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Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

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Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#141

Post by zxwx »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #129
zxwx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premises, and your second premise is false besides as others have pointed out — CPUs CANNOT simulate even classical physics exactly, and certainly not quantum physics. But even if such a complete simulation were possible, there’s every reason to assume a CPU would lack the consciousness to experience anything. When you simulate a hurricane does the CPU get wet?

> your second premise is false besides as others have pointed out — CPUs CANNOT simulate even classical physics exactly, and certainly not quantum physics. Both classical and quantum physics can be simulated on a classical computer, to an arbitrary degree of precision. Granted, the case in which infinite precision (if such a thing even exists in reality) is required is not simulatable on a discrete computer, but do a…

Or a more succinct question: why do you think a simulation of consciousness is the same as consciousness? What other simulations of things are identical with the things?

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#142

Post by FartyMcFarter »

zxwx wrote: post #141
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your second premise is false besides as others have pointed out — CPUs CANNOT simulate even classical physics exactly, and certainly not quantum physics. Both classical and quantum physics can be simulated on a classical computer, to an arbitrary degree of precision. Granted, the case in which infinite precision (if such a thing even exists in reality) is required is not simulatable on a discrete computer, but do a…

Or a more succinct question: why do you think a simulation of consciousness is the same as consciousness? What other simulations of things are identical with the things?

I think that a sufficiently accurate simulation of a system exhibits the same emerging properties as the system itself.

For example, if I can perfectly simulate the weather in some simple planet, all possible emerging weather phenomena for that planet (say like clouds, rain etc) will be perfectly replicated in the simulation. Similarly, if we can perfectly simulate a human body, all of the emerging human phenomena will exist in the simulation (muscle movement, nerve impulses, brain patterns resulting in consciousness etc). I don't think consciousness is fundamentally different from other physical phenomena, it's just a particularly complex example.

Another angle to think about: We can't prove that we're not living in a simulation (or can you?). So our consciousness itself might be simulated for all we know. This is not a proof that we are amenable to being simulated, but it means that disproving it is very hard or impossible.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#143

Post by FartyMcFarter »

zxwx wrote: post #140
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your second premise is false besides as others have pointed out — CPUs CANNOT simulate even classical physics exactly, and certainly not quantum physics. Both classical and quantum physics can be simulated on a classical computer, to an arbitrary degree of precision. Granted, the case in which infinite precision (if such a thing even exists in reality) is required is not simulatable on a discrete computer, but do a…

> If we are physical beings, then "consciousness" and anything else we have must be an emergent property of our physical components. If we can simulate those physical components, then this simulation will exhibit the same properties - consciousness and anything else one can attribute to us. Again, a simulation is not the thing. The map is not the territory. If consciousness truly emerges from actual physical processe…

> In a simulation of a brain, from what substrate could consciousness emerge?

Exactly the same substrate as our brains are derived from: physical particles and their interactions, perfectly replicated inside the simulation. If the simulation is accurate enough, the real particles and the simulated particles behave exactly the same, hence they produce the same results.

> Do you think consciousness could emerge automatically from the state of the right subset of locations in RAM

Hard question to answer since consciousness is hard to analyse. But we can turn it around into a question whose answer is the same, with a bit of rephrasing:

Do you think consciousness could emerge automatically from the state of the right subset of particles in our physical world, or is it whenever a relevant particle state are changed due to particles interacting according to the laws of physics, etc etc

> Consider also that physical reality runs in full parallel,

We don't really know this to be the case. It looks like that to us, but that could easily be an illusion created by mechanisms we can't observe. Just as characters in a video game can't observe how their world is simulated - everything is perfectly consistent whether it was calculated in one CPU thread or several.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#144

Post by erikpukinskis »

Jack000 wrote: post #104

The idea that embodiment is necessary for intelligence is just another example of anthropocentrism. It's likely that we will soon have AGI that can solve the protein folding problem, play go at a superhuman level, and create arbitrary images from a text prompt, yet still underperform humans when it comes to proprioception and object manipulation. Humans have evolved specifically for proprioception for billions of yea…

What's "anthro" about bodies? Spiders have bodies. Heck, cars have bodies.

Anyway, I think you're missing the point a little. Sure, we could build a super intelligent agent that lives entirely in the stock market or some disembodied place. And if the stock market were a closed system, that intelligence could (theoretically at least) reign supreme in that realm.

