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Let me honestly summarize this article: Part 1 - Musk and others said we'll have self-driving cars all over the place by 2020. Author tweeted that we wont and

by Tenoke 7y ago

Let me honestly summarize this article: Part 1 - Musk and others said we'll have self-driving cars all over the place by 2020. Author tweeted that we wont and discusses that for roughly half the article. This part finishes with a quote by Urmson that he expects self-driving cars to take "up to 30-50 years" before they are really common. Part 2 - this one quote aobve agrees with the author so he then looks at an actual forecast from a 2018 “Human Level AI” conference where some/most think AGI will occur soonish. For some reason, he decides Urmson is the only relevant expert, and says these "more large hats than cattle, but [...] people with paying corporate or academic jobs" from the conference must be wrong because Urmson's prediction doesn't match them. He then does the same for Kurzweil and FHI - they dont match Urmson's prediction either. Thus AGI has been 'delayed'. _______ The argument is in my opinion so badly made that I am wondering if the 17 people who upvoted read it, upvoted just because they are anti-AI in general, or because they like the author for other reasons. Edit: This article is also from May, so it's appearance on the frontpage given the quality puzzles me further.

hdhdhe3i 7y ago
I not sure I see the value in treating academics as individuals and not a single entity here. Academic consensus matters more than any individual academic, so why not treat it as a single gestalt entity?
- Tenoke 7y ago
  You can treat it as a single entity. The questionable thing is then throwing out 'the consensus' because a single other expert gives a different prediction.
  - The_rationalist 7y ago
    What are you talking about? There is no scientific consensus that fully autonomous cars will be available for 2020s. It require necessarily AGI cognition on some tasks and research have zero clue, zero formal roadmap to achieve AGI. Thus any prediction is baseless, absurd wishful thinking. As what I say is true, unless a sound refutation is provided, this should be the scientific consensus.
    - Tenoke 7y ago
      We are talking about the linked article. In it there is a an estimate by a bunch of scientists which has been rejected in favour of one person's estimate. None of it is about 2020 by that point in the article or this discussion. Perhaps, you are confused because you thought we are talking about a worldwide scientific consensus? >As what I say is true, unless a sound refutation is provided, this should be the scientific consensus. This is not what consensus means (and again, nobody is claiming today that there is a consensus that self-driving cars will arrive in 2020).
      - The_rationalist 7y ago
        you are confused because you thought we are talking about a worldwide scientific consensus? Yes.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      Why would fully autonomous cars require AGI? Yes, an "AI" that is simply a collection of situational task-specific algorithms will encounter situations it can't handle. But humans encounter situations they can't handle too. A fully autonomous but non-AGI car could simply do what humans do: pull over, turn around, or call for help.
      - The_rationalist 7y ago
        I'll give you a trivial example: to my knowledge, current AI cannot accurately drive when there is rain or snow. The thing is, there are much more situations than a human can handle than the best pattern matcher of the world can. Some situations just require reasoning beyong pattern matching and current AI are all about correlations but have zero causal reasoning ability.
        icebraining 7y ago
        Both Waymo and Torc's cars are already driving in rain and snow (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKiWM1KjIm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKiWM1KjIm4). > The thing is, there are much more situations than a human can handle than the best pattern matcher of the world can. Some situations just require reasoning beyong pattern matching and current AI are all about correlations but have zero causal reasoning ability. Sure, but are there many situations where reasoning is required to not have an accident? I mean, humans aren't great at sudden reasoning either, it's something that takes time to engage in. I don't really care if my car just can't handle tricky situations, as long as it doesn't hit anyone or stops in the middle of the highway.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
I don't think it's very productive to divide the debate about AI and AGI in "pro-AI" and "anti-AI". Brooks is certainly hard to see as an "anti". He has a long career in AI research, he's the founder of at least three robotics companies (that I know of) including the one that created the Roomba, perhaps the only example of a robot that people actually have in their homes today, and in general he has made significant contributions to AI. He's best known for the "subsumption architecture", a robotics architecture that at the very least shook up things in its time (I personally think it's so much old cobblers but that's not the point). The situation with the current debate about AI and AGI is that there is an awful lot of hype and people saying things that make little sense, like the Nick Cave song goes. That is causing all sorts of problems with public understanding of the subject and people interested in the subject are understandably disturbed. Some, like Brooks, try to redress the balance and show up overblown fantasies of self-driving cars in 5 years or AGI in 10, for what they are. This is actually a stance that comes from at the very least, a genuine interest in the subject, if not a bit of passion for it. It's exactly backwards to see it as an attitude hostile to AI. Brooks is clearly motivated by a wish to reduce the amount of noise and clear the discussion of bullshit. (And of bragging about his past accomplishments, too, indoubitably). That (the bit outside parentheses) can only benefit AI research.
- Tenoke 7y ago
  >I don't think it's very productive to divide the debate about AI and AGI in "pro-AI" and "anti-AI". I agree, but his article very much plays with the different camps trope. If he had made an argument like you did, I would've upvoted it, but the way he makes that argument comes down to 'This one expert's prediction disagrees with a bunch of other experts prediction thus those other experts are wrong', which is silly.
computerex 7y ago
Elon Musk is not an AI expert. Just pointing this out. That's not true in anyway.
- Tenoke 7y ago
  Nobody is calling Musk an expert in this comment or in the article.
Proven 7y ago
New category of spam comments: "summary spam"

