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The Artificial Intelligentsia

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Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#31

Post by ben_w »

pron wrote: post #10
ghostcluster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't present an honest understanding of his own field, or the field of neuroscience, or the ongoing developments in the technology surrounding his own business, or its implications. Even without extrapolating from the pattern recognition tools we have today, whole classes and ranges of jobs can be fully or partially eliminated. Here is what he says about the state of AI: > Even the most eye-catching successes c…

> He doesn't present an honest understanding of his own field, or the field of neuroscience, or the ongoing developments in the technology surrounding his own business, or its implications. Yes, but I don't think you are, either. The fact is that chess and Go abilities aside, we are probably not even close to insect-level intelligence, and we don't have a clear path of getting there soon -- let-alone anything human-l…

The Blue Brain project managed something “as big and complex as half of a mouse brain” in 2007, so I think your claims of not-even-insect-level are outdated.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#32

Post by adrianN »

goatlover wrote: post #4
ghostcluster wrote: post #3

I found the author to be slightly irritating on several occasions, dropping veiled references to Valleywag-style anti Silicon Valley memes, and then I got to the part where he regurgitates that idiotic article about the brain not processing information, and there being something magical about human brains that cannot be simulated [0]. He is right about his claim of having no right to be called a “director of research…

> idiotic article about the brain not processing information How about the brain creates information from constant interaction with the world based on the kinds of bodies we have and our needs/wants? This information doesn't exist as information until the brain creates it. Information is the product of minds. It doesn't exist in the world on it's own to be processed. As such, the brain is something other than a compu…

Computers interact with the world too. I'm looking at a screen that produces patterns of light based on the internal state of my computer. How is this different from a brain interacting with the world? The brain is a finitely sized hunk of matter and matter seems to follow laws. We currently have no reason to assume that those laws can't be simulated by sufficiently sized computer, so anything observable the brain does a computer can do too.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#33

Post by adrianN »

ben_w wrote: post #31
pron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He doesn't present an honest understanding of his own field, or the field of neuroscience, or the ongoing developments in the technology surrounding his own business, or its implications. Yes, but I don't think you are, either. The fact is that chess and Go abilities aside, we are probably not even close to insect-level intelligence, and we don't have a clear path of getting there soon -- let-alone anything human-l…

The Blue Brain project managed something “as big and complex as half of a mouse brain” in 2007, so I think your claims of not-even-insect-level are outdated.

The OpenWorm project doesn't even manage a worm though.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#34

Post by adrianN »

saas_co_de wrote: post #8
ghostcluster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't present an honest understanding of his own field, or the field of neuroscience, or the ongoing developments in the technology surrounding his own business, or its implications. Even without extrapolating from the pattern recognition tools we have today, whole classes and ranges of jobs can be fully or partially eliminated. Here is what he says about the state of AI: > Even the most eye-catching successes c…

AlphaGo is impressive, but it is an impressive parlor trick not impressive as 'artificial intelligence' Playing a game with fixed rules and a finite set of potential states is something a computer can do. Designing the computer that does that is intelligent. There is no connection between the two and one does not lead to the other. The fact that some of the people developing 'artificial intelligence' have such a limi…

I'm looking forward to the day when we have a computer that passes the Turing test but comments like yours still show up.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#35

Post by maxxxxx »

sullyj3 wrote: post #28
dsacco wrote: post #17

Offtopic, but I have a really difficult time reading articles like this. I don’t know if this reflects a problem with the style or my ability to focus, but I find it really annoying: > “SANDHOGS,” THEY CALLED THE LABORERS who built the tunnels leading into New York’s Penn Station at the beginning of the last century. Work distorted their humanity, sometimes literally. Resurfacing at the end of each day from their bur…

The next sentence afterwards is a monstrosity: "But, I explained to my work colleagues as the Princeton local pulled out from platform eight and late-arriving passengers swished up through the carriages in search of empty seats, both the original Penn Station and its unlovely modern spawn were seen at their creation as great feats of engineering." I had to highlight between the commas to get through that one.

It seems growing up with German is a great preparation for such sentences :)

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#36

Post by modzu »

dsacco wrote: post #23
bamboozled wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people enjoy writing and some people enjoy reading. It need not be "to the point" all of the time.

I should clarify: I don't mind "unfocused" writing like this. I can definitely appreciate a creative take on exposition. But I think the introduction of an article is not the most appropriate place to do it. An upfront paragraph - even a few sentences - explaining what is happening would basically resolve this for me.

would you expect the same of a novel? why not similarly temper your expectation given the source; some pieces are simply more literary. (nb. im only speaking generally because i havent read the article). and hey at least we have the comments of hn to scan for the tldr :)

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#37

Post by gbacon »

adrianN wrote: post #34
saas_co_de wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AlphaGo is impressive, but it is an impressive parlor trick not impressive as 'artificial intelligence' Playing a game with fixed rules and a finite set of potential states is something a computer can do. Designing the computer that does that is intelligent. There is no connection between the two and one does not lead to the other. The fact that some of the people developing 'artificial intelligence' have such a limi…

I'm looking forward to the day when we have a computer that passes the Turing test but comments like yours still show up.

Scott Aaronson: “So this is about the state of the art in terms of man-machine repartee. It seems one actually needs to revise the Turing Test to say that if we want to verify intelligence in a computer, then we need some minimal level of intelligence in the human interrogator.”

https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec4.html

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#38

Post by fckedml »

By this rate, looks like we need a "Fucked AI", in the style of "fuckedcompany.com". [1]

These people were eating VC hype money to build Hagbard's FUCKUP from the Illuminatus! Trilogy. [2]

Not sure who I feel more sorry for. The smart employees wasting years of their prime chasing some unattainable pipe dream, the VC's who got suckered into pouring their money into some vaporware precog technology, the author trying to disguise a shit river with meandering prose, or my upcoming pay cut when the AI winter sets in.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company

[2] First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic-Ultramicro-Programmer (FUCKUP). FUCKUP predicts trends by collecting and processing information about current developments in politics, economics, the weather, astrology, astronomy, the I-Ching, and technology.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#39

Post by Retra »

modzu wrote: post #36
dsacco wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should clarify: I don't mind "unfocused" writing like this. I can definitely appreciate a creative take on exposition. But I think the introduction of an article is not the most appropriate place to do it. An upfront paragraph - even a few sentences - explaining what is happening would basically resolve this for me.

would you expect the same of a novel? why not similarly temper your expectation given the source; some pieces are simply more literary. (nb. im only speaking generally because i havent read the article). and hey at least we have the comments of hn to scan for the tldr :)

Most novels come with a back cover blurb that tells you what the book is about. And I don't know many people who read novels without first reading the cover.

Re: The Artificial Intelligentsia

#40

Post by ben_w »

adrianN wrote: post #33
ben_w wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Blue Brain project managed something “as big and complex as half of a mouse brain” in 2007, so I think your claims of not-even-insect-level are outdated.

The OpenWorm project doesn't even manage a worm though.

So? OpenWorm is (barely) crowd-funded and trying to simulate the entire body not just the brain. Seems like a decent effort given their resources, but on a scale of Radioactive Boy Scout to Manhattan Project they’re a Farnsworth Fusor.

(Which is to say “I ought to volunteer”).

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