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Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

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Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#61

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

sodapopcan wrote: post #34
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #3

In my work, I have always found that the main "blocker" (I hesitate to use the term "bottleneck"), is human nature. If we design stuff to be used by humans (what I generally do), then it's imperative to take basic human nature into account, and that can be incredibly annoying. Annoying, or not, human nature is a major factor, and won't go away, no matter how many times we tap our heels together. I think it was Philip…

> and that can be incredibly annoying One thing you have to be careful of, mostly when working on internal tools, is that you don't end up building around the idiosyncrasies of one particular person. This is something that actually happens in some places. I actually find "bottleneck" a nicer word than "blocker" here (although not sure if "nicer" is what you are going for). I really like building for humans and the on…

Agreed. I write free apps, for people that have no particular motivation to use them, but benefit greatly, when they do (once they figure it out).

Also, statistically higher-than-normal portion of disabled folks (cognitively, as well as physically). I need to make sure my stuff is really usable.

I have busted my ass, implementing stuff that I think is marvelous, only to have it ignored, or even despised.

Quite humbling.

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#62

Post by meroes »

MerrimanInd wrote: post #58

Climate change is another big problem that frontier AI labs have handwaved away as being "solvable" by AGI. The premise that a pure superintelligence could hand us a plan to beat climate change that's so good and airtight that A) it would definitely work and B) people would execute it. But there have been entire books written about the fact that right now we have the technology to drastically curtail climate change a…

It’s the same rehashed idea of the perfectly rational actor in economics.

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#63

Post by meroes »

Veedrac wrote: post #54

Indeed. Humans and not other apes reached the moon by our great proclivity to long distance running, through our exceptional sweat glands... ah, wait. How is it possible to live in the world around us and not see, apparent and transparent, that intelligence is the lever on which everything rests? Humans are surprisingly weird animals, but it's not our hairlessness or our fairly average propensity to violence that did…

The perfectly rational actor myth in economics will have Mary doing all sorts of things she doesn’t actually do. Mary just really likes peaches and the whole construct of rational actors is a fictional superstructure. Same with this idea of intelligence levering all our behavior.

Maybe Mary keeps intelligently finding new ways to find scarce peaches, but her ultimate benefit is eating the peach. It’s that human desire if anything.

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#64

Post by bluGill »

RandomLensman wrote: post #53
bluGill wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could build a house. With zero experience you can find a job in house building as they will pay you to learn on the job (depending on the economy you might or might not be able to find such a job today, in good years they will hire anyone who isn't disabled - but there are bad years). Many people who have never had a construction job build their own house (only a tiny %, but that is still a lot of people) I suppose…

Not sure how easy it is to create a connection to the main power grid without the required credentials.

Depends. In rural areas the only part you can't do the power company will in five minutes. In other places only a licensed electrician is allowed to touch wires and do you can do much less

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#65

Post by bluGill »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #49
bluGill wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human with experience can do without AI the job a lot faster than someone without can do it with. The expert HVAC tech can get the wrench of the fitting and have the job done faster than the novice. The novice will take longer to follow directions to get the right wrench; then they have to figure out how to get it on - something the expert does automatically isn't easy; then turn it the right direction... The exper…

In my city I call a handyman to fix my dryer and guess what? He uses chatGPT to help him through the issue. $350 Beyond a basic amount of manual dexterity and familiarity with mechanical things, AI can absolutely help guide an untrained person through the job. How about medical research? Endless hours of pipetting. Does it really take a phd? It takes someone with conscientiousness and care. Both things an AI overlord…

You called a handyman not an appliance specialist. A handyman already is compromising specific knowledge for can figure out it out.

Maybe the right decision there but you have others.

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#66

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

The post suffers a bit from sloppy ontology.

The argument being made appears to be that improving technical ability at the edges of a graph doesn't help when governance of inter-node processes is still a primary limiting constraint.

Ok. Yes. And it's a very strong position to take.

But that's not the same thing as intelligence not being the bottleneck, because governance is absolutely a manifestation of intelligence. It's just intelligence at a hub node instead of at a leaf node.

Good governance takes intelligence. Recognizing the importance of things takes intelligence. Making existing resources available quickly takes intelligence. And so on. Even when things are constrained by physical processes or financial resources, making things less constrained by those physical processes and financial resources takes intelligence. It's all intelligence. Where our processes are slow and dumb, they are slow and dumb because the people managing those processes were not smart and fast enough in the ways that mattered to make them better.

Tangentially, I find this sloppiness kind of funny in the context of intelligence and bottlenecks, because it's also a bottleneck for communication.

The subject should have been "Intelligence _here_ is not the main bottleneck."

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#67

Post by chaseadam17 »

The barrier to change is not just regulation. Regulation is downstream of public opinion. Compare China and the US. In China, public sentiment around AI seems to be a hunger to use it for fear of being left behind. Whereas in America, it's an apathetic pessimism around inequality and safety.

China has seen much faster growth in recent decades, which incentivizes people to work hard and have faith it will yield results. In America, the average standard of living has not improved for a long time, so instead of a desire to change things, like cutting regulation to speed up drug discovery, most Americans are quiet quitting.

In this climate, the unfortunate reality is that we're unlikely to see a popular revolution to drastically change things one way or another. Instead, we're much more likely to see regulatory capture by a small number of wealthy, powerful, motivated people. And everyone else will complain on social media, but that's about it.

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#69

Post by pluralmonad »

HardlyCognizant wrote: post #60
dgellow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and say that the human should be the bottleneck/blocker. If not designed for and to serve humans, which means to have human in the position of power and control and take in account all the various human oddities, why are we building all of this?

> why are we building all of this? To remove humans from power in all cases where our biases and animalistic nature would cause unnecessary suffering to others. As a species we are quickly approaching some very hard problems that no individual, or even small group, is capable of handling in a consistently rational manner. On our current trajectory of resource constraints and habitability constrictions, ethics by the…

How do you make sure the thing you are hoping saves everyone has an inclination (or ability) to do so? How do you make sure it is only afflicted with the human parts you like and not the ones you don't?

Re: Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

#70

Post by 0xWTF »

> Figure 2. ... In the last decade, the deceleration in pharmaceutical productivity seems to have ameliorated ...

Uh, what? It's a semi-log scale and the data has been statistically bouncing off 0 for a decade. It can't go below 0 but it's clearly flat-lined. Hint: on a log scale, you're never getting to 0 unless your function crosses the axis. But this function can't cross 0.*

* It could cross 0 if you start counting withdrawals of products from the market, but that would be a different function with different inputs.

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