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Artificial General Intelligence is roughly defined as a machine that can do all the things a human can do. For example, an AI capable of doing AI research and p

Artificial General Intelligence is roughly defined as a machine that can do all the things a human can do. For example, an AI capable of doing AI research and programming computers, would be AGI. The Turing test (as Turing originally described it, not garbage like chatbot competitions) is the most widely accepted standard of AGI. Superintelligence goes well beyond that. A machine with cognitive abilities far beyond humans. I don't think such a machine is very unlikely even in the near future. It's unreasonable to believe that humans are the pinnacle of intelligence. We are just the very first intelligent creature to evolve. Our brains are heavily resource constrained by size and energy. And neurons are many orders of magnitude slower than transistors. And also far larger and less compact.

rtx 10y ago
So how will this intelligent thing come about.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Once we have AIs as smart as humans, they can do AI research as good or better than human researchers. And they can make AIs that are even better, which in turn can make even better AIs, and so on. Dumb evolution was able to create human-level intelligence with just random mutations and natural selection. Surely human engineers can do better. But in the worst case, we could reverse engineer the human brain.
  - evgen 10y ago
    > Once we have AIs as smart as humans Whether a true 'generalist' AI is possible in the forseeable future is debatable. > they can do AI research as good or better than human researchers. Now your AI is not just a 'generalist' but rather a specialist in AI. A very big leap of faith has occurred here. This also presumes that the AIs are even capable of effective invention and improvisation rather than mimicry and optimization (the only two features we have seen from the very best of cutting-edge ML work so far.) > And they can make AIs that are even better, which in turn can make even better AIs, and so on. All of which is predicated on the limiting factor being software and not hardware. If it is the latter then these postulated AIs are hitting the same brick wall as humans and thinking about the problem faster or harder does not magically make the necessary hardware appear.
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      >Whether a true 'generalist' AI is possible in the forseeable future is debatable. Sure, but see the survey I posted above. The rate of progress of AI is incredible. We will almost certainly be approaching human level in a few decades at most. >Now your AI is not just a 'generalist' but rather a specialist in AI. That's what general intelligence is. The ability to learn different specializations. AI researchers are not literally born as AI researchers and capable of nothing else. > This also presumes that the AIs are even capable of effective invention and improvisation rather than mimicry and optimization Why wouldn't they be? If they are generally intelligent and can do all the same tasks humans can do. Whats magical about invention that would prevent computers from ever doing it? >All of which is predicated on the limiting factor being software and not hardware. All the same arguments apply to hardware. Hardware has been improving exponentially for a much longer time than AI has. And I think hardware may already be close enough. Transistors are orders of magnitude faster and denser than biological synapses.
      - MrGando 10y ago
        As far as I know, there hasn't really been a quantum leap in AI in decades. Most of the fundamentals of the things you see in AI and machine learning are old, like 70s and 80s. The big change is that we have way more and cheaper processing power, so you can see AI happening in fields and areas that were just impossible in the past. A true Turing Test passing machine, is still something that we seem to be more than a quantum leap behind of.
        Houshalter 10y ago
        Who says we need a quantum leap? Most technologies progress by slow iterative improvement. The idea of sudden significant breakthroughs is mostly a myth. Even in biology, the human brain only has some slight differences from other primates. Which in turn aren't terribly different from other animals. In any case, I think there has been tons of progress since the 80s. Taking the best algorithms from the 80s and running them on modern hardware would fail. The core idea of backpropagation and gradient descent was there, but not much else.
philipov 10y ago
The problem is this conception of superintelligence as something that comes after general artificial intelligence. Superintelligence is irrelevant. We'll have superaptitude before general AI, and that will be enough. One of the important principles of design is that specialized solutions are better than general ones. The tasks humans are hired to perform by employers, and the processes which can be used to break democracy by exploiting big data, are far more constrained than the scope of cognition required to pass the Turing test.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Many, maybe even most, interesting tasks in AI can't be done without general intelligence. Specialized AI can only do very limited, simple tasks, that require little thinking or understanding. That's cool, but it's hardly an existential threat like superintelligence is.
- RogtamBar 10y ago
  You forget that democracy has always been broken, by design. >>The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.<< The current fit on part of the intellectuals and media is due to them having lost this power to control the narrative and ideas because they failed to adapt to the new media which have replaced the old.
  - philipov 10y ago
    citation for the quote?
j2kun 10y ago
This is what I'm talking about. This comment is very vague.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Vague in what way? The Turing Test is a pretty concrete definition of human-level AI, which is what you asked for.

rtx 10y ago

So how will this intelligent thing come about.

