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What you wanted to know about AI

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Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#31

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

moyix wrote: post #22

Argh. From the article: > The fears of machine superintelligence are based on the belief that true AI is just around a corner. After all, we’re so advanced and the progress is only accelerating, it’s probably a few years away, at most. Versus MIRI [1], quoting Nick Bostrom, whose book is arguably what most recently sparked all of the current discussion of AI risk: > If what readers take away from language like “impen…

The smart guys (professors and such) have brought this on themselves by pretentiously labeling their field Artificial Intelligence. Excitable fools would move on to the next thing if it were called Computational Rationality or something similarly boring.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#32

Post by AndrewKemendo »

davmre wrote: post #18

A lot of respected AI researchers and practitioners are writing these "AIs are really stupid" articles to rebut superintelligence fearmongering in the popular press. That's a valuable service, and everything this article says is correct. Deepmind's Atari network is not going to kick off the singularity. I worry that the flurry of articles like this, rational and well-reasoned all, will be seen as a "win" for the noth…

It doesn't attempt to engage with the arguments of Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrom, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and others who are worried, not about current methods, but about what will happen when the time comes -- in ten, fifty, or a hundred years -- that AI does exceed general human intelligence.

That's because it would be arguing a straw-man. So there is no reason to engage the argument.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#33

Post by foobarqux »

> The fears of machine superintelligence are based on the belief that true AI is just around a corner.

No, the fear of AGI is that the time between when we first start to see promising progess in AI to the point where AI is out of our control would be so short that we would not be able to react to prevent it.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#34

Post by pqomdv »

one-more-minute wrote: post #27
pqomdv wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global warming comparison isn't very good. We had the capabilities for carbon output 50 years ago and it has slowly been increasing. But we don't yet have an AI. So there is no need to warn anyone, except out of irrational fear. Once we actually get it, it would make sense to start warning about its applications, so it doesn't get out of control. If I apply your analogy correctly, then warning about AI now, is th…

If people had started to worry about the long-term effects of carbon output before it was already widespread, a lot of the damage it has caused could have been limited. I don't see what's irrational about trying to solve problems before they become problems, rather than trying to do damage control after the fact.

Solving problems that don't exists is rational? Human progress would be severely diminished by such actions.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#35

Post by Thrymr »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #30
one-more-minute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people had started to worry about the long-term effects of carbon output before it was already widespread, a lot of the damage it has caused could have been limited. I don't see what's irrational about trying to solve problems before they become problems, rather than trying to do damage control after the fact.

You aren't getting the comparison. It's akin to someone back then worrying about the long-term effects of steam/water vapor. You don't know if vapor is actually a problem, or will become one, and you don't have any data in any field to back up your concerns.

Arrhenius predicted global warming in 1896: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_eff...

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#36

Post by mbrock »

To me, algorithmic trading and investing is already a pretty big scary AI proposition. And it's happening all over, for real profit.

Privatization and algorithmification (or whatever) of large scale human decision making seems like an enormous change. And the computers don't have to "think" in order to do this.

The next step in this scenario would be policy decision making based on AI techniques. Statistical measuring, machine learning, etc in order to decide on political details, gerrymandering, etc.

In other words, computers don't need to grow sentient and godlike. We could just delegate power to them anyway. Maybe they'll be a bit stupid; so are we, just in different ways. And they won't understand human concerns in any deep way. But they'll be efficient and profitable.

You could already look at the international market as a kind of machine or distributed algorithm. With human "computers." Replace these computers with robots, per standard capitalist efficiency procedures, and voila, the world is run by machines.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#37

Post by themgt »

I've begun to think about AI more in terms of "artificial will" than "artificial intelligence". Intelligence and will seem mostly orthogonal, in that advanced computational reductionism appears capable of extremely intelligent behavior without anywhere near the amount of self-determinism shown by insects.

Whether artificial will is something that can be implemented in a turing machine and run on silicon seems an open question. I believe the concept, when deeply considered, is almost precisely antithetical to the goal of programming languages. The goal of artificial will is to give control to the program, not the programmer. Perhaps that's possible in a turing machine, but I have a feeling the "natural language" in which to express such a program would be like an inside-out LSD trip.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#38

Post by fiatmoney »

mbrock wrote: post #36

To me, algorithmic trading and investing is already a pretty big scary AI proposition. And it's happening all over, for real profit. Privatization and algorithmification (or whatever) of large scale human decision making seems like an enormous change. And the computers don't have to "think" in order to do this. The next step in this scenario would be policy decision making based on AI techniques. Statistical measurin…

"policy decision making based on ... statistical measuring" is > 2000 years old. The modern version based on a mathematical understanding of statistics & sampling, as opposed to collecting aggregates large enough that you can just treat the error as 0, is ~80 years old.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#39

Post by jallmann »

When I started school, my dream was to figure out a theory to underpin a grand unified model of artificial intelligence. Imagine my disappointment once I started studying the subject in detail.

Most functional AI nowadays consists of algorithms that are carefully tuned to solve a very specific problem in a narrowly defined environment. All the research nowadays is pushing the boundaries of a local optimum. Right now, true AI is a pipe dream without a fundamental shift in how we approach AI-type problems. And no, machine learning/deep learning is not that shift; it is just another flavor of the same statistics that everybody already uses.

What concerns me is not Skynet; what concerns me is the exasperating over-confidence that some people have in our current AI capabilities, on Hacker News and elsewhere. Too often, we discuss such technology as a miracle tonic to various economic or social woes, but without acknowledging the current state of the technology and its limitations (or being completely ignorant of such), we might as well be discussing Star Trek transporters. And usually, the discussion veers into Star Trek territory. Proponents of self-driving cars: I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

Take self-driving cars: at least with humans, our failure modes are well-known. We cannot say the same for most software, especially software that relies on a fundamentally heuristic layer as input to the control system. To that mix, add extremely dynamic and completely unpredictable driving conditions -- tread lightly.

Re: What you wanted to know about AI

#40

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Thrymr wrote: post #35
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't getting the comparison. It's akin to someone back then worrying about the long-term effects of steam/water vapor. You don't know if vapor is actually a problem, or will become one, and you don't have any data in any field to back up your concerns.

Arrhenius predicted global warming in 1896: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_eff...

Ah, Fantastic! He led the creation of the field of climatology if I recall.

If someone can do forecasting of AGI with similar empiricism that would be revolutionary and welcomed.

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