7 ms·

Kurzweil’s Next Book: Creating An Artificial Mind

41 points by kkleiner 16y ago

RyanMcGreal 16y ago
ETA: Real Soon Now.
chriskelley 16y ago
I quite enjoyed _On_Intelligence_ from Jeff Hawkins, interested to find out how the two books will relate.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- stratospark 16y ago
  I've skimmed through that book and looked at the API over at Numenta: http://www.numenta.com/ http://www.numenta.com/. They are focused on practical pattern recognition applications. Kurzweil has always been about strong AI and almost sci-fi type scenarios in his books. It's a way more ambitious goal, but he has predicted a lot of things correctly before. I'd check out some of his earlier books beforehand, just to get a better idea of his mindset.
  - Element_ 16y ago
    That's not really true, Hawkins theory revolves around prediction as it relates to intelligence. There is an entire section at the end of the book that explains why intelligent machines based on the neocortical algorithm he proposes won't resemble human intelligence/self awareness for a long time to come (if ever).
    - stratospark 16y ago
      I'll need to take another look at Hawkins book. In any case, Kurzweil is promoting the idea we can have AI equivalent to human intelligence in a few decades.
cageface 16y ago
I'll take the time to read Kurzweil's book on building an artificial mind after he actually builds one.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I might skip that, but I'd definitely read "How I Was Built" by Kurzweil's Artificial Mind.
deutronium 16y ago
I'm just reading 'The Singularity Is Near' at the moment and am finding it fascinating finding ideas, such as 'reversible computing' and interesting information relating to cellular automaton.
jimbokun 16y ago
Do we want a "brain in a box?" Note that this idea is distinct from computers that solve complex problems on our behalf. Creating something with its own desires, ambitions, and emotions, just like us, except vastly more powerful, is there any reason to think something good will result from introducing such a thing into our environment? Does it ever go well for a species when a more intelligent species enters its niche and competes for resources? As smart as Kurzweil is, I am always shocked that he takes for granted that such a development will be good for humanity. He scarcely gives a thought to the philosophical ramifications of a human being crossing over into a completely digital reality. I think the question of whether super human intelligence is good for humanity is at least as important as the engineering questions about how to build one.
- DrSprout 16y ago
  Why is human supremacy a necessity? Why must a child be flesh and blood? If we want our children to be smarter, more powerful, and happier than us, why should we create children as feeble as us?
  - wazoox 16y ago
    This is seriously sick, IMO.
    - endtime 16y ago
      I suspect you feel that way reflexively, which is understandable...but not that interesting. However, if you happen to have a more fleshed out (no pun intended) reason for feeling that way, perhaps you could share it?
      - wazoox 16y ago
        This is reminiscent of this judeo-christian hate for flesh... That and the fact that our machines and programs certainly aren't our children in any meaningful way. Overall, I'm finding these singularity fantasies philosophically entertaining, but I'll keep saying that's sick, or disgusting.
hugh3 16y ago
The Kurzweils and Drexlers of the world make a living by claiming that amazing technological advances (immortality, molecular nanotechnology, thinking machines) are far easier than they actually are. When these things fail to get developed in the timescales they predicted, they blame the scientists who failed to make it happen.
- cageface 16y ago
  His fundamental assumption that change will continue to follow an exponential curve because that's what it's doing now seems highly suspect to me. The problems you have to solve become exponentially more difficult as your tools become exponentially more powerful. The human mind is the product of billions of years of parallel computation and experimentation. Raw horsepower is probably the easy part.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    In fairness, central nervous systems didn't crop up until circa half a billion years ago. But, yes.
  - jodrellblank 16y ago
    But he's not saying "Because that's what it's doing now", he's saying "because that's what it's always done". Human / animal muscles are also the product of billions of years of experimentation, and a few decades of steam power research trounced them with ease. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's inherently incredibly good and hard to replicate.
    - cageface 16y ago
      Simple biological systems like bones/muscles evolved long ago and have mostly just been refined since then. Human-like intelligence is a much more recent and much more difficult development. A lot of people seem to think that if you build a machine of sufficient raw horsepower that intelligence will magically emerge. Maybe, but I suspect it's not nearly so easy.
speek 16y ago
I think the major problem to overcome is that current computers are based on a von-neumann architecture while I would argue that the brain is not as structured (at least not structured like in a von-neumann architecture). tl;dr - I agree with Jeff Hawkins about the future of AI
- spot 16y ago
  not really. the supercomputers used for brain simulation are massively parallel.
Jeema3000 16y ago
The only way this can ever happen, I think, is if humans are able to model the building blocks of the brain (i.e neurons) and the processes that created it (i.e. evolution), because there's just no way we'll ever understand all of the emergent behavior of a human brain, as I see it. After all, don't you need something vastly more complex than the thing you're studying in order to understand it?
iandanforth 16y ago
I believe we're much closer than other commenters apparently. Here's why. 1. The wetware is nifty but it's not what makes up intelligence. The differences between sapient and non-sapient species are slight at the level of genetic code. The changes enabling intelligence are also very recent. The changes seem to be focused around the number and distribution of cortical columns in the neo-cortex, which are all remarkably similar regardless of the sensory input they are ultimately connected to. (This is why Hawkins' work is so exciting) 2. A huge portion of what we consider intelligence is a product of language and culture. Neglected and wild children are barely sapient in a way that we would understand (though with care they can become so). Our minds are largely constructs of a transmissible set of patterns external to our biology. 3. The blue brain project is a ten year project While I don't think we need molecular level or even synaptic level modeling to understand the software embodied in our brains, we have a hard target to be able to model, in large part, the human brain. 4. The large numbers in the brain are no longer scary 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic connections used to seem like an absurd scale for study. Now we regularly deal with billions of rows in databases and petabytes of storage. Not only that, the transmission speeds in the brain are so slow, if we need to replicate anything like the connectivity of the brain we can do it over a massive and distributed area. There's simply no need to cram an intelligence into a single box or server farm. 5. AI research has narrowed a great deal. Whereas we had 50 tangents twenty years ago research is beginning to focus on two key aspects of learning. A. Large data sets for statistical analysis (e.g. Google) and B. Hierarchical representations of input. (e.g. Hawkins) 6. PR2 (Willow Garage) I'll go out on a limb here and say that a shared open source robotics platform is the best thing to happen to AI research in 50 years. People forget the sheer number of hours experiencing the world it takes for the brain to acquire sapience. By supplying a common framework for experiencing the world the PR2 will enable the kind of long term learning necessary for intelligence to emerge.
- spot 16y ago
  can you provide references for #2?
  - miked 16y ago
    can you provide references for #2? I'm not the OP, but Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist, just released a few days ago, has much more on this. Selection here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703691804575254533386933138.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405274870369180457525...