Houshalter 10y ago
Once we have AIs as smart as humans, they can do AI research as good or better than human researchers. And they can make AIs that are even better, which in turn can make even better AIs, and so on. Dumb evolution was able to create human-level intelligence with just random mutations and natural selection. Surely human engineers can do better. But in the worst case, we could reverse engineer the human brain.
- evgen 10y ago
  > Once we have AIs as smart as humans Whether a true 'generalist' AI is possible in the forseeable future is debatable. > they can do AI research as good or better than human researchers. Now your AI is not just a 'generalist' but rather a specialist in AI. A very big leap of faith has occurred here. This also presumes that the AIs are even capable of effective invention and improvisation rather than mimicry and optimization (the only two features we have seen from the very best of cutting-edge ML work so far.) > And they can make AIs that are even better, which in turn can make even better AIs, and so on. All of which is predicated on the limiting factor being software and not hardware. If it is the latter then these postulated AIs are hitting the same brick wall as humans and thinking about the problem faster or harder does not magically make the necessary hardware appear.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    >Whether a true 'generalist' AI is possible in the forseeable future is debatable. Sure, but see the survey I posted above. The rate of progress of AI is incredible. We will almost certainly be approaching human level in a few decades at most. >Now your AI is not just a 'generalist' but rather a specialist in AI. That's what general intelligence is. The ability to learn different specializations. AI researchers are not literally born as AI researchers and capable of nothing else. > This also presumes that the AIs are even capable of effective invention and improvisation rather than mimicry and optimization Why wouldn't they be? If they are generally intelligent and can do all the same tasks humans can do. Whats magical about invention that would prevent computers from ever doing it? >All of which is predicated on the limiting factor being software and not hardware. All the same arguments apply to hardware. Hardware has been improving exponentially for a much longer time than AI has. And I think hardware may already be close enough. Transistors are orders of magnitude faster and denser than biological synapses.
    - MrGando 10y ago
      As far as I know, there hasn't really been a quantum leap in AI in decades. Most of the fundamentals of the things you see in AI and machine learning are old, like 70s and 80s. The big change is that we have way more and cheaper processing power, so you can see AI happening in fields and areas that were just impossible in the past. A true Turing Test passing machine, is still something that we seem to be more than a quantum leap behind of.
      - Houshalter 10y ago
        Who says we need a quantum leap? Most technologies progress by slow iterative improvement. The idea of sudden significant breakthroughs is mostly a myth. Even in biology, the human brain only has some slight differences from other primates. Which in turn aren't terribly different from other animals. In any case, I think there has been tons of progress since the 80s. Taking the best algorithms from the 80s and running them on modern hardware would fail. The core idea of backpropagation and gradient descent was there, but not much else.

philipov 10y ago

The problem is this conception of superintelligence as something that comes after general artificial intelligence. Superintelligence is irrelevant. We'll have superaptitude before general AI, and that will be enough. One of the important principles of design is that specialized solutions are better than general ones. The tasks humans are hired to perform by employers, and the processes which can be used to break democracy by exploiting big data, are far more constrained than the scope of cognition required to pass the Turing test.

Houshalter 10y ago
Many, maybe even most, interesting tasks in AI can't be done without general intelligence. Specialized AI can only do very limited, simple tasks, that require little thinking or understanding. That's cool, but it's hardly an existential threat like superintelligence is.
RogtamBar 10y ago
You forget that democracy has always been broken, by design. >>The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.<< The current fit on part of the intellectuals and media is due to them having lost this power to control the narrative and ideas because they failed to adapt to the new media which have replaced the old.
- philipov 10y ago
  citation for the quote?

j2kun 10y ago

This is what I'm talking about. This comment is very vague.

Houshalter 10y ago
Vague in what way? The Turing Test is a pretty concrete definition of human-level AI, which is what you asked for.