Humans optimize for activating the opioid receptor. These receptors are distributed all over the brain and tied into all sorts of subtle neural networks. That's why opioid addicts don't do much when they're high. As far as the entire structure of the brain is concerned, an opioid addict's brain is done optimizing and the fitness function is pegged at 1. I think an AGI will end up being like an AI that plays the Sims…
I must be doing a poor job at being a human, given that I have passed the opportunity to activate my opioid receptors several times in my life so far (leftovers from surgeries).
John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
761–770 of 930 posts
Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#762Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've long taken the position that intelligence is mostly about getting through the next 10-30 seconds of life without screwing up. Not falling down, not running into stuff, not getting hurt, not breaking things, making some progress on the current task. Common sense. Most of animal brains, and a large fraction of the human brain, is devoted to managing that. On top of that is some kind of coarse planner giving goals…
I was thinking about the manipulation issue tonight. I'd been throwing a tennis ball in the pool with my kids and I realised how instinctual my ability to catch was. A ball leaves my kids hands and I move my hand to a position, fingers just wide enough for a ball, and catch it. All of it happens in a fraction of a second. The human brain can model the physics of a ball in flight, accurately, and quickly. As the ball…
What make me think of it like that is hearing about how the brain was actually really bad at predicting the path of things that don't act like that. This was in context of aiming unguided rocket launchers (I end up reading a lot of odd things). It seems the brain is really bad at predicting how a continuously accelerating projectile will travel, and you have to train yourself to ignore your intuitions and use the sighting system that compensates for how it actually travels in order to hit a target with the thing.
Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#763Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too bad he didn't go for his runner up. cost effective/mass produceable fission reactors could save humanity.
Carmack creates AI, AI is used to invent effective fission reactors. Check and mate.
As long as his next project is not teleportation gateways i guess we are safe.
[edit] it's also 2019 :D
> In the year 2019, the player character (an unnamed space marine) has been punitively posted to Mars after assaulting a superior officer, who ordered his unit to fire on civilians. The space marines act as security for the Union Aerospace Corporation's radioactive waste facilities, which are used by the military to perform secret experiments with teleportation by creating gateways between the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. In 2022, Deimos disappears entirely and "something fraggin' evil" starts pouring out of the teleporter gateways, killing or possessing all personnel.
Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#764Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#765Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a weird future it would be if Carmack turns out to be the one to figure out the critical path and get it all working. An entire field of brilliant researchers be damned. History books (for as long as those continue to exist) would cite AGI as his major contribution to society, and his name would be more renowned than Edison or Tesla. An Einstein. None of his other contributions will matter, as the machines will…
I'm not sure I want AGI to succeed, given some of the possibilities. Sure if it plays nicely alongside us, amplifying human society, that's great. But if we get relegated to second class with the AIs doing everything meaningful, then no thanks. But it's still a fascinating endeavor.
How much worse could it be?
If Skynet determines we're the problem (wars, famine, global warming, inequality, non-cooperation etc), I'm losing counter-arguments by the day.
Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#766Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#767Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you in doubt that Carmack has used the scientific method to do anything? [1] If not, does your definition of scientist require something other than doing work using the scientific method? Perhaps some specific quantity of work? -- [1] One of his companies, Armadillo Aerospace, was pretty much just a series of scientifc experiments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace
Thanks for the explanation. We could debate whether that’s science or not, but I don’t think it’d be particularly productive and we’ve already gone a bit off topic. Final thought from me - I was thinking about your post and it is indeed difficult to discern science from engineering. One dichotomy that occurred to me (which may not hold under close scrutiny) is that scientists are interested in _the pursuit of truth_,…
Overall I think it comes down to popular opinion, which can be fuzzy and doesn't apply the same rules to everyone. If enough people say someone is a dancer, then they are a dancer, even if they suck and don't dance that much. This applies to basically all titles that cross institution boundaries. Another great example is countries. Popular opinion determines which organizations are countries, not a strict definition. For example the EU vs places like Iceland or San Marino. [1]
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Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#768Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#769Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking about the manipulation issue tonight. I'd been throwing a tennis ball in the pool with my kids and I realised how instinctual my ability to catch was. A ball leaves my kids hands and I move my hand to a position, fingers just wide enough for a ball, and catch it. All of it happens in a fraction of a second. The human brain can model the physics of a ball in flight, accurately, and quickly. As the ball…
Dogs can do this too. And quite a bit more impressive than most humans.
If I decide to kick it, he reads my body language scarily well to figure out what direction it will probably go, and will adjust his position way ahead of time. If I throw it at a wall he will run to where the angle will put the ball after it bounces. If I throw it high in the air he knows where to run almost immediately (again using my body language to know where I might be trying to throw it.). He’s very hard to fool, too, and will learn quickly to not commit to a particular direction too quickly if it looks like I’m faking a throw.
I always feel like he’d make a great soccer goalie if he had a human body.
Re: John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence
#770Earlier quoted context omitted.
He shifted a whole industry towards a new paradigm. Look at Germany, they are desperate to catch up with Tesla, finally moving into electric cars. Without Elon they would keep selling their Diesel scam for the next decades.
Actually it was a bunch of Phd students from some Californian Uni that discovered the vw diesel scam. There is a short documentary about them online. Elon has no credit whatsoever in dieselgate. However, he did make electric cars something an average person would like to have. He also chose to make it work using the same inefficient principle of hauling 2 tons of steel to transport a single person. What he made is an…