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I disagree. If you really think about each decision you make on a day to day basis, your state space is actually quite limited. In most cases, I don't have to s

I disagree. If you really think about each decision you make on a day to day basis, your state space is actually quite limited. In most cases, I don't have to sort through 64 different states to make most decisions. Even decisions that are "difficult." For example, My Air conditioner was not working correctly last week. These were my considerations: 1) I can investigate 2) I can call someone 3) I can investigate and try to repair 4) I can ignore it 5) I can destroy it 6) ??? Apply to college or go to trade school... Move to Silicon Valley or stay put... Decide to have children with my wife... All of these would start off as large state spaces, but would inevitably shrink as each state is considered. At least, that is how I solve my decisions. Lots of lists that get worked down... The real dilemma in decision making the determination of the outcome you desire, or better yet... the probability of attaining the desired outcome. If I am not mistaken, I read in _Thinking Fast and Slow_ that humans are pretty terrible at prediction, probability and remembering exact details. Furthermore, humans brains would meltdown if we sorted through 64 state spaces for every decision. We mostly live by rules of thumb and easy thinking... I think AlphaGo could make me a better human.

astazangasta 11y ago
The fact that humans pare down their choices through decision-making and convention is not the same as saying the choice does not exist. Your considerations to "My air conditioner was not working correctly last week" could also include: run through the streets naked, kill your wife, fill your bathtub with jello, buy a fan, etc. You eliminate most of these options out of hand because you know they won't be useful, as a result of an entire lifetime's worth of training; an AI has to be brought to this point. At any point on the AI's decision tree, a priori, is "kill all humans", just as it is on yours - it has to be taught that most of the time this choice doesn't make sense.
- monkmartinez 11y ago
  You are right... I had to learn a lot to eliminate the obviously non-productive routes in my decision matrix. My contention is that those non-productive routes are fewer than the routes AlphaGo encounters within the game of Go. If there were an AlphaHVAC, AlphaMATH, AlphaPlumbing, AlphaStucco, AlphaEMS, AlphaLogic, AlphaMorals etc., etc. we could have modal expert systems we point at whatever we need to know and do. Emergency field medicine is a lot like remodeling a bathroom with mold. Once you discover the problem, you follow algorithms to fix the issues. It was the same with my HVAC system. In emergency field medicine, they even call them algorithms. Then we can combine the expert systems under some kind of unifying command structure... have them "talk" to each other, learn from one another. AlphaGo has shown that complex, difficult, and downright ugly problems can be modeled and yield results better than the lifetime training of a human in the game of Go (at least for now). IMO, Deepmind will mark the transition to the age of Transhumanism.
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    >IMO, Deepmind will mark the transition to the age of Transhumanism. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but I'm pretty sure I don't want it to happen.
  - inopinatus 11y ago
    I understand what you're suggesting, but as an ontological taxonomy nitpick: I was under the impression that Transhumanism was about the betterment - not obsolescence - of humans. In that frame surely we should be talking about how AlphaGo-like systems can augment direct human cognition. Yes I want to plug it into my brain.

astazangasta 11y ago

The fact that humans pare down their choices through decision-making and convention is not the same as saying the choice does not exist. Your considerations to "My air conditioner was not working correctly last week" could also include: run through the streets naked, kill your wife, fill your bathtub with jello, buy a fan, etc. You eliminate most of these options out of hand because you know they won't be useful, as a result of an entire lifetime's worth of training; an AI has to be brought to this point. At any point on the AI's decision tree, a priori, is "kill all humans", just as it is on yours - it has to be taught that most of the time this choice doesn't make sense.

monkmartinez 11y ago
You are right... I had to learn a lot to eliminate the obviously non-productive routes in my decision matrix. My contention is that those non-productive routes are fewer than the routes AlphaGo encounters within the game of Go. If there were an AlphaHVAC, AlphaMATH, AlphaPlumbing, AlphaStucco, AlphaEMS, AlphaLogic, AlphaMorals etc., etc. we could have modal expert systems we point at whatever we need to know and do. Emergency field medicine is a lot like remodeling a bathroom with mold. Once you discover the problem, you follow algorithms to fix the issues. It was the same with my HVAC system. In emergency field medicine, they even call them algorithms. Then we can combine the expert systems under some kind of unifying command structure... have them "talk" to each other, learn from one another. AlphaGo has shown that complex, difficult, and downright ugly problems can be modeled and yield results better than the lifetime training of a human in the game of Go (at least for now). IMO, Deepmind will mark the transition to the age of Transhumanism.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  >IMO, Deepmind will mark the transition to the age of Transhumanism. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but I'm pretty sure I don't want it to happen.
- inopinatus 11y ago
  I understand what you're suggesting, but as an ontological taxonomy nitpick: I was under the impression that Transhumanism was about the betterment - not obsolescence - of humans. In that frame surely we should be talking about how AlphaGo-like systems can augment direct human cognition. Yes I want to plug it into my brain.