41 points by kkleiner 16y ago

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

ETA: Real Soon Now.

chriskelley 16y ago

I quite enjoyed _On_Intelligence_ from Jeff Hawkins, interested to find out how the two books will relate.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
stratospark 16y ago
I've skimmed through that book and looked at the API over at Numenta: http://www.numenta.com/ http://www.numenta.com/. They are focused on practical pattern recognition applications. Kurzweil has always been about strong AI and almost sci-fi type scenarios in his books. It's a way more ambitious goal, but he has predicted a lot of things correctly before. I'd check out some of his earlier books beforehand, just to get a better idea of his mindset.
- Element_ 16y ago
  That's not really true, Hawkins theory revolves around prediction as it relates to intelligence. There is an entire section at the end of the book that explains why intelligent machines based on the neocortical algorithm he proposes won't resemble human intelligence/self awareness for a long time to come (if ever).
  - stratospark 16y ago
    I'll need to take another look at Hawkins book. In any case, Kurzweil is promoting the idea we can have AI equivalent to human intelligence in a few decades.

cageface 16y ago

I'll take the time to read Kurzweil's book on building an artificial mind after he actually builds one.

hugh3 16y ago
I might skip that, but I'd definitely read "How I Was Built" by Kurzweil's Artificial Mind.

deutronium 16y ago

I'm just reading 'The Singularity Is Near' at the moment and am finding it fascinating finding ideas, such as 'reversible computing' and interesting information relating to cellular automaton.

jimbokun 16y ago

Do we want a "brain in a box?" Note that this idea is distinct from computers that solve complex problems on our behalf. Creating something with its own desires, ambitions, and emotions, just like us, except vastly more powerful, is there any reason to think something good will result from introducing such a thing into our environment? Does it ever go well for a species when a more intelligent species enters its niche and competes for resources? As smart as Kurzweil is, I am always shocked that he takes for granted that such a development will be good for humanity. He scarcely gives a thought to the philosophical ramifications of a human being crossing over into a completely digital reality. I think the question of whether super human intelligence is good for humanity is at least as important as the engineering questions about how to build one.

