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The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

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Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#91

Post by ACCount37 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #48
ACCount37 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Estimates on the count of close friendships, amount of acquaintances, dating, sexual activity, etc - all falling. People have fewer and fewer relationships, and even fewer close or intimate relationships. "Third places" are in decline, demand-induced - social activity takes place "in person" less and less, and more and more of it moves "online". If your idea of "human experience" is "close relationship in person" or…

But do people want fewer and fewer physical relationships, friendships, etc. ("loniless epidemic" comes to mind here, for example)? Humans liking being around other humans doesn't preclude failure there - but that wouldn't mean that the statement isn't true. And as I said, some real life activities involving other humans are at quite high levels these days (concerts, higher end restaurants or explorations).

Oh, a lot of people want "physical relationships, friendships, etc". As a stated preference. As a revealed preference though? All in decline.

It sure seems like quite an amount of people doesn't want those things enough to go through the hassle of actually forming and maintaining those relationships.

If you could just get yourself a genuine Close Physical Relationship in a box, same-day delivery, enjoyment guaranteed or your money back? I bet they would. But as is? With the time, the effort, the sheer uncertainty involved? A lot of people forgo it.

For every example you list, there's two more examples of "third places" fading away into nothingness because people just aren't using them anymore.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#92

Post by eru »

inglor_cz wrote: post #44
eru wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine having a secretary who could read 1 million records and give you back your answer in 100 microseconds, for just 10 cents an hour. That's Postgres. Well, that secretary can only answer very specific questions in a rather peculiar format. > [...] but we'd all lose our jobs, as secretaries did to postgres. I doubt many secretaries were replaced by postgres. However, you might like reading about https://en.wiki…

"I doubt many secretaries were replaced by postgres." The maximal relative share of typists, secretaries, admin assistants et al. in the US workforce was 4% and this apogee was reached in 1980 after ~ 100 years of sustained growth. In 1980, the curve bent and started declining as systematically as it used to rise. Now it is less than half of that. So are other office roles. https://forklightning.substack.com/p/the-pa…

> Data collection and management does not involve nearly as many people as it once did.

Yes, hence my link to the cardboard fueled data processing and storage.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#93

Post by dinfinity »

godelski wrote: post #87
dinfinity wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, evolution seems to show the opposite : The rate of advancement has only sped up, with billions of years between significant changes going to millions, to thousands, to tens and arguably to mere years now. Having said that, we're probably looking at an S-curve with the physical limits of reality getting in the way in the end.

You're ignoring a lot of important factors. I'll give you most obvious ones. We often do genetics testing on fruit flies because they reproduce quickly and the initial population is large. Your claim ignores this fact. The base population and number of interactions has increased.

I am not ignoring anything, I'm looking at the broader picture, which includes non-biological evolution. Simple rebuttal to your specific point: The population of self-improving AIs will also go from 0 to many more.

In a broader sense evolution moved from very static simple domains to dynamic malleable complex domains. Biological evolution speed is glacial compared to cultural evolution speed. Even then, cultural evolution is fairly slow compared to technological evolution.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#94

Post by RandomLensman »

ACCount37 wrote: post #91
RandomLensman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do people want fewer and fewer physical relationships, friendships, etc. ("loniless epidemic" comes to mind here, for example)? Humans liking being around other humans doesn't preclude failure there - but that wouldn't mean that the statement isn't true. And as I said, some real life activities involving other humans are at quite high levels these days (concerts, higher end restaurants or explorations).

Oh, a lot of people want "physical relationships, friendships, etc". As a stated preference. As a revealed preference though? All in decline. It sure seems like quite an amount of people doesn't want those things enough to go through the hassle of actually forming and maintaining those relationships. If you could just get yourself a genuine Close Physical Relationship in a box, same-day delivery, enjoyment guaranteed…

Not convinced that we are seeing revealed preferences or something else (being "priced out", for example).

Failure and uncertainty are part of life, so I have no issue with those.

What would be "genuine" about the physical relationship in a box? A sentient, conscious being with autonomy and agency would bring uncertainty etc. right back no?

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#95

Post by ACCount37 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #94
ACCount37 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, a lot of people want "physical relationships, friendships, etc". As a stated preference. As a revealed preference though? All in decline. It sure seems like quite an amount of people doesn't want those things enough to go through the hassle of actually forming and maintaining those relationships. If you could just get yourself a genuine Close Physical Relationship in a box, same-day delivery, enjoyment guaranteed…

Not convinced that we are seeing revealed preferences or something else (being "priced out", for example). Failure and uncertainty are part of life, so I have no issue with those. What would be "genuine" about the physical relationship in a box? A sentient, conscious being with autonomy and agency would bring uncertainty etc. right back no?

That's what "revealed preferences" means! Preferences in a vacuum vs preferences under real world constraints.

In a world where you have to pick, do you pick pursuing a close physical relationship, or opt for something far more shallow, but also much more certain and convenient? Or perhaps a deep relationship - with someone you share a lot of interests with, but don't happen to share a continent? Or something else entirely - like solitary entertainment?

