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The Intelligence Age

ia.samaltman.com

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Re: The Intelligence Age

#231

Post by zero-sharp »

jagrsw wrote: post #221
zero-sharp wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you know that people in the AI community have been predicting big things ever since, I don't know, the 1970s? It's only 10 years away again. This time it's for real, right?

Alchemists predicted the transmutation of metals into gold for centuries, and on a sunny day in the 20th century, it arrived (a bit radioactive, but still). Unless the human brain is made of some sacred substance, the worst-case scenario is that we will extrapolate current scanning methods into the future and run the scanned model in silica. I'm not recommending this "just for fun," but the laws of physics don't forb…

>Alchemists predicted the transmutation of metals into gold for centuries, and on a sunny day in the 20th century, it arrived (a bit radioactive, but still).

So is Sam Altman the modern day alchemist? Making predictions based on faulty methods and faulty understanding (per your gold example)?

What will happen is that we'll shift the economy around based on inflated tech promises and ruin people's lives. No big deal I guess.

Re: The Intelligence Age

#232

Post by goldfeld »

gwern wrote: post #150

> If we want to put AI into the hands of as many people as possible, we need to drive down the cost of compute and make it abundant (which requires lots of energy and chips). If we don’t build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that wars get fought over and that becomes mostly a tool for rich people. Translation for the rest of us: "we need to fully privatize the OA subsidiary and turn it into…

I see how AI is used today and extrapolate. A lot. Everything in tech is extrapolation with the march of capital. It takes one to know one; rather it takes a smart ass to wield a smart tool. So the smart get smarter.

Is it a separate phenomenon, in the big picture, from the rich getting richer, from the monopolies over means of production?

Not sure, but I see as well that the dumb will surely get dumber; that "intelligence" will be a product of using intelligent humans' means of production, and not owning them of course, but being owned in the process. Populations will be literally made lighter of their smarts, outsourcing intelligence to agents out of general control (classic bait and switch.) Since AI feel my own process getting more clueless as I go, I'd better conclude somehow.

I see the Age of Ignorance ahead, there was once an Enlightenment, and here light takes on its other side or meaning, the workers being enlightened, to wit, made lighter of their horrible burden which is intelligence and its obnoxious demands of upkeep. Just pay someone for upkeep and stop messing with wet messy neurons already, says the technocrat to the cheerful mob.

Re: The Intelligence Age

#233

Post by Apocryphon »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #58

> It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!) "a few thousand days" is such a funny and fascinating way to say "about a decade" Superficially, reframing it as "days" not "years" is a classic marketing psychology trick, i.e. 99 cents versus a dollar, but I think the more interesting thing is just the way it defamiliarizes the span. A decade means something, but "a few thousand days" f…

"me when i need $6.5B"

https://x.com/netcapgirl/status/1838265672096243822

Re: The Intelligence Age

#234

Post by d--b »

"And to make this more-than-perfect world that humanity has been longing for as long as it lived, I absolutely need to betray all the principles that I once stood by, screw over all people that ever trusted me, and become extremely rich in the process. You can think what you want now, the future humans will realize their prosperity was all because I was there to make it happen."

Re: The Intelligence Age

#235

Post by slantedview »

> If a lamplighter could see the world today, he would think the prosperity all around him was unimaginable

None of that shared prosperity was freely given by the Sam Altmans of the world, it was hard won by labor organizers and social movements. Without more of that, the progress from AI will continue the recent trend of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few. The idea that everyone will somehow prosper equally from AI, without specific effort to make that happen, is nonsense.

Re: The Intelligence Age

#236

Post by jay_kyburz »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #211
mjamesaustin wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ultimately, fusion doesn't solve the hardest problem with energy today which is cost. Solar already provides unlimited clean energy, and it took decades of development for the cost to drop to a competitive rate. Even if we had a functioning fusion plant tomorrow, it will likely cost WAY more per kWh and require decades of iteration and improvement to become economically feasible.

I would wonder if solar plus the absolute massive battery reserves you’d need for a data center ten times bigger than the current worlds largest would still be cost effective versus a single fusion reactor

I wonder how that cost would compare to putting your solar and data center in space? (with non stop solar pointed at the sun)

I wonder if cooling is easier or harder in space?

Re: The Intelligence Age

#237

Post by jay_kyburz »

falcor84 wrote: post #141

> Our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject, in any language, and at whatever pace they need. This is one of those few cases where I'm actually more bullish than Altman. I don't need to wait for my kids to have it, but rather I personally am already using this daily. My regular thing is to upload a book/article(s) into the context of a Claude project and then chat w…

Just yesterday I was wondering how well AI's would provide feedback to my high school kids essays, without actually re-writing them for him. I will give it a try later today.

Re: The Intelligence Age

#238

Post by jerb »

I want to be wildly optimistic too, but I still see no evidence LLMs generate new knowledge. They always hew in-distribution.

Please correct me if I’m wrong

Re: The Intelligence Age

#239

Post by jagrsw »

zero-sharp wrote: post #231
jagrsw wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alchemists predicted the transmutation of metals into gold for centuries, and on a sunny day in the 20th century, it arrived (a bit radioactive, but still). Unless the human brain is made of some sacred substance, the worst-case scenario is that we will extrapolate current scanning methods into the future and run the scanned model in silica. I'm not recommending this "just for fun," but the laws of physics don't forb…

>Alchemists predicted the transmutation of metals into gold for centuries, and on a sunny day in the 20th century, it arrived (a bit radioactive, but still). So is Sam Altman the modern day alchemist? Making predictions based on faulty methods and faulty understanding (per your gold example)? What will happen is that we'll shift the economy around based on inflated tech promises and ruin people's lives. No big deal I…

> So is Sam Altman the modern day alchemist?

Alchemists were early scientists who later branched into fields like chemistry, mathematics, and physics (Newton explored alchemy).

Altman leads a team of experts in neural networks, programming, and HW design. While he might be mistaken, dismissing him outright is difficult.

Re: The Intelligence Age

#240

Post by highfrequency »

vasco wrote: post #100
highfrequency wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress might be logarithmic in compute, but compute (transistors/sqinch and transistors/$) is growing exponentially with time. Despite what skeptics have been saying for decades, Moore's Law is alive and well - and we haven't even figured out how to stack wafers in 3 dimensions yet!

We haven't? https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/technologies/3d-v...

Sure - we are just beginning to scratch the surface of 3d stacking.
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