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John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

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Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#221
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe gravity makes things fall down, sure, but maybe there are tiny kobolds in the spaces between all particles with little clipboards that calculate the correct motion and cast spells to move them. I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I honestly tried and could not find bedrock. Can you name (or even just think) something that doesn't rest on something else or an assumption? I honestly can't. I'm not sure how a "…

> Can you try to describe how you'd "drill down" on informal speech to transform it into such a system? As I said, just keep asking "why?" or "what does that mean?", then repeat that with the answer. Sooner or later you hit an assumption and a shrug. I wouldn't understand Gödel's proof even if I tried to, I'm sure -- it "rings true" because it matches my own intellectual observations regardless where I turn. > As lon…

>> Can you try to describe how you'd "drill down" on informal speech to transform it into such a system?

> As I said, just keep asking "why?" or "what does that mean?", then repeat that with the answer. Sooner or later you hit an assumption and a shrug.

I still don't understand your assumption. Do you think that any axiomatic system is a formal axiomatic theory? As I've said before, this term is well-defined, and I don't see how you could "drill down" on natural language to arrive at such a system. There are many axiomatic systems that are not formal axiomatic theories, and Gödels proof doesn't apply to those.

> I wouldn't understand Gödel's proof even if I tried to, I'm sure -- it "rings true" because it matches my own intellectual observations regardless where I turn.

This is why I've been asking about how you'd bridge the gap between Gödels proof and your assumption, because Gödels proof applies strictly to one thing, and you seem to apply it to everything, even if it doesn't meet the requirements of the proof. But I guess you're arguing from a philosophical standpoint, not a logical one.

Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#222
post #76
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “solution” that isn’t viable nor palatable isn’t a true solution; it is often merely a hope that people are not people.

Viability is a given. But palatability? That's like giving up and saying there are no solutions to hard problems.

I take your point. Palatability can change.

> That's like giving up and saying there are no solutions to hard problems.

Not at all. I'm simply defining a solution as one that has some probability of traction.

Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#223
post #59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A “solution” that isn’t viable nor palatable isn’t a true solution; it is often merely a hope that people are not people.

You’re presupposing every problem has a nice solution. This is almost certainly false

> You’re presupposing every problem has a nice solution.

Not at all. Where are you getting that?

Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#224
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re presupposing every problem has a nice solution. This is almost certainly false

Any solution is a nice solution depending on your frame of reference. There is no such thing as objectively good or bad without defining the acceptable and unacceptable effects.

I take your point but...

1. There are a set of things that are nearly objectively true across nearly all cultures. For example, random killing for selfish purposes is not ok.

2. I'm not a moral relativist, in two senses. First, the "weak" sense: I would prefer to live in some moral systems more than others. Second, in "nearly-strong" sense: some moral systems are 'nearly' objectively better than others (see point above). (Note: my definitions are imprecise; still working on how to square them with existing philosophical writings.)

3. Even for people that evaluate the morality of something according to its effects (consequentialists), there is considerable room to debate the relevant time frame.

Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#225
post #212
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see us walking into a situation where we make a robot that has motor functions, but we don't give it the equivalent of nerves and nerve endings so and so it doesn't feel pain. That would definitely warp a human's development. But then, is it ethical to build in pain receptors? Feels like we're brushing up against the territory of gods.

What would pain receptors be in a robot? I ask this as I think the ethical dilemma should more about implementing suffering as a long term damaging effect of a stimuli. When I think about pain I see it as a level that triggers a need to change something. Our brains are perceiving this level in a very uncomfortable way so we call this pain. So I really think that without consciousness we cannot implement pain or suffe…

> So I really think that without consciousness we cannot implement pain or suffering as we humans perceive it.

Perhaps, but I guess it would depend on your definition of consciousness. We do not extend that definition to most animals and yet they definitely feel pain.

You're right, the "feeling" of pain is ephemeral and hard to translate to a computer program. It would probably take a while doing potentially nasty experiments (to both man and machine) to nail it down.

Re: John Carmack and Rich Sutton partner to accelerate development of AGI

#226
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re vastly oversimplifying humans. That’s like saying a physics simulation is basically an entire sub universe on your computer. It sounds true, but it’s just not. It’s a gross oversimplification I think Gödel had a proof for how it’s impossible to fully describe a system from within that system. That’s the nail in the coffin for AGI. No matter how much data we give it, no matter how big it is, it’ll never be “hum…

Nature managed to bootstrap human intelligence even though nature is not even a conscious entity, let alone a conscious entity that can describe loss functions and datasets. That seems to me like pretty solid evidence that those things are not hard requirements for creating human-level intelligence. It sounds like maybe you're arguing that humans will never be able to conclusively determine if an artificial intellige…

Maybe? But the way AI is made nowadays is by using a human made metric to determine the quality and/or correctness of a model’s output.

Because we’re unable to make a perfect, totally correct metric, I find it unlikely that any of the current generation of AI will get anywhere near human level.

Again, not that these new models aren’t extremely useful or impressive, but not really “intelligent” as a human is.

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