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> People think that calling something "Artificial Intelligence" implies that it is artificial, yes, but also, critically that it is intelligent. I mean, the ex

> People think that calling something "Artificial Intelligence" implies that it is artificial, yes, but also, critically that it is intelligent. I mean, the exact same argument could be made about people. Just because you belong to Homo Sapiens doesn't imply you're an intelligent being at all times - e.g. drink a bottle of vodka and the sapiens part is gone.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
The thing with people is that we all share the same brain architecture - we mostly think alike. As a species, we have a hundred thousand plus years of experience dealing with each other; as a civilization, a couple thousand. We've explored most corner cases, designed our infrastructure around those, and built systems protecting us from outliers. For instance, people deemed too unpredictable will not be given driving licenses (and extremely unpredictable people tend to get locked up). And DUI is severely punished; while the execution isn't perfect, the threat of consequences goes a long way towards reducing it. That's the bar an AI system has to meet today. And one big hurdle is that, viewed as minds, AI systems are completely unlike our own. They're extremely unpredictable. On top of that, they lack self-preservation instinct (this may be indirectly a side effect of how we structure companies - the level of effort put into an AI system is a reflection of how much people working on it care about getting it right vs. getting it to market).
- wpietri 7y ago
  I agree entirely with your point, and wanted to follow a small tangent: > they lack self-preservation instinct I suspect that a self-preservation instinct, even in relatively dumb animals, is enormously complex. It might seem simple to us because it's so evolved, so hardwired. If I had to bet, I'd bet that a mouse's self-preservation instinct is more complex than the first-to-market Level 5 self-driving car will be. And that's good, because I definitely don't want automated vehicles to have more than a hint of self-preservation wiring.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    That's a good point, and yes, I definitely don't want an automated vehicle to have self-preservation instinct. What we're all after is people-preservation instinct, which is not entirely unrelated to the former. But the broader reason I brought up self-preservation is that in humans, it's not just about not getting killed in a crash. It's also about not having your life ruined by causing it, even if you walk away physically unscathed. A person has personal, deeply visceral stake in driving safely. A self-driving car AI currently doesn't, because it's not a mind; what it has is the reflection of priorities in the company that made it. And as it turns out, companies can kill people and get away with it, so I don't feel confident about how safety is prioritized (see also: this article).
    - mumblemumble 7y ago
      > what it has is the reflection of priorities in the company that made it I think it might even be more like Platonic shadows on a firelit cave wall of the priorities of the company that made it. At the current level that self-driving is at, the cars' control software is only able to perceive and respond to situations that its programmers anticipated and specifically coded for. That could be heuristics and rules in the hard-coded bits, but, also, even the most sophisticated deep neural net out there isn't even particularly capable of perceiving, let alone understanding, things that weren't coded into its training set. Meaning that, even if the company's intention was that the car should not plow into a pedestrian holding an enormous cellophane-wrapped Edible Arrangements™ fruit basket, that intention doesn't have any bearing on the vehicle's behavior if the software instead classified that object as a plastic bag blowing in the wind.
      - wpietri 7y ago
        Great points. And I'd add that the other implementation issue here is the human system any company's intentions get filtered through. So the interests modeled are not the entire corporation, but C-suite intentions passed through executive intentions, manager intentions, and then worker intentions. E.g., it might be in the long-term interest of the company to not run over pedestrians. If nothing else, the PR cost is very high. But when an exec wants to be first in the field to demonstrate personal success, then hitting a made-up date becomes the priority. Which implicitly puts "not kill people" lower. Middle managers don't want to get blamed, so they'll favor a more complex, muddled organization structure. Per Conway's law, that means muddled code. So instead of the car's software reflecting "don't run over pedestrians" as a key goal, its true priorities are things like "gives a good demo", "was delivered 'on time'", and "reflects an architecture clever enough to get that architect promoted that quarter". It's not impossible that good software comes out of this system, but the deck is certainly stacked against it.
smabie 7y ago
It’s because we are intelligent that we want the bottle of vodka in the first place.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

The thing with people is that we all share the same brain architecture - we mostly think alike. As a species, we have a hundred thousand plus years of experience dealing with each other; as a civilization, a couple thousand. We've explored most corner cases, designed our infrastructure around those, and built systems protecting us from outliers. For instance, people deemed too unpredictable will not be given driving licenses (and extremely unpredictable people tend to get locked up). And DUI is severely punished; while the execution isn't perfect, the threat of consequences goes a long way towards reducing it. That's the bar an AI system has to meet today. And one big hurdle is that, viewed as minds, AI systems are completely unlike our own. They're extremely unpredictable. On top of that, they lack self-preservation instinct (this may be indirectly a side effect of how we structure companies - the level of effort put into an AI system is a reflection of how much people working on it care about getting it right vs. getting it to market).

wpietri 7y ago
I agree entirely with your point, and wanted to follow a small tangent: > they lack self-preservation instinct I suspect that a self-preservation instinct, even in relatively dumb animals, is enormously complex. It might seem simple to us because it's so evolved, so hardwired. If I had to bet, I'd bet that a mouse's self-preservation instinct is more complex than the first-to-market Level 5 self-driving car will be. And that's good, because I definitely don't want automated vehicles to have more than a hint of self-preservation wiring.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  That's a good point, and yes, I definitely don't want an automated vehicle to have self-preservation instinct. What we're all after is people-preservation instinct, which is not entirely unrelated to the former. But the broader reason I brought up self-preservation is that in humans, it's not just about not getting killed in a crash. It's also about not having your life ruined by causing it, even if you walk away physically unscathed. A person has personal, deeply visceral stake in driving safely. A self-driving car AI currently doesn't, because it's not a mind; what it has is the reflection of priorities in the company that made it. And as it turns out, companies can kill people and get away with it, so I don't feel confident about how safety is prioritized (see also: this article).
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    > what it has is the reflection of priorities in the company that made it I think it might even be more like Platonic shadows on a firelit cave wall of the priorities of the company that made it. At the current level that self-driving is at, the cars' control software is only able to perceive and respond to situations that its programmers anticipated and specifically coded for. That could be heuristics and rules in the hard-coded bits, but, also, even the most sophisticated deep neural net out there isn't even particularly capable of perceiving, let alone understanding, things that weren't coded into its training set. Meaning that, even if the company's intention was that the car should not plow into a pedestrian holding an enormous cellophane-wrapped Edible Arrangements™ fruit basket, that intention doesn't have any bearing on the vehicle's behavior if the software instead classified that object as a plastic bag blowing in the wind.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Great points. And I'd add that the other implementation issue here is the human system any company's intentions get filtered through. So the interests modeled are not the entire corporation, but C-suite intentions passed through executive intentions, manager intentions, and then worker intentions. E.g., it might be in the long-term interest of the company to not run over pedestrians. If nothing else, the PR cost is very high. But when an exec wants to be first in the field to demonstrate personal success, then hitting a made-up date becomes the priority. Which implicitly puts "not kill people" lower. Middle managers don't want to get blamed, so they'll favor a more complex, muddled organization structure. Per Conway's law, that means muddled code. So instead of the car's software reflecting "don't run over pedestrians" as a key goal, its true priorities are things like "gives a good demo", "was delivered 'on time'", and "reflects an architecture clever enough to get that architect promoted that quarter". It's not impossible that good software comes out of this system, but the deck is certainly stacked against it.

smabie 7y ago

It’s because we are intelligent that we want the bottle of vodka in the first place.