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Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#31

Post by johngalt »

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…

Regarding #4 specifically. An autonomous runaway recursively improving AI would make things like bunkers irrelevant. It might buy you days at most.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#32

Post by acqq »

It's simpler and more dangerous than most of us are ready to accept: we don't need to have anything what we don't already have to reach the point of the technology used against us, destroying the civilization we take now for granted. We are already peripherally aware of the problems but we are for different reasons in various levels of denial. We still have enough nuclear weapons to end the civilization we now know. A lot of people can't imagine that global warming is real and dangerous. And of course, a lot of people can't imagine what's wrong to have so much data about them stored by third parties and ready for misuse.

There aren't any big arguments that such trends won't continue. It seems that the dynamics of groups supports living in denial.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#33

Post by User1398 »

baddox wrote: post #18
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.…

I think that most scientists, and certainly most AI researchers, would say that biological intelligence is also just a bunch of math.

Isn't the universe just a bunch of math? This leads me to wonder if we have any control over our lives. Isn't every action I take simply the result of all my senses, my previous knowledge, the environment, and the people around me?

For example, if the universe just went 1 hour back in time, why would anything go differently the second time around?

Unless you can prove something is truly random in the universe, and not affected by anything else, are we not just on autopilot? I get the feeling from the moment of the big bang, I was going to exist and inevitably write this comment billions of years later, and nothing could stop it. I mean, 1+1=2. It doesn't matter how many times you run the simulation again, you get the same answer.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#34

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

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…

The bug out houses are so they can hide from the people who gave them money. (this book touches on the history http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/)

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#35

Post by fiatmoney »

I have seen no evidence that the field of meta-learning over AI / problem-solving approaches even has much interest, let alone is showing enough progress that it could foreseeably start self-improving. The "AI" areas where great progress has been made recently are extremely technique- and domain-specific (e.g., image recognition via deep neural networks). Heck, I haven't even seen a lot of progress in areas that seem relatively straightforward & seem like absolutely necessary precursors to strong AI, like automated refactoring of codebases or just straight-up genetic algorithms.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#36

Post by slashcom »

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…

With respect to 4: probably the funniest way I've ever seen vacation homes ever painted.

Presumably it goes Top AI -> Successful and wealthy -> has vacation home in quiet, rural area.

The author seems to paint it as Top AI -> has a rogue AI bunker

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#37

Post by rubinelli »

pygy_ wrote: post #14
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…

All they need is to be smart and strong enough to take control of the dense energy sources (oil, coal, uranium). Then we're toast. No need to be millions of times smarter, whatever that may mean.

We have more-than-human entities controlling our energy resources. They are called corporations, and some even argue they are pretty much already out of our control.

Re: Artificial intelligence: Our final invention?

#40

Post by wellboy »

I don't like these all or nothing articles. Once Singularity is achieved, AI won't instantly take over the world. It is also restricted by computational processioning power and will take some time to evolve as well.

Philosophically speaking, why would AI want to destroy humanity, wouldn't it be just as bad as humanity itself?

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