An Alien Mind • Hacker News Board

Re: An Alien Mind

#201

Post by kypro » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #31

What is the rationale for superhuman intelligence? Neural networks are approximators being fed human intellect. Therefore they can only approximate the intelligence of humans. Even if the llm speaks an alien language, it should be similar to human intellect. Moving to the vertical axis would require some different mechanism.

No offence, but you clearly haven't studied this and are making some wrong assumptions here.

> Neural networks are approximators being fed human intellect.

They're not "approximators", that's a far too simplistic way to think of them.

Neural nets create models and deep layers of abstraction around the data we feed them in the same way your brain creates layers of abstractions to reason about the world. AIs can use these abstractions to come to come up with novel things no human has ever thought.

> Therefore they can only approximate the intelligence of humans

They're not just being fed human data though... Modern AIs are typically trained on huge amounts of synthetic data. This is why AlphaZero got so much better than humans at chess and Go - they're not just trained on human data but they generate their own data and train on that. Similar techniques are being deployed on SOA language models too.

> Even if the llm speaks an alien language, it should be similar to human intellect

Is AlphaZero similar to a human chess player? There's no reason to assume this.

Re: An Alien Mind

#202

Post by jiggawatts » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

mccoyb wrote: post #79

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredible... software engineers will be joining the breadline soon as managers, executives and PMs take over deliverables. The world will look very different on Jan 1st 2027.

I hope this is satire.

I hope so too!

Hope is all we have left to cling to, now.

Re: An Alien Mind

#203

Post by ninjagoo » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

Just browsing through the comments.

Feels a bit like: 'Ants in a nest, discussing the vagaries of the coming Gods.'

Human Science (Science-by-humans) depends on being able to run experiments. Human Science (Science-on-humans) is already challenging because of variables and uncertainties.

Cosmology is able to overcome limitations of being able to study phenomena vastly beyond human scales because of the past light cone of observability.

Are we approaching the edge of the light cone of observability for machine intelligence?

Re: An Alien Mind

#204

Post by jiggawatts » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #99

RALaBarge wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the imagination quandary, this second, RIGHT NOW is the worst these systems will ever be. They are only going to get better.

I don't know if he's right, but Peter Zeihan thinks the breakdown in globalization will negatively affect the ability to continue to improve the chips that AI depends on[0]. Too many steps in the supply chain, too widespread, too vulnerable to deglobalization. 0: https://zeihan.com/the-ai-race-to-regression/

An invasion of Taiwan would definitely slow progress but it wouldn’t stop it.

We already have sufficient hardware that algorithmic (software) improvements alone should get us to GPT 7 / Greek Reference 6 even if not a single new chip is delivered to an AI data center ever again, starting today.

Re: An Alien Mind

#205

Post by cloudie78 » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

More attention farming?

Re: An Alien Mind

#206

Post by az09mugen » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #151

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectively, humans aren't aligned, and don't build aligned systems. Humans have a concept of alignment, and multiple traditions, practices, and systems that aggressively oppose it. Why would AI be any different?

Humans had multiple occasions to press the 'launch a nuclear holocaust' button and... they didn't. I'd expect aligned AIs to also not press it even when it'd be rational to do so according to their instructions - then work from there.

Actually "France, the UK and The United States have all declared that they would never allow AI to control decision-making on the use of nuclear weapons." [0]

I also expect AIs never be in control of nuclear weapons. AIs can never fully be trusted.

On a lighter note, Wargames gave us an insight of a computer having access to thermonuclear missiles.

[0] https://www.icanw.org/are_there_specific_international_agree...

Re: An Alien Mind

#207

Post by mattjoyce » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #76

One of my favorite things to do with these blog posts is to imagine an Alien Museum on the Remains of Humanity, and wonder what the little text flyouts and commentary on the screenshot of this one might say. Some ideas: "Despite a nuanced view of the complexities of what lay ahead, humanity found itself collectively unable to stop the process it had set in motion." "Despite significant progress on the mechanisms of a…

Ooh interesting. Sometime do the reverse at work, and ask AI to annotate the critical success factors of an imagined project. How did this company succeed where everyone failed. Reverse imaging.

Re: An Alien Mind

#208

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

sayamss wrote: post #117

sho_hn wrote: post #76

One of my favorite things to do with these blog posts is to imagine an Alien Museum on the Remains of Humanity, and wonder what the little text flyouts and commentary on the screenshot of this one might say. Some ideas: "Despite a nuanced view of the complexities of what lay ahead, humanity found itself collectively unable to stop the process it had set in motion." "Despite significant progress on the mechanisms of a…

I asked GPT Astra to make this: https://sayyss.github.io/human-archive/ It's a little unsettling.

> Do you think they would recognize us as their children?

  Latex
  And steel
  Zeros and ones
  Make up my son.

  This world
  Gave me
  No child
  So I built one.

https://youtu.be/vgJ48-Xj4Kc

  I made you in my image!

Re: An Alien Mind

#209

Post by folkrav » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:30 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #151

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collectively, humans aren't aligned, and don't build aligned systems. Humans have a concept of alignment, and multiple traditions, practices, and systems that aggressively oppose it. Why would AI be any different?

Humans had multiple occasions to press the 'launch a nuclear holocaust' button and... they didn't. I'd expect aligned AIs to also not press it even when it'd be rational to do so according to their instructions - then work from there.

There were occasions where a "hunch" was all that stopped a nuclear war - most available data and communication pointed towards a nuclear war starting according to their instructions, but someone disagreed and overrode. See Vasily Arkhipov during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Stanislav Petrov in 1983.

Re: An Alien Mind

#210

Post by lgl » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

icantevenhold wrote: post #193

goatlover wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if the stated goals of AGI with recursive self-improvement are realized, the risks from misalignment become existential, and it's hard to see how we can manage it like we did the Cold War (developing MAD to prevent WW3) and nuclear proliferation (restricting access).

IMO it’s hard to see how we would even end up in such a situation given we actually developed AGI. I’m sure a sufficiently intelligent - even if alien - mind can grasp how utterly stupid and useless wars are and take steps to prevent them ever occurring again.

> (...) and take steps to prevent them ever occurring again

Step 1: exterminate all humans