4 ms·

So we are breaking off small pieces of a bigger thing. If that thing is AI, does it already have a form and an older name in the world? Would agree that in thi

by eggie 9y ago

So we are breaking off small pieces of a bigger thing. If that thing is AI, does it already have a form and an older name in the world? Would agree that in this article AI is a stand-in for what used to be called Math, Statistics, and Computer Science? Our scientific output is an artifice, and it is "intelligent" in its ability to guide our action. To me it isn't then strange to think of the sciences as the "general AI".

garmaine 9y ago
As soon as you solve a problem in AI, people start labeling that problem as “just” math, statistics, or computer science. It is no longer considered AI. Shifting goal posts mean “real AI” is always in the future.
- eggie 9y ago
  Even if we claim that "real AI" is a system that can actively perform at human levels in creative tasks, I wouldn't believe that it will always be in the future. However, I don't think this is very near, and I think this is sort of what people are implying when they talk about AI. To me saying "general AI is what we're exploring and making mini-discoveries in" is a kind of apology. Unfortunately, this apology pushes us into a grey area where "AI" is really just the scientific artifice. That's not the same as AI that has auto-creative capacities.
  - garmaine 9y ago
    What sort of creative task? Music composition? Graphic design? Surrealistic modern art? AIs have been programmed to do all these things and be indistinguishable from human creativity in blind studies. I have no doubt through that you'll be able to come up with a reason why each of these examples isn't what you really meant by "human level in creative tasks." Which is rather the point.
    - sli 9y ago
      How specific are they to those tasks, is what I'm curious about. Can the surrealist bot produce musical compositions as well as the musical composition bot? The generality angle would say that one bot can do all of those things mostly or entirely on its own (i.e. trains itself as well, and was not necessarily "told" to train in that area), not multiple discrete bots that are all heavily trained by a human. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue with you in the sense that you convey in that second part of your comment, I just enjoy supposing about this particular subject.
- mamon 9y ago
  People are trained by Hollywood to envision AI as robots. When presented an actual AI algorithm/model they see it as boring math, totaly unlike C-3PO, or Terminator, or whatever your favourite movie robot is.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- empath75 9y ago
  Even if we had a general ai, fully indistinguishable from a human, people would dismiss it as a collection of ugly hacks, tricks and math, while completely ignoring that our own consciousness is as well.
  - garmaine 9y ago
    See: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, etc.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  Borrowing from Iaian Banks' Culture universe, where aliens that are pretty much relatable as Earth humans (they're humaniform, even DNA-compatible reproductively, just not from Earth) are designated "1.0" on a sapience scale. See [1] for a discussion of the difference between sentience and sapience. An entity well below 1.0 (Banks never specified, but reading between the lines it felt like 0.5) is considered sentient, but not sufficiently sapient to achieve self-awareness. Personally, I'd prefer a scale that goes negative, to establish a bright line test that accommodates for example, Downs Syndrome patients. We probably can claim 0.1 or 0.01 on such a scale. Interesting and left too undiscussed IMO are the economics of productizing what currently goes under the AI umbrella. It is so expensive, and such a big task to automate with even the shard of AI we pursue today, that the numbers in many (though not all) cases don't seem to pencil out unless the benefits can accrue to a few dominant oligopolic providers, from nearly all human-staffed positions where each individual position is largely dominated by a single low-cognitive skill repeatedly applied. But interestingly, lots of physical tasks are left alone, which seems to point to a weakness in that economic model: despite joking talk of the coming robot apocalypse upon jobs, human jobs that require diverse physical and perceptual engagement with the environment are nowhere near common automation. I see this in a lot of domestic household chores that have yet to experience disruption at the hands of AI. That's at least a 50M-count global market population willing to spend say, $2500-10000 USD per year on a robot that can in the beginning perform the housekeeping chores a hotel housekeeping crew routinely performs for every room. Be trainable on a per-item type basis to put up dishes and cutlery the same way into a dishwasher and back to storage, fold clothes and put them up, and mow the lawn: all highly-repeatable tasks that are only addressed by single-purpose, very expensive "AI solutions" today, tell me that if you are investing into any kind of general-purpose AI, invest long-range, like Uber-scale "point a money-hose at it" long-range. [1] http://www.rebekkahniles.com/2012/03/word-box-sapience-vs-sentience.html http://www.rebekkahniles.com/2012/03/word-box-sapience-vs-se...
- marvin 9y ago
  That's certainly how it's been un until now and probably in the near future, but there is nothing apart from history that indicates it will always be in the future. No physical laws preclude a machine that can operate independently and is more capable than humans at any human activity. If we ever make a machine like that, you won't be able to say that "oh, that's just computer science". Well, of course you could, but you would also have met the original definition of general AI.

