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"Not many people know that Einstein was a burly, muscular fellow. But if Einstein tried to get a cat in a carrier, and the cat didn't want to go, you know what

"Not many people know that Einstein was a burly, muscular fellow. But if Einstein tried to get a cat in a carrier, and the cat didn't want to go, you know what would happen to Einstein. He would have to resort to a brute-force solution that has nothing to do with intelligence, and in that matchup the cat could do pretty well for itself." This seems, actually, like a perfect argument going in the other direction. Every day, millions of people put cats into boxes, despite the cats not being interested. If you offered to pay a normal, reasonably competent person $1,000 to get a reluctant cat in a box, do you really think they simply would not be able to do it? Heck, humans manage to keep tigers in zoos, where millions of people see them every year, with a tiny serious injury rate, even though tigers are aggressive and predatory by default and can trivially overpower humans.

idlewords 10y ago
I'm not arguing that it's useless to outsmart a cat. I'm disputing the assumption that being vastly smarter means your opponent is hopelessly outmatched and at your mercy. If you're the first human on an island full of tigers, you're not going to end up as the Tiger King.
- 21 10y ago
  Of course, if you take your average city dweller on your island, he will probably die of thirst before the tigers get to him. But take an (unarmed) navy seal as your human on the island and I'm pretty sure in a couple of months he will be the Tiger King. And Hawking would just ask his assistant to put the cat into the box. You are artificially depriving him of his actual resources to make a weak point.
  - to3m 10y ago
    What percentage of people are Navy SEALs? If I were a tiger, I'd probably think this island sounded like an excellent place for a fun adventure holiday with my tiger friends, and I'd be right to do so. Most likely outcome: good food, some exercise, and we can take some monkey heads home for our tiger cubs to play with.
    - 21 10y ago
      Fun, until the navy seal appears. It takes only one. The same thing with AI, it takes only one, no matter how many dumber ones we entertained ourselves with before.
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      - dsacco 10y ago
        What's up with your Navy SEAL analogy in these comments? Do you know any SEALs? Have you ever seen a tiger up close, say 20 feet or so? One adult tiger will kill an unarmed SEAL (and any other human being) in single combat. It would barely exert itself. It would make more sense if, when you said "it only takes one", you were referring to how many tigers could kill five or six SEALs who don't have guns. Fuck it, give your SEAL a fully automatic weapon - the odds are still not in his favor against a single tiger. Large felines have been known to kill or grievously injure humans after taking five high caliber rounds. This is exactly what idlewords' point is in his essay. Your argument about a SEAL landing on an island of tigers and somehow flipping a weird "Planet of the SEALs" scenario on them is exactly what many (most?) AI alarmists do. These ridiculous debates get in the way of good faith discussion about the real dangerous of AI technology, which is more about rapid automation with less human skin in the game than it is about the subjugation of the human species. This sort of unrealistic scenario is really fun to talk about, but that's all it is - fun. It's not really productive, and it conveniently appeals to our sense of ego and religious anxiety. Better to do real work and talk about the problems AI will cause in the future.
  - vectorpush 10y ago
    Navy SEALs are not superhuman. A single adult tiger would slaughter just about any unharmed human with near certainty, even a SEAL. Even armed with any weapon other than a firearm, the chances of besting a tiger and coming out without being maimed or mortally wounded is close to zero.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Why so afraid of the 400 pound killing machines?
- aaachilless 10y ago
  What if you're the first human on an island full of baby tigers? I think most AI alarmists would argue that this analogy is vastly more appropriate.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    Please put me on this island.
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    I think an analogy of a baby human on an island of tigers would be vastly more appropriate. Humans would be like the tigers - they might have a lower overall intelligence, but they are mature and self sufficient. A hyper-intelligent AI would be more akin to a baby human - it must be taught and raised first. But like the baby human on the island, it wouldn't be able to be taught by its peers, or benefit from the generations that came before it. It would certainly be at the mercy of the tigers until it matured, and even after it matured we wouldn't expect it to be able to use language or bows, or be anything other than a wild man. It probably wouldn't even seem much more intelligent than the tigers on the island.