by Tenoke 7y ago

hdhdhe3i 7y ago

I not sure I see the value in treating academics as individuals and not a single entity here. Academic consensus matters more than any individual academic, so why not treat it as a single gestalt entity?

Tenoke 7y ago
You can treat it as a single entity. The questionable thing is then throwing out 'the consensus' because a single other expert gives a different prediction.
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  What are you talking about? There is no scientific consensus that fully autonomous cars will be available for 2020s. It require necessarily AGI cognition on some tasks and research have zero clue, zero formal roadmap to achieve AGI. Thus any prediction is baseless, absurd wishful thinking. As what I say is true, unless a sound refutation is provided, this should be the scientific consensus.
  - Tenoke 7y ago
    We are talking about the linked article. In it there is a an estimate by a bunch of scientists which has been rejected in favour of one person's estimate. None of it is about 2020 by that point in the article or this discussion. Perhaps, you are confused because you thought we are talking about a worldwide scientific consensus? >As what I say is true, unless a sound refutation is provided, this should be the scientific consensus. This is not what consensus means (and again, nobody is claiming today that there is a consensus that self-driving cars will arrive in 2020).
    - The_rationalist 7y ago
      you are confused because you thought we are talking about a worldwide scientific consensus? Yes.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    Why would fully autonomous cars require AGI? Yes, an "AI" that is simply a collection of situational task-specific algorithms will encounter situations it can't handle. But humans encounter situations they can't handle too. A fully autonomous but non-AGI car could simply do what humans do: pull over, turn around, or call for help.
    - The_rationalist 7y ago
      I'll give you a trivial example: to my knowledge, current AI cannot accurately drive when there is rain or snow. The thing is, there are much more situations than a human can handle than the best pattern matcher of the world can. Some situations just require reasoning beyong pattern matching and current AI are all about correlations but have zero causal reasoning ability.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Both Waymo and Torc's cars are already driving in rain and snow (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKiWM1KjIm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKiWM1KjIm4). > The thing is, there are much more situations than a human can handle than the best pattern matcher of the world can. Some situations just require reasoning beyong pattern matching and current AI are all about correlations but have zero causal reasoning ability. Sure, but are there many situations where reasoning is required to not have an accident? I mean, humans aren't great at sudden reasoning either, it's something that takes time to engage in. I don't really care if my car just can't handle tricky situations, as long as it doesn't hit anyone or stops in the middle of the highway.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

I don't think it's very productive to divide the debate about AI and AGI in "pro-AI" and "anti-AI". Brooks is certainly hard to see as an "anti". He has a long career in AI research, he's the founder of at least three robotics companies (that I know of) including the one that created the Roomba, perhaps the only example of a robot that people actually have in their homes today, and in general he has made significant contributions to AI. He's best known for the "subsumption architecture", a robotics architecture that at the very least shook up things in its time (I personally think it's so much old cobblers but that's not the point). The situation with the current debate about AI and AGI is that there is an awful lot of hype and people saying things that make little sense, like the Nick Cave song goes. That is causing all sorts of problems with public understanding of the subject and people interested in the subject are understandably disturbed. Some, like Brooks, try to redress the balance and show up overblown fantasies of self-driving cars in 5 years or AGI in 10, for what they are. This is actually a stance that comes from at the very least, a genuine interest in the subject, if not a bit of passion for it. It's exactly backwards to see it as an attitude hostile to AI. Brooks is clearly motivated by a wish to reduce the amount of noise and clear the discussion of bullshit. (And of bragging about his past accomplishments, too, indoubitably). That (the bit outside parentheses) can only benefit AI research.

Tenoke 7y ago
>I don't think it's very productive to divide the debate about AI and AGI in "pro-AI" and "anti-AI". I agree, but his article very much plays with the different camps trope. If he had made an argument like you did, I would've upvoted it, but the way he makes that argument comes down to 'This one expert's prediction disagrees with a bunch of other experts prediction thus those other experts are wrong', which is silly.

computerex 7y ago

Elon Musk is not an AI expert. Just pointing this out. That's not true in anyway.

Tenoke 7y ago
Nobody is calling Musk an expert in this comment or in the article.

Proven 7y ago

New category of spam comments: "summary spam"