But when people say artificial "general" intelligence, what the "general" means is "for typical Earthly challenges". And there is no way a critter could be good at typical Earthly challenges without... you know... existing on Earth, growing up on Earth, and learning by interacting with Earth. A.k.a having a body.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#145

Post by erikpukinskis »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #19
superb-owl wrote: post #2

This is kind of a weird discussion. "Embodiment" here seems to mean "having a body," i.e. being able to perform motor tasks in the external world (as opposed to the way it's used in "Embodiment and the Inner Life" [1]). In that case, I don't think embodiment could ever be considered a necessary condition for AGI. But AGI would need to be able to learn motor tasks if given a body (in order to be called "general"). A d…

If we are physical beings, and CPUs can simulate physics, then a CPU can experience everything that we experience, including "qualia". Do you think we're metaphysical beings, or that physics are beyond the capacity of a CPU to simulate?

If an AGI has a body in a simulation, it has a body. If such a thing is a necessary condition for general intelligence then the author's hypothesis is correct.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#146

Post by erikpukinskis »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #91
superb-owl wrote: post #2

This is kind of a weird discussion. "Embodiment" here seems to mean "having a body," i.e. being able to perform motor tasks in the external world (as opposed to the way it's used in "Embodiment and the Inner Life" [1]). In that case, I don't think embodiment could ever be considered a necessary condition for AGI. But AGI would need to be able to learn motor tasks if given a body (in order to be called "general"). A d…

It’s all about learning causation. It may not be strictly necessary, but it’s damned useful. If you’ve ever tried to learn causation from observational data or from a randomized trial, you’ll know which one is incredibly easier. If you can’t affect the data, it’s worth a lot less. Like learning to play a game without actually engaging in exploration. It can technically be done, but it’s so much harder.

This is right, people are getting overly hung up on the idea that an AGI needs fingernails.

It doesn't need fingernails but it absolutely needs the ability to effect change in the world it is meant to be "intelligent about" and learn from the results.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#147

Post by erikpukinskis »

Isinlor wrote: post #14
superb-owl wrote: post #2

This is kind of a weird discussion. "Embodiment" here seems to mean "having a body," i.e. being able to perform motor tasks in the external world (as opposed to the way it's used in "Embodiment and the Inner Life" [1]). In that case, I don't think embodiment could ever be considered a necessary condition for AGI. But AGI would need to be able to learn motor tasks if given a body (in order to be called "general"). A d…

It's impossible to not be embodied. Controlling CPU and other hardware like motherboard and computer screen is an embodiment. Why would moving physical objects like electrons by micro meters not be good enough, but by meters it would?

You are technically correct, but there is an implied locus when people say something is "intelligence".

The ghosts in Super Mario World are "intelligent" and "embodied" in Super Mario World, but they are not "embodied" on Earth and thus cannot be "intelligent" there.

The "G" in AGI implies intelligence on Earth, not in a video game.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#148

Post by erikpukinskis »

romanows wrote: post #3

Sure, if you define AGI as needing to be able to perform all physical tasks that a physically median-or-better adult human could perform, maybe it needs to be embodied essentially by definition. I don't think the physical aspect is implied by "artificial" or "intelligence", and I would argue not by "general" either seeing as how it's modifying "intelligence". Also, think about humans who cannot accomplish physical ta…

OK, so the AGI doesn't need to be intelligent about anything physical...

What does that leave? What is it intelligent about?

> think about humans who cannot accomplish physical tasks of this standard. Babies

Babies aren't intelligent, and without bodies they can never become intelligent. A baby who is fully paralyzed (disembodied) can't even learn to see or hear let alone operate intelligently in the world.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#149

Post by [deleted] »

w01fe wrote: post #8

I think this ignores the fact that an agent can be meaningfully embodied in the internet, using APIs for sensors and actuators. OpenAI's training of large language models with reinforcement learning, recent retrieval augmented models and "chain of thought" reasoning are all meaningful steps in this direction in my opinion.

[deleted]

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#150

Post by kleer001 »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #58
kleer001 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the distance is so unfathomably large than any AGI going that far would be bored to death.

Why would they not set an alarm and go to sleep while travelling?

probably the same reason that most people don't want to live in a generation ship
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