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Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

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Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#181

Post by _andromeda_ »

wildmusings wrote: post #178
pashariger wrote: post #62

I don't know about you, but I'm very thankful that we have a president that can understand and intelligently talk about these issues (rather than thinking it's all just black magic).

This is just hollow legacy-chasing. Just like how he crippled the space program during his 8 years in office, only to discover a passion for it in the last few days.

I agree 100% with the hollow legacy-chasing you're talking about. Please do elaborate more on how he's crippled the space program. If you were to ask me, I'd recommend not having government involvement in such things anyway.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#182

Post by dwaltrip »

golergka wrote: post #131
dwaltrip wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your successful web business would be a very small event at the end of an innumerably long causal chain involving billions of humans and tens of thousands of years [1]. Can you name every event that would have enabled you to be ready to create the business, and all aspects of the world that would allow for its success? It's impossible. This is why we have to give back. [1] We could obviously go back further, but it b…

> This is why we have to give back. OK, so how do you determine where "back" is? Why is "back" in pockets of people being laid off and not on an altar of Cthulhu? By your logic, we never would be able to know the reason anyway, so giving to the Dark One seems to be just as reasonable.

Humans don't naturally have any empathy for Cthulhu, and science leads us to believe there is no such thing. Thus, I doubt most people would find that very reasonable.

Determining where, how, and to what extent is a much harder question. I don't have any easy answers there.

At the very least, recognizing how the indifferent hand of fortune plays an immense role in all of our lives nudges suggests that helping those who have less is a great place to start.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#183

Post by miles7 »

gefh wrote: post #38

I wish people would stop bringing up the trolley problem as somehow relevant to self driving cars. In any situation,a car is going to brake as hard as possible while maintaining control, and only serve if there's no way to stop and a clear space. Other than that, a good enough interview that I can't see taking place again next presidential term.

Why are we holding computers to such higher standards than we hold ourselves? I wouldn't know what to do in the trolley situation either but I can still get a driver's license.

As long as the computer makes a decision where we can say "that was very reasonable, even if better decisions existed" then it seems ok to me.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#184

Post by ap22213 »

wildmusings wrote: post #175
ap22213 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many forget that 8 years ago Obama was highly criticized for being a 'technocrat' and populating his cabinet with 'technologist' outsiders. Leaders don't always have to understand the tactical details that are required for executing their strategy. Obama led as a technologist from day one.

Except that's not what happened. There was a lot of speculation that it would, but then he appointed a bunch of politicians to the cabinet, as is tradition.

I agree. But, I'd also argue that if he hadn't had the ongoing wars, recession, and hostile congress to deal with then lots would have happened.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#186

Post by golergka »

dwaltrip wrote: post #182
golergka wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why we have to give back. OK, so how do you determine where "back" is? Why is "back" in pockets of people being laid off and not on an altar of Cthulhu? By your logic, we never would be able to know the reason anyway, so giving to the Dark One seems to be just as reasonable.

Humans don't naturally have any empathy for Cthulhu, and science leads us to believe there is no such thing. Thus, I doubt most people would find that very reasonable. Determining where, how, and to what extent is a much harder question. I don't have any easy answers there. At the very least, recognizing how the indifferent hand of fortune plays an immense role in all of our lives nudges suggests that helping those w…

Helping unfortunates is a great thing indeed. But the original idea was different: it was about "giving back". Can you spot the difference?

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#187

Post by mr_spothawk »

downandout wrote: post #179
alvaromuir wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Downandout, because as president He single-handedly did that. You do realize his political opposition LOVES that stuff, right?

Actually, yes, he did single-handedly do that. The authorization came straight from Obama, and then when it came to light, he basically didn't even bother apologizing. He lied to his base about being against this kind of thing, and then went and did exactly what he wanted to do.

he was pretty clear about his views that power corrupts, that he would expand mil presence in Afghanistan, and that he believed in a living constitution.

some people voted for him for those reasons, presumably others voted for his opponent(s?).

sometimes i just feel like the punchline to all of this will be something like: "it's the patriarchy, stupid"

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#188

Post by mr_spothawk »

andirk wrote: post #72
asimuvPR wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a real risk related to goal oriented AI. It does not need to feel or dream. Merely having survival as its goal is sufficient to make it dangerous to other life forms. Worse is that it can happen at any time (it may have happened already). Given the computing power, tools, and availability of knowledge we can assume that it can be done outside of a controlled lab environment by a non-scientist.

Huge point you make that it can be done by non-scientists now. Now we can all play with fire. That much power in idle hands controlled by mediocre minds is like everyone being magical.

"mediocre minds"?

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#189

Post by mslkmdf »

pashariger wrote: post #62

I don't know about you, but I'm very thankful that we have a president that can understand and intelligently talk about these issues (rather than thinking it's all just black magic).

Why are you thankful for that? Does he add anything useful? Does his talking about these imply anything about his work as a president?

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#190

Post by zardo »

ewjordan wrote: post #101
Houshalter wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what is about to happen. Deep learning has the potential to do robot control. Currently researchers are beating tons of video games using reinforcement learning with deep networks. Applying the same methods to robots shouldn't be too hard. And we've also come a long way with machine vision as well over the past 5 years.

I'm as bullish on AGI as anyone in the medium term, but deep learning is not even playing the same game as AGI, let alone in the same ballpark or having the potential to achieve it. Deep learning is still mere perception. It doesn't handle memory or processing, it just transforms input into output, typically trained by Big Data, way bigger than necessary statistically speaking, given the world we live in. AGI require…

>Deep learning is still mere perception. It doesn't handle memory or processing,

There's more going on than convolutional neural nets. Architectures with memory and attention mechanisms do exist.

As examples: https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.03134 https://deepmind.com/blog/differentiable-neural-computers/

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