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Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

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Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#431

Post by kouru225 »

goatlover wrote: post #354
kouru225 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re looking at the world from a very anthropocentric pov. Sight, sound, touch, feel, taste are all human senses, but they’re all just one thing: ingesting information. An AI can ingest information… that’s just a fact… so… what are we talking about here? Also, we have absolutely no idea how the brain works. Current AI was developed off of modern theories on how the brain works. Saying that AI doesn’t represent how…

Kant didn't say that the senses were ingesting information. Rather, he said the categories of the mind made sense of the sensory manifold. The categories gave structure to the chaos.The give rise to the phenomenal world we experience. They are not the thing in itself, whatever the world is. You're assuming the sensory organs passively take in information, instead of creating it from all the noise in the world. That t…

I was referring to this article: https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~re14/Evans-R-2020-PhD-Thesis.pdf which has been on HN before Maybe I'm misremembering its contents or conflating it with another article.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#432

Post by kouru225 »

radlad wrote: post #337
kouru225 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re looking at the world from a very anthropocentric pov. Sight, sound, touch, feel, taste are all human senses, but they’re all just one thing: ingesting information. An AI can ingest information… that’s just a fact… so… what are we talking about here? Also, we have absolutely no idea how the brain works. Current AI was developed off of modern theories on how the brain works. Saying that AI doesn’t represent how…

> You’re looking at the world from a very anthropocentric pov. Sight, sound, touch, feel, taste are all human senses, but they’re all just one thing: ingesting information. An AI can ingest information… that’s just a fact… so… what are we talking about here? I think my comment was misunderstood, so let me try to break it down a little. Let's remember that this was in the context of "there's nothing about AI in genera…

So a lot here that I disagree with. You start out by pointing out how much more information humans ingest, but there's no reason why amount of information ingested leads to a fundamentally different organism. In the exact same way, I eat a lot more food than an amoeba, but we're still both animals. Scale doesn't make a difference. The idea that human emotions are somehow unique from thoughts needs to be proven to me. IMO emotions are just thoughts that happen too quick for language. This discretization of the human experience is unnecessary, and like I said before it would be immediately challenged in a philosophy setting. So would your claim that humans exhibit some kind of reasoning or morality that’s distinct and unique. Modern philosophy is quite clear that this is bullshit. I was just reading Nietzsche today and I can feel him rolling over in his grave right now.

Also, the base of machine learning centers around simulating emotions: if the AI does something good, it's rewarded. If it does something bad, it's punished. We created the whole algorithm by simulating Freud's pleasure principle and who are we to say that the simulation is any different from the real thing? > It's not surprising to me that people who are focused on technology and AI would anthropomorphize machines, and then claim that (because they aren't aware of how the brain works) "we don't know how the brain works." I had similar beliefs, as a software engineer. Well I'm actually much more knowledgeable about humanities than I am about tech, and IMO the tech world is at the forefront of making our abstract philosophical understanding of the brain concrete. Neural networks and LLMs are the most successful method of creating cognition. I'm sure we'll find that there's a lot more to do, but this could very well be the fundamental algorithm of the brain, and I don't see any reason to discount that by saying what you've been saying in this comment thread.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#433

Post by ben_w »

breuleux wrote: post #110
kouru225 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have AGI then I doubt that the rich people will be able to control it at all

Rich people currently have little trouble controlling people who are much smarter and more capable than they are. Controlling resources and capital goes a long way and it isn't a given that AGI would transcend that dynamic.

If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved.

Part of the problem is that "do what I said without question" will lead to disasters, but "figure out what I would approve of after seeing the result and be creative in your interpretation of my orders accordingly" has different ways it can go wrong.

(IMO, RLHF is the latter).

Both of those seem to be safer than "maximise my reward function", which is what people were worried about a decade ago, and with decent evidence given the limits of AI at the time.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#434

Post by [deleted] »

codr7 wrote: post #397
Animats wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is well thought out. The "AI Magna Carta" is a stretch, though. Some good insights: 60. Anthropomorphizing AI also poses specific challenges for the development of children, potentially encouraging them to develop patterns of interaction that treat human relationships in a transactional manner, as one would relate to a chatbot. Such habits could lead young people to see teachers as mere dispensers of information r…

Children need human attention to thrive. Classes are WAY too big. There have been several very successful projects focused on getting adults to do homework with children.

[deleted]

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#435

Post by glenstein »

codr7 wrote: post #400
glenstein wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Perhaps a bit naively, as a Highly Opinionated Person (HOP) on this topic I was ready for this to have something controversial to say about the nature of intelligence. It's not out of the ordinary for even Anglosphere philosophers to fall into a kind of essentiallism about intelligence, but I think the treatment of it here is extremely careful and thoughtful, at least on first glace. I suppose I would challenge…

Experience is biological, analog, computers are digital; that's the core of the problem. It doesn't matter how many samples you take, it's still not the full experience. Witness Vinyl.

This is just so story more than it's an actual argument and I would say it's exactly the kind of essentialism that I was talking about previously. In fact, the version of the argument typically put forward by Anglo-sphere philosophers, and in this case, by the Vatican, are actually more nuanced. The reference to the "embodied" nature of cognition at least introduces a concept that supports a meaningful argument that can be engaged with or falsified.

It could be at the end of the day that there is something important about the biological basis of the experience and the role it plays in supporting cognition. But simply stipulating that it works that way doesn't represent forward motion in the conversation.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#436

Post by exe34 »

ben_w wrote: post #433
breuleux wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people currently have little trouble controlling people who are much smarter and more capable than they are. Controlling resources and capital goes a long way and it isn't a given that AGI would transcend that dynamic.

