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The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

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Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#61

Post by amanaplanacanal »

auggierose wrote: post #55
Teever wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're correct that the energy efficiency of a human exceeds that of current computers, but I think it's a bit more complicated than a first order calorie count. How many joules go into producing those 900 calories? Like in terms of growing the food, from fertilizer production to tractor fuel, to feeding the farmer, to shipping the food, packaging it, storing it at the appropriate temperature, the ratio of sp…

I don't think it makes sense to include all of that in the calculation. A human doesn't need all of that, they just need 900 calories. You can just eat berries, no need to cook anything, for example.

A human cannot live on just berries. Even if they could, where are those berries gonna come from?

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#62

Post by epcoa »

ascorbic wrote: post #57
trescenzi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think one of the major weaknesses of “smart people” is they tend to think of intelligence as the key aspect of basically everything. Reality is though we have plenty of intelligence already. We know how to solve most of our problems. The challenges are much more social and our will as a society to make things happen.

Dario Amodei's recent post had a good analysis about which fields are and are not limited by intelligence. https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace

“An aligned AI would not want to do these things (and if we have an unaligned AI, we’re back to talking about risks).”

An aligned AI is not AGI, or whatever they want to call it.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#63

Post by arsenico »

trashtester wrote: post #59
samsartor wrote: post #15

> We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. I don't know for sure whether superintellegence will happen, but as for the singularity, this is the underlying assumption I have the most issue with. Smart isn't the limiting factor of progress, often it's building consensus, getting funding, waiting…

AlphaFold/AlphaProteo are direct examples of how AI can allow us to bypass experiments when doing science. More importantly, though, is that insufficiently powerful AI has been a limiting factor in robotics. That seems to be coming to an end now. And once we have humanoid robots powered by superhuman intelligence entering the workforce, the impact will be massive. Quite possibly mostly for the bad for most people.

In reality though, do we actually need humanoid robots, and if so, for what?

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#64

Post by amanaplanacanal »

bbor wrote: post #38
aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #34

> To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter. I find it bizarre how often these points are repeated. They were both obviously wrong in 1993, and obviously wrong now. 1) A nitpick I've had since grad school: the answer to "can we cre…

If you're ever stuck wondering why a bunch of smart, motivated people with no clear corrupting motivations are being idiotic, that's a strong heuristic that you should spend a bit more time analyzing the issue, IMO ;). "Ugh, why is everyone else so stupid" is a common take for undergrad engineers, but I'm sure you've grown out of it in other ways. Anyway, more substantively: The simple answer is that people have thou…

And if somehow we were still able to control such a thing, it's much more likely that the goal would be "make my investors and I as much money as possible" rather than "solve all of humanities problems".

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#65

Post by ben_w »

arsenico wrote: post #63
trashtester wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AlphaFold/AlphaProteo are direct examples of how AI can allow us to bypass experiments when doing science. More importantly, though, is that insufficiently powerful AI has been a limiting factor in robotics. That seems to be coming to an end now. And once we have humanoid robots powered by superhuman intelligence entering the workforce, the impact will be massive. Quite possibly mostly for the bad for most people.

In reality though, do we actually need humanoid robots, and if so, for what?

Need? No, absolutely not.

But they do conveniently fit into the century old buildings we put many of the factories into, which makes them a useful upgrade path for those unwilling to build structures around more efficient robots (the kind we've had for ages and don't even think of as robots, they just take ingredients and pump out packaged candy or pencils etc.)

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#67

Post by ben_w »

epcoa wrote: post #62
ascorbic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dario Amodei's recent post had a good analysis about which fields are and are not limited by intelligence. https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace

“An aligned AI would not want to do these things (and if we have an unaligned AI, we’re back to talking about risks).” An aligned AI is not AGI, or whatever they want to call it.

> An aligned AI is not AGI, or whatever they want to call it.

There's a few ways I can interpret that.

If you mean "alignment and competence are separate axies" then yes. That's well understood by the people running most of these labs. (Or at least, they know how to parrot the clichés stochastically :P)

If you mean "alignment precludes intelligence", then no.

Consider a divisive presidential election between Alice and Bob, no this isn't a reference to the USA, each polling 50%: regardless of personal feelings or the candidates themselves, clearly the campaign teams are both competent and intelligent… yet each candidate is only aligned with 50% of the population.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#68

Post by ben_w »

rsanheim wrote: post #33
jodrellblank wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skip a few generations and the machine will build itself. There’s no need for it to take lasers exploding tin to generate ultra Violet to etch patterns to make intelligence, humans don’t grow brains that way or spend billions on fabs and power plants to produce children. How it gets from here to there is a handwave, though.

That’s a pretty enormous handwave.

If it wasn't, it would've already happened.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#69

Post by rsaarelm »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #54
rsaarelm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that it's naive to suppose that everybody being much smarter than they are now would transform society, because any wide-scale societal change requires ongoing social cooperation between the many average-intelligence people society currently consists of?

I think they're saying adequate intelligence to solve all problems is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet - and never will be.

Why will it never be? If the adequate intelligence is what something like 0.1 % of the populace naturally has, seems like there's a pretty big difference between that level of intelligence being stuck at 0.1 % of the populace and it being available from virtual assistants that can be mass-produced and distributed to literally everyone on Earth.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#70

Post by auggierose »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #61
auggierose wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it makes sense to include all of that in the calculation. A human doesn't need all of that, they just need 900 calories. You can just eat berries, no need to cook anything, for example.

A human cannot live on just berries. Even if they could, where are those berries gonna come from?

I am pretty sure they can. Berries grow in bushes, often.
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