6 ms·

We're getting really good at climbing trees. We've got guys who can climb even the tallest trees, no problem. Any day now, we're gonna finally climb to the moon

by xamuel 8y ago

We're getting really good at climbing trees. We've got guys who can climb even the tallest trees, no problem. Any day now, we're gonna finally climb to the moon.

jf- 8y ago
I love this comment. My hunch with regard to neural nets is that we’ve got something that looks like biology, and has a certain level of efficacy, but is missing a lot of the finer details that we’re unaware of in biology. Right now we’re just brute forcing problems with as much computing power and data as possible, biology obviously does better.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  True, i think the real feasible way to grow a AI is- to actually repeat the process that grows us. As in- grow a single neuron creature in a challenging environment, and by acceleration, environment acceleration and evolutionary algorithm, herd the smarts toward sentience.
- currymj 8y ago
  it’s missing a lot of the finer details that we are aware of, too. a big one is timing — neurons in the real brain can delay firing depending on what signals they receive. there is research in training artificial neural networks with timing but it is not widely used for AI.
state_less 8y ago
The tree climbers may well build a rocket and land on the moon anyhow. I think it’s a good idea not to add unwarranted mystery to the subject. We have good reason to believe our computers are underpowered for the task. This is a challenge, and while I think it’s going very fast, our collective sense of proportion of the timeline seems optimistic. In my view, if it happens this century, humans will have achieved an impressive feat. If we continue with geometric increases in flops/watt, maybe the rosy predictions will be closer than expected. I suppose what I’m implying is that nervous systems are doing computation, and not something mysterious that we don’t understand. The tree climbers knew they needed to climb higher and realized they’ll need another tool not a different understanding of spatial geometry.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> The tree climbers may well build a rocket and land on the moon anyhow. Sticking with the OP's analogy, the number of people who think it is impossible to get to the mooon in any way is much, much smaller than the number of people who, misunderstanding how tree-climbing works, believe that is the way, that climbing to the moon is just a manner of climbing trees better than we presently do and that if everyone keeps climbing trees someone will reach the moon any time now. The problem of course, is that there are no trees that reach all the way to the moon. We can keep climbing all we want and we'll never reach as high as the moon. To get to the moon, we need a radically different approach. A rocket, perhaps- certainly! But, how long have people been climbing trees for, before the first rocket was made? And where are the people proposing rocket designs, in modern AI research?
  - bachbach 8y ago
    > And where are the people proposing rocket designs, in modern AI research? We like people like Geoffrey Hinton as their work produces results - he is the first to admit you can't get there from here. I think it's the people who are concerned with fundamentals, like the people at the Sante Fe Institute - complex adaptive systems. In the beginning we believed in programming AI from the axioms of mathematics - not many people believe that now. A bit like configuring an animal from atoms. Difficult, pointless. The first story is that 'fundamentals' might mean some evolutionary framework being required to plug in results from other areas like computer vision and machine learning, my guess would be something from genetic algorithms. The other story is there exists a 'God Algorithm' that all sapient beings possess - but I find that difficult to believe. Another story is that we simply have to start from the start - literally everything we know is nearly worthless because consciousness is too unlikely with computer hardware - that the entire history of computing is a dead end. Great for human technology but just not the route to a synthetic version of biological beings. I suspect we're more biased against this possibility than we should be. I hope that it is the first story - my rationale is that biological intelligence and consciousness is not as far away as we think it is. If we look to evolution we see these vast periods of time in which nature works on different paths and it's only in the last few moments that an animal begins building cities and civilizations. There are also lots of the neurological version of transition fossils if you look around - lots of animals exist that exhibit human level cognitive abilities and some of them outright outrank us. I'm sure you've seen those birds assessing situations and solving puzzles, heard of monkeys coming up with original innovations like salted potatoes - a lot of animals outperform human children. My thought is that when/if we break Moravec's Paradox and develop a robot that can walk, really walk, then we're some way towards developing machines that perform comparably to biological brains. The catch is that people who think a walking robot is trivial are so wrong - it is spectacularly difficult. Boston Dynamics is impressive until you understand that a three or four year old is the Albert Einstein of getting about on arms and legs. Show me a robot that can mimic a human walking down the street and I'll stand up at the other side of this internet connection and start clapping. Most people start to change the definition of walking because that is easier than admitting we can't do something that looks easy. I didn't say give a machine locomotive power by changing the shape of the machine or its environment. I said walk - I meant walk. 1950 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0Mr3mLujE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0Mr3mLujE A toy, but not bad for £16.00 66 years, a team of experts and millions of dollars. 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY We could be waiting until 2082 or longer.
pfortuny 8y ago
I think it is more akin to “any day now we shall have the equations of general relativity”. But I like your comment.

by xamuel 8y ago

We're getting really good at climbing trees. We've got guys who can climb even the tallest trees, no problem. Any day now, we're gonna finally climb to the moon.

jf- 8y ago

I love this comment. My hunch with regard to neural nets is that we’ve got something that looks like biology, and has a certain level of efficacy, but is missing a lot of the finer details that we’re unaware of in biology. Right now we’re just brute forcing problems with as much computing power and data as possible, biology obviously does better.

