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Human intelligence is basically the ability to solve a large collection of sub-problems. As models learn how to solve more and more sub-problems they become clo

Human intelligence is basically the ability to solve a large collection of sub-problems. As models learn how to solve more and more sub-problems they become closer and closer to human intelligence. Right now the focus is on solving important specific sub-problems better humans, rather than the ability to solve a much wider variety of sub-problems. Machine learning and human learning happen in much the same way. We have a dataset of memories, and we have a training dataset of results. We then classify things based on pattern matching. The current human advantage is an ability to store, acquire and access certain kinds of data more efficiently, which helps in solving a wider variety of problems. For problems in which machines have found out how to store, acquire and access data more efficiently (such as chess) machines are far superior to humans.

gavanwoolery 10y ago
This is basically strong AI vs weak AI. I don't know what the ultimate solution is - it could be exactly as you describe. :) My theory is just that it will need to be generally applicable, on domains it is not trained on, if it is to reach human-level intelligence.
- selectron 10y ago
  Human-level intelligence is not generally applicable on domains it is not trained on, so holding AI to this standard is ridiculous. Humans need to be taught just like machines do.
  - gavanwoolery 10y ago
    Yes, but there is cross-over of domains. For example, say you learned how to ride a bicycle. This might aid you in how fast you learn to ride a motorcycle, or vice versa. (Might be a bad example but I hope it illustrates the point)
    - pinouchon 10y ago
      You are referring to transfer learning
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      AI can do the same thing. What you are talking about is ex balance. On top of that, once balance is learned it's instantly transferable to other "machines" where as each human has to learn it.
resu_nimda 10y ago
Human intelligence is so much more than that. I feel like we vastly underestimate the problem when we make it sound so simple. "Oh well the machines are basically the same as us, so we just have to get them to be able to solve more sub-problems and then we've got it!" Right now the focus is on solving important specific sub-problems better humans, rather than the ability to solve a much wider variety of sub-problems. The focus is there because there are business applications and money there. Do researchers really think that some version of a chess-bot or go-bot or cat-image-bot or jeopardy-bot will just "wake up" one day when it reaches some threshold? That this approach is truly the best path to AGI? A machine can play chess better than a human because the human used its knowledge to build a chess-playing machine. That's all it can do. It takes chess inputs and produces chess outputs. It doesn't know why it's playing chess. It didn't choose to learn chess because it seemed interesting or valuable. No machine has ever displayed any form of "agency." A chatbot that learns from a corpus of text and rehashes it to produce "realistic" text doesn't count either. You could argue many of the same things about humans themselves. Consciousness is an illusion, we don't have true agency either, we also just rehash words we've heard - I believe these things. But it seems clear to me that what is going on inside a human brain is so far beyond what we have gotten machines to do. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we underwent a developmental process of billions of years, being molded and built up for the specific purpose of surviving in our environment. Computers have none of that. We built a toy that can do some tricks. Compared to the absolute insanity of biological life, it's a joke. I think it is such hubris to say that we're anywhere close to figuring out how to make something that rivals our own intelligence, which itself is well beyond our comprehension.

gavanwoolery 10y ago

This is basically strong AI vs weak AI. I don't know what the ultimate solution is - it could be exactly as you describe. :) My theory is just that it will need to be generally applicable, on domains it is not trained on, if it is to reach human-level intelligence.

selectron 10y ago
Human-level intelligence is not generally applicable on domains it is not trained on, so holding AI to this standard is ridiculous. Humans need to be taught just like machines do.
- gavanwoolery 10y ago
  Yes, but there is cross-over of domains. For example, say you learned how to ride a bicycle. This might aid you in how fast you learn to ride a motorcycle, or vice versa. (Might be a bad example but I hope it illustrates the point)
  - pinouchon 10y ago
    You are referring to transfer learning
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    AI can do the same thing. What you are talking about is ex balance. On top of that, once balance is learned it's instantly transferable to other "machines" where as each human has to learn it.

resu_nimda 10y ago

Human intelligence is so much more than that. I feel like we vastly underestimate the problem when we make it sound so simple. "Oh well the machines are basically the same as us, so we just have to get them to be able to solve more sub-problems and then we've got it!" Right now the focus is on solving important specific sub-problems better humans, rather than the ability to solve a much wider variety of sub-problems. The focus is there because there are business applications and money there. Do researchers really think that some version of a chess-bot or go-bot or cat-image-bot or jeopardy-bot will just "wake up" one day when it reaches some threshold? That this approach is truly the best path to AGI? A machine can play chess better than a human because the human used its knowledge to build a chess-playing machine. That's all it can do. It takes chess inputs and produces chess outputs. It doesn't know why it's playing chess. It didn't choose to learn chess because it seemed interesting or valuable. No machine has ever displayed any form of "agency." A chatbot that learns from a corpus of text and rehashes it to produce "realistic" text doesn't count either. You could argue many of the same things about humans themselves. Consciousness is an illusion, we don't have true agency either, we also just rehash words we've heard - I believe these things. But it seems clear to me that what is going on inside a human brain is so far beyond what we have gotten machines to do. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we underwent a developmental process of billions of years, being molded and built up for the specific purpose of surviving in our environment. Computers have none of that. We built a toy that can do some tricks. Compared to the absolute insanity of biological life, it's a joke. I think it is such hubris to say that we're anywhere close to figuring out how to make something that rivals our own intelligence, which itself is well beyond our comprehension.