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Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

nature.com

271–280 of 403 posts

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#271
post #256

Here is, to me, the relevant line: "Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. One of Dreyfus’ main arguments was that human knowledge is partly tacit, and therefore cannot be articulated and incorporated in a computer program. " I have not read the rest of the article but in the introduction it's stated: "The article furt…

The author of the article specifically says this: I have earlier said that neural networks need not be programmed, and therefore can handle tacit knowledge. Also you are misunderstanding what tacit means. It doesn't mean anything mystical - merely that it is gained from observations rather than logically reasoning about something.

You might be right but I'm not inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt. From the abstract, the author clearly says:

"The article further argues that ... computers are not in the world."

The specific quote you mention is in a larger paragraph which says:

"Computers are not in our world. I have earlier said that neural networks need not be programmed, and therefore can handle tacit knowledge. However, it is simply not true, as some of the advocates of Big Data argue, that the data “speak for themselves”. Normally, the data used are related to one or more models, they are selected by humans, and in the end they consist of numbers."

My reading of this is that "tacit" is used as a kind of dog whistle to dualists. It's ambiguous enough so that the author can claim they meant "learned" while still suggesting an underlying dualism.

Regardless of the meaning of "tacit" in this context, the author pretty much flat out says they're a dualist by repeatedly claiming "computers are not in our world" and "in the end they consist of numbers".

I think you're giving the author too much credibility that they aren't making a plea to mysticism.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#272
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I don’t understand your point, but our senses are also compressed to some extent. Your synapses fire or don’t fire, providing digitized input for some of your senses like hearing. At any point there is a discrete amount of hormones in your body. etc etc. That doesn’t seem categorically different from any man made sensor.

Our sensorium could be indistinguishable from how it'd be in a simulation without impacting my point. Software can hop from host to host (all Turing machines can simulate each other) but living intelligence is embodied. Because of this, no matter how "smart" computers get, we can't trust them not to do stupid stuff. They are smart like that kid in high school who comes up with a formula to turn the world into silly p…

> They are smart like that kid in high school who comes up with a formula to turn the world into silly putty, and is stupid enough to use it.

So that kid isn't intelligent?

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#273
Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... which seems to imply that paraplegics are inhibited from intelligent thought. Taking that further - are we not capable of intelligent thought during dreams? Fjelland goes on to argue that with no way to fully interact with the world computers are barred from intelligence. Firstly there’s no reason for us to believe that computers will stop broadening the methods by which they connect to, measure, and actuate the world around them. Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#274

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

> Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world.

I'm not sure about that. A person locked in a room with a radio would probably go crazy or recess into some primitive mental state. Also, the article specifically claims that General Intelligence has this requirement of embodiment, not just intelligence as you imply.

However I agree with your first conclusion that AI will eventually include bodies and it won't take long to integrate software intelligence and embodied intelligence to get something greater that could resemble AGI.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#275
post #274

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

> Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world. I'm not sure about that. A person locked in a room with a radio would probably go crazy or recess into some primitive mental state. Also, the article specifically claims that General Intelligence has this requirement of embodim…

Even if I agree that he would “probably” go crazy, I just need more than 0 of my millions of AGI candidates to successfully navigate the perils of their relative sensory deprivation in order to have achieved AGI.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#277

Here is, to me, the relevant line: "Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. One of Dreyfus’ main arguments was that human knowledge is partly tacit, and therefore cannot be articulated and incorporated in a computer program. " I have not read the rest of the article but in the introduction it's stated: "The article furt…

Yes, completely agree and was thinking along these lines as I read. I'm really interested in a good argument against AGI. Turing had the right intuition in thinking that if our brains are processing information then they can be simulated by a Turing machine. Everything points to our brains doing information processing at all levels.

The article still has a point about general intelligence without a body, but I think this can be solved by developing robotics and AI together, and I've seen some research in this area (I think Japan).

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#278

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

“Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world.”

Strongly disagree. If that was all he experienced in his life, the brain would not host a mind we would recognize as a healthy human.

A human is not a computer. A human life is not decomposable to purely language. This is not a ‘spiritual’ statement, it’s merely an observation that the mind takes in input and processes it far beyond in ways which we are able to describe in terms of language. Any modern terminology, at least. The mind needs experiences.

On lack of human contact: they’ve tried this in orphanages. Babies that don’t get human attention generally wither and die.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#279
post #274

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

> Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world. I'm not sure about that. A person locked in a room with a radio would probably go crazy or recess into some primitive mental state. Also, the article specifically claims that General Intelligence has this requirement of embodim…

> that AI will eventually include bodies and it won't take long to integrate software intelligence and embodied intelligence to get something greater that could resemble AGI.

Probably but there will be at least two really difficult challenges:

- the hardware part (building the actual body) is far from easy, and still out of reach as of today.

- the “intelligence” needed to control a “body” is super super hard too. Having children gives you some insight on the relative difficulty of problems. Facial/object recognition is learned in months, body control requires years to learn. And we're talking about fundamental problems for living animals, so you'd guess it's been pretty well optimized by natural selection.

Re: Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

#280

Given the epic title I was pretty unimpressed by this line of thinking. The argument seems to rely on (among other things) certain presumed implications of “Computers not inhabiting the world” - a comical line of reasoning that cites a lack of a childhood among other absurd reasons for why computers can’t be intelligent. The author assumes that intelligence can only be derived from experiencing the world in full... w…

> Secondly it seems plausible that a person locked in a room with a radio to communicate with the outside world would eventually acquire intelligence without ever fully experiencing the world.

Without fully experiencing the outside world, such an agent will still have gaps in intelligence. Knowing the specific wavelength of the color red (564–580 nm), and how the optic nerve processes color is different than the experience of seeing a red flower in the world for the first time.

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