Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
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Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
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Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#2[dead]
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#3> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far
surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever.
That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the concept is relegated to sci-fi. Even though we're already seeing signs of things we have working towards this. Interesting to see that in the past "Man" was more optimistic :)
> It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make, since it will lead to an “intelligence explosion.”
Well, that didn't happen.
> The first ultraintelligent machine will need to be ultraparallel, and is likely to be achieved with the help of a very large artificial neural net.
Right on, that we have.
> The required high degree of connectivity might be attained with the help of microminiature radio transmitters and receivers.
Hahaha, this is straight out of 60s-70s sci-fi, where their best futuristic interfaces were smaller CRT screens / flashy keys, etc.
> The first ultraintelligent machine will be educated partly by means of positive and negative reinforcement. The task of education will be eased if the machine is somewhat of a robot, sinae the activity of a robot is concrete. [...] the machine will be able to lem from experience, by means of positive and negative reinforcement, and the instruction of the machine will resemble that of a child.
Heh, nice early insights. They missed the how, but RL is the thing that ultimately made it "click" and be useful. And there is increasing talk about embodiment and how that'll help the next iteration of models. So there's that.
Overall a cool read. I skipped most of the middle part, only skimming for things here and there.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#4> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
> “intelligence explosion”
> Well, that didn't happen.
Not only that, but in my cynical eyes the proliferation of LLMs has triggered a stupidity explosion. Either that, or it just made it blatantly obvious by how much stupidity we have been surrounded the whole time without realizing it. No other development demonstrated so clearly that the dark ages where we believed in sorcery and miracles have never really ended.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#5> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
> Well, that didn't happen.
The military had stealth aircraft in the 70's. I'll bet they had LLM or better in the 80's and the tech we have now is the consumer-grade version they seeded into industry in the 2020's.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#6> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
> Well, that didn't happen. The military had stealth aircraft in the 70's. I'll bet they had LLM or better in the 80's and the tech we have now is the consumer-grade version they seeded into industry in the 2020's.
the same military is using computers with Windows and Xbox controllers
and got upset when Anthropic didn't want to let them use their LLM
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#7> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
>> It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make, since it will lead to an “intelligence explosion.”
> Well, that didn't happen.
Predictions are not false because their claims are not in the past yet. That bar would make all predictions wrong.
The faster things happen, the higher the speed-of-progress expectation bar gets raised. This is how objectively compounding progress gets interpreted subjectively as linear, or even as a stall. Despite the dramatically increased rate of progress compared to the context of decades or centuries of speculations about cognitive machines.
Models being used to write a lot of the code for new models is a strong suggestion of compounding capability. With new models achieving higher scores. Not proof, but a high bar for evidence that we may be in that explosion now.
The fact that models trained to match SOTA model behavior (i.e. distillation), now learn much faster and more cheaply, than models trained on human behavior, is also strong evidence that capabilities are compounding.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#8> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
> “intelligence explosion” > Well, that didn't happen. Not only that, but in my cynical eyes the proliferation of LLMs has triggered a stupidity explosion. Either that, or it just made it blatantly obvious by how much stupidity we have been surrounded the whole time without realizing it. No other development demonstrated so clearly that the dark ages where we believed in sorcery and miracles have never really ended.
When I read this, there was a comment right below yours saying that they bet the military had LLMs in the 1980s. Consider your point proved.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, that didn't happen. The military had stealth aircraft in the 70's. I'll bet they had LLM or better in the 80's and the tech we have now is the consumer-grade version they seeded into industry in the 2020's.
the same military is using computers with Windows and Xbox controllers and got upset when Anthropic didn't want to let them use their LLM
While I think GP comment was a bit looney, the first sentence is a fairly weak counterargument. Xbox controllers especially are used specifically for familiarity purposes. The US military can and does produce significantly more advanced control planes, but they aren't necessary for all purposes and if something is simple enough it's easier to not have to train people on something new. Likewise creating an own general-purpose OS would require significant time into training people how to use it.
Re: Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965) [pdf]
#10> Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. That's a pretty early definition of what we now call ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). In the next paragraph the author goes to describe what we today call the "singularity" (ASI designing better ASI). But that term seems to be associated to some very weird communities, so the c…
> “intelligence explosion” > Well, that didn't happen. Not only that, but in my cynical eyes the proliferation of LLMs has triggered a stupidity explosion. Either that, or it just made it blatantly obvious by how much stupidity we have been surrounded the whole time without realizing it. No other development demonstrated so clearly that the dark ages where we believed in sorcery and miracles have never really ended.
I think it is exposing how weakly people grasp communications. The amount of implied everything in most people's communications is extremely high, and those same people do not understand they are using implied information that a non-human construct really struggles to figure out what the human is talking about. I help a lot of non-technical people use AI, and asking them not to imply and to explain what they mean... many cannot parse, the implied version is all they have ever held in their head, and my telling them that they are using implied information confuses them, they don't know or never realized the full meaning of their usage of language.