Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew) - Less Wrong Discussion

Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:09:51 +1000

Submitted by JoshuaFox • 16 votes • 33 comments

A new article which I wrote just appeared in Hebrew in Galileo, Israel's top popular science magazine, in hardcopy.

It is titled "Superhuman Intelligence, Unhuman Intelligence" (Super- and un- are homophones in Hebrew, a bit of wordplay.)

You can read it here. [Edit: Here's an English version on the Singularity Institute site.]

The cover art, the "I Robot" images, and the tag line ("Artificial Intelligence: Can we reign in the golem") are a bit off; I didn't choose them; but that's par for the course.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first feature article overviewing FAI in any popular-science publication (whether online or hardcopy).

Here is the introduction to the article. (It avoids weasel words, but all necessary caveats are given in the body of the article).

In coming decades, engineers will build an entity with intelligence on a level which can compete with humans. This entity will want to improve its own intelligence, and will be able to do so. The process of improvement will repeat, until it reaches a level far above that of humans; the entity will then be able to achieve its goals efficiently. It is thus essential that its goals are good for humanity. To guarantee this, it is necessary to define the correct goals before this intelligence is built.

33 comments

Dr_Manhattan on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T22:30:16.703588+10:00

Artificial Intelligence: Can we reign in the golem

Love it from purely humorous angle. Now UFAI has a cultural flavor!

JoshuaFox on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-17T01:20:10.936817+10:00

Good point, now that you mention it, the tag-line is not too bad. The golem is a legendary example of an intelligent, though not superintelligent, entity which poses danger as it carries out its instructions to the letter. Luke and Louie used a golem for their though experiment.

And though we cannot hope to control our future superintelligence, the tag-line is at least phrased as a question.

JoshuaZ on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T04:16:18.330250+10:00

This seems more appropriate to discussion than main. (I'll try to comment more when I've had time to read the article. My Hebrew is not amazing so reading this will take time.)

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T04:33:17.676797+10:00

Move to Discussion.

As an aside, I seriously think we need to start considering general AI stuff as off-topic again.

steven0461 on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:16:33.649110+10:00

It's not "general AI stuff", it's about Friendly AI, as suggested by the post's title.

Joshua, congrats on publishing this.

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:23:23.938450+10:00

In this context I put Friendly AI in the category of "general AI stuff".

The important part here is that it's about FAI, not about the art of human rationality.

steven0461 on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:24:47.641028+10:00

As long as we're allowing some discussion on off-topic subjects that are not "the art of human rationality", can we please get rid of the useful off-topic subjects last?

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:27:33.595918+10:00

I'd rather diminish the discussion of off-topic subjects, and get rid of the noisiest topics first.

AI and FAI are notable because people like to talk about them a lot for something off-topic.

steven0461 on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:30:25.820253+10:00

I'd be more likely to agree if there were somewhere else to productively discuss Singularity/FAI issues.

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:35:05.543439+10:00

I agree that there should be somewhere else to discuss those things.

RichardKennaway on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T18:13:42.993818+10:00

SL4?

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T23:55:20.890983+10:00

Does that still exist?

RichardKennaway on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-16T00:22:15.417475+10:00

The site's there, but I don't know how active the community still is.

Tetronian on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T04:39:30.824803+10:00

As an aside, I seriously think we need to start considering general AI stuff as off-topic again.

Perhaps the Singularity Institute and the Center for Applied Rationality should have separate community blogs?

katydee on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T05:06:27.700151+10:00

This is theoretically a good idea, but I think at present there is so much crossover between the communities that it would be unwise to make such a move.

Armok_GoB on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T09:05:44.732436+10:00

What about having softish separation like between main and discussion posts? Accounts and karma and code is shared, but different sections with different articles.

Psy-Kosh on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T06:55:23.009611+10:00

Besides, the subject matters of the two have significant overlap. Where would you put formal analysis/development of various decision theories, for example?

Luke_A_Somers on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T07:44:52.076591+10:00

Speaking of which, where is all that good stuff put as it stands?

Normal_Anomaly on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-16T03:00:59.134493+10:00

In all seriousness, you may want to try Stuart Armstrong's user page.

Oscar_Cunningham on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T08:35:55.535094+10:00

Put it on either and link it from the other one.

MarkusRamikin on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T16:35:44.077286+10:00

I like AI stuff.

thomblake on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T23:54:21.851693+10:00

I hope you realize that your liking of the off-topic subject is not relevant to this discussion.

Dolores1984 on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T18:00:06.372435+10:00

As do I.

David_Gerard on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T20:30:38.007545+10:00

As an aside, I seriously think we need to start considering general AI stuff as off-topic again.

It's interesting, but it's not something that fits the tagline: "refining the art of human rationality".

MarkusRamikin on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T16:37:38.984141+10:00

Good stuff.

Any idea how well the article was received?

JoshuaFox on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T21:12:40.518616+10:00

It just came out, but I am certainly interested in seeing how it is received.

I think that pop science magazines have an important role in giving social validation to new scientific ideas.

Academic publishing is so big that it is hard to tell what ideas are good; ordinary popular media have little concern for accuracy in reporting on science, but good pop science magazines often do a pretty good job of gatekeeper in explaining the true state of real science.

Kaj_Sotala on Overview article on FAI in a popular science magazine (Hebrew)

2012-05-15T15:22:45.661475+10:00

Good work!