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As convoluted as this comment is, props for pointing out that evolution (and the formation of the solar system) took billions of years to produce intelligence.

As convoluted as this comment is, props for pointing out that evolution (and the formation of the solar system) took billions of years to produce intelligence. Can humanity do it in less time? Because biological evolution’s is oriented toward propagation of DNA rather than intelligence, we can ask what kind of evolutionary pressures lead to intelligence. Under what scenarios does higher intelligence lead to higher survival, and lower intelligence to lower survival? If the answer was “all the time”, then everything on earth would show signs of intelligence. An intelligent spider would have no significantly greater chance of survival. It merely needs to spin webs, eat, and reproduce in a tight loop, with deterministic responses to various scenarios — it needs instinct more than intelligence. By understanding what kind of evolutionary pressures lead to the necessity of intelligence, we can evolve (train) ML directly for intelligence, skipping straight to the answer rather than showing our work. The answer is found in the peculiar evolution of mammals, the only organisms that display consistent intelligence across all its species. Mammals are highly social, beginning from live birth to mammalian glands that feed its comparatively feeble spawn. Sociality is built into the bodies of mammals. And the most social animal on earth is Homo Sapiens. From here I’ll just recommend “Consciousness and the Social Brain.” I’ve been beating this dead horse on HN for some time.

Borrible 5y ago
"An intelligent spider would have no significantly greater chance of survival." Just for a moment, consider your spider as the embodyment of a special form of intelligence. And even dare to construct the term intelligence to include the web of the spider. And not just as a tool of the spider. As a problem-solving competence for a special problem category.
shkkmo 5y ago
I think that the role that human "instincts" play in the development of intelligence in our brain is very important. Social behavior is a key part of that. We do see high levels of intelligence in non-mammal species, like crows, but they tend to also be very social creatures. The main counter example I can think of would be the octopus. I think that even if we crack "general intelligence" and can make something that can problem-solve and learn on par with an Octopus, that approach will not get us to human level cognition. I personally do believe that you will need societies of AI agents to develop the culture software to achieve human level cognition. I think we greatly underestimate the value and complexity of the cultural OS's that allow humans to perform advanced cognition.
- Borrible 5y ago
  Yes, Octopi are beautiful minds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_th... I stopped eating them some 20 years ago. The time I realized, they are quite intelligent and probably the most tragic intelligence on this planet. Given just such a short life time and most of it loners. Yet their body and nervous system have such great potential. Yes, I know it's sentimental humanizing, but I love Elora & Egbert. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1twqEn8iHsk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1twqEn8iHsk
  - wildermuthn 5y ago
    You might really enjoy the science fiction novels Children of Time and Children of Ruin, if you haven’t already. Or hell, based on your comments, maybe you wrote them! Either way, they are spectacular and thought-provoking.
- wildermuthn 5y ago
  The book “Sapiens” does a great job of exploring how culture enabled us to evolve apart from changes to our DNA. I couldn’t agree more. On instincts: the neocortex is built on top of all the other more instinctual parts of the brain (vision, movement, etc). But this may just be an artifact of being embodied. Is there much difference between a RL agent that gets its data by processing pixels or directly from a simulator? I wouldn’t say there is, except that these non-pixel-parsing agents would have a hard time doing anything outside a simulator that was doing the processing for them.

Borrible 5y ago

"An intelligent spider would have no significantly greater chance of survival." Just for a moment, consider your spider as the embodyment of a special form of intelligence. And even dare to construct the term intelligence to include the web of the spider. And not just as a tool of the spider. As a problem-solving competence for a special problem category.

shkkmo 5y ago

I think that the role that human "instincts" play in the development of intelligence in our brain is very important. Social behavior is a key part of that. We do see high levels of intelligence in non-mammal species, like crows, but they tend to also be very social creatures. The main counter example I can think of would be the octopus. I think that even if we crack "general intelligence" and can make something that can problem-solve and learn on par with an Octopus, that approach will not get us to human level cognition. I personally do believe that you will need societies of AI agents to develop the culture software to achieve human level cognition. I think we greatly underestimate the value and complexity of the cultural OS's that allow humans to perform advanced cognition.

Borrible 5y ago
Yes, Octopi are beautiful minds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_th... I stopped eating them some 20 years ago. The time I realized, they are quite intelligent and probably the most tragic intelligence on this planet. Given just such a short life time and most of it loners. Yet their body and nervous system have such great potential. Yes, I know it's sentimental humanizing, but I love Elora & Egbert. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1twqEn8iHsk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1twqEn8iHsk
- wildermuthn 5y ago
  You might really enjoy the science fiction novels Children of Time and Children of Ruin, if you haven’t already. Or hell, based on your comments, maybe you wrote them! Either way, they are spectacular and thought-provoking.
wildermuthn 5y ago
The book “Sapiens” does a great job of exploring how culture enabled us to evolve apart from changes to our DNA. I couldn’t agree more. On instincts: the neocortex is built on top of all the other more instinctual parts of the brain (vision, movement, etc). But this may just be an artifact of being embodied. Is there much difference between a RL agent that gets its data by processing pixels or directly from a simulator? I wouldn’t say there is, except that these non-pixel-parsing agents would have a hard time doing anything outside a simulator that was doing the processing for them.