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AI

blog.samaltman.com

131–140 of 317 posts

Re: AI

#131
post #8

Interesting post. The way I look at it is from the perspective of a human baby. How do they become intelligent? They have the "sensors" to detect features and will be able to recognize their parents. A lot of things are then learned, like touching a hot stove and from getting a formal education. For a machine to be artificially intelligent it would have to learn from its environment but also take formal instruction.…

Absolutely. A newborn has all the "programming" necessary for intelligence, but isn't really intelligent until its parents teach it how to be human, and it grows up. How long might an AI take to grow up and what will its parents teach it?

Re: AI

#132
If the only goal is an 'artificial' consciousness, it might be more prudent to consider a functional definition of what consciousness is and try to build that. We didn't make computers by modeling how individual neurons perform mathematical calculations.

On the other hand, if you want to go the biological route, there's some awesome work to be done. If I were to study consciousness, here's the question I would ask: how do we separate our selves from our surroundings? Patients with brain-machine interfaces (like moving a mouse cursor) start by thinking about moving their arms around. Then they apparently report that they gradually just feel that the interface is another body part. So if it's set up to change the TV channel, they just imagine that they have a channel-changing organ.

So maybe you want to build a system that can identify what is a part of itself versus what is not, and it's not just a fixed list. So what does that data structure look like? How is it defined, queried, and updated? Defined by what you can 'influence?' So gradated based on my influence? These aren't just broad philosophical questions, they're more specific and actionable.

That's just one possible angle, but it's different than, say, machine learning paradigms where you want to build a machine that can do pattern classification (which the brain undoubtedly does). There are probably other routes as well.

Re: AI

#133
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but can we imagine a better algorithm?

I think we need a better machine first. The current model of one or a handful of CPU cores with very tiny caches talking to memory over a narrow, high latency bus doesn't seem very efficient for building and querying massive (multi-petabyte), highly associative (thousands of associations) data structures.

There are 100,000,000 neurons in the brain. It's not that many. A Core 2 Duo has 169m [1]. A neuron is connected to about 10.000 others. And how many computers do we have in the world? It even sounds like we scientifics are sluggish at inventing AI ;)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count

Re: AI

#134
post #26

> "the part of your brain that processes input from your ears is also capable of learning to process input from your eyes. If we can just figure out this one general-purpose algorithm, programs may be able to learn general-purpose things." This is the Holy Grail of CS. I believe we're closer than most people would expect and I think it's going to be a race to the finish line.

was reading an interview with Demis Hassabis, thefounder of Deep Mind (acquired by google for £400m) - he didn't seem to think there is a single general purpose algo to get us there

Re: AI

#135
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you seem pretty convinced living computers would kill us all. this seems like a pretty big assumption to me?

It's the same thing with aliens. The "evil, technologically superior alien race" is a big trope in science fiction, just as the "super-intelligent and malevolent" (as opposed to the super-intelligent and benevolent/indifferent) is in science fiction, and maybe even with futurists.

"Indifferent" can be pretty bad. You are indifferent to the existence of grass whenever you mow your lawn, for instance. Or even to the fate of the cow when you have a steak dinner.

Re: AI

#136
post #44
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but can we imagine a better algorithm?

I've always assumed any real machine intelligence would be scalable to the point where even if it started at a millionth the functionality of a human, it would end up far surpassing humanity.

I personnaly don't think the brain could be as intelligent if it were only a part of it, like if had 3 senses instead of 5 for example: The emulation of a sense by the others might be necessary to bootstrap the system. So we might just be on the wrong path when we try to teach a small machine to learn.

And maybe, once you have a fully functional brain, that it constantly derives out of bounds. Like sudden overheating, which is litterally the step #1 of a depression in a human. So we might not be able to scale an AI beyond the size of one brain. Apart from clusters obviously, but then you need to sustain civilizations of brains, and civs do collapse every dozen generations.

We might not be materially able to find enough energy to power all of those trials and errors.

Re: AI

#137
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this hypothetical infinite speed computer you will get solutions that are perfect matches for your test cases but essentially random for all other inputs.

I really don't see what's so controversial about this. The universe can, as far as our understanding of physics dictates, be simulated in finite computational time. This experiment dictates infinite computational time. Evolution is a purely physical process. Make up a series of tests more or equally complex to those evolution present, and you'll end up with intelligence - unless there happens to be something very, ve…

That's not a brute force approach, and would be a difficult engineering task all on its own, regardless of the infinite computational resources available.

Re: AI

#138

If the only goal is an 'artificial' consciousness, it might be more prudent to consider a functional definition of what consciousness is and try to build that. We didn't make computers by modeling how individual neurons perform mathematical calculations. On the other hand, if you want to go the biological route, there's some awesome work to be done. If I were to study consciousness, here's the question I would ask: h…

While this is an intriguing phenomenon, I do not think it is something deep. It sounds similar to how consciousness or a concept of self is sometimes identified as the ability to recognize a dot on ones body in a mirror (a few animals pass this task). Even though that is literally about ones reflection, I think it has little to do with the philosophical and abstract kind of reflection that is made possible by consciousness.

Re: AI

#139
post #14

I believe human-level general intelligence (and beyond) is already inevitable, even if we don't make significant developments in "solving" intelligence. Projects that are already developing stuff like this (e.g. IBM Blue Brain) are just copying the human brain as closely as possible. Of course, this isn't as efficient as it could be (they simulate it all at the molecular level, so you can only get 1 neuron per CPU).…

The "airplane analogy" is flawed - we (so far) have no lower-level model as useful as those the Wright brothers had, namely, experimental aerodynamics. Furthermore, while pattern recognition is universally found in "living" critters, human intelligence seems to be uniquely different. We need to find the critical difference.

Re: AI

#140
I wrote about limitations on AI imposed by algorithmic complexity here: http://paulbohm.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-obstacl...

In essence: unless we extract that "single algorithm" that Andrew Ng believes in from an existing medium, we're unlikely to rediscover it independently.

(read the papers i link to at the bottom of the article for a more rigorous explanation)

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