I'm asking for references because I don't have them. it's a shame that the people who are able, ability-wise, to explain the flaws in the MIRI/FHI approach, actual AI researchers, aren't able, time-wise, to do so. It leads to MIRI's views dominating in a way that they should not. It's anomalous that a bunch of amateurs should become the de facto experts in a field, just because they have funding , publicity, and spare time.
I'm asking for references because I don't have them. it's a shame that the people who are able, ability-wise, to explain the flaws in the MIRI/FHI approach
MIRI/FHI arguments essentially boil down to "you can't prove that AI FOOM is impossible".
Arguments of this form, e.g. "You can't prove that [snake oil/cryonics/cold fusion] doesn't work" , "You can't prove there is no God", etc. can't be conclusively refuted.
Various AI experts have expressed skepticism in an imminent super-human AI FOOM, pointing out that the capability r...
I've been going through the AIFoom debate, and both sides makes sense to me. I intend to continue, but I'm wondering if there're already insights in LW culture I can get if I just ask for them.
My understanding is as follows:
The difference between a chimp and a human is only 5 million years of evolution. That's not time enough for many changes.
Eliezer takes this as proof that the difference between the two in the brain architecture can't be much. Thus, you can have a chimp-intelligent AI that doesn't do much, and then with some very small changes, suddenly get a human-intelligent AI and FOOM!
Robin takes the 5-million year gap as proof that the significant difference between chimps and humans is only partly in the brain architecture. Evolution simply can't be responsible for most of the relevant difference; the difference must be elsewhere.
So he concludes that when our ancestors got smart enough for language, culture became a thing. Our species stumbled across various little insights into life, and these got passed on. An increasingly massive base of cultural content, made of very many small improvements is largely responsible for the difference between chimps and humans.
Culture assimilated new information into humans much faster than evolution could.
So he concludes that you can get a chimp-level AI, and to get up to human-level will take, not a very few insights, but a very great many, each one slowly improving the computer's intelligence. So no Foom, it'll be a gradual thing.
So I think I've figured out the question. Is there a commonly known answer, or are there insights towards the same?