If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved. Part of the problem is that "do what I said without question" will lead to disasters, but "figure out what I would approve of after seeing the result and be creative in your interpretation of my orders accordingly" has different ways it can go wrong. (IMO, RLHF is the latter). Both of those seem to be safer than "maximise my r…

> If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved

which leaves unprecedented power in the hands of the most psychopathic[0] part of the population. so even if AI take off doesn't happen, we're still getting the boot on our necks.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#437

Post by exe34 »

esafak wrote: post #121
bilbo0s wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have billions of AGIs running all over the planet. The wealthy seem to do a pretty good job of keeping them all in line. I don't see any reason that would change in the future. If you want something the wealthy can't control, you'll need to look a good deal further afield than AGI. Think gamma ray bursts, asteroid strikes, or solar flares. But anything built by man, they'll have a pretty good grip on.

What if the wealthy people of the future were all robots?

go on, what if?

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#438

Post by ben_w »

exe34 wrote: post #436
ben_w wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved. Part of the problem is that "do what I said without question" will lead to disasters, but "figure out what I would approve of after seeing the result and be creative in your interpretation of my orders accordingly" has different ways it can go wrong. (IMO, RLHF is the latter). Both of those seem to be safer than "maximise my r…

> If we can be confident of that, then most of the worst problems with AI are already solved which leaves unprecedented power in the hands of the most psychopathic[0] part of the population. so even if AI take off doesn't happen, we're still getting the boot on our necks. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...

Mm, indeed.

Though I would note even your link says:

> Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons.

On the plus side, this is still a small minority.

On the down side, these remind me a lot of Musk:

> CEO who worked with several pregnant women told people that he had impregnated his colleagues.

By way of Neuralink.

> CFO thought his CEO had a split personality, until he realized that he was simply playing different characters based on what he needed from his audience.

"Will my rocket explode?"-Musk is a lot more cautious and grounded than everything-else-Musk — including other aspects of work on SpaceX.

> Autocratic CEO fired a well-respected engineer “just to make a statement.” He fired anyone who challenged him, explaining there was no reason to second-guess him because he was always right and needed people to execute his vision rather than challenge it.

Basically all of Twitter, plus some other anecdotes from Starlink, SpaceX, Tesla.

And, this month, fighting with Asmongold about cheating in Path of Exile 2, before admitting to what he was accused of but trying to pretend it's fine rather than "cheating".

> CEO would show up to work and begin yelling at an employee (usually someone in sales) for no obvious reason.

The guy he called a pedo for daring to say a submarine wasn't useful for a cave rescue, the Brazilian judiciary, members of the British cabinet, …

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#439

Post by gwd »

Animats wrote: post #313
kittikitti wrote: post #284

I just want to appreciate how well written and thought out this was. I have spent countless hours reading over ethics on AI, especially from Big Tech sources, but this note is leaps beyond. I compare this to the disastrous letter that effectively knee-capped American AI all while proposing flimsy AI ethics within about 500 words ( https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experime... ). This should be anoth…

It is well thought out. The "AI Magna Carta" is a stretch, though. Some good insights: 60. Anthropomorphizing AI also poses specific challenges for the development of children, potentially encouraging them to develop patterns of interaction that treat human relationships in a transactional manner, as one would relate to a chatbot. Such habits could lead young people to see teachers as mere dispensers of information r…

I would put a slight twist on it though: it seems to me like kids begin by default with very transactional patterns, and must be taught to have "relationships rooted in empathy and a steadfast commitment to the good of the other". The very patience that, say, teachers or nursery staff have to have give that impression: the ideal staff is always patient, never tired or irritable, never bored with what the children do or say, and so on; and it's partly the parents' job to help point out to children that the professional people they interact with are real people who have their own lives.

The challenge with LLMs is that there is no "real person" behind there to have an own life. The AI doesn't go home at the end of the day, never needs rest, never needs to have "me time" or let their guard down, has no other independent purpose than to serve the child (or some other human). So if we were to replace all the service workers in our lives with AIs, we'd lose loads of opportunities for developing empathy.

Re: Antiqua et Nova: Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence

#440

Post by amenhotep »

zoogeny wrote: post #355
glenstein wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! Perhaps a bit naively, as a Highly Opinionated Person (HOP) on this topic I was ready for this to have something controversial to say about the nature of intelligence. It's not out of the ordinary for even Anglosphere philosophers to fall into a kind of essentiallism about intelligence, but I think the treatment of it here is extremely careful and thoughtful, at least on first glace. I suppose I would challenge…

As an aside, and more out of curiosity, I want to mention a tiny niche corner of CogSci I once came across on YouTube. There was a conference on a fringe branch of consciousness studies where a group of philosophers hold a claim that there is a qualitative difference of experience based on material substrate. That is to say, one view of consciousness suggests that if you froze a snapshot of a human brain in the proce…

It's going to sound rather hubristic, being that I'm just a random internet commenter and not a conference of philosophers, but this seems... nonsensical? I don't understand how it isn't obvious that the new consciousness instance would be unaware of the swap, or that nevertheless the perspective of the original instance would be completely disconnected from that of the new one.

It seems to be a question that many apparently smart people discuss endlessly for some reason, so I guess I'm not surprised by this proposal in particular, but it's really mystifying to me that anybody other than soulists think there's any room for doubt about it whatsoever.

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