    - aaachilless 10y ago
      I find both arguments equally plausible. I think there's plenty more plausible addendums too e.g. the idea that the baby human would mature incredibly fast. I'm not sure to what extent we're all throwing speculative darts here.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The idea here is that the person has to kill all the baby tigers, right? Because otherwise the end state is the same as the island full of adult tigers.
    - aaachilless 10y ago
      I was thinking that if you were _dropped_ onto an island full of tigers you'd have no chance, but that you could figure out a way to survive if you had some time to figure out a plan. Maybe you could find a way to coexist with the tigers. Become one of the pack, y'know?
- trishume 10y ago
  The issue is that in this case "vastly smarter" is not smart enough to truly understand the cat. It's conceivable an AI with tons of computing power could simulate a cat and reverse engineer its brain to find any stimulus that would cause it to get in the cage. I also think this isn't a very good analogy. In this case we're talking about manipulating humans, where we already know manipulation is eminently possible. Heck it wouldn't even need psychological manipulation. Hack a Bitcoin exchange or find another way of making money on the internet, then it can just pay someone absurd sums to do what it wants.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Well, as a cat owner I give you this: like with any other animal, there are tricks you can exploit to coerce a cat without using physical force. One way to get a cat into a carrier - well, the catfood industry created those funny little dry food pellets that are somehow super-addictive. Shake the box, my cat will come. Drop one in the carrier, it surely will enter. Will it eventually adapt to the trick? Maybe, but not likely if I also do this occasionally without closing the carrier door behind the cat. Yes, we can outsmart the cat. Cats are funny because they do silly, unpredictable things at random, not because they can't be reliably tricked.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  To become the Tiger King you must overcome the entire population of tigers. To become the President, you need only overcome a thousand Florida voters. To intern the Japanese, you need only overcome two members of SCOTUS (Korematsu v. US) It isn't necessary for Hawking to be able to trick the average cat into a box. It's sufficient to trick a handful of cats in total.
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    This line of reasoning only works in hindsight. Working in real time, you won't know in advance how many Florida voters you will need to win, or which ones. It's like saying that the way to overcome the population of tigers is to focus on raising and befriending the largest and most cunning tigers, who will then protect you against the rest. Ok, good idea, but unfortunately there is no way to know in advance which little tiger cubs will grow up to be the largest and most cunning.
- lmm 10y ago
  And yet somehow humans rule the planet and tigers are an endangered species, surviving only as a result of specific human efforts to conserve them because some humans care about doing so. How well an AI could survive on a desert island is an irrelevant question when Amazon, Google and dozens of others are already running fully (or as near as makes no difference) automated datacentres controlled by a codebase that still has parts written in C. Hawking can easily get the cat in the container: all he has to do is submit a job to taskrabbit.
thenomad 10y ago
There's no mention of iteration here, which is really what powers intelligence-based advantages. The first time Random Human A attempts to get Random Cat B into a box, they're going to have a hard time. They'll get there eventually, but they'll be coughing from the dust under the bed, swearing from having to lift the bloody sofa up, and probably have some scratches from after they managed to scare the cat enough for it to try attacking. However, speaking as a cat owner, if you've iterated on the problem a dozen or so times, Cat B is going in the box swiftly and effortlessly. Last time I put my cat in its box, it took about 3 minutes. Trying for the bed? Sorry, door's closed. Under the sofa? Not going to work. Trying to scratch me? Turns out cat elbows work the same way as human elbows. The same surely applies to a superintelligent AI? (Likewise with the Navy Seal On The Island Of The Tigers. Just drop one SEAL in there with no warning? He's screwed. Give a SEAL unit a year to plan, access to world experts on all aspects of Panthera tigris, and really, really good simulators (or other iteration method) to train in? Likely a different story. )
- idlewords 10y ago
  There's no need to reinvent solutions. The problem has already been given a proper mathematical treatment: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Spitzer_lion.html http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Spitzer_lion.html

