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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

#411
post #267
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compute functions != Intelligence though. For example learning from experience (which LLMs cannot do because they cannot experience anything and they cannot learn) is clearly an attribute of an intelligent machine. LLMs can tell you about the taste of a beer, but we know that they have never tasted a beer. Flight simulators can't take you to Australia, no matter how well they simulate the experience.

> Compute functions != Intelligence though. If that is true, you have a proof that the Church-Turing thesis is false. > LLMs can tell you about the taste of a beer, but we know that they have never tasted a beer. Flight simulators can't take you to Australia, no matter how well they simulate the experience. For this to be relevant, you'd need to show that there are possible sensory inputs that can't be simulated to a…

> > Compute functions != Intelligence though.

> If that is true, you have a proof that the Church-Turing thesis is false.

Well, depends on how. I think being able to compute (arbitrary) functions is much more than is necessary for intelligence.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#412
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly the point. If the Church-Turing thesis is true, then the brain is a Turing machine / Turing equivalent. And so, assuming Church-Turing is true, then the existence of the brain is proof of the possibility of AGI, because any Turing machine can simulate any other Turing machine (possibly too slowly to be practical, but it denies its impossibility). And so, any proof that AGI is "mathematically impossibl…

> If the Church-Turing thesis is true, then the brain is a Turing machine / Turing equivalent This is simply technically not true. You can look up the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis and it does not talk about brains, or intelligence.

There's some generalised versions of the thesis that do.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis#V... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis#P...

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#413
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truthfully, few people know that right now! They're backfeeding what it's "learning" along the way - whether it's in a smart fashion, we don't know yet.

It’s the whole “MCP” moto right? Basically keep re-feeding in each subsequent prompts the additional requested context?

Nah, that's still considered an ephemeral user session. We're talking about what the service does with what it learns from the failures (and successes) marked by user feedback into the chat, or the app's buttons.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#414

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> this cannot be reached algorithmically > humans can (somehow) do this Is this not contradictory? Alternatively, in order to not be contradictory doesn't it require the assumption that humans are not "algorithmic"? But does that not then presuppose (as the above commenter brought up) that we are not a biochemical machine? Is a machine not inherently algorithmic in nature? Or at minimum presupposes that humans are mo…

OP seems to have a very confused idea of what an algorithmic process means... they think the process of humans determining what is truthful "cannot possibly be something algorithmic". Which is certainly an opinion. > whatever it is: it cannot possibly be something algorithmic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44349299 Maybe OP should have looked at a dictionary for what certain words actually mean before defining…

Maybe you need to update an outdated model?

Nothing in physics requires us to use your prior experience as some special epoch.

Meaning is mutable social relationship as language meaning is not immutable physics.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#415
post #401

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You're not speaking of a behavior but of a "thing." Your consciousness sits idly inside your body, feeling as thought it's the driving all actions of its free will. There's no necessity, reason, or logical explanation for this thing to exist, let alone why or where it comes from. No matter how many instructions you might use to create the most compelling simulation of a dragon in a video game, neither that dragon or…

>There's no necessity, reason, or logical explanation for this thing I mean, I disagree. It's a internal virtual 'playground' you can bounce ideas off of and reason against. Obviously it imparts some survival benefits to creatures that have one at this point in evolution.

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Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a closer look at BOTH videos. Not just the first one. He literally says the words “don’t” and “understand” in reference to LLMs. I watch a lot of video interviews on hinton I can assure you that “not understanding” is 100 percent his opinion both from the perspective of the actual events that occurred and as someone who knows his general stance from watching tons of interviews and videos about him. So let me be…

I'm not going to waste my time clicking a second video link but if Gemini can be believed he said "we don't know exactly how they work" which somehow became "We don’t even know how LLMs work. " In your retelling, an exaggeration which rightfully led to pushback. Aside from that I don't know what conversation you think we are having.

Yeah let’s not talk at all. You’re wasting both your own time and my time by responding to me without clicking on my links and trying to understand what I say.

Just leave. Don’t bother communicating with me again.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#417
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not speaking of a behavior but of a "thing." Your consciousness sits idly inside your body, feeling as thought it's the driving all actions of its free will. There's no necessity, reason, or logical explanation for this thing to exist, let alone why or where it comes from. No matter how many instructions you might use to create the most compelling simulation of a dragon in a video game, neither that dragon or…

>There's no necessity, reason, or logical explanation for this thing I mean, I disagree. It's a internal virtual 'playground' you can bounce ideas off of and reason against. Obviously it imparts some survival benefits to creatures that have one at this point in evolution.

This gets to the issue. What is bouncing ideas off of yourself and reasoning against such? Well it's nothing particularly complex. A conditional is its most fundamental incarnation - add some variables and weights and you have just what you described in a few lines of code. Of course you don't think this poofs a consciousness into existence.

For consciousness to be emergent at some point there has to be wild hand-waving of 'well you see, it just needs to be more complex.' But any program is fundamentally nothing more than a simple set of instructions, so it all comes down to this issue. And if I hit a breakpoint and pause, and then start stepping through the assembly - ADD, MUL, CMP. Is the consciousness still imagining itself doing those things? Or does it just somehow disappear when I start stepping through instructions?

For even the most complex visual or behavior, you can stair step, quite rapidly, down to a very simple set of instructions. And no where in these steps is there any logical room for a consciousness to just suddenly appear.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#418
post #97
post #47

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It can be avoided certainly, but can it be avoided with the current or near term technology about which many are saying “it’s only a matter of time”

I like the distinction you made there. My observation that when it comes to AGI, there are those who are saying "Not possible with the current technology." and "Not possible at all, because humans have [insert some characteristic here about self awareness, true creativity, etc] and machines don't. I can respect the first argument. I personally don't see any reason to believe AGI is impossible, but I also don't see ev…

On your second point there is a further distinction between, can humanity create AGI and can a human design and implement an AGI.

At present we are churning out intelligent beings at an alarming rate with little understanding of what we are doing.

It’s a lot easier to imagine us creating an extended intelligence, manifestly without understanding it. Current work may even be a component of that.

It’s this second more pygmalion concept that a human mind could conceive of an artificial mind and create it from its machines, that I find a little fanciful.

Re: AGI is Mathematically Impossible 2: When Entropy Returns

#419
post #256
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person asked, but in time honoured tradition I will venture forth that the key difference is billions of years of evolution. Innumerable blooms and culls. And a system that is vertically integrated to its core and self sustaining.

AI can be, and often are, trained by simulated evolution.

Simulated.
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