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Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

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Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#91

Post by Animats »

imh wrote: post #21
msvan wrote: post #16

What does Hacker News think about AI? Is it real this time, or are we in for another winter? I'm seeing a lot of grand claims, and it certainly seems like there are plenty of applications, but I'm still not totally convinced that it will turn the entire economy upside down. Given the enormous amount of press, tweets, blog posts, conferences, degree programs, seminars and interviews popping up it seems like there has…

Like they say in the article, there's general AI (think sci-fi computers with minds) and specialized AI (think good old fashioned statistical models, but applied to more things and super effective). Specialized AI (and I hate calling it AI) is coming along really quickly. We're getting better at it in existing fields and learning to apply it to new fields. More than anything, we just have so much data on everything n…

We don't even have good generalized robot manipulation. Think of that as monkey-level AI. After half a century of hard work, robot manipulation in unstructured situations still sucks. Go watch DARPA Humanoid Challenge videos or old Willow Robotics towel-folding to see how badly it sucks. Factory robotics works because the work situation is highly structured.

On the other hand, once someone cracks that, a huge number of low-end jobs will be automated.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#92

Post by ktRolster »

pakl wrote: post #53
msvan wrote: post #16

What does Hacker News think about AI? Is it real this time, or are we in for another winter? I'm seeing a lot of grand claims, and it certainly seems like there are plenty of applications, but I'm still not totally convinced that it will turn the entire economy upside down. Given the enormous amount of press, tweets, blog posts, conferences, degree programs, seminars and interviews popping up it seems like there has…

I'm optimistic about what'll happen right after the upcoming AI winter. :) So long as AI remains tasked with categorizing human-taken photos or playing human-created games (no matter how "complex"), AI will remain just that -- artificial -- and not "real". Given the rate of hype that you point out, I suspect a winter of some kind will hit before enough folks realize this. [edited: reorder]

What should they focus on then?

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#93

Post by inimino »

greeneggs wrote: post #70
gefh wrote: post #38

I wish people would stop bringing up the trolley problem as somehow relevant to self driving cars. In any situation,a car is going to brake as hard as possible while maintaining control, and only serve if there's no way to stop and a clear space. Other than that, a good enough interview that I can't see taking place again next presidential term.

The trolley problem is just an extreme example, that people can easily understand and think about. Less extreme versions of it occur all the time. For example, say you are driving along a road, passing a bicyclist. You'd like to give the cyclist more room, but there's an oncoming car in the lane next to you. How much room do you give? At exactly what threshold do you decide to wait to pass the cyclist? What if the cy…

Exactly, and if a few high-profile accidents give a manufacturer a reputation as a public menace, lawsuits and legislation won't be far behind.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#94

Post by platz »

Animats wrote: post #91
imh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like they say in the article, there's general AI (think sci-fi computers with minds) and specialized AI (think good old fashioned statistical models, but applied to more things and super effective). Specialized AI (and I hate calling it AI) is coming along really quickly. We're getting better at it in existing fields and learning to apply it to new fields. More than anything, we just have so much data on everything n…

We don't even have good generalized robot manipulation. Think of that as monkey-level AI. After half a century of hard work, robot manipulation in unstructured situations still sucks. Go watch DARPA Humanoid Challenge videos or old Willow Robotics towel-folding to see how badly it sucks. Factory robotics works because the work situation is highly structured. On the other hand, once someone cracks that, a huge number…

Also mentioned was that specialized AI is creating social problems we need to solve. There are issues with fairness—specialized algorithms all too easily replicate bad/unfair patterns in the data (e.g. they replicate/amplify unfairness in the world), and that harms folks; sometimes they might not even be aware of it.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#95

Post by statsknowitall »

pmyjavec wrote: post #11
notliketherest wrote: post #2

"But it also has some downsides that we’re gonna have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs. It could increase inequality. It could suppress wages." No doubt that advances in technology have always done away with jobs. We're almost to the point at which the biggest blue collar industry (truck drivers) is about to be wiped out by self driving trucks. What I'm concerned about is the government stifling innovat…

Why aren't you "concerned" about people losing their jobs? The alternatives are tech companies start to pay their taxes and humans start to use tech to care for one another, genuinely, not just wealthy Silicon Valley types trying to make buckets because their "entitled" to do so and pretend it's all in the name of progress. The idea of the Internet and Automation were exciting to me as it was about liberation and dec…