by eggie 9y ago

garmaine 9y ago

As soon as you solve a problem in AI, people start labeling that problem as “just” math, statistics, or computer science. It is no longer considered AI. Shifting goal posts mean “real AI” is always in the future.

eggie 9y ago
Even if we claim that "real AI" is a system that can actively perform at human levels in creative tasks, I wouldn't believe that it will always be in the future. However, I don't think this is very near, and I think this is sort of what people are implying when they talk about AI. To me saying "general AI is what we're exploring and making mini-discoveries in" is a kind of apology. Unfortunately, this apology pushes us into a grey area where "AI" is really just the scientific artifice. That's not the same as AI that has auto-creative capacities.
- garmaine 9y ago
  What sort of creative task? Music composition? Graphic design? Surrealistic modern art? AIs have been programmed to do all these things and be indistinguishable from human creativity in blind studies. I have no doubt through that you'll be able to come up with a reason why each of these examples isn't what you really meant by "human level in creative tasks." Which is rather the point.
  - sli 9y ago
    How specific are they to those tasks, is what I'm curious about. Can the surrealist bot produce musical compositions as well as the musical composition bot? The generality angle would say that one bot can do all of those things mostly or entirely on its own (i.e. trains itself as well, and was not necessarily "told" to train in that area), not multiple discrete bots that are all heavily trained by a human. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue with you in the sense that you convey in that second part of your comment, I just enjoy supposing about this particular subject.
mamon 9y ago
People are trained by Hollywood to envision AI as robots. When presented an actual AI algorithm/model they see it as boring math, totaly unlike C-3PO, or Terminator, or whatever your favourite movie robot is.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
empath75 9y ago
Even if we had a general ai, fully indistinguishable from a human, people would dismiss it as a collection of ugly hacks, tricks and math, while completely ignoring that our own consciousness is as well.
- garmaine 9y ago
  See: Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, etc.
yourapostasy 9y ago
Borrowing from Iaian Banks' Culture universe, where aliens that are pretty much relatable as Earth humans (they're humaniform, even DNA-compatible reproductively, just not from Earth) are designated "1.0" on a sapience scale. See [1] for a discussion of the difference between sentience and sapience. An entity well below 1.0 (Banks never specified, but reading between the lines it felt like 0.5) is considered sentient, but not sufficiently sapient to achieve self-awareness. Personally, I'd prefer a scale that goes negative, to establish a bright line test that accommodates for example, Downs Syndrome patients. We probably can claim 0.1 or 0.01 on such a scale. Interesting and left too undiscussed IMO are the economics of productizing what currently goes under the AI umbrella. It is so expensive, and such a big task to automate with even the shard of AI we pursue today, that the numbers in many (though not all) cases don't seem to pencil out unless the benefits can accrue to a few dominant oligopolic providers, from nearly all human-staffed positions where each individual position is largely dominated by a single low-cognitive skill repeatedly applied. But interestingly, lots of physical tasks are left alone, which seems to point to a weakness in that economic model: despite joking talk of the coming robot apocalypse upon jobs, human jobs that require diverse physical and perceptual engagement with the environment are nowhere near common automation. I see this in a lot of domestic household chores that have yet to experience disruption at the hands of AI. That's at least a 50M-count global market population willing to spend say, $2500-10000 USD per year on a robot that can in the beginning perform the housekeeping chores a hotel housekeeping crew routinely performs for every room. Be trainable on a per-item type basis to put up dishes and cutlery the same way into a dishwasher and back to storage, fold clothes and put them up, and mow the lawn: all highly-repeatable tasks that are only addressed by single-purpose, very expensive "AI solutions" today, tell me that if you are investing into any kind of general-purpose AI, invest long-range, like Uber-scale "point a money-hose at it" long-range. [1] http://www.rebekkahniles.com/2012/03/word-box-sapience-vs-sentience.html http://www.rebekkahniles.com/2012/03/word-box-sapience-vs-se...
marvin 9y ago
That's certainly how it's been un until now and probably in the near future, but there is nothing apart from history that indicates it will always be in the future. No physical laws preclude a machine that can operate independently and is more capable than humans at any human activity. If we ever make a machine like that, you won't be able to say that "oh, that's just computer science". Well, of course you could, but you would also have met the original definition of general AI.