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DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

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Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#301

Post by PoignardAzur »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #279
kromem wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, AGI seems to be the sole deus ex machina that can avert the inevitable tragedy we're on track for as a result of existing human misalignment. "Oh no, robots are going to try to kill us all" has to get in line behind "oh no, tyrants for life who are literally losing their minds are trying to measure dicks with nukes" and "oh no, oil companies are burning excess oil to mine Bitcoin as we approach climate c…

No matter how smart an AI gets it does not have the "proliferation instinct" that would make it want to enslave humans. It does not have the concept of "specism" of it having more value than anybody else. AI does not see the value in being alive. It is like some humans sadly commit suicide. But a machine wouldn't care. It will be "happy" to do its thing until somebody cuts off the power. And it does not even care whe…

> It's all the same to it, whether it lives or dies. Why? Perhaps because it knows it can always be resurrected.

I disagree with a lot of what you said, but this part in particular is some strong anthropomorphizing of AI.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#302

Post by brador »

ben_w wrote: post #299
brador wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tasks are assigned, Goals are desired. It is not simply semantics.

Your left is my right, and with you definition “get laid” is a task from the point of view of evolution and a goal from the point of view of an organism. It’s in much the same vein that it doesn’t matter if submarines “swim”, they still move through water under their own power; and it doesn’t matter if your definition of “sound” is the subjective experience or the pressure waves, a tree falling in a forest with nobod…

Tasks are assigned, Goals are desired.

These definitions and their distinction are particular and important in AI. The mistaken usage of these terms by machine learning experts does not change their global definition.

> Your left is my right, and with you definition “get laid” is a task from the point of view of evolution and a goal from the point of view of an organism.

Get laid is a task, not a goal. Reproduction is a task, not a goal. The goal is pleasure.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#303

Post by efkiel »

gocartStatue wrote: post #282
temp13890130 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're already in a Greek tragedy. The machines really can't make it much worse, but could certainly make it much much better. Except that, when true AGI arrives, we're all obsolete and the only things that will have any value are certain nonrenewable resources. No one has described a good solution for the economic nightmare that will ensue.

I always wonder how insanely complex, universal, abstract-thinking AND physically strong & agile biorobots, running on basically sugar and atp would be seen as „worthless” by a runaway higher intelligence. Did I mention they self-replicate and self-service? Surely, seven billion of such agents would be discarded and put to waste.

If an AGI start putting utility value on human life, wouldn't it try to influence human reproduction and select for what it value. ie. Explicit eugenism.

Yes, all humans will not be put to waste, but what tells you they will be well-treated, or value what you currently value.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#304

Post by ben_w »

brador wrote: post #302
ben_w wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your left is my right, and with you definition “get laid” is a task from the point of view of evolution and a goal from the point of view of an organism. It’s in much the same vein that it doesn’t matter if submarines “swim”, they still move through water under their own power; and it doesn’t matter if your definition of “sound” is the subjective experience or the pressure waves, a tree falling in a forest with nobod…

Tasks are assigned, Goals are desired. These definitions and their distinction are particular and important in AI. The mistaken usage of these terms by machine learning experts does not change their global definition. > Your left is my right, and with you definition “get laid” is a task from the point of view of evolution and a goal from the point of view of an organism. Get laid is a task, not a goal. Reproduction i…

> The mistaken usage of these terms by machine learning experts does not change their global definition.

Ah, I see you’re a linguistic prescriptivist.

I can’t see your definition in any dictionary, which spoils the effect, but it’s common enough to be one.

> The goal is pleasure.

Evolution is the form of intelligence that created biological neural networks, and simulated evolution is sometimes used to set weights on artificial neural nets.

From evolution’s perspective, if you can excuse the anthropomorphisation, reproduction is the goal. Evolution doesn’t care if we are having fun, and once animals (including humans) pass reproductive age, we go wrong in all kinds of different and unpleasant ways.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#305

Post by greyhair »

justinpombrio wrote: post #208
viksit wrote: post #182

(Former AI researcher / founder here) It always surprises me at the ease at which people jump on a) imminent AGI and b) human extinction in the face of AGI. Would love for someone to correct me / add information here to the contrary. Generalist here just refers to a "multi-faceted agent" vs "General" like AGI. For a) - I see 2 main blockers, 1) A way to build second/third order reasoning systems that rely on intuitio…

I am quite scared of human extinction in the face of AGI. I certainly didn't jump on it, though! I was gradually convinced by the arguments that Yudkowsky makes in "Rationality: from AI to Zombies" ( https://www.readthesequences.com/ ). Unfortunately they don't fit easily into an internet comment. Some of the points that stood out to me, though: - We are social animals, and take for granted that, all else being equal…

I think human extinction through human stupidity or hubris is much much much more likely than through an unpredictable path down general AI.

For example, some total whack job of an authoritarian leader is in charge of a sufficient nuclear arsenal and decides to intimidate an adversary by destroying a couple minor cities, and the situation escalates badly. (stupidity)

Or we finally pollute our air and/or water with a persistent substance that either greatly reduces human life span or reproduction rate. (hubris)

I think either of the above is more likely to occur, and I am not commenting on current world events in any way. I think when something bad finally happens, it is going to come completely out of left field. Dr Strangelove style.

And the last of us will be saying "Hmmm, I didn't see that coming".

