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Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

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Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#21

Post by jna_sh »

haakonhr wrote: post #18
pistoleer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I see, it's 2 dudes having a debate about "intelligence". I think they both kinda missed the forest for the trees, because no one has a good definition of intelligence and it doesn't matter that much anyway. What matters much more is how you can apply and use AI, and how it has changed the world and will continue to change it.

Is it? It looks more like an interesting discussion about tools and what a good tool should do. One point of view is that a good tool should augment you in a process, something generative tools don't do.

I really enjoyed this part of it

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#22

Post by wonwonwonwon »

mihaic wrote: post #11
paulsutter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that evolution continues, don’t we assume that’s been happening for millions of years? Do you have any argument why evolution should stop going forward?

This is not evolution. This literally is intelligent design.

...maybe related "meme", (Sry i have no direct link):

https://i.postimg.cc/jKzqrH48/50y-intelligent-design-you-sai...

regards...

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#23

Post by jna_sh »

pistoleer wrote: post #16
jna_sh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s in the sidebar to the left, this is Bret Victor’s response to a draft of a document called “Using Artificial Intelligence to Augment Human Intelligence”

Oh I see, it's 2 dudes having a debate about "intelligence". I think they both kinda missed the forest for the trees, because no one has a good definition of intelligence and it doesn't matter that much anyway. What matters much more is how you can apply and use AI, and how it has changed the world and will continue to change it.

I don’t recognise the linked article in your description of it at all

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#24

Post by paulsutter »

mihaic wrote: post #11
paulsutter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that evolution continues, don’t we assume that’s been happening for millions of years? Do you have any argument why evolution should stop going forward?

This is not evolution. This literally is intelligent design.

There’s a whole lot of “try it and see what works” going on. And perhaps this is our purpose, as the butterfly goes through stages

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#25

Post by gorgoiler »

The analogy with the scientific method is prescient. We’re just as interested in when the theories don’t work as when they do.

I recently asked an AI if a build tool supported managing Python dependencies. It showed me a code snippet with something called pip_import() in it. No such function exists but it’s anathema to that particular system to say “I’m afraid I can’t do that, gorgoiler”.

Yet!

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#26

Post by dr_dshiv »

gorgoiler wrote: post #25

The analogy with the scientific method is prescient. We’re just as interested in when the theories don’t work as when they do. I recently asked an AI if a build tool supported managing Python dependencies. It showed me a code snippet with something called pip_import() in it. No such function exists but it’s anathema to that particular system to say “I’m afraid I can’t do that, gorgoiler”. Yet!

It’s like when it cites scientific papers that don’t exist. They probably should!

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#27

Post by noduerme »

This is a brilliantly written rant. 2017 seems quite early to have formed this opinion so vehemently, but what's astonishing is how fringe it is even now.

>> What you describe here reminds me of the prolefeed-generating machines in "1984", generating an constant stream of pulp novels from the same passages endlessly permuted.

I've thought quite a bit about those popular songwriting machines in 1984 recently, and I think I've witnessed our approach toward something like that as a culture, in movies and music.

Another great much-too-early vision of LLM havoc is contained in the first few pages of P.K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth". It'll make you laugh out loud, how close he got to describing the job of a politician who has to write LLM prompts and is frustrated at it spitting out nonsense because he's too lazy to write thoughtful ones.

Re: Is this the civilization we want? (2017)

#29

Post by ben_w »

darby_nine wrote: post #6
atemerev wrote: post #2

Humans are not special. Intelligence is. If we create something more intelligent than us, this is the way it should be. Maybe they will build their civilization better than we did — and we did many things that weren’t smart and beautiful, to say the least.

You'd think if intelligence were that interesting we'd be able to agree on, like, any attribute of it. The best we can do is IQ and let me assure you there's enough high iq morons that intelligence not a difficult myth to dispel. Now stupidity—that's something that really sets us apart from animals.

> Now stupidity—that's something that really sets us apart from animals

Having seen e.g. a small dog angrily bark at a flat steel silhouette of a wolf 10 cm from its nose, while other dogs manage to drive cars*, I'm not so sure about that.

* a stunt for a dog shelter, teaching old dogs new ticks

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