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This appears to be a series of arguments from incredulity. In particular, it is equally incredible that intelligent life should evolve from a single-cell organ
by dsr_ 5y ago
This appears to be a series of arguments from incredulity.
In particular, it is equally incredible that intelligent life should evolve from a single-cell organism. But we have that as a counter-argument.
It is entirely reasonable to suspect that none of the current approaches will yield success, but claiming that no machine intelligences can possibly arise is... incredible.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y agoAgreed. The main claim being made is that “since AI is a logic system, and living humans are complex systems, AI cannot replicate human intelligence”. That claim rests on some unfounded, and implicit, assumptions. In particular, the author assumes that neural networks are not complex systems (and as an even deeper, implicit assumption, that no complex neural network could ever exist).
- hnaccount_rng 5y agoNo the assumption is that a logic system cannot be complex… well 2-SAT likes to have a word with the author I guess
- abetusk 5y agoI'm not sure if it was intentional or not but 2-SAT is polynomial solvable [0] whereas 3-SAT is NP-Complete [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-satisfiability#Algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-satisfiability#Algorithms [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem#3-satisfiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem...
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y agoIndeed, that does appear to be another of the many assumptions made in the article.
- qsort 5y agoAgreed. I am also extremely skeptical of AI, but while the paper does a good job at highlighting the problems with AI, the eventual conclusion is not at all well-supported. There's an hidden assumption that complex systems cannot be modeled mathematically at all, but while that can be true right now, there is no fundamental reason why satisfactory models can't be produced at all.
- pfdietz 5y agoAlso, the assumption that mathematically modeling a system is necessary for AI.
- sgt101 5y agoThere is a question as to are the systems of mathematics that human cognition can conceive adequate to represent the processes and mechanisms of human cognition or equivalent systems. Basically - can we write 'ourselves' down and if we can, can we read what we have written.
- simonh 5y agoWe’ve already made computer systems so complex we don’t know precisely how they work. Alpha Zero or GPT-3 for example.
- NineStarPoint 5y agoWe don’t know how they work exactly, but we do know the mathematics that create them. The question is if the systems that generate complex intelligence are too much for humans to create, not just the phenomenon that emerge from those systems.
- simonh 5y agoI see no reason to suspect there is any upper limit, in principle, to the complexity or sophistication of things humans can create. The reason is that we are tool users. We create tools, including mathematical and information processing tools that magnify our abilities. These then enable us to create even more powerful tools, which magnify our abilities even more. Rinse, repeat. There doesn't seem to be any obvious reason to me that this has any theoretical limit. Practical limits maybe, but if dumb evolution can crack the AGI problem clearly it's not beyond practical physical limits.