idlewords 10y ago

I'm not arguing that it's useless to outsmart a cat. I'm disputing the assumption that being vastly smarter means your opponent is hopelessly outmatched and at your mercy. If you're the first human on an island full of tigers, you're not going to end up as the Tiger King.

21 10y ago
Of course, if you take your average city dweller on your island, he will probably die of thirst before the tigers get to him. But take an (unarmed) navy seal as your human on the island and I'm pretty sure in a couple of months he will be the Tiger King. And Hawking would just ask his assistant to put the cat into the box. You are artificially depriving him of his actual resources to make a weak point.
- to3m 10y ago
  What percentage of people are Navy SEALs? If I were a tiger, I'd probably think this island sounded like an excellent place for a fun adventure holiday with my tiger friends, and I'd be right to do so. Most likely outcome: good food, some exercise, and we can take some monkey heads home for our tiger cubs to play with.
  - 21 10y ago
    Fun, until the navy seal appears. It takes only one. The same thing with AI, it takes only one, no matter how many dumber ones we entertained ourselves with before.
    - deleted 10y ago
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    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - dsacco 10y ago
      What's up with your Navy SEAL analogy in these comments? Do you know any SEALs? Have you ever seen a tiger up close, say 20 feet or so? One adult tiger will kill an unarmed SEAL (and any other human being) in single combat. It would barely exert itself. It would make more sense if, when you said "it only takes one", you were referring to how many tigers could kill five or six SEALs who don't have guns. Fuck it, give your SEAL a fully automatic weapon - the odds are still not in his favor against a single tiger. Large felines have been known to kill or grievously injure humans after taking five high caliber rounds. This is exactly what idlewords' point is in his essay. Your argument about a SEAL landing on an island of tigers and somehow flipping a weird "Planet of the SEALs" scenario on them is exactly what many (most?) AI alarmists do. These ridiculous debates get in the way of good faith discussion about the real dangerous of AI technology, which is more about rapid automation with less human skin in the game than it is about the subjugation of the human species. This sort of unrealistic scenario is really fun to talk about, but that's all it is - fun. It's not really productive, and it conveniently appeals to our sense of ego and religious anxiety. Better to do real work and talk about the problems AI will cause in the future.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  Navy SEALs are not superhuman. A single adult tiger would slaughter just about any unharmed human with near certainty, even a SEAL. Even armed with any weapon other than a firearm, the chances of besting a tiger and coming out without being maimed or mortally wounded is close to zero.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Why so afraid of the 400 pound killing machines?
aaachilless 10y ago
What if you're the first human on an island full of baby tigers? I think most AI alarmists would argue that this analogy is vastly more appropriate.
- idlewords 10y ago
  Please put me on this island.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  I think an analogy of a baby human on an island of tigers would be vastly more appropriate. Humans would be like the tigers - they might have a lower overall intelligence, but they are mature and self sufficient. A hyper-intelligent AI would be more akin to a baby human - it must be taught and raised first. But like the baby human on the island, it wouldn't be able to be taught by its peers, or benefit from the generations that came before it. It would certainly be at the mercy of the tigers until it matured, and even after it matured we wouldn't expect it to be able to use language or bows, or be anything other than a wild man. It probably wouldn't even seem much more intelligent than the tigers on the island.
  - aaachilless 10y ago
    I find both arguments equally plausible. I think there's plenty more plausible addendums too e.g. the idea that the baby human would mature incredibly fast. I'm not sure to what extent we're all throwing speculative darts here.
- tptacek 10y ago
  The idea here is that the person has to kill all the baby tigers, right? Because otherwise the end state is the same as the island full of adult tigers.
  - aaachilless 10y ago
    I was thinking that if you were _dropped_ onto an island full of tigers you'd have no chance, but that you could figure out a way to survive if you had some time to figure out a plan. Maybe you could find a way to coexist with the tigers. Become one of the pack, y'know?
trishume 10y ago
The issue is that in this case "vastly smarter" is not smart enough to truly understand the cat. It's conceivable an AI with tons of computing power could simulate a cat and reverse engineer its brain to find any stimulus that would cause it to get in the cage. I also think this isn't a very good analogy. In this case we're talking about manipulating humans, where we already know manipulation is eminently possible. Heck it wouldn't even need psychological manipulation. Hack a Bitcoin exchange or find another way of making money on the internet, then it can just pay someone absurd sums to do what it wants.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Well, as a cat owner I give you this: like with any other animal, there are tricks you can exploit to coerce a cat without using physical force. One way to get a cat into a carrier - well, the catfood industry created those funny little dry food pellets that are somehow super-addictive. Shake the box, my cat will come. Drop one in the carrier, it surely will enter. Will it eventually adapt to the trick? Maybe, but not likely if I also do this occasionally without closing the carrier door behind the cat. Yes, we can outsmart the cat. Cats are funny because they do silly, unpredictable things at random, not because they can't be reliably tricked.
drewcrawford 10y ago
To become the Tiger King you must overcome the entire population of tigers. To become the President, you need only overcome a thousand Florida voters. To intern the Japanese, you need only overcome two members of SCOTUS (Korematsu v. US) It isn't necessary for Hawking to be able to trick the average cat into a box. It's sufficient to trick a handful of cats in total.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  This line of reasoning only works in hindsight. Working in real time, you won't know in advance how many Florida voters you will need to win, or which ones. It's like saying that the way to overcome the population of tigers is to focus on raising and befriending the largest and most cunning tigers, who will then protect you against the rest. Ok, good idea, but unfortunately there is no way to know in advance which little tiger cubs will grow up to be the largest and most cunning.
lmm 10y ago
And yet somehow humans rule the planet and tigers are an endangered species, surviving only as a result of specific human efforts to conserve them because some humans care about doing so. How well an AI could survive on a desert island is an irrelevant question when Amazon, Google and dozens of others are already running fully (or as near as makes no difference) automated datacentres controlled by a codebase that still has parts written in C. Hawking can easily get the cat in the container: all he has to do is submit a job to taskrabbit.

thenomad 10y ago

There's no mention of iteration here, which is really what powers intelligence-based advantages. The first time Random Human A attempts to get Random Cat B into a box, they're going to have a hard time. They'll get there eventually, but they'll be coughing from the dust under the bed, swearing from having to lift the bloody sofa up, and probably have some scratches from after they managed to scare the cat enough for it to try attacking. However, speaking as a cat owner, if you've iterated on the problem a dozen or so times, Cat B is going in the box swiftly and effortlessly. Last time I put my cat in its box, it took about 3 minutes. Trying for the bed? Sorry, door's closed. Under the sofa? Not going to work. Trying to scratch me? Turns out cat elbows work the same way as human elbows. The same surely applies to a superintelligent AI? (Likewise with the Navy Seal On The Island Of The Tigers. Just drop one SEAL in there with no warning? He's screwed. Give a SEAL unit a year to plan, access to world experts on all aspects of Panthera tigris, and really, really good simulators (or other iteration method) to train in? Likely a different story. )

idlewords 10y ago
There's no need to reinvent solutions. The problem has already been given a proper mathematical treatment: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Spitzer_lion.html http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Spitzer_lion.html