Are tech companies not paying taxes on money earned in the US? I have heard they are using tax havens to avoid paying taxes in the EU, and keeping that money overseas to delay paying US taxes on it.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#96

Post by sundarurfriend »

notliketherest wrote: post #2

"But it also has some downsides that we’re gonna have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs. It could increase inequality. It could suppress wages." No doubt that advances in technology have always done away with jobs. We're almost to the point at which the biggest blue collar industry (truck drivers) is about to be wiped out by self driving trucks. What I'm concerned about is the government stifling innovat…

Relevant link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obsolete_occupations

Many of these seem to have been victims of cultural and political change, but there's quite a few (for eg., Knocker-up, Lamplighter, and more recently, Switchboard operator) that became obsolete due to technological advancements.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#97

Post by mistermumble »

cjbprime wrote: post #5

> OBAMA: The way I’ve been thinking about the regulatory structure as AI emerges is that, early in a technology, a thousand flowers should bloom. I gotta say, I thought he'd be more familiar with that metaphor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

Actually the "thousand flowers" metaphor is part of Silicon Valley culture going back 30 years.

At least I have heard this any number of times in relation to technology innovation, entrepreneurship, "lean startups", etc. I bet a lot of the people who use the term have no idea of its origins in Mao's China.

See for example, this article from Inc magazine in 1984, which begins as follows:

"Not too long ago, fortune 500 companies looked at small-scale entrepreneurial companies as fodder for acquisition -- if they were big enough to make the effort worthwhile -- and little more. The executive who dared to suggest that Goliath might learn from David was likely to be trampled by a herd of MBAs waving printouts on the economies of scale that flowed from a centralized and rationally managed organization... Then something happened...The micromillenium was born in a Cupertino, Calif., garage."

[excerpted from "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" http://www.inc.com/magazine/19840401/2895.html]

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#98

Post by Houshalter »

Animats wrote: post #91
imh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like they say in the article, there's general AI (think sci-fi computers with minds) and specialized AI (think good old fashioned statistical models, but applied to more things and super effective). Specialized AI (and I hate calling it AI) is coming along really quickly. We're getting better at it in existing fields and learning to apply it to new fields. More than anything, we just have so much data on everything n…

We don't even have good generalized robot manipulation. Think of that as monkey-level AI. After half a century of hard work, robot manipulation in unstructured situations still sucks. Go watch DARPA Humanoid Challenge videos or old Willow Robotics towel-folding to see how badly it sucks. Factory robotics works because the work situation is highly structured. On the other hand, once someone cracks that, a huge number…

That's exactly what is about to happen. Deep learning has the potential to do robot control. Currently researchers are beating tons of video games using reinforcement learning with deep networks. Applying the same methods to robots shouldn't be too hard. And we've also come a long way with machine vision as well over the past 5 years.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#99

Post by Animats »

Houshalter wrote: post #98
Animats wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even have good generalized robot manipulation. Think of that as monkey-level AI. After half a century of hard work, robot manipulation in unstructured situations still sucks. Go watch DARPA Humanoid Challenge videos or old Willow Robotics towel-folding to see how badly it sucks. Factory robotics works because the work situation is highly structured. On the other hand, once someone cracks that, a huge number…

That's exactly what is about to happen. Deep learning has the potential to do robot control. Currently researchers are beating tons of video games using reinforcement learning with deep networks. Applying the same methods to robots shouldn't be too hard. And we've also come a long way with machine vision as well over the past 5 years.

The systems which learn video games work only for games where the state of the game is entirely visible, and the desired player action can be decided based only on the current state. PacMan, yes. Doom, not that way.

Re: Barack Obama on A.I., Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

#100

Post by imtringued »

agentgt wrote: post #40
msvan wrote: post #16

What does Hacker News think about AI? Is it real this time, or are we in for another winter? I'm seeing a lot of grand claims, and it certainly seems like there are plenty of applications, but I'm still not totally convinced that it will turn the entire economy upside down. Given the enormous amount of press, tweets, blog posts, conferences, degree programs, seminars and interviews popping up it seems like there has…

I have often wandered if there is some sort universe limitation to general AI singularities particularly if the current universe is actually a simulation. An intellectual singularity or extremely rampant aggressive intelligence might be an errant state that gets dealt with (aka universe circuit breaker / watchdog). This might also explain the Fermi Paradox. The other idea I have doted on is that perhaps universes are…

>The other idea I have doted on is that perhaps universes are the manufacturing tool to create super AI by some parent universe.

And perhaps our creators are long dead but the simulation keeps going...

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