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#306

Post by Tenoke »

igorkraw wrote: post #300
c1ccccc1 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "AGI owner" implies a person who can issue instructions and have the AGI do their bidding. Most likely there will never be any AGI owners, since no one knows how to program an AGI to follow instructions even given infinite computing power . It's not clear how connectionism / using gradient descent helps: No one knows how to write down a loss function for "following instructions" either. Until we find a sol…

All of this AGI risk stuff always hinges on the idea of us building an AGI, while nobody has any idea of how to get there. I need to finish my PhD first, but writing a proper takedown of the "arguments" bubbling out of the Hype machine is the first thing on my bucket list afterwards, with the TL;DR; being "just because you can imagine it, doesn't mean you can get there"

Are you rephrasing the arguments against man-made flight machines from the early 20th century on purpose or accidentally?

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#307

Post by zarzavat »

greyhair wrote: post #305
justinpombrio wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am quite scared of human extinction in the face of AGI. I certainly didn't jump on it, though! I was gradually convinced by the arguments that Yudkowsky makes in "Rationality: from AI to Zombies" ( https://www.readthesequences.com/ ). Unfortunately they don't fit easily into an internet comment. Some of the points that stood out to me, though: - We are social animals, and take for granted that, all else being equal…

I think human extinction through human stupidity or hubris is much much much more likely than through an unpredictable path down general AI. For example, some total whack job of an authoritarian leader is in charge of a sufficient nuclear arsenal and decides to intimidate an adversary by destroying a couple minor cities, and the situation escalates badly. (stupidity) Or we finally pollute our air and/or water with a…

Nuclear war will not be enough to cause human extinction. The targets are likely to be focused on nuclear powers which leaves many areas of the world untouched: e.g. South America and Africa. Life will definitely be quite unpleasant for the remaining humans but it will not cause the world population to drop to 0.

I am much more concerned about biological weapons which do have the potential to cause absolute human extinction.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#308

Post by zarzavat »

igorkraw wrote: post #300
c1ccccc1 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "AGI owner" implies a person who can issue instructions and have the AGI do their bidding. Most likely there will never be any AGI owners, since no one knows how to program an AGI to follow instructions even given infinite computing power . It's not clear how connectionism / using gradient descent helps: No one knows how to write down a loss function for "following instructions" either. Until we find a sol…

All of this AGI risk stuff always hinges on the idea of us building an AGI, while nobody has any idea of how to get there. I need to finish my PhD first, but writing a proper takedown of the "arguments" bubbling out of the Hype machine is the first thing on my bucket list afterwards, with the TL;DR; being "just because you can imagine it, doesn't mean you can get there"

Google just released a paper that shows a language model beating the average human on >50% of tasks. I’d say we have a pretty good idea of how to get there.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#309

Post by mdp2021 »

nonbirithm wrote: post #246
viksit wrote: post #182

(Former AI researcher / founder here) It always surprises me at the ease at which people jump on a) imminent AGI and b) human extinction in the face of AGI. Would love for someone to correct me / add information here to the contrary. Generalist here just refers to a "multi-faceted agent" vs "General" like AGI. For a) - I see 2 main blockers, 1) A way to build second/third order reasoning systems that rely on intuitio…

Personally I'm more worried about what effects sophisticated "dumb" AI will have on human culture and expectations. It would have been hard to imagine we'd be living in this world with our attention assailed by platforms available anywhere when Jobs first held up the iPhone to the world. Just the same, I am not sure that the impending cultural effects from advancements in AI are fully understood at this moment. For e…

> worried about what effects sophisticated "dumb" AI will have on human culture and expectations

It is already happening, but it is not a new phenomenon - just the prosecution of the effects of widespread inadequate education.

The undesirable effect namely is, an increase of overvaluing cheap, thin products - a decrease in recognizing actual genius, "substance". For example, some seem to be increasingly contented with "frequentism" as if convinced that language is based on it - while it is of course the opposite - one is supposed to state what is seen, and to state "plausible associations" would have been regarded as a clear sign of malfunction. There seems to be an encouragement to take for "normal" what is in fact deficient.

Some people are brought to believe that some shallow instinct is already the goal and do not know "deep instinct", trained on judgement (active digestion, not passive intake).

The example provided fits:

> production-ready digital art

For something to be artistic it has to have foundational justifications - a mockery of art is not art. The Artist chose to draw that line under a number of evaluations that made it a good choice, but an imitator, even in a copy, used the ("frequentist", by the way note) evaluation that the other is an Artist - and there is a world of depth difference between the two.

The difference is trivial, and yet, many are already brought to confuse the shallow mockery and the deep creation.

Re: DeepMind: A Generalist Agent

#310

Post by mdp2021 »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #14
hans1729 wrote: post #5

I’m not sure how to word my excitement about the progress we see in AI research in the last years. If you haven’t read it, give Tim Urbans classic piece a slice of your attention: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revol... It’s a very entertaining read from a couple of years ago (I think I’ve read it in 2017), and man, have things happened in the field since then. If feels like things truly start…

That human intelligence might just be token prediction evolving from successive small bit-width float matrix transformations is depressing to me.

Stop being depressed because it simply, clearly, certainly, is not. I just wrote a few paragraphs about it in an immediately previous post. This confirms that this phase is getting some people fooled on basics.
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