Pica_soO 8y ago
True, i think the real feasible way to grow a AI is- to actually repeat the process that grows us. As in- grow a single neuron creature in a challenging environment, and by acceleration, environment acceleration and evolutionary algorithm, herd the smarts toward sentience.
currymj 8y ago
it’s missing a lot of the finer details that we are aware of, too. a big one is timing — neurons in the real brain can delay firing depending on what signals they receive. there is research in training artificial neural networks with timing but it is not widely used for AI.

state_less 8y ago

The tree climbers may well build a rocket and land on the moon anyhow. I think it’s a good idea not to add unwarranted mystery to the subject. We have good reason to believe our computers are underpowered for the task. This is a challenge, and while I think it’s going very fast, our collective sense of proportion of the timeline seems optimistic. In my view, if it happens this century, humans will have achieved an impressive feat. If we continue with geometric increases in flops/watt, maybe the rosy predictions will be closer than expected. I suppose what I’m implying is that nervous systems are doing computation, and not something mysterious that we don’t understand. The tree climbers knew they needed to climb higher and realized they’ll need another tool not a different understanding of spatial geometry.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> The tree climbers may well build a rocket and land on the moon anyhow. Sticking with the OP's analogy, the number of people who think it is impossible to get to the mooon in any way is much, much smaller than the number of people who, misunderstanding how tree-climbing works, believe that is the way, that climbing to the moon is just a manner of climbing trees better than we presently do and that if everyone keeps climbing trees someone will reach the moon any time now. The problem of course, is that there are no trees that reach all the way to the moon. We can keep climbing all we want and we'll never reach as high as the moon. To get to the moon, we need a radically different approach. A rocket, perhaps- certainly! But, how long have people been climbing trees for, before the first rocket was made? And where are the people proposing rocket designs, in modern AI research?
- bachbach 8y ago
  > And where are the people proposing rocket designs, in modern AI research? We like people like Geoffrey Hinton as their work produces results - he is the first to admit you can't get there from here. I think it's the people who are concerned with fundamentals, like the people at the Sante Fe Institute - complex adaptive systems. In the beginning we believed in programming AI from the axioms of mathematics - not many people believe that now. A bit like configuring an animal from atoms. Difficult, pointless. The first story is that 'fundamentals' might mean some evolutionary framework being required to plug in results from other areas like computer vision and machine learning, my guess would be something from genetic algorithms. The other story is there exists a 'God Algorithm' that all sapient beings possess - but I find that difficult to believe. Another story is that we simply have to start from the start - literally everything we know is nearly worthless because consciousness is too unlikely with computer hardware - that the entire history of computing is a dead end. Great for human technology but just not the route to a synthetic version of biological beings. I suspect we're more biased against this possibility than we should be. I hope that it is the first story - my rationale is that biological intelligence and consciousness is not as far away as we think it is. If we look to evolution we see these vast periods of time in which nature works on different paths and it's only in the last few moments that an animal begins building cities and civilizations. There are also lots of the neurological version of transition fossils if you look around - lots of animals exist that exhibit human level cognitive abilities and some of them outright outrank us. I'm sure you've seen those birds assessing situations and solving puzzles, heard of monkeys coming up with original innovations like salted potatoes - a lot of animals outperform human children. My thought is that when/if we break Moravec's Paradox and develop a robot that can walk, really walk, then we're some way towards developing machines that perform comparably to biological brains. The catch is that people who think a walking robot is trivial are so wrong - it is spectacularly difficult. Boston Dynamics is impressive until you understand that a three or four year old is the Albert Einstein of getting about on arms and legs. Show me a robot that can mimic a human walking down the street and I'll stand up at the other side of this internet connection and start clapping. Most people start to change the definition of walking because that is easier than admitting we can't do something that looks easy. I didn't say give a machine locomotive power by changing the shape of the machine or its environment. I said walk - I meant walk. 1950 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0Mr3mLujE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0Mr3mLujE A toy, but not bad for £16.00 66 years, a team of experts and millions of dollars. 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY We could be waiting until 2082 or longer.

pfortuny 8y ago

I think it is more akin to “any day now we shall have the equations of general relativity”. But I like your comment.