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I too tend to ignore the doomsday crowd, not least of all because it is often "celebrities" without the technical knowledge to say anything interesting (Musk, T
by dharmon 7y ago
I too tend to ignore the doomsday crowd, not least of all because it is often "celebrities" without the technical knowledge to say anything interesting (Musk, Thiel, etc.)
I figured there was no way we would reach the singularity with current technologies, but I was listening to John Carmack (a celebrity with actual chops) and he suggested that the numbers would work out that we could model a human brain with an ANN at some point without any special inventions (partially because we know large parts of our brain aren't super critical).
I'm curious what people with more knowledge think about this? I always assumed another technological breakthrough would be needed.
- snowwrestler 7y agoWe have billions of human brains already running around the planet. I don’t fear a bodiless simulation of one.
- blueadept111 7y agoBut that one is going to take your job and then make a copy of itself.
- wolco 7y agoNo need for jobs or private companies at that point.
- snowwrestler 7y agoPretty sure that humans can take each others’ jobs and make copies of themselves too.
- lern_too_spel 7y agoThe author of this article wrote The Book on Artificial Intelligence, together with Norvig. He is hardly a celebrity without technical knowledge.
- dharmon 7y agoI wasn't talking about Russell.
- hackinthebochs 7y ago>I figured there was no way we would reach the singularity with current technologies For the life of me I can't figure out why otherwise smart people would dismiss a prediction about the future based on current state of the art. It just seems so plainly and utterly irrational.
- dharmon 7y agoUh, what? That is entirely what my question is. Whether extrapolating the current state of the art is enough to get us to "the future". If I start walking out the direction of my office door, you could predict I would reach California. But I might say that's a nonsense prediction, because it would take a ridiculous amount of time given my walking pace. So are you predicting that I will reach California by extrapolating my current position + walking velocity, or are you saying I will get on a plane and fly there? These are two very different predictions, and the Carmack interview was the first time I heard someone predict that "I would reach California by walking" (to stretch the analogy), i.e., that we would reach the singularity purely by extrapolating our current trajectory. I am asking if there are any knowledgeable people who might comment on this.
- hackinthebochs 7y agoRight, I get that was your question. But you also said that you initially ignored those raising awareness about the dangers because "there was no way we would reach there with current technologies". I'm addressing that inference in isolation. But to address your analogy, the situation with AI is more like we already know the ultimate destination is California, and you've left your house in the direction of California, so we can extrapolate that you are likely traveling to California. It should be a given that the intended goal is general intelligence. The wealth and power that will be bestowed onto the first group to develop this is unparalleled in human history. But any advance in ML can be seen as taking a step towards general AGI (the direction analogy breaks down here). I also think Carmack is wrong that current technology will get us to AGI. I follow Carmack pretty closely and he is far from knowledgable in AI. He tweeted about his first foray into developing a DNN around a year ago, for example. But to require a roadmap to know how you will get to "California" to start planning for what you will do when you get there is a serious mistake.