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I don't think it's possible for machines to understand. Numbers are meaningless, our human actions give them a useful function. All of the meaning a computer ap

I don't think it's possible for machines to understand. Numbers are meaningless, our human actions give them a useful function. All of the meaning a computer appears to provide is the preassigned values of layers and layers of programming work done by humans. Even today AI has a lot of human tagging and categorization that makes it useful. The idea that a new self- sustaining meaning generation can arise out of the interlocking mechanisms of a computer is an interesting one. As we see self driven car CEOs describe some of the most advanced systems we have, requiring to be run in controlled environments and balking at the infinite complexity of real life, are we really building computer systems that are anything more than an incredibly sophisticated loop?

prvnsmpth 7y ago
Well, what does it mean for humans to "understand"? Don't humans understand things by altering the state and connections of neurons in the brain? You could make the argument that the brain is also an "incredibly sophisticated loop". My point is that humans are also highly-sophisticated, biological machines, so if you say machines cannot "understand", you are making the same claim for humans as well.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Humans also squirt fluids around in their brains. Brains as machines is one of many ways to think about humans. Humans can conceive of and move past thoughts or concepts that would cause a machine to crash. I think more ideas describe human brains than being simply machines, though that idea is useful in places. Making the claim about what a human is in the absolute, is more about what you fill the unknown with than the nature of a human. Understanding is the difficult question. I would argue the understanding people want out of machines is the ability to generate, use and self-manage tools and that the machine knows the tool's place or context under a human value, story or intent and adapt to the implications of that higher order. That in the most exaggerated sense would be perceived as a machine that understands, but of course people mean different things when they say that.
  - russdill 7y ago
    Are you equating machine here with "sequentially programmed computer?". Because computers and neural networks specifically have gone far beyond that.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      I get how ML works. I don't mean loops as a for(int i) loop, but the concept of a loop itself, a circle. A self-driven car with ML decision making is still bounded by some rules we will be forced to compromise on. Some people at MIT are focusing on deaths per miles driven as a safety metric to determine whether we can replace humans with ai cars and when that might happen. But given the constraints of ML/ai you will eventually have a bounded container where an ai car can operate and where it can't. The car will be tasked with looping through that environment from job to job then back to recharge at it's base station. For all the sophistication of getting the car on the road and working it won't really be making up it's own story through the world nor will it understand the greater context of it's actions. The pattern recognition in CV is great, but it is fed by humans, so the meaning that a tree should be avoided has been initially put in by a programmer, even if the car in the moment chooses to avoid the tree by itself. The car is crunching meaningless numbers like a pipe directs water. So when people say a machine "understands something" it can't ever really be true because all of our machines don't know what is going on in the world, they only know what numbers they see and how to behave when those numbers change. At the very bottom it's electricity looping through logic gates and that same principle is repeated all the way up to a car that loops through it's environment and comes back. If all the humans left the planet, the car wouldn't be described as understanding the world, it'll be seen as a generic device sitting in a garage somewhere waiting for orders from a human. If you fill the earth with aliens the CV breaks not having seen aliens before, the roads get changed over time by nature, the high detail mapping it relies on fails. The cars "understanding" only exists as an outcome of electric impulse. It doesn't understand and never could. We are building more and more sophisticated loops, and I'm glad, but to think computers can understand is a doomed project. They will never "get" the values, intents and stories we put in them. Computers will forever be a labour of love is not able to regress into understanding what we mean it to be.

prvnsmpth 7y ago

Well, what does it mean for humans to "understand"? Don't humans understand things by altering the state and connections of neurons in the brain? You could make the argument that the brain is also an "incredibly sophisticated loop". My point is that humans are also highly-sophisticated, biological machines, so if you say machines cannot "understand", you are making the same claim for humans as well.

friendlybus 7y ago
Humans also squirt fluids around in their brains. Brains as machines is one of many ways to think about humans. Humans can conceive of and move past thoughts or concepts that would cause a machine to crash. I think more ideas describe human brains than being simply machines, though that idea is useful in places. Making the claim about what a human is in the absolute, is more about what you fill the unknown with than the nature of a human. Understanding is the difficult question. I would argue the understanding people want out of machines is the ability to generate, use and self-manage tools and that the machine knows the tool's place or context under a human value, story or intent and adapt to the implications of that higher order. That in the most exaggerated sense would be perceived as a machine that understands, but of course people mean different things when they say that.
- russdill 7y ago
  Are you equating machine here with "sequentially programmed computer?". Because computers and neural networks specifically have gone far beyond that.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    I get how ML works. I don't mean loops as a for(int i) loop, but the concept of a loop itself, a circle. A self-driven car with ML decision making is still bounded by some rules we will be forced to compromise on. Some people at MIT are focusing on deaths per miles driven as a safety metric to determine whether we can replace humans with ai cars and when that might happen. But given the constraints of ML/ai you will eventually have a bounded container where an ai car can operate and where it can't. The car will be tasked with looping through that environment from job to job then back to recharge at it's base station. For all the sophistication of getting the car on the road and working it won't really be making up it's own story through the world nor will it understand the greater context of it's actions. The pattern recognition in CV is great, but it is fed by humans, so the meaning that a tree should be avoided has been initially put in by a programmer, even if the car in the moment chooses to avoid the tree by itself. The car is crunching meaningless numbers like a pipe directs water. So when people say a machine "understands something" it can't ever really be true because all of our machines don't know what is going on in the world, they only know what numbers they see and how to behave when those numbers change. At the very bottom it's electricity looping through logic gates and that same principle is repeated all the way up to a car that loops through it's environment and comes back. If all the humans left the planet, the car wouldn't be described as understanding the world, it'll be seen as a generic device sitting in a garage somewhere waiting for orders from a human. If you fill the earth with aliens the CV breaks not having seen aliens before, the roads get changed over time by nature, the high detail mapping it relies on fails. The cars "understanding" only exists as an outcome of electric impulse. It doesn't understand and never could. We are building more and more sophisticated loops, and I'm glad, but to think computers can understand is a doomed project. They will never "get" the values, intents and stories we put in them. Computers will forever be a labour of love is not able to regress into understanding what we mean it to be.