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The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

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Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#141

Post by nradov »

ctoth wrote: post #139
nradov wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the work that I do, ChatGPT accuracy is still garbage. Like it makes obvious factual errors on very simple technical issues which are clearly documented in public specifications. I still use it occasionally as it does sometimes suggest things that I missed, or catch errors that I made. But it's far from "good enough" to send the output to co-workers or customers without careful review and correction. I do think t…

I am going to offer you some tips for using ChatGPT. 1. Just because something is in a public specification does not mean that GPT knows about this specification. If you want to work on something, and that something is documented, share the document with the AI. Don't just assume it has read it! 2. Share your existing code, don't just ask for one-off functions. You can do this with a tool like Aider. 3. Context is ki…

Thanks, I appreciate you trying to help but I was already aware of those tips and they don't help. Either the accuracy is still bad, or going through the extra steps takes so long that it's faster to just do everything myself. Maybe the next version will be better.

I am not dealing with code or code reviews but rather complex written specifications where understanding what's going on requires integrating multiple sources.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#142

Post by eep_social »

bamboozled wrote: post #133
nurbl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the story you're referring to is https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

Actually I think you’re right. I got my stories mixed up ?

This was the one but thanks for the add to my reading list!

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#143

Post by ben_w »

shermantanktop wrote: post #137
ben_w wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

There are incredible technological barriers to humanoid robots who have equivalent skills and stamina. Keeping old factories running seems a very weak reason to do that, when our industrial base regularly retools production methods and brings in new equipment when old machines wear out. If what you are saying is that many factories cannot run with humans running around fixing things, I agree. But that’s pretty differ…

Yes indeed.

Even just 3.5 years ago, seemed like everyone was saying that humanoid robots were a dead end or an unnecessary part of Isaac Asimov's vision of the future or similar.

I think much of the current interest is because Musk watched some scifi, ordered the Optimus project, and loads of others decided it would be a mistake to bet against him.

I put them in the same category as 3D printers: they can do anything, but you can always find a better special-purpose alternative for any specific goal.

Still a lot of people using 3D printing productively despite that; likely also will be for humanoid robots.

Well, if the AI is good enough. Remote control has its uses, but even then you need enough on-board AI to avoid playing QUOP as live action with a robot holding industrial equipment instead of in a safe flash game.

That said, stamina is probably the least important aspect — in an industrial setting you probably have a lot of power lines already installed.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#144

Post by marcosdumay »

arethuza wrote: post #86
keiferski wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t agree at all. Charismatic leaders tend to have both “in born” talent and experience gained over time. It’s not something that comes from sitting in a room and thinking about how to be a good leader. Sure, some level of intelligence is required, which may be above average. But that is a necessary requirement, not a sufficient one. Raw intelligence is only useful to a certain extent here, and exceeding certain…

When it comes to "charismatic leaders" I like this quote from Frank Herbert: "“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health." One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said "Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?" and we wound up in Vietnam. A…

> Edit: Maybe what we really need to worry about is an AI developing charisma....

That is the most immediate worry, by a wide margin. It seems to be dangerously charismatic even before it got any recognizable amount of "intelligence".

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#145

Post by amanaplanacanal »

auggierose wrote: post #70
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Berries are missing essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, and essential vitamins. You could live on them for a while, I guess. Actually you can live without eating at all for a while. Both would lead to a painful death though.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#146

Post by K0balt »

kiba wrote: post #111
K0balt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “otherness” of AI is what holds its appeal. Imagine a scenario where instead of AI, a billion dollar pill could make one person exponentially smarter and able to communicate with thousands of people per second. That does not have the same appeal. This provokes me to some musings on the theme. We imagine superintelligence to be subservient, evenly distributed, and morally benign at least. We don’t have a lot of ba…

Most of our stories portrayed AI as a threat, most famously SkyNet. Also, I would be cautious about making predictions about the future.

Predictions are great, and useful in making good decisions today based on how you think the future might be affected… the danger lies in believing in your predictions.

As for me, I think many things, suppose a few, imagine lots, conjecture some, believe very little, and know, most of all, that I know nothing.

“Believing”, in anything, is a dangerous gambit. Knowing and believing are very distinct states of mind.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#147

Post by RaftPeople »

nsbshssh wrote: post #100
Animats wrote: post #19

We still don't have squirrel-level AI. This is embarrassing. Now that LLMs have been around for a while, it's fairly clear what they can and can't do. There are still some big pieces missing. Like some kind of world model.

There must be a name for the human bias that sees what is possible this month and doesn't believe things might be very different very soon and change quickly. AI has a tripple whamy that the models get more efficient, the chips will get faster and there will be more chips. Capitalist and government money pouring in. There is money to be made and it is national security. And to boot the cloud, big tech, cryptocurrency…

> There must be a name for the human bias that sees what is possible this month and doesn't believe things might be very different very soon and change quickly

The counter to that is that AI prediction of 10 to 20 years away has been happening since the 1950's (or before?).

It seems there is some foundational progress but it's very slow.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#148

Post by bglazer »

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.

You realize AlphaFold was trained on thousands of protein sequences generated via (I'd guess) tens of millions of hours of human labor.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#149

Post by falcor84 »

ben_w wrote: post #125
kiba wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital". The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land. It's still a fundamental and underrated component of our economic system, arguably more important than capital. That's why Georgism is a thing Indeed, it's even contemporary to the industrial revolution. The economics are too alien, we can…

> The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land. I didn't say otherwise. I said the industrial revolution changed what wealth meant. We don't pay for rents with the productive yield of vegetable gardens, and a lawn is no longer a symbol of conspicuous consumption due to signifying that the owner/tenant is so rich they don't need all their land to be productive. And indeed, while land is foundatio…

> enough food to not starve for 4.43 seconds

I'm having real difficulty reading this unit of measurement. Let me see if I can get this right - a typical person can survive indefinitely on 1600 calories. Let's say that these are provided by rice (which isn't sufficient for a long-term diet, but is good enough for awhile). 1600 calories of rice is about 8 cups/24h and there are about 10000 grains in a cup, so is it that an image can be generated at the same cost as:

  4.43s/86400s*8cups*10000 grains/cup
Being about 4 grains of rice?

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#150

Post by svieira »

bglazer wrote: post #148
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.

You realize AlphaFold was trained on thousands of protein sequences generated via (I'd guess) tens of millions of hours of human labor.

How does the old saw go ... "past results are no guarantee of future performance"?
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