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Best of luck. Do you have a hypothesis? More experienced ML folks don't seem to be on board [1] [2]. I haven't seen anyone posit how to build a machine that

Best of luck. Do you have a hypothesis? More experienced ML folks don't seem to be on board [1] [2]. I haven't seen anyone posit how to build a machine that can set its own goals. I'm sure you'll build and learn something cool nonetheless Another organization that tried to build AI was called Thinking Machines [3]. They were good at parallel programming. A few of them would later form "Ab Initio Software" [4]. Their motto is "from first principles," which Elon likes to say. Socrates did too. My first job out of college trained us on that software. It's easy to use even if you're not a programmer, which was impressive for parallel software in 2004. I still get job emails for having it on my resume. The company is private and does not share its training resources. Boston mentality, I guess. Despite being so closed, they appeared to be quite successful in 2004 and have managed to stick around. [1] http://hunch.net/?p=3692542 http://hunch.net/?p=3692542 [2] https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153442884182143?__mref=message_bubble https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153442884182143?... [3] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406781/thinking-machines/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/406781/thinking-machines/ [4] http://www.abinitio.com/ http://www.abinitio.com/

joe_the_user 10y ago
The question of how to create general AI is fascinating but I don't think OpenAI is actually aiming for anything like a leap to full general intelligence at the moment. Rather, it seems like their goal is to follow the same incremental path mainstream AI is following but without having to hide it's methods. "OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." "In the short term, we're building on recent advances in AI research and working towards the next set of breakthroughs." -- Which is to say, ordinary progress, not extraordinary progress. https://openai.com/about/ https://openai.com/about/
- studentrob 10y ago
  Preface: I wish OpenAI the best of luck. That said, the quoted verbiage is vague and different from what Altman and Musk said in interviews [0]. > Altman: The organization is trying to develop a human positive AI > Musk: There’s two schools of thought — do you want many AIs, or a small number of AIs? We think probably many is good. And to the degree that you can tie it to an extension of individual human will, that is also good. OpenAI's about page is also different from what was written in the AI open letters signed by Musk and presumably other backers of OpenAI last year, > Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached a point where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms. [1] > The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting ... We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity [1] Then, in another letter, > We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do It sounds like Musk either thinks we are approaching AI, or he is misusing the term AI. The AI letter signees and backers of OpenAI may benefit from more discussion with experienced AI researchers such as those I linked above. What Altman and Musk said about the founding goals of OpenAI is not grounded in reality. It's great to have more funding in this field. [0] https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over-17e0e27dd02a#.g33qtn9ni https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-... [1] http://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/ http://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/ [2] http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/ http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/
  - studentrob 10y ago
    Plus, Greg himself writes in this blog post, > However, there was one problem that I could imagine happily working on for the rest of my life: moving humanity to safe human-level AI. It’s hard to imagine anything more amazing and positively impactful than successfully creating AI, so long as it’s done in a good way.

joe_the_user 10y ago

The question of how to create general AI is fascinating but I don't think OpenAI is actually aiming for anything like a leap to full general intelligence at the moment. Rather, it seems like their goal is to follow the same incremental path mainstream AI is following but without having to hide it's methods. "OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." "In the short term, we're building on recent advances in AI research and working towards the next set of breakthroughs." -- Which is to say, ordinary progress, not extraordinary progress. https://openai.com/about/ https://openai.com/about/

studentrob 10y ago
Preface: I wish OpenAI the best of luck. That said, the quoted verbiage is vague and different from what Altman and Musk said in interviews [0]. > Altman: The organization is trying to develop a human positive AI > Musk: There’s two schools of thought — do you want many AIs, or a small number of AIs? We think probably many is good. And to the degree that you can tie it to an extension of individual human will, that is also good. OpenAI's about page is also different from what was written in the AI open letters signed by Musk and presumably other backers of OpenAI last year, > Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached a point where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms. [1] > The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting ... We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity [1] Then, in another letter, > We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do It sounds like Musk either thinks we are approaching AI, or he is misusing the term AI. The AI letter signees and backers of OpenAI may benefit from more discussion with experienced AI researchers such as those I linked above. What Altman and Musk said about the founding goals of OpenAI is not grounded in reality. It's great to have more funding in this field. [0] https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over-17e0e27dd02a#.g33qtn9ni https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-... [1] http://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/ http://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/ [2] http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/ http://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/
- studentrob 10y ago
  Plus, Greg himself writes in this blog post, > However, there was one problem that I could imagine happily working on for the rest of my life: moving humanity to safe human-level AI. It’s hard to imagine anything more amazing and positively impactful than successfully creating AI, so long as it’s done in a good way.