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So essentially, the holy grail of a purely "abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction ad infinitum" AI is mostly a pipe dream? Everyone loves to hope that

So essentially, the holy grail of a purely "abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction ad infinitum" AI is mostly a pipe dream? Everyone loves to hope that everything that matters can be built from [insert object here]. Physicists want strings. Programmers want s-expressions or combinators or [choose your poison]. And AI researchers want the post-TLU artificial neuron model to learn it all.. I have always thought that machine learning is the less likely path to artificial human-level intelligence. It makes more sense to create a universe. I know your laughing now - but please hear me out. A digital universe can be merely a bunch of cells on a grid with specified rules for state-space updates. Cellular automata are the most well known example ie. Game of Life. If we look at the requirements for evolution and the requirements for information stability and movement, we can then proceed to create a 2d universe, tinker enough until we get life. Information stability and movement is mostly just the entities of matter and energy, and their conversion and total conservation. The life may not be all that remarkable at first but we run the universe more cycles, throw more compute at it, and we can push the clock forward quite a large amount. The trick of course, is not to try to make OUR universe. Too much information. Too much compute power required. Too much space...likely without life -- so wasted resources for our goal. And lastly, too many layers - even going from bosons and fermions we have: Protons/Neutrons/Electrons/Atoms/Molecules/Amino Acids/Proteins/RNA/DNA/Single Cells/Multicellular Life Forms/Mammals/Primates/Humans. The last 3 could be considered as evolution - so not all have to be present at the same time. However, all the other abstractions are a real dimensionality crusher. Are they totally necessary for an intelligent being? I doubt it. Once we find the local cluster of life we are interested in, in our digital universe, we could even do procedural generation instead of full state-space updates. So we can speed up the evolution of our target even quicker. There's nothing I haven't said here but here's my blog post about this idea if you're interested in reading more: https://scrollto.com/life-a-universe-simulation/ https://scrollto.com/life-a-universe-simulation/

pcnix 9y ago
You might find this paper interesting, if you haven't heard of it already: https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
- goldenkey 9y ago
  It is possible we are prone to sudden termination or tinkering because we are instantiated by equipment outside our own possible perceptions -- but does that make it a simulation? Our very definition of information manipulation is computation. And our science of physics is founded on the principles of unitarity. Saying there is a God is the same as saying our universe is a simulation. I think the only important factor is whether we are prone to manipulation by external unobservable actions -- It is funny then to just see strongly religious folk as believers in that nice surly sysadmin Big G. And then throw blackhat redboxing Satan in there too, he hacks the box occasionally and overheats the case. Poor misunderstood hacker.. "Simulation" is such a catch 22. There is no way to know if anything runs itself in compartmentalized fashion so it needs no higher equipment. Its the snake eating its own tail. If its possible then maybe we are isolated...Black holes as isolated universes somewhat accomplishes this only due to continuous values..time dilation...infinite time inside..finite time outside. Its a pretty thought. But I'd still raise the flag to say that technically, we could eventually create black holes. And that slippery slope leads to the question: If THEY chose the seed but cant intervene - are we technically a simulation? Or are we free? All the usual questions about God and divine intervention..and the asymmetrical cosmic background radiation possibly due to the big bang (seed?) come to bear. Thanks for making me think about these things. Really phanatasmagoric ideas here.
isseu 9y ago
Maybe AGI is just a problem of computation power and complexity. Can infinite monkeys write a brain? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
- goldenkey 9y ago
  It almost certainly is. But we can at least say that our universe is a solution. Still isn't guaranteed to help remove the infinite though since we don't know if our universe is just one flavor of an infinite class of parameters - some which may be unobservable in full precision.

pcnix 9y ago

You might find this paper interesting, if you haven't heard of it already: https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

goldenkey 9y ago
It is possible we are prone to sudden termination or tinkering because we are instantiated by equipment outside our own possible perceptions -- but does that make it a simulation? Our very definition of information manipulation is computation. And our science of physics is founded on the principles of unitarity. Saying there is a God is the same as saying our universe is a simulation. I think the only important factor is whether we are prone to manipulation by external unobservable actions -- It is funny then to just see strongly religious folk as believers in that nice surly sysadmin Big G. And then throw blackhat redboxing Satan in there too, he hacks the box occasionally and overheats the case. Poor misunderstood hacker.. "Simulation" is such a catch 22. There is no way to know if anything runs itself in compartmentalized fashion so it needs no higher equipment. Its the snake eating its own tail. If its possible then maybe we are isolated...Black holes as isolated universes somewhat accomplishes this only due to continuous values..time dilation...infinite time inside..finite time outside. Its a pretty thought. But I'd still raise the flag to say that technically, we could eventually create black holes. And that slippery slope leads to the question: If THEY chose the seed but cant intervene - are we technically a simulation? Or are we free? All the usual questions about God and divine intervention..and the asymmetrical cosmic background radiation possibly due to the big bang (seed?) come to bear. Thanks for making me think about these things. Really phanatasmagoric ideas here.

isseu 9y ago

Maybe AGI is just a problem of computation power and complexity. Can infinite monkeys write a brain? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

goldenkey 9y ago
It almost certainly is. But we can at least say that our universe is a solution. Still isn't guaranteed to help remove the infinite though since we don't know if our universe is just one flavor of an infinite class of parameters - some which may be unobservable in full precision.