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While it's true the AI hype is getting a bit overboard, couldn't one make the argument that humans, and to a lesser extent other animals, are just a collection

While it's true the AI hype is getting a bit overboard, couldn't one make the argument that humans, and to a lesser extent other animals, are just a collection responses to pattern recognition like when I see a thing that looks like this I should eat it, but when I see a thing that sounds like that I should run away? After all, what is common sense but "believe it when I see it" type thinking which is most certainly pattern intuition? The overhype part is that there are armies of lowly paid Mechanical Turk tier workers tagging all these data sets, so that these pattern recognition algorithms have something to train on.

Thorentis 7y ago
Sure, one could make that argument. But suggesting that we are close to creating a general intelligence on-par with humans is entirely unfounded. Even if we assume that the only thing differentiating humans from other forms of intelligence (including artificial neural networks) is more pattern to learn, then that still requires data sets millions if not billions the size of what we currently have. Plus, we know very little about the types of patterns we would need to train an AI on in order for them to reach the AGI level. I think it's safe to say that "artificial general intelligence" is just another iteration of the BS Industrial Complex.
- deleted 7y ago
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- visarga 7y ago
  > a general intelligence on-par with humans Humans aren't general intelligences. We're good at things that make us survive, and that's about it. We're not good at 'general' problems, it takes us decades or hundreds of years of small steps and theories, and we may never find the answer. Most of us can't even grasp the fine nuances of math and physics, even after 12-16 years of education. Look at how hard it is for us to even imagine quantum and relativistic effects, or 5-dimensional geometry. Consider how long it took us to create germ theory of disease and how many of us died without raising to the challenge of understanding the cause. Look at what we believed about nature just 500 years ago. Humans without the larger system of culture, society, industry, lots of time and resources, can't do much. AI will inherit our tech, culture and scientific advances right from the start. There is a limit to how intelligent a system can become, and this limit is given by the complexity of the survival problem and the environment. You don't become smarter than the problems you have to deal with require. And environments don't evolve exponentially, so AI won't evolve exponentially fast either. Evolution is a series of sigmoids, not an exponential, and there can never be really exponential processes in nature, there's always an upper limit. I'd say it would be enough to have AI that can survive by itself and sustain us along with it, instead of AGI.
mindgam3 7y ago
> After all, what is common sense but "believe it when I see it" type thinking which is most certainly pattern intuition? I guess I would argue that common sense encompasses something outside of pure pattern intuition, which is the ability to synthesize not just solutions to a known problem/question but to figure out what question to ask in the first place, across a variety of situations include some that have never been seen previously. The overhype part isn’t just the Mechanical Turk later, although that’s part of it. It’s also the assumption that pattern recognition within any given domain can generalize to this meta-ability to essentially level jump outside previously established boundaries or “training data.”
- zubspace 7y ago
  So at what point in a life of a human does general intelligence, or common sense, develop? Watching a baby do things feels like watching a robot trying to perform a task for the very first time. It seems like pattern matching overall with a very complex and fine grained sensory input system. Also some things are definitely preprogrammed and passed on from one generation to the next. There are many examples regarding animals, like small pigeons reacting to the shape of an eagle which they have never seen before. Now add a decade long learning phase and you get general intelligence? Or is it all just layers and layers of pattern matching, imitation and preprogrammed behavior? Could be the reason why humans are so bad at adressing some problems like climate change, plastic pollution or poverty. There is no clear pattern we can match, learned through individual sensory input, leading us to a solution.
  - zimpenfish 7y ago
    > Could be the reason why humans are so bad at adressing some problems like climate change, plastic pollution or poverty. I think that basically comes down to greed and ignorance. > There is no clear pattern we can match [...] leading us to a solution. Except, as best I know, both the problem and solution were recognised in the 80s but it wasn't in the companies' interests to torpedo their profits at the time. e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

Thorentis 7y ago

Sure, one could make that argument. But suggesting that we are close to creating a general intelligence on-par with humans is entirely unfounded. Even if we assume that the only thing differentiating humans from other forms of intelligence (including artificial neural networks) is more pattern to learn, then that still requires data sets millions if not billions the size of what we currently have. Plus, we know very little about the types of patterns we would need to train an AI on in order for them to reach the AGI level. I think it's safe to say that "artificial general intelligence" is just another iteration of the BS Industrial Complex.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
visarga 7y ago
> a general intelligence on-par with humans Humans aren't general intelligences. We're good at things that make us survive, and that's about it. We're not good at 'general' problems, it takes us decades or hundreds of years of small steps and theories, and we may never find the answer. Most of us can't even grasp the fine nuances of math and physics, even after 12-16 years of education. Look at how hard it is for us to even imagine quantum and relativistic effects, or 5-dimensional geometry. Consider how long it took us to create germ theory of disease and how many of us died without raising to the challenge of understanding the cause. Look at what we believed about nature just 500 years ago. Humans without the larger system of culture, society, industry, lots of time and resources, can't do much. AI will inherit our tech, culture and scientific advances right from the start. There is a limit to how intelligent a system can become, and this limit is given by the complexity of the survival problem and the environment. You don't become smarter than the problems you have to deal with require. And environments don't evolve exponentially, so AI won't evolve exponentially fast either. Evolution is a series of sigmoids, not an exponential, and there can never be really exponential processes in nature, there's always an upper limit. I'd say it would be enough to have AI that can survive by itself and sustain us along with it, instead of AGI.

mindgam3 7y ago

> After all, what is common sense but "believe it when I see it" type thinking which is most certainly pattern intuition? I guess I would argue that common sense encompasses something outside of pure pattern intuition, which is the ability to synthesize not just solutions to a known problem/question but to figure out what question to ask in the first place, across a variety of situations include some that have never been seen previously. The overhype part isn’t just the Mechanical Turk later, although that’s part of it. It’s also the assumption that pattern recognition within any given domain can generalize to this meta-ability to essentially level jump outside previously established boundaries or “training data.”

zubspace 7y ago
So at what point in a life of a human does general intelligence, or common sense, develop? Watching a baby do things feels like watching a robot trying to perform a task for the very first time. It seems like pattern matching overall with a very complex and fine grained sensory input system. Also some things are definitely preprogrammed and passed on from one generation to the next. There are many examples regarding animals, like small pigeons reacting to the shape of an eagle which they have never seen before. Now add a decade long learning phase and you get general intelligence? Or is it all just layers and layers of pattern matching, imitation and preprogrammed behavior? Could be the reason why humans are so bad at adressing some problems like climate change, plastic pollution or poverty. There is no clear pattern we can match, learned through individual sensory input, leading us to a solution.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  > Could be the reason why humans are so bad at adressing some problems like climate change, plastic pollution or poverty. I think that basically comes down to greed and ignorance. > There is no clear pattern we can match [...] leading us to a solution. Except, as best I know, both the problem and solution were recognised in the 80s but it wasn't in the companies' interests to torpedo their profits at the time. e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...