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TLDR the singularity hasn't happened yet so it will never happen. Typical low quality technology "journalism". "For starters, biologists acknowledge that the b

by abtinf 11y ago

TLDR the singularity hasn't happened yet so it will never happen. Typical low quality technology "journalism". "For starters, biologists acknowledge that the basic mechanisms for biological intelligence are still not completely understood, and as a result there is not a good model of human intelligence for computers to simulate." Duh. We don't know how the brain works yet. A big chunk of The Singularity is Near deals with how we build that understanding. Once we know how the brain works, computing will take advantage.

danieltillett 11y ago
We don't even need to know that - we just need to design a system that can evolve. No single cell knows how a brain works, yet every day thousands of brains are created from single cells.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  Isn't this the best course of action for AI anyways? Creating intelligence through evolution rather than reverse engineering the brain?
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    I don't know about evolution, but most current AI work is done through first principles rather than copying the brain. Neural networks, despite the name, were only vaguely inspired by real neuroscience. And now are entirely rooted in basic calculus and maybe probability theory. It may very well happen the other way around, that AI researchers figure out intelligence and then use their discoveries to explain neuroscience. Which is already happening a bit, with a well known researcher recently proposing a theory on how the brain might implement a variation of the backpropagation algorithm. Figuring out the brain is like trying to reverse engineer messy spaghetti code that has gone through an obfuscating compiler. Although it may be possible to figure it out, it's probably faster to just write our own code.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    It is if you have the raw computational power. At the moment our best computers are still a few orders of magnitude off the raw computational resources of the human brain. Of course the downside of doing this is we have really no idea of what the AI is thinking or why. This may not be the wisest way to create an AI.
Aaargh20318 11y ago
We didn't need to know how birds fly to build planes.
- vvvv 11y ago
  It certainly helped.
- adrianN 11y ago
  Planes don't fly like birds do, but we certainly learned something about good wing design from birds.
- ild 11y ago
  Mind is different, because you do not want to create a zombie, that acts like a human, but an actually conscious system.
  - Aaargh20318 11y ago
    Please provide proof that humans aren't zombies. If you act like you're conscious, you are conscious.
    - ild 11y ago
      Consciousness does not have external signs; I have not a slightest idea what it means "act like you're conscious"; a paralyzed person is conscious after all. The only reason to believe that humans (aside of myself, obviously) are conscious is that all humans share structural similarity with me.
cheez 11y ago
A draft version of the singularity is almost just one or two key insights away. With the advent of a different computing model (quantum?), we may knock one of them out.
leg100 11y ago
> Duh. We don't know how the brain works yet. A big chunk of The Singularity is Near deals with how we build that understanding. Once we know how the brain works, computing will take advantage. That's not what I hear. The singularity-is-near proponents argue that understanding the brain is unnecessary, and that there are short-cuts, whether it be trial-and-error, big data approaches, or neural networks. Otherwise it's going to take a long long time to truly understand how it works and the Singularity-won't-be-so-near.
- abtinf 11y ago
  I was referring specifically to Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near. He covers various current and future techniques to analyze the brain, including imaging technologies and extremely thin physical slicing. His view is that this knowledge will inform model development.
Chathamization 11y ago
The point seems to be that people have been predicting human or super-human intelligence was just around the corner for decades, each time they've been wrong, and there's not much evidence that this time is any different. Granted, this should be common sense, but judging from a lot that gets written it unfortunately isn't. Current productivity growth is actually somewhat low. But instead of looking at the data, people seem to latch on to anecdotal evidence, posting stories about modern day automats and saying that they're evidence that everyone is going to be replaced by robots soon.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  People has been predicting super-human intelligence at the 30's for decades. (That's the original singularity prediction.) Yet, 15 years earlier, we are just having a couple of breakthroughs on AI every year. Yeah, sure, total failure... Gotta love people that can't read a date.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
You comment almost comes off dismissive - saying that there is only one path to the singularity; by mapping the brain first. If you look at discoveries in several areas, it's happens in leaps and bounds. Think about jet engines, radar, atomic weapons, the computer and mobile phones. All happened in huge leaps, not just by adhering to one rigorous standard and making small inroads here and there. I'm pretty sure the singularity is a long, long way off, but it will happen. Humans have to evolve, and at some point, we won't be the top of the evolutionary ladder anymore. Whether that means evolving to something more cyborg like, or creating another race of robot humanoids (where you're going to have inherit conflict), it will happen. The dinosaurs didn't last for 65 million years without evolving several times themselves.
- leg100 11y ago
  > Humans have to evolve No, we don't. We are in power of our own destiny. We don't have to create a race of robot humanoids. There is nothing inevitable about any of this.
chongli 11y ago
I don't think we're going to be able to build a good model of 'intelligence' because our definition of the word is ostensive[0]. We also have this prorblem with other big concepts we're trying to understand, such as life[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

by abtinf 11y ago

danieltillett 11y ago

We don't even need to know that - we just need to design a system that can evolve. No single cell knows how a brain works, yet every day thousands of brains are created from single cells.

