Comment author:Aeonios
19 July 2012 03:41:14AM
-3 points
[-]
There are several reasons why I agree with the "Pascal's Mugging" comment:
Intelligence Explosion: There are several reasons why an intelligence explosion is highly unlikely. First, upgrading computer fabrication equipment requires on the order of 5-15 billion dollars. Second, intelligence is not measured in gigaflops or petaflops, and mere improvement of fabrication technology is insufficient to increase intelligence. Finally, the requisite variety that drives innovation and creation will be extremely difficult to produce in AIs of a limited quantity. Succeeding in engineering or science requires copious amounts of failure, and AIs are not immune to this either.
2.Computing Overhang: The very claim of "computing overhang" shows total ignorance of actual AI, and of the incredible complexity of human intelligence. The human brain is made up of numerous small regions which both "run programs" inside of themselves and communicate via synchronous signals with the rest of the brain in concert (in neural, and not transistor form). A human level AI would be the same, and could not simply be run on, say, your average web server, no matter how decked out it is. An AI that could run on "extra" hardware would probably be too primitive to reproduce itself on purpose, and if it did it would be a minor nuisance at worst.
The idea that AIs can be "programmed" is mostly nonsense. Very simple AIs can be "programmed", sure, but neural networks require training by experience, just like humans. An AI with human level intelligence or greater would need to be taught like a child, and any "friendliness" that came of it would be the result of its "instincts" (I'm guessing we wouldn't want AIs with aggression) and of its experience. Additionally, as mentioned above, the need for variety in intelligence to produce real progress means that copying them will not be as economical as it might seem, not to mention not nearly as simple as you make it out to be.
The timescales you present are absurd. Humans barely have an understanding of human psychology, and they do terrible at it with the knowledge they do have. We may have teraflops desktop computers in 20 years, but that does not imply that they will magically sprout intelligence! Technically, even with today's technology you could produce a program much more sophisticated than shrdlu was, and receive orders of magnitude better performance than the original did, but it is the complexity of programming something that learns that prevents it from occurring commonly. It will likely be a hundred maybe two hundred years before we have a sophisticated enough understanding of human intelligence to reproduce it in any meaningful way. We have only taken the bare first steps into the field thus far, and development has been much slower than for the rest of the computing industry.
In short, human stupidity that is occurring right now is a much greater threat to our future as a species than is any hypothetical superintelligent AI that might finally appear a hundred years or more in the future. If human civilization is even to maintain its integrity long enough to produce such a thing ever, then widespread ignorance of economics, spirituality/psychology, and general lack of sensitivity to culture and art must be dealt with first and foremost.
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There are several reasons why I agree with the "Pascal's Mugging" comment:
2.Computing Overhang: The very claim of "computing overhang" shows total ignorance of actual AI, and of the incredible complexity of human intelligence. The human brain is made up of numerous small regions which both "run programs" inside of themselves and communicate via synchronous signals with the rest of the brain in concert (in neural, and not transistor form). A human level AI would be the same, and could not simply be run on, say, your average web server, no matter how decked out it is. An AI that could run on "extra" hardware would probably be too primitive to reproduce itself on purpose, and if it did it would be a minor nuisance at worst.
The idea that AIs can be "programmed" is mostly nonsense. Very simple AIs can be "programmed", sure, but neural networks require training by experience, just like humans. An AI with human level intelligence or greater would need to be taught like a child, and any "friendliness" that came of it would be the result of its "instincts" (I'm guessing we wouldn't want AIs with aggression) and of its experience. Additionally, as mentioned above, the need for variety in intelligence to produce real progress means that copying them will not be as economical as it might seem, not to mention not nearly as simple as you make it out to be.
The timescales you present are absurd. Humans barely have an understanding of human psychology, and they do terrible at it with the knowledge they do have. We may have teraflops desktop computers in 20 years, but that does not imply that they will magically sprout intelligence! Technically, even with today's technology you could produce a program much more sophisticated than shrdlu was, and receive orders of magnitude better performance than the original did, but it is the complexity of programming something that learns that prevents it from occurring commonly. It will likely be a hundred maybe two hundred years before we have a sophisticated enough understanding of human intelligence to reproduce it in any meaningful way. We have only taken the bare first steps into the field thus far, and development has been much slower than for the rest of the computing industry.
In short, human stupidity that is occurring right now is a much greater threat to our future as a species than is any hypothetical superintelligent AI that might finally appear a hundred years or more in the future. If human civilization is even to maintain its integrity long enough to produce such a thing ever, then widespread ignorance of economics, spirituality/psychology, and general lack of sensitivity to culture and art must be dealt with first and foremost.
Where'd that come from? Are you an artists / anthropologist?