Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#51

Post by david-given » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:00 PM UTC

mbillie1 wrote: post #25

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…

> But if we make machines that are smarter than us and have desires It is a hypothesis that human desires - the conscious processes involved in thinking "I want such-and-such" - influence human behavior. Consciousness is not whatsoever a solved problem, and it may be that we are just complex, deterministic automatons whose consciousness and desires are caused by our behavior (like the steam produced by an engine), ra…

Just as an example of what you're saying: a few posts up the index, there was an article on intelligence and language in dolphins.

Dolphins are practically our cousins --- they're social mammals living in much the same world we do, and a lot of their behaviour maps directly onto ours. But they're so alien to us that we're still arguing about whether they are intelligent, low alone how much.

If we can't even communicate effectively with them, what chance have we with a machine intelligence with which we have nothing whatsoever in common, not even time and space?

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#52

Post by pmichaud » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

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…

I think the reason it's not discussed is that if there is a bound, it's far outside of human-scale intelligence. Even from my limited human vantage point I can see virtually limitless ways to improve my own intelligence. Perception improvements, speed improvements, rationality, strategy, physical skills, etc. A being with all the improvements I can specifically think of would be a demigod. Presumably that demigod could build a god, but even if not, a demigod would be a formidable superintelligence.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#53

Post by Balgair » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

foobarqux wrote: post #21

It becomes much easier to understand the AGI threat if you consider whole brain emulations -- human minds running at superhuman speed on silicon. Hollywood has made it obvious, if it wasn't already, the serious implications of that type of development. Whole brain emulations also make it clear that the issue has nothing at all to do with human values: a human superintelligence would be a catastrophic risk to humanity…

Whole Brain Emulation is far off, even putting in moore's law, because we still are far off from understanding the brain. Yes, optogenetics and the connectome are going to bring us a long way there, but at the end, we have to understand that the brain is far to plastic to really know at any time point what is going on.

Experiments with macaque motor cortex (M1) provide a great example. When you cut off a finger or toe and record from M1 at the same time, you can watch the synapses change in real time. The remapping of M1 in the monkey starts the second that the nerves are severed. This remapping is poorly understood as it stands. Typically, the brain will allow innervation of the areas the control the other digits into the now useless area where the missing digit is. Even more interesting is when a pair of monkeys were stolen by anti-vivisectionists (The silver spring incident, I think [0]). When returned, the monkey's M1 had totally remapped from it's original state. Hippocampal neurogenesis [1] is also very poorly understood as it is today. Why our brains make new neurons and mostly for the more short-term memory centers in the hippocampus is a mystery.

What I am getting at is that we do not understand our own intelligence from the standpoint of it's mechanics enough to emulate a brain near at all. It is a looooooong ways off. To truly emulate it, you have to know that it is a moving target, and therefore any emulation is a moving one as well. One that has to live in a body that you emulate in a world that impinges on it. Trying to take the mind out of the body is impossible as well as trying to take both then out of the world. The results would have no meaning.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Spring_monkeys

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#54

Post by xamuel » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

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…

Even if that's the case, quantity wins where quality fails. Imagine what you could do if you had so many clones of yourself that you could monitor every website, every forum, every person logged on IRC, 24 hours a day, giving each one of them your complete undivided attention.

(Not that I'm taking an anti-AI stance. Machines do what we program them to do, that's a tautology. If there is risk, it's from user error / intentional terrorist action / AI upsetting distribution of wealth, not from some kind of magic skynet event)

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#55

Post by frostmatthew » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #43

[deleted] wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 th…

Ah, seems I misunderstood your parenthetical and responded thinking you felt Gates et al were "inside" (I should have followed the link for that bullet before commenting as I just assumed it was to Gates' argument).

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#56

Post by pmichaud » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

david-given wrote: post #46

Netcob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The premise of human being replaced is all well and good, but it seems like you're assuming the superintelligence will do a better job. A paperclip maximizer may be able to deconstruct us on a molecular level, but that's not a thing for our light cone.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#57

Post by pjscott » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

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…

Where would you categorize human minds in your taxonomy of learning algorithms?

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#58

Post by logicallee » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:22 PM UTC

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…

>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 have goals that correspond to what we want.

The first part of this sentence is true and interesting, but it makes the second half not very scary. Essentially, since we don't know what if anything, we want morally, what is the danger in letting AI's do whatever? Don't you think if they did do something we objected to, we could respond at that point?

It's like law isn't it - lots of areas of humanity aren't governed by law at all. You can watch someone prepare themselves a godawful sandwich with things nobody would put on the same plate, or write a meandering book that is a horrific read, or wear crocks with a suit, and you can't sue them for any of this, there just aren't any laws at all on these subjects. But they're not really problems on a social level either - laws are created when things become a problem.

So, likewise, where is the huge social problem with AI's? Nowhere. So, why worry? surely it's not like any horrific AI can happen in 8 hours, so that the entire rest of humanity (much of which is completely segregated from any one network, etc) can't possibly respond. Today, AI has no autonomy or control over anything, whereas 7 billion people are organized in societies and oversee millions of dumb computer systems that do whatever people instruct - this is not going to suddenly turn around in a matter of hours, and since, as you state, we have no definitive terminal preferences, I don't see the danger in letting AI control things we don't care about.

I suppose this could be different if AI controlled a lot already, but it's just not the case.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#59

Post by leot » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #37

leot wrote: post #10

It seems most people who take a position against the feasibility of machine superintelligence are basically making an argument-from-lack-of-imagination: "I can't think up a plausible way that bad things could happen, therefore bad things won't happen." This is then backed up by an argument-from-authority: "And I've been in this field for X decades, so you should trust my ability to imagine this kind of thing." We hav…

I completely agree with your points. It's strange to me to think as humans we will remain at the top of the food chain forever. As such, it would seem a fault of our genetic makeup thinking nothing would capable of knocking us off that top rung of the evolutionary ladder. It's like we can't fathom building something that would undermine our own existence, or downplay the notion that AI would have some sort of bad int…

"Bad intentions" aren't even necessary -- out of control AGI will probably look more like "oops, I hit >rm -rf /".

AFAIK, nearly every piece of software ever deployed has had bugs that humans have had to subsequently patch. AGI must not, even though it would probably be much easier to build it if it did.

Re: Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

#60

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Apr 19, 2015, 7:25 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #45

ThomPete wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wasn't trying to make a prediction and that wasn't what I was saying or the gist of my argument. The important part is the trend.

you are welcome to believe it can't end badly, I don't. In fact looking at millions of years of evolution I see nothing whatsoever that would make humans sacred from being outcompeted.