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You are the scariest monster in the woods

jamie.ideasasylum.com

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Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#251

Post by woeirua »

squidbeak wrote: post #72
woeirua wrote: post #44

There's this weird disconnect in tech circles, where everyone is deathly afraid of AGI, but totally asleep on the very real possibility of thermonuclear war breaking out in Europe or Asia over the next 10 years. There's already credible evidence that we came perilously close to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine which likely would've spiraled out of control. AGI might happen, but the threat of nuclear war…

Other doomsday risks aren't any reason to turn our heads away from this one. AI's much more likely to end up taking an apocalyptic form if we sleep on it.

We should worry more about doomsday risks that are concrete and present today. Despite the prognostications of the uber wealthy, the emergence of AGI is not guaranteed. It likely will happen at some point, but is that tomorrow or 200 years in the future? We can’t know for sure.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#252

Post by znort_ »

theodorejb wrote: post #187
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

> Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution This is an assumption, not a fact. Perhaps human cognition was created by God, and our minds have an essential spiritual component which cannot be reproduced by a purely physical machine.

it is an assumption backed by considerable evidence. creationism otoh is an assumption backed by superstition an phantasizing, or could you point to at least some evidence.

besides, spirituality is not a "component", it's a property emergent from brain structure and function, which is basically purely a physical machine.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#253

Post by reactordev »

fullstackchris wrote: post #243
reactordev wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick here is never turning it off so the ICL keeps growing and learning to the point where it’s aware.

but even as humans we still don't know what "aware" even means!

Which is why it’s possible. We don’t know why life is conscious. What if it is just a function call on a clock timer? You can’t dismiss it because it can’t be proven one way or another until it can be. That requires more research, which this is advancing.

We will have something we call AGI in my lifetime. I’m 42. Whether it’s sentient enough to know what’s best for us or that we are a danger is another story. However I do think we will have robots that have memory capable of remapping to weights to learn and keep learning, modifying underlying model tensors as it does using some sort of repl.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#254

Post by fullstackchris »

jncfhnb wrote: post #40
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

I think you could make AGI right now tbh. It’s not a function of intelligence. It’s just a function of stateful system mechanics. LLMs are just a big matrix. But what about a four line of code loop that looks like: ```while true: update_sensory_inputs() narrate_response() update_emotional_state() ``` LLMs don’t experience continuous time and they don’t have an explicit decision making framework for having any agency…

you do understand this would require re-training billions of weights in realtime

and not even "trainingl really.... but a finished and stably functioning billion+ param model updating itself in real time...

good luck, see you in 2100

in short, what ive been shouting from a hilltop since about 2023: LLMs tech alone simply wont cut it; we need a new form of technology

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#255

Post by proto-n »

woeirua wrote: post #44

There's this weird disconnect in tech circles, where everyone is deathly afraid of AGI, but totally asleep on the very real possibility of thermonuclear war breaking out in Europe or Asia over the next 10 years. There's already credible evidence that we came perilously close to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine which likely would've spiraled out of control. AGI might happen, but the threat of nuclear war…

Well, one of these is something that most reaonable people work on avoiding, while the other is something that a huge capitalist industrial machine is working to achieve like their existence depends on it.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#257

Post by myrmidon »

theodorejb wrote: post #187
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

> Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution This is an assumption, not a fact. Perhaps human cognition was created by God, and our minds have an essential spiritual component which cannot be reproduced by a purely physical machine.

I'm sticking to materialism, because historically all its predictions turned out to be correct (cognition happens in the brain, thought manifests physically in neural activity, affecting our physical brain affects our thinking).

The counter-hypothesis (we think because some kind of magic happens) has absolutely nothing to show for; proponents typically struggle to even define the terms they need, much less make falsifiable predictions.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#258

Post by random3 »

ectospheno wrote: post #219
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

The worst thing Star Trek did was convince a generation of kids anything is possible. Just because you imagine a thing doesn’t make it real or even capable of being real. I can say “leprechaun” and most people will get the same set of images in their head. They aren’t real. They aren’t going to be real. You imagined them.

Do maybe have a better show recommendation for kids - many Animal Farm?

How is convincing people that things within the limits of physics are possible wrong or even "the worse thing"?

Or do you think anything that you see in front of didn't seem like StarTrek a decade before it existed?

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#259

Post by ImPleadThe5th »

I'm kind of shocked by this thread. I cant get over the hubris that we think concepts that were introduced to society at large by science fiction in and before the 19th century is _inevitable_ just because we made a really really good predictive text engine in the 21st century.

Just because a concept exists star trek episode does not guarantee technology moving in that direction. I understand art has an effect on reality, but how hard are we spinning our gears because some writer made something so compelling it lives in our collective psyche?

You can point to the communicator from star trek and I'll point to the reanimation of Frankenstein's monster.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#260

Post by fullstackchris »

tantalor wrote: post #69
jncfhnb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could make AGI right now tbh. It’s not a function of intelligence. It’s just a function of stateful system mechanics. LLMs are just a big matrix. But what about a four line of code loop that looks like: ```while true: update_sensory_inputs() narrate_response() update_emotional_state() ``` LLMs don’t experience continuous time and they don’t have an explicit decision making framework for having any agency…

Peak HN comment. Put this in the history books.

Has anyone else noticed that HN is starting to sound a lot like reddit / discussion of similar quality? Can't hang out anywhere now on the web... I used to be on here daily but with garbage like this its been reduced to 2-3 times per month... sad
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