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Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

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Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#41

Post by ikeboy »

chubot wrote: post #33
ikeboy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel we will not build "Strong" AI? We know AI as smart as humans can theoretically exist, because humans exist, so intelligence is possible. Is there a reason to think that humans are near the upper limit of what's possible? If not, why can't we build something significantly smarter than us?

Mainly because I haven't seen any evidence. Special purpose AI is not evidence. That point is debatable, but most AI practitioners agree; it's only some technologists like Elon Musk et. al. that seem to be extrapolating. Sure, humans exist, and we can already make humans by combining DNA from a man and a woman :) That method does not lead to superhuman intelligence. What makes you think we could devise some other met…

>Computers and humans are completely different things. If you watch a child grow up, this is obvious. A child can do things that are impossible for a computer, while it can't speak, read, or write. A computer can do things that no human could ever do. They are qualitatively different.

Do you think humans can do things that no computer will ever do? If yes, could you give an example? If not, doesn't that imply that human-level AI can exist?

> AI advocates always seem to bring up "simulating the universe" on a computer.

I very rarely see this come up, could you give an example?

>Have we demonstrated any progress toward building humans?

Well, we have intelligence enhancing drugs, does that count?

>I predict this will be the story for the next 50 years, and general AI / strong AI won't enter into it.

Many of the people arguing for safety measures in AI think that it's likely to be more than 50 years away as well. See https://intelligence.org/2013/05/15/when-will-ai-be-created/ and https://intelligence.org/2015/01/08/brooks-searle-agi-voliti....

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#42

Post by icebraining »

neonbat wrote: post #16
chubot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, his argument is "nothing we have built so far (i.e. special purpose AI) leads us to believe that we will build general purpose AI". There is nothing inherently contradictory about a future with ONLY special purpose AI. Technologically speaking, it doesn't really follow that one leads to the other. He is using his credibility as an AI practitioner to state this, although he doesn't go into details. He's saying the…

I agree; that is part of his argument. Obviously though it is a completely flawed argument. Up until the creation of the personal computer most machines were specialists. They were large computers designed for specific computation tasks or machines made specifically for manufacturing certain kinds of goods. Generalist computers didn't have much precedent. That's kind of the point of new technology. It's not necessari…

Up until the creation of the personal computer most machines were specialists. They were large computers designed for specific computation tasks or machines made specifically for manufacturing certain kinds of goods.

Sorry, but that's just not true. Back in the 60s, way before personal computers, the were many time-sharing companies, selling general "computing resources" to different people who would dial-up into the machines and run their own programs.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#43

Post by ikeboy »

[deleted] wrote: post #39
ikeboy wrote: post #15

Instead of going through each of the points made, let me link to some pages that already dealt with many of them. It sounds like all this guy heard was "AI might be dangerous" and decided to rebut that, without looking at the arguments put forward by so-called "doomsayers". Protip: before demolishing any argument, try to find one (or a couple if you have more time) person who makes the argument seriously, instead of…

[deleted]

>As yet another tech pioneer with no connection to artificial intelligence steps out to voice his fears about AI being catastrophic for the human race, I feel the [sic] need respond. While I respect Steve Wozniak’s technological contributions to our culture, I fear that he, like so many others (Musk, Hawking, Gates), is poisoning the well for fear of something he doesn’t truly understand.

He gives no indication in the article that anyone working in AI shares these worries. To me, it sounds like he thinks that only people "outside" AI are worried. (If he's aware of people inside the AI field who have the same concerns, why is he debating those outside the field? That's called weakmaning, although this doesn't even deserve to be called that because he doesn't quote any direct argument from anyone.)

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#44

Post by JimDabell »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #4

Nobody is afraid of today's AI algorithms. But if we make machines that are smarter than us and have desires, they will influence the future to achieve their desires. If these desires conflict with our own, things will not end well for the dumber party. As we really have no idea what we, collectively, think of as a moral terminal goal, and less so how to formalize this, there is no reason to expect the first AIs to h…

> if we make machines that are smarter than us and have desires, they will influence the future to achieve their desires. If these desires conflict with our own

Aren't you anthropomorphising them here? Just because something might be intelligent, it doesn't follow that they automatically gain other attributes that we have, such as desires. Why would any AI have anything that could meaningfully be called "desires", except in the sense that it is designed to achieve its purpose, e.g. a self-driving car "desires" to get to its destination?

