Artificial intelligence: Our final invention? • Hacker News Board

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#21

Post by personlurking » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:28 PM UTC

"Differential intellectual progress consists in prioritizing risk-reducing intellectual progress over risk-increasing intellectual progress. As applied to AI risks in particular, a plan of differential intellectual progress would recommend that our progress on the scientific, philosophical, and technological problems of AI safety outpace our progress on the problems of AI capability such that we develop safe superhuman AIs before we develop (arbitrary) superhuman AIs. Our first superhuman AI must be a safe superhuman AI, for we may not get a second chance."

- CEO of the Singularity Institute

I believe he also said that if you die now or soon, you don't just lose a few decades off your life but possibly immortality.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#22

Post by ar7hur » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:30 PM UTC

I was reading, waiting for the mention to IBM Watson... and here it comes! I'm so tired of reading how Watson is a step toward Artificial General Intelligence, self-aware machines, etc.

People must really understand that Watson is, like almost any successful AI (not AGI) product today, "just" a huge statistical pattern matching machine. Watson does not feel anything. Watson does not know what soccer is. Watson knows that a label "Soccer" has a distance of x to label Y and Z. Watson can answer Jeopardy questions, and now medical questions, but it's structurally unable to learn the slightest new task. So please, let's credit Watson for what Watson is good at, but stop using it to tell us AGI is coming.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#23

Post by gjmulhol » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:31 PM UTC

I am a big fan of what Joe Lonsdale calls human-computer symbiosis. He says that humans are good at certain things and computers are good at other things. For example, computers are good at looking at huge amounts of data. Humans are good at finding intuitive patterns in data. Though in time computers will undoubtedly start to be better at these things, I do not think that in my lifetime (or Matt's daughter's) we will see computers that can do literally everything better than a human can.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#24

Post by jotm » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:31 PM UTC

api wrote: post #16

JamesArgo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A happy narrative, but an unlikely one. Our brains are not designed to be end-user modifiable. It's naive in the extreme to think we could keep pace (in terms of intellectual enhancement) with minds that are.

They are evolved to be evolvable to some extent. The difference between a mouse and a human at the DNA level is not that great. That suggests significant mutability if we can find the right levers.

We don't even need to evolve them - finding a way to quickly cram in lots of knowledge is more than enough. Also, if we could take one geniuses knowledge and transplant it to another human's brain (no crazier than transferring conscience to a computer), that would lead to amazing advances (not to mention that it would solve the problem of people not understanding each other).

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#25

Post by itry » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:32 PM UTC

motters wrote: post #7

Some counter-points on this narrative, with which I'm very familiar. 1. Philosophers and AI theoreticians have a hard time defining what they mean by the term "intelligence". Talking about systems millions of times more intelligent than a human is nonsense unless you can define what it is you're talking about. 2. Whatever intelligence is it only makes any sense within the context of some environment. Environments imp…

> Talking about systems millions of times more intelligent > than a human is nonsense unless you can define what it is > you're talking about.

You can only define things to a certain level. No matter the topic, you could always complain about a lack of definition. xkcd.com/309 comes to mind.

Expecting computers to be millions of times faster then humans has some appeal for 2 reasons.

1) Machines are already millions of times more powerful then humans in some tasks. For example mail delivery is now done with the speed of light which travels millions of times faster then a human.

2) Would we consider a million people to be a million times more intelligent than one single person? In some sense, I think so. So when we can clone a brain and we clone it a million times - voila.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#26

Post by seiji » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

fumar wrote: post #19

seiji wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite hard takeoff scenarios: the AI quickly figures out how to manufacture nanobots and does so at a scale to blanket the planet, thus becoming instantly omniscient with a global field of sensors, giving it a coherent view of everything in the world at every given instant in time from that point forward. Also see: "metamorphosis of prime intellect" and "mind war: the singularity" and to a lesser extent…

I always think of the Grey Goo theory when the subject of nanobots taking over Earth comes up. "a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

We're working on it: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/magazine/crazy-ants.html

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#27

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:35 PM UTC

motters wrote: post #7

Some counter-points on this narrative, with which I'm very familiar. 1. Philosophers and AI theoreticians have a hard time defining what they mean by the term "intelligence". Talking about systems millions of times more intelligent than a human is nonsense unless you can define what it is you're talking about. 2. Whatever intelligence is it only makes any sense within the context of some environment. Environments imp…

[deleted]

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#28

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:35 PM UTC

wavesounds wrote: post #17

I usually like Matt Miller but this is just silly. Why be more afraid of AI then Nuclear War or a Man Made Super Virus getting into the wild? Every new technology needs to be used responsibly and were very far away from Terminator at this point. He should be embracing AI to reduce health care costs and improve city planning and control interest rates and make a more fair society and accomplish many of the goals he ta…

Because AI can take over the Nukes and bomb us.

I am reminded of Arthur C. Clark who wrote about the SDI project.

"Though it might be possible, at vast expense, to construct local defense systems that would 'only' let through a few percent of ballistic missiles, the much touted idea of a national umbrella was nonsense. Luis Alvarez, perhaps the greatest experimental physicist of this century, remarked to me that the advocates of such schemes were 'very bright guys with no common sense.'"

"Looking into my often cloudy crystal ball, I suspect that a total defense might indeed be possible in a century or so. But the technology involved would produce, as a by-product, weapons so terrible that no one would bother with anything as primitive as ballistic missiles."

Clarke, Arthur C. "Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids."Science, June 5, 1998. Reprinted as "Science and Society" inGreetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! Collected Essays, 1934-1998. St. Martin's Press, 1999: 526.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#29

Post by dylandrop » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

JamesArgo wrote: post #15

darkxanthos wrote: post #10

"I’m talking about the risks posed by “runaway” artificial intelligence (AI). What happens when we share the planet with self-aware, self-improving machines that evolve beyond our ability to control or understand? Are we creating machines that are destined to destroy us?" The reason no one is worrying about this is because "AI" is still a) just a bunch of math (and still surprisingly stupid) b) nowhere near sentient.…

>My Kinect can barely follow my hand or consistently recognize what I'm saying with any accuracy. I'm really not concerned with it plotting my demise. My radium coated watch face can barely illuminate my timepiece, I'm not worried about the dangers of these radioactive elements.

I don't think your argument works. Concerns of using a technology we did not develop (radium, which was "invented" by nature) exceeding our understanding is much more reasonable than a concern about man made technology.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#30

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe » Wed, Dec 18, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

Artificial intelligence is a highfalutin way of saying cool computer tricks. Hiding behind the hyperbole you can find some pretty interesting and fun algorithms.

Having said that, I hope the singularity can translate "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"