atom-morgan 11y ago
Isn't this the best course of action for AI anyways? Creating intelligence through evolution rather than reverse engineering the brain?
- Houshalter 11y ago
  I don't know about evolution, but most current AI work is done through first principles rather than copying the brain. Neural networks, despite the name, were only vaguely inspired by real neuroscience. And now are entirely rooted in basic calculus and maybe probability theory. It may very well happen the other way around, that AI researchers figure out intelligence and then use their discoveries to explain neuroscience. Which is already happening a bit, with a well known researcher recently proposing a theory on how the brain might implement a variation of the backpropagation algorithm. Figuring out the brain is like trying to reverse engineer messy spaghetti code that has gone through an obfuscating compiler. Although it may be possible to figure it out, it's probably faster to just write our own code.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  It is if you have the raw computational power. At the moment our best computers are still a few orders of magnitude off the raw computational resources of the human brain. Of course the downside of doing this is we have really no idea of what the AI is thinking or why. This may not be the wisest way to create an AI.

Aaargh20318 11y ago

We didn't need to know how birds fly to build planes.

vvvv 11y ago
It certainly helped.
adrianN 11y ago
Planes don't fly like birds do, but we certainly learned something about good wing design from birds.
ild 11y ago
Mind is different, because you do not want to create a zombie, that acts like a human, but an actually conscious system.
- Aaargh20318 11y ago
  Please provide proof that humans aren't zombies. If you act like you're conscious, you are conscious.
  - ild 11y ago
    Consciousness does not have external signs; I have not a slightest idea what it means "act like you're conscious"; a paralyzed person is conscious after all. The only reason to believe that humans (aside of myself, obviously) are conscious is that all humans share structural similarity with me.

cheez 11y ago

A draft version of the singularity is almost just one or two key insights away. With the advent of a different computing model (quantum?), we may knock one of them out.

leg100 11y ago

> Duh. We don't know how the brain works yet. A big chunk of The Singularity is Near deals with how we build that understanding. Once we know how the brain works, computing will take advantage. That's not what I hear. The singularity-is-near proponents argue that understanding the brain is unnecessary, and that there are short-cuts, whether it be trial-and-error, big data approaches, or neural networks. Otherwise it's going to take a long long time to truly understand how it works and the Singularity-won't-be-so-near.

abtinf 11y ago
I was referring specifically to Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near. He covers various current and future techniques to analyze the brain, including imaging technologies and extremely thin physical slicing. His view is that this knowledge will inform model development.

Chathamization 11y ago

The point seems to be that people have been predicting human or super-human intelligence was just around the corner for decades, each time they've been wrong, and there's not much evidence that this time is any different. Granted, this should be common sense, but judging from a lot that gets written it unfortunately isn't. Current productivity growth is actually somewhat low. But instead of looking at the data, people seem to latch on to anecdotal evidence, posting stories about modern day automats and saying that they're evidence that everyone is going to be replaced by robots soon.

marcosdumay 11y ago
People has been predicting super-human intelligence at the 30's for decades. (That's the original singularity prediction.) Yet, 15 years earlier, we are just having a couple of breakthroughs on AI every year. Yeah, sure, total failure... Gotta love people that can't read a date.

at-fates-hands 11y ago

You comment almost comes off dismissive - saying that there is only one path to the singularity; by mapping the brain first. If you look at discoveries in several areas, it's happens in leaps and bounds. Think about jet engines, radar, atomic weapons, the computer and mobile phones. All happened in huge leaps, not just by adhering to one rigorous standard and making small inroads here and there. I'm pretty sure the singularity is a long, long way off, but it will happen. Humans have to evolve, and at some point, we won't be the top of the evolutionary ladder anymore. Whether that means evolving to something more cyborg like, or creating another race of robot humanoids (where you're going to have inherit conflict), it will happen. The dinosaurs didn't last for 65 million years without evolving several times themselves.

leg100 11y ago
> Humans have to evolve No, we don't. We are in power of our own destiny. We don't have to create a race of robot humanoids. There is nothing inevitable about any of this.

chongli 11y ago

I don't think we're going to be able to build a good model of 'intelligence' because our definition of the word is ostensive[0]. We also have this prorblem with other big concepts we're trying to understand, such as life[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life