DrSprout 16y ago
Why is human supremacy a necessity? Why must a child be flesh and blood? If we want our children to be smarter, more powerful, and happier than us, why should we create children as feeble as us?
- wazoox 16y ago
  This is seriously sick, IMO.
  - endtime 16y ago
    I suspect you feel that way reflexively, which is understandable...but not that interesting. However, if you happen to have a more fleshed out (no pun intended) reason for feeling that way, perhaps you could share it?
    - wazoox 16y ago
      This is reminiscent of this judeo-christian hate for flesh... That and the fact that our machines and programs certainly aren't our children in any meaningful way. Overall, I'm finding these singularity fantasies philosophically entertaining, but I'll keep saying that's sick, or disgusting.

hugh3 16y ago

The Kurzweils and Drexlers of the world make a living by claiming that amazing technological advances (immortality, molecular nanotechnology, thinking machines) are far easier than they actually are. When these things fail to get developed in the timescales they predicted, they blame the scientists who failed to make it happen.

cageface 16y ago
His fundamental assumption that change will continue to follow an exponential curve because that's what it's doing now seems highly suspect to me. The problems you have to solve become exponentially more difficult as your tools become exponentially more powerful. The human mind is the product of billions of years of parallel computation and experimentation. Raw horsepower is probably the easy part.
- hugh3 16y ago
  In fairness, central nervous systems didn't crop up until circa half a billion years ago. But, yes.
- jodrellblank 16y ago
  But he's not saying "Because that's what it's doing now", he's saying "because that's what it's always done". Human / animal muscles are also the product of billions of years of experimentation, and a few decades of steam power research trounced them with ease. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's inherently incredibly good and hard to replicate.
  - cageface 16y ago
    Simple biological systems like bones/muscles evolved long ago and have mostly just been refined since then. Human-like intelligence is a much more recent and much more difficult development. A lot of people seem to think that if you build a machine of sufficient raw horsepower that intelligence will magically emerge. Maybe, but I suspect it's not nearly so easy.

speek 16y ago

I think the major problem to overcome is that current computers are based on a von-neumann architecture while I would argue that the brain is not as structured (at least not structured like in a von-neumann architecture). tl;dr - I agree with Jeff Hawkins about the future of AI

spot 16y ago
not really. the supercomputers used for brain simulation are massively parallel.

Jeema3000 16y ago

The only way this can ever happen, I think, is if humans are able to model the building blocks of the brain (i.e neurons) and the processes that created it (i.e. evolution), because there's just no way we'll ever understand all of the emergent behavior of a human brain, as I see it. After all, don't you need something vastly more complex than the thing you're studying in order to understand it?

iandanforth 16y ago

I believe we're much closer than other commenters apparently. Here's why. 1. The wetware is nifty but it's not what makes up intelligence. The differences between sapient and non-sapient species are slight at the level of genetic code. The changes enabling intelligence are also very recent. The changes seem to be focused around the number and distribution of cortical columns in the neo-cortex, which are all remarkably similar regardless of the sensory input they are ultimately connected to. (This is why Hawkins' work is so exciting) 2. A huge portion of what we consider intelligence is a product of language and culture. Neglected and wild children are barely sapient in a way that we would understand (though with care they can become so). Our minds are largely constructs of a transmissible set of patterns external to our biology. 3. The blue brain project is a ten year project While I don't think we need molecular level or even synaptic level modeling to understand the software embodied in our brains, we have a hard target to be able to model, in large part, the human brain. 4. The large numbers in the brain are no longer scary 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic connections used to seem like an absurd scale for study. Now we regularly deal with billions of rows in databases and petabytes of storage. Not only that, the transmission speeds in the brain are so slow, if we need to replicate anything like the connectivity of the brain we can do it over a massive and distributed area. There's simply no need to cram an intelligence into a single box or server farm. 5. AI research has narrowed a great deal. Whereas we had 50 tangents twenty years ago research is beginning to focus on two key aspects of learning. A. Large data sets for statistical analysis (e.g. Google) and B. Hierarchical representations of input. (e.g. Hawkins) 6. PR2 (Willow Garage) I'll go out on a limb here and say that a shared open source robotics platform is the best thing to happen to AI research in 50 years. People forget the sheer number of hours experiencing the world it takes for the brain to acquire sapience. By supplying a common framework for experiencing the world the PR2 will enable the kind of long term learning necessary for intelligence to emerge.

spot 16y ago
can you provide references for #2?
- miked 16y ago
  can you provide references for #2? I'm not the OP, but Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist, just released a few days ago, has much more on this. Selection here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703691804575254533386933138.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142405274870369180457525...