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John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

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Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#361

Post by andbberger »

pyentropy wrote: post #33

Progress in AI is due to data and computational power advances. I wonder what kind of advances are needed for AGI. 1. Biological brains are non-differentiable spiking networks much more complicated than backpropagated ANNs. 2. Ion channels may or may not be affected by quantum effects. 3. The search space is huge (but organisms aren't optimal and natural selection is probably local search) 4. If it took ~3.8b years t…

> 1. Biological brains are non-differentiable spiking networks much more complicated than backpropagated ANNs.

Actually it's not so obvious that the brain is not differentiable. If you do a cursory search, you'll find quite a lot of research into biologically plausible mechanism for backpropagation. Not saying the brain does backprop, we just don't know and it's not outside of the realm of plausibility

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#362

Post by klyrs »

kyle-rb wrote: post #225
nwsm wrote: post #195

What a joke. Carmack is going to sit at home and solve what teams of scientists can't do in decades. I'm complaining less about Carmack wanting to spend his time doing this and more about the comments here acting like he is some 10000x research scientist.

No one expects him to emerge with a fully formed AGI. By through experimenting he might contribute some new incremental but still useful improvements.

This feels somewhat obligatory...

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001018

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#363

Post by fastball »

mortenjorck wrote: post #178
carlosdp wrote: post #68

This doesn't surprise me at all. He went on a week long cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere trip about a year ago to dive in to AI (that's all this guy needs to become pretty damn proficient). (edit: I'm not claiming he's a field expert in a week guys, just that he can probably learn the basics pretty fast, especially given ML tech shares many base maths with graphics) As recent as his last Oculus Connect keynote, he exto…

Carmack is unquestionably a genius, but I think it's quite unlikely his solo work in a new domain will leapfrog an entire field of researchers. I wouldn't, however, bet against some kind of insanely clever development coming out of his new endeavor. Something like an absurdly efficient new object classifier, that reduces the compute requirements for self-driving cars by a non-trivial factor, would be a very Carmack t…

The problem with the "field of researchers" is that most of us aren't geniuses. We're just plugging away at problems, like normal people.

The opportunity for a genius is to come in, synthesize all existing information on the subject, and then come up with a novel approach to the whole thing.

In some part, I think that is what Elon Musk has been able to do effectively. He comes into a field that already exists, reads everything he can get his hands on, and then outputs something novel. You can only do that effectively if you have the mental capacity to keep all that info in your head at once, I think.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#364

Post by austhrow743 »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #55
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys really get high on your own supply don't you? It's a toss-up these days whether something from computer science or a programmer will either enhance or erode the human experience and quality of life.

I think you're on the wrong site if you're wanting to criticize software development as a career and suggest it does more harm than good

The forum of a VC firm doesn't seem antithetical to that at all.

No one here is claiming that software development doesn't make fat stacks and viable businesses. It just happens to do it by perverting humanity. Moving us further away from our ideal environment.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#365

Post by lostmsu »

nwsm wrote: post #195

What a joke. Carmack is going to sit at home and solve what teams of scientists can't do in decades. I'm complaining less about Carmack wanting to spend his time doing this and more about the comments here acting like he is some 10000x research scientist.

I recently "retired" to do the same, and logic here is - there is no harm in trying, if you have resources (of course, he has magnitudes more).

You can get up to date in the field in under half a year of extensive reading. And many of those scientists are too busy solving more specific goals, that their labs set. I doubt there are more than 1,000 researchers in the world specifically working on AGI.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#366

Post by CivBase »

Zod666 wrote: post #341
carlosdp wrote: post #68

This doesn't surprise me at all. He went on a week long cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere trip about a year ago to dive in to AI (that's all this guy needs to become pretty damn proficient). (edit: I'm not claiming he's a field expert in a week guys, just that he can probably learn the basics pretty fast, especially given ML tech shares many base maths with graphics) As recent as his last Oculus Connect keynote, he exto…

"With the Quest, he (in my opinion) solidified VR's path to mobile standalones" Yes and I really wished he hadn't. Before he joined oculus they were working on the rift2, he steered them away from that to focus on mobile efforts. I do see the appeal of mobile vr but at the end of the day it is basically an android phone in a vr headset. PCvr is already 2 big steps back in graphical quality from desktop games. Mobile…

Wireless teathering is the future of VR. True mobility is pointless when you're realistically restricted to a dedicated space anyways.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#367

Post by nradov »

EamonnMR wrote: post #333
nradov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current ML technology probably has little or nothing to do with whatever technology will eventually be needed to produce true AGI.

I'm skeptical of this assertion. It mimics some bits and pieces of the only GI we know about right now; that's as good a start as any, right?

You can carve a block of wood into something that looks like a computer. That should be a good start on building a device that can run Linux, right?

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#368

Post by mattrp »

ineedasername wrote: post #253
drcode wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carmack is someone who has proven to be an almost unequalled productivity machine when working on medium-difficulty problems... Now, for the first time, we'll see if his approach to problem solving can also work on a truly difficult problem. I agree it's very much an open question.

Is that really true though? It seems more like he's good at a medium difficulty problems in a narrow subdomain of software development, which is saying something a bit different. I might even say he's good at hard problems within that subdomain. How transferable those skills are is the most salient point. Assuming peak genius level intellect (which, I don't know, maybe ?) It would still take something like 4 or 5 yea…

Yeah but could he build a model railroad set as good as Rod Stewart’s in under five years?

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#369

Post by bronz »

ageofwant wrote: post #280
bronz wrote: post #26

i say this with respect and humility, but i am very surprised at the naivete with which John addressed the subject of AGI. he is so casual about it -- not only the idea of working on it but also the idea of it existing at all. he seems oblivious to the gravity of that discovery. it is not just "very valuable," it will be earth shattering and probably wipe out humanity. and its his side-project. and his son will help…

You are saying "probably wipe out humanity" is a bad thing ? I know of several million species that would strongly disagree. Especially if AGIv1 decides to tune the genetics of say most mammals to append 'sapient' to the end of their species name. Perhaps more constructively consider that AGI is simply the next iteration of 'humanity', yea sure the old versions are redundant anarchisms and apart from some living rese…

AGI is not the next iteration of humanity because it will not resemble humanity in any way besides being sentient in some capacity. you will feel quite silly if you get to see it in your lifetime.

Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence

#370

Post by noelsusman »

xamuel wrote: post #319

I've been dabbling in AGI and it seems like the field has a lot of low-hanging fruit. I'll bet Carmack can offer some significant contributions. I'll take an opportunity to plug a paper I recently published on comparing relative intelligence. The punchline will illuminate the low-hangingness of the fruit in this field. Suppose X and Y are AGIs and you want to know which is more intelligent. For any interactive reward…

But the fact that there's so much low hanging fruit is kind of the point. AGI as a field is still in its infancy. It's pure research and will be for a long time.
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