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AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

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Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#81

Post by proc0 »

Takashoo wrote: post #74
proc0 wrote: post #53

The paper is skipping over the definition of AI. It jumps right into AGI, and that depends on what AI means. It could be LLMs, deep neural networks, or any possible implementation on a Turing machine. The latter I suspect would be extremely difficult to prove. So far almost everything can be simulated by Turing machines and there's no reason it couldn't also simulate human brains, and therefore AGI. Even if the claim…

Turing machines only model computation. Real life is interaction. Check the work of Peter Wegner. When interaction machines enter into the picture, AI can be embodied, situated and participate in adaptation processes. The emergent behaviour may bring AGI in a pragmatic perspective. But interaction is far more expressive than computation rendering theoretical analysis challenging.

Interaction is just another computation, and clearly we can interact with computers, and also simulate that interaction within the computer, so yes Turing machines can handle it. I'll check out Wegner.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#82

Post by ben_w »

EPWN3D wrote: post #67
Workaccount2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We understand and build the trellis that the LLMs "grow" on. We don't have good insight into how a fully grown LLM actually turns any specific input into any specific output. We can follow it through the network, but it's a totally senseless noisy mess. "Cat" lights up a certain set of neurons, but then "cat" looks completely different. That is what we don't really understand. (This is an illustrative example made fo…

We don't know the path for how a given input produces a given output, but that doesn't mean we don't know how LLMs work. We don't and can't know with certainty which specific atoms will fission in a nuclear reactor either. But we know how nuclear fission works.

We have the Navier–Stokes equations which fit on a matchbox, yet for the last 25 years there's been a US$1,000,000 prize on offer to the first person providing a solution for a specific statement of the problem:

  Prove or give a counter-example of the following statement:

  In three space dimensions and time, given an initial velocity field, there exists a vector velocity and a scalar pressure field, which are both smooth and globally defined, that solve the Navier–Stokes equations.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#83

Post by ben_w »

lexicality wrote: post #35
like_any_other wrote: post #3

So does the human brain transcend math, or are humans not generally intelligent?

> are humans not generally intelligent? Have you not met the average person on the street? (/s)

Noted /s, but truly this is why I think even current models are already more disruptive than naysayers are willing to accept that any future model ever could be.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#84

Post by ben_w »

pvg wrote: post #64
JdeBP wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no-one said that there was anything wrong, the inference being yours. But it's important to bear provenance in mind, and not get carried away by something like this more than one would be carried away by, say, an article on Medium propounding the same thing, as the bars to be cleared are about the same height.

The provenance is there for everyone to see so the purpose of the comment, beside some sort of implied aspersion is unclear.

FWIW, I've never heard of PhilArchive before, so had no frame of reference for ease of self-publishing to it.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#85

Post by JdeBP »

pvg wrote: post #64
JdeBP wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no-one said that there was anything wrong, the inference being yours. But it's important to bear provenance in mind, and not get carried away by something like this more than one would be carried away by, say, an article on Medium propounding the same thing, as the bars to be cleared are about the same height.

The provenance is there for everyone to see so the purpose of the comment, beside some sort of implied aspersion is unclear.

The aspersions are yours and yours alone. And the provenance far from being apparent actually took some effort to discern, as it involves checking out whether and what sort of editorial board was involved for one thing, as well as looking for review processes and submission guidelines. You should ask yourself why you think so badly of Show HN posts, as you so clearly do, that when it's pointed out that such is the case you yourself directly leap to the idea that it's bad when no-one but you says any such thing.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#86

Post by bigyabai »

ben_w wrote: post #38
bigyabai wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t even know how LLMs work Speak for yourself. LLMs are a feedforward algorithm inferring static weights to create a tokenized response string. We can compare that pretty trivially to the dynamic relationship of neurons and synapses in the human brain. It's not similar, case closed. That's the extent of serious discussion that can be had comparing LLMs to human thought, with apologies to Chomsky et. al. It's…

> Speak for yourself. LLMs are a feedforward algorithm inferring static weights to create a tokenized response string. If we're OK with descriptions so lossy that they fit in a sentence, we also understand the human brain: A electrochemical network with external inputs and some feedback loops, pumping ions around to trigger voltage cascades to create muscle contractions as outputs.

Yes. As long as we're confident in our definitions, that makes the questions easy. Is that the same as a feedforward algorithm inferring static weights to create a tokenized response string? Do you necessarily need an electrochemical network with external stimuli and feedback to generate legible text?

No. The answer is already solved; AI is not a brain, we can prove this by characteristically defining them both and using heuristic reasoning.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#87

Post by [deleted] »

ben_w wrote: post #80
geoka9 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are fallible in a way computers are not. One could argue any creative process is an exercise in fallibility. More interestingly, humans are capable of assessing the results of their "neural misfires" ("hmm, there's something to this"), whereas even if we could make a computer do such mistakes, it wouldn't know its Penny Lane from its Daddy's Car[0], even if it managed to come up with one. [0] https://www.youtu…

Hang on, hasn't everyone spent the past few years complaining about LLMs and diffusion models being very fallible? And we can get LLMs to do better by just prompting them to "think step by step" or replacing the first ten attempts to output a "stop" symbolic token with the token for "Wait… "?

[deleted]

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#88

Post by [deleted] »

ICBTheory wrote: post #51
like_any_other wrote: post #3

So does the human brain transcend math, or are humans not generally intelligent?

Hi and thanks for engaging :-) Well, it in fact depends on what intelligence is to your understanding: -If it intelligence = IQ, i.e. the rational ability to infer, to detect/recognize and extrapolate patterns etc, then AI is or will soon be more intelligent than us, while we humans are just muddling through or simply lucky having found relativity theory and other innovations just at the convenient moment in time ...…

[deleted]

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#89

Post by mort96 »

DougN7 wrote: post #79
mort96 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will answer under the metaphysical assumption that there is no immaterial "soul", and that the entirety of the human experience arises from material things governed by the laws of physics. If you disagree with this assumption, there is no conversation to be had. The laws of physics can, as far as I can tell, be described using mathematics. That doesn't mean that we have a perfect mathematical model of the laws of p…

I wonder if we could ever compute which exact atom in nuclear fission will split at a very specific time. If that is impossible, then our math and understanding of physics is so far short of what is needed that I don’t feel comfortable with your starting assumption.

Quantum mechanics doesn't work like that. It doesn't describe when something will happen, but the evolution of branching paths and their probabilities.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#90

Post by cainxinth »

The crux here is the definition of AGI. The author seems to say that only an endgame, perfect information processing system is AGI. But that definition is too strict because we might develop something that is very far from perfect but which still feels enough like AGI to call it that.
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