In the perfect world of stated preferences, you don't have to trade those things off. In the real world, there's only this much time, money and effort you have available, and choices have to be made.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#96

Post by ben_w »

godelski wrote: post #88
ben_w wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well at least it seems pretty implausible to me that a machine learning model trained to reproduce human text can in principle generate something that is significantly above human text production ability. These are not the only currently-in-use AI models. However, recent news has even this particular category of AI solving multiple previously unsolved Erdős problems. (Even if they also do stupid things on a frequen…

> solving multiple previously unsolved Erdős problems. So what? Machines have solved tons of unsolved problems in mathematics. That's not a proof of intelligence. If you brute force a solution, we congratulate you on your effort. If you stumble into a solution, we congratulate you for being lucky (if we can distinguish) If you find a unique solution that no one else imagined, we congratulate you on your intelligence.…

> If you find a unique solution that no one else imagined, we congratulate you on your intelligence.

If that's your definition, bad luck: that is exactly what the AI did.

There are other definitions where AI fail, my example of which would be "how many examples did it take to learn the basics?", ML is as thick as plankton by this definition.

> When we're talking about intelligence you can't distill it to "getting the answer". If you do then I'll direct you at an abacus, a calculator, a watch, or google search if you want to look at super intelligence.

At which point I direct you to the words "combinatorial explosion", how the busy beaver function grows faster than any computable sequence, and how many symbols exist in mathematics.

Valid number of Chess games? Estimated to be between 10^120 and 10^123

Valid number of Go games? Estimated to be between 10^10^108 and 10^10^171

Busy beaver number corresponding to something connected to the Collatz conjecture? BB(15). Nobody knows the exact value of any BB number bigger than BB(5), though we do know the lower bound for BB(7) is > 2↑¹¹↑¹¹3; needing to use up arrow notation is always a sign things are getting wild.

So far as I know, nobody's even bothered to work out what BB number would correspond to the recently solved Erdős problems. But we can look at the size of the lean proofs used for them and say "lol no" to the idea of brute-forcing it inside this universe before heat death gives every particle and photon a wavelength larger than the cosmological horizon.

> Did what? Gradient descent? If that's the argument, you need to read more

If you were to go up the conversation tree two more steps, you would already have the answer:

  Me: We do know* evolution made our brains, and we do use simulated evolution as a standard technique in machine learning.
  defmacr0, replying to "we do use simulated evolution as a standard technique in machine learning.": Well, not really. [says it's limited with examples] in practice and I'm not aware of any notable applications.
  Me: This is proof-of-possibility: natural selection did it
Natural selection made us. That's the answer to "Did what?"

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#97

Post by RandomLensman »

ACCount37 wrote: post #95
RandomLensman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not convinced that we are seeing revealed preferences or something else (being "priced out", for example). Failure and uncertainty are part of life, so I have no issue with those. What would be "genuine" about the physical relationship in a box? A sentient, conscious being with autonomy and agency would bring uncertainty etc. right back no?

That's what "revealed preferences" means! Preferences in a vacuum vs preferences under real world constraints. In a world where you have to pick, do you pick pursuing a close physical relationship, or opt for something far more shallow, but also much more certain and convenient? Or perhaps a deep relationship - with someone you share a lot of interests with, but don't happen to share a continent? Or something else en…

Revealed preference isn't about no choice (or oddly forced), but rational choices and my point is that we don't know how much here is "no choice" vs "rational choice". It is not a revealed choice for most people not to have a super yacht - they just do not get to make that choice.

People with a lot of degress of freedom (wealth) seem to be doing ok with choosing actual physical relationships, marriages, etc. - why is that? (About 80+% of the richest 100 people are married, for example, and they tend to have quite a few children, too)?

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#98

Post by ben_w »

vatsachak wrote: post #79
ben_w wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I'd imagine that if R&D can be automated, everything becomes better and cheaper but we'd all lose our jobs, as secretaries did to postgres. UBI season Perhaps, but there's a thing in economics, the "resource curse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse I don't have any formal training in economics, so I can't argue the for and against arguments listed in the Wikipedia page, but it is at least possible th…

The world has been getting richer as everything has gotten automated

Yes, but unevenly.

One of the examples in the linked Wikipedia page is Dutch disease, in which the Netherlands found a lot of resources causing growth in that sector (because it could be exported) which drove up currency demand, which made other exports from the same economy uncompetitive, which caused a decline in the manufacturing sector.

We could all be Detroit after the car factories left, Merthyr Tydfil when the iron and coal stopped, etc.

But like I said: I don't have any formal training in economics, so I can't argue the for and against arguments with much conviction.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#99

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Majromax wrote: post #76
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How is this not obvious to everyone? because people have other ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

> because people have other ideas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity In a weak sense, singularities are common and should be expected every so often. In a mathematical sense, a singularity is where a model 'blows up' and neglected terms become part of the dominant balance. Industrialization hit a point of diminishing returns, but the industrial revolution was nonetheless a 'singularity,' where li…

> Life in 2050 may be completely unpredictable to someone who was taken out of time in the year 2000.

Well the end of AMOC would also be a singularity by that measure, maybe about the same time.

Re: The Economics of Recursive Self-Improvement [pdf]

#100

Post by FrustratedMonky »

breuleux wrote: post #83
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically correct. But kind of backs every argument into a corner. I'm assuming also, anything like a paper with data, can also be questioned in the same way. Don't object, I've seen that done. So basically, don't talk about anything, because anything you say is contradicted by something somewhere. Everything is True, Everything is False, everything is subjective. There is no reality. Every person has there own poi…

> I'm assuming also, anything like a paper with data, can also be questioned in the same way. Don't object, I've seen that done. Unless you've seen me do it, I don't see why I can't object. What a strange thing to say. Look. You've supported your argument with vibes and anecdotes, so I'm offering contradicting vibes and anecdotes of my own. All that means is that it's not as obvious as you thought, and it is worth di…

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