> there is no reason to expect the first AIs to have goals that correspond to what we want.

There's every reason to expect this. Look at the ways in which we use AI at the moment. It's to achieve our goals. We build self-driving cars to get from A to B. We build optimising query planners to make our databases run faster. We build software that designs antennae so we have better antennae. Nobody wants to build software that doesn't do what they want it to. You know what you call intelligent software that has a goal that doesn't correspond to what we want? Broken and useless. Who wants to build broken and useless software?

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#45

Post by icebraining »

ThomPete wrote: post #20
chubot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. See my top level comment about the "paper clip maximizer". The argument does hinge on strong AI, as far as I can tell.

Not sure I understand what you mean. If humans who don't evolve anywhere even closely at the phase of technology and humans are more and more depending on machines (coinsidence?). If machines keep improving if software keeps improving, if technology become more and more networked then why is it on the doomsayers to prove any more than the trend they are claiming can have consequences that we will have to control or g…

"There will be consequences" is not a prediction, it's a empty statement. Every possible course of actions has consequences. People usually claim more specific things, which is what the author is disagreeing with.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#46

Post by david-given »

Netcob wrote: post #24
chubot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, his argument is "nothing we have built so far (i.e. special purpose AI) leads us to believe that we will build general purpose AI". There is nothing inherently contradictory about a future with ONLY special purpose AI. Technologically speaking, it doesn't really follow that one leads to the other. He is using his credibility as an AI practitioner to state this, although he doesn't go into details. He's saying the…

The problem with that is that having proof and getting overpowered by a superhuman AI might fall within a very short timeframe. The risk (impact*probability) is simply too high to be ignored. We don't know the probability very well, but considering the impact, it doesn't matter that much. I think if the risk is high enough, the burden of proof gets shifted. To just swat it away with a sentence like "Sounds reasonable…

The problem with that is that having proof and getting overpowered by a superhuman AI might fall within a very short timeframe.

To be brutally honest, I don't actually see this as being necessarily a bad thing --- it's not like humans are doing such a great job of running the world. If a hypothetical AI is so much better at it than we are that it can replace us, then don't we deserve to be replaced?

Although I would make sure than anywhere halfway competent AI has the collected works of Iain M. Banks on its reading list.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#47

Post by pjscott »

troels wrote: post #40

One thing I don't see discussed much in these superintelligence/singularity scenarios, is the possibility that there is an upper limit to intelligence. Maybe it simply isn't possible to be much smarter than what we already are. So maybe we build AIG, but even with all its smarts it can't improve beyond - say - Einstein level (or what have you). But surely I ca't be the first to make that suggestion, so who has discus…

Imagine an AI that's exactly as smart as Einstein, but thinks a thousand times faster. Now imagine a thousand of it. This fits easily within your speculations about limits to intelligence, since we know that Einstein-level intelligence can exist; even so it sounds pretty darn capable. I bet that Thousandfold Overclocked Albert could do some pretty impressive stuff.

I find it very plausible that there are limits on intelligence, but those limits are high enough that this should not be very comforting.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#49

Post by elsewhen »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #27

In a data mining / machine learning class I took in university a key point my teacher made was that of the 'No free lunch' theorem. In that class the theorem was offered on its face and I haven't yet read the original paper (just summaries and recounts) ( http://web.archive.org/web/20140111060917/http://engr.case.e... ), but the point of the theorem feels very related to the point the author makes. The thesis boils d…

if our computing systems continue to get significantly more powerful, won't a brute-force system obviate feature engineering? in other words, can't kaggle eventually be outcompeted by an algo-of-algos that iterates through all known approaches and then settles on the ideal candidate?

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#50

Post by zxcvcxz »

This is a little off topic but maybe someone who knows more about this than I do can chime in and give me some links to studies on this:

What is the possibility of creating a biological computational device and are there currently efforts to do so? To me it seems like rather than physically building computers out of processed materials, growing computers in labs might be much more efficient and more powerful. The human brain is an example of this (not lab grown, biological).

Are there any studies that look into harnessing the power of biological computers? I mean, actually tapping into neurological pathways, giving input and receiving output?

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