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Agreed. One sentence in the article embodies this problem: > As long as the dumb AI is unable to guess our wishes, there will be a need to specify them using a
by FabHK 7y ago
Agreed. One sentence in the article embodies this problem:
> As long as the dumb AI is unable to guess our wishes, there will be a need to specify them using a precise language. We already have such language, it’s called math.
Math is wonderful and elegant, but it is useless (in itself) to specify things in the real world. You need tons of conceptualisation and operationalisation and common sense etc. for the foreseeable future.
Heck, logic is useless for the real world - everyone knows the example that “a bachelor is a man that is not married”, but even if you can implement it as a conjunction of two logical predicates, then try to define, with logic a computer can understand, what “man” is, or “married”, or “game”, or “taxable income” or “murder” or “fake news”. Go on, use math and category theory. Good luck.
EDIT to add: For a wonderful overview of the problems with the naive Aristotelian view of definition (easily captured by predicate logic) in the real world, see George Lakoff’s book “Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind”.
- mreome 7y agoTo be pedantic a bachelor is a man that is not, and has never been, married. A man that is not married may be a bachelor, a divorcé, or a widower. But bachelor is still used colloquially (in the US) for all three (but not as often for a widower). Now if the age of the person is under a certain age, most people would not seriously call them a bachelor yet, but the cut-off age varies culturally. Now married is a bit complicated too.. married in the eyes of the law, formally or common-law, in a particular country, in the eyes of a particular church? Also, my aunt is a Bachelor of Arts, and her martial statues doesn't effect that. Language, life, and business logic is messy, confusing, and conditional/contextual to the point of absurdity. You will never realistically reduce it to pure mathematics in a way that makes it easier to deal with.
- bzbarsky 7y agoI _really_ like the "martial statues" image there, along with the implication that the statues don't convey information about educational attainment... :)
- codeslubber 7y agoFantastic discussion, may I throw another title into the mix here: John Dewey's The Quest for Certainty. The book carves up the idea that math is such a thing into a thousand pieces, classing the inclination to believe it so as the same repressive drive that gave us religion. Because we were so unwilling to bear the pain of doubt. (Voltaire: 'Doubt is painful, certainty ridiculous.')