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AGI is currently as likely as teleportation, time travel or warp drives. You can write a computer program to do just about anything. Artificial "General" intell

AGI is currently as likely as teleportation, time travel or warp drives. You can write a computer program to do just about anything. Artificial "General" intelligence is simply not a thing. We're not even making progress toward it.

simonh 5y ago
We do not observe teleportation, time travel or warp drive in nature. We also don’t have any practical theory for achieving them as depicted in science fiction. It seems unlikely we will achieve such technologies. Do we observe general intelligence in nature though, here on Earth implemented with the materials available in our environment? If so, it’s a bold claim to make that it will always be impossible to achieve it artificially.
- hooande 5y ago
  How far are we away from gene editing that will allow humans to be born with working gills or wings? Animals have these things, so we know it's possible. But having the technology to do that is very far off, if ever. The same is true of AGI. Of course it's possible. but right now no one has any clear idea how to do it without extreme brute force. Personally, I think it's more likely that we'll have a working Alcubierre drive before anything approaching general intelligence
  - Ginden 5y ago
    > How far are we away from gene editing that will allow humans to be born with working gills or wings? Impossible due to physics limits. Human lungs have 57 square meters for extracting oxygen from fluid with 21% volume oxygen. 30°C air-saturated water have 0.5% of oxygen, so working gills for human would need surface area of 2394 square meters.
    - rembicilious 5y ago
      Gills work by continually “filtering” water as is flows through them. Lungs are filled and then emptied according to some pattern of breath. The difference in volume of fluid processed must be significant. Also, can’t gills have a higher surface area to volume ratio than lungs?
  - simonh 5y ago
    We can extract oxygen from water right now, so we can already do this. Requiring a specific implementation technology is unreasonably stacking the deck. You’re making the same mistake as those who critiqued the concept of heavier than air flying machines, starting from the assumption they must work by flapping their wings. As it happens now we have wing flapping drones anyway though. “Ever” is a very, very, very long time.
ethanbond 5y ago
We have natural “general” intelligence which appears to be generated by boring old chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. Why wouldn’t we be able to recreate that at some (IMO very far) point?
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  We don't have very good general intelligence. What we have is a fairly loose mix of categorisers and recognisers, biochemical motivators and goal systems, some abstraction, and a lot of externally persistent cultural and social programming. (The extent and importance of which is wildly underestimated.) The result is that virtually all humans can handle emotional recognition and display with speech and body language including facial manipulation/recognition. But this doesn't get you very far, except as a baseline for mutual recognition. After that you get two narrowing pyramids of talent and trained ability. One starts with basic physical manipulation of concrete objects and peaks in the extreme abstraction of physics and math research. The other starts from social and emotional game playing, with a side order of resource control and acquisition. And peaks in the extreme game playing of political and economic systems. So what's called AI is a very partial and limited attempt to start climbing one of those peaks. The other is being explored in covert collective form on social media. And it's far more dangerous than a hypothetical paperclip monster, because it can affect what we think, feel, and believe, not just what we can do. The point is that it's a default assumption that the point of AI is to create something that is somehow recognisable as a human individual, no matter how remotely. But it's far more likely to be a kind of collective presence which doesn't just lack a face, it won't be perceived as a presence or influence at all.
- hooande 5y ago
  A warp drive is theoretically possible, and also driven by boring chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. humans may create one of those at some very far point in the future, too
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > A warp drive is theoretically possible, Dubious > and also driven by boring chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. Implausible exotic matter, negative energy, etc, are usually prerequisites. Just like the existence of flying birds were a hint that flying machines might be possible, the existence of thinking creatures is a hint that thinking machines might be possible.

simonh 5y ago

We do not observe teleportation, time travel or warp drive in nature. We also don’t have any practical theory for achieving them as depicted in science fiction. It seems unlikely we will achieve such technologies. Do we observe general intelligence in nature though, here on Earth implemented with the materials available in our environment? If so, it’s a bold claim to make that it will always be impossible to achieve it artificially.

hooande 5y ago
How far are we away from gene editing that will allow humans to be born with working gills or wings? Animals have these things, so we know it's possible. But having the technology to do that is very far off, if ever. The same is true of AGI. Of course it's possible. but right now no one has any clear idea how to do it without extreme brute force. Personally, I think it's more likely that we'll have a working Alcubierre drive before anything approaching general intelligence
- Ginden 5y ago
  > How far are we away from gene editing that will allow humans to be born with working gills or wings? Impossible due to physics limits. Human lungs have 57 square meters for extracting oxygen from fluid with 21% volume oxygen. 30°C air-saturated water have 0.5% of oxygen, so working gills for human would need surface area of 2394 square meters.
  - rembicilious 5y ago
    Gills work by continually “filtering” water as is flows through them. Lungs are filled and then emptied according to some pattern of breath. The difference in volume of fluid processed must be significant. Also, can’t gills have a higher surface area to volume ratio than lungs?
- simonh 5y ago
  We can extract oxygen from water right now, so we can already do this. Requiring a specific implementation technology is unreasonably stacking the deck. You’re making the same mistake as those who critiqued the concept of heavier than air flying machines, starting from the assumption they must work by flapping their wings. As it happens now we have wing flapping drones anyway though. “Ever” is a very, very, very long time.

ethanbond 5y ago

We have natural “general” intelligence which appears to be generated by boring old chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. Why wouldn’t we be able to recreate that at some (IMO very far) point?

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
We don't have very good general intelligence. What we have is a fairly loose mix of categorisers and recognisers, biochemical motivators and goal systems, some abstraction, and a lot of externally persistent cultural and social programming. (The extent and importance of which is wildly underestimated.) The result is that virtually all humans can handle emotional recognition and display with speech and body language including facial manipulation/recognition. But this doesn't get you very far, except as a baseline for mutual recognition. After that you get two narrowing pyramids of talent and trained ability. One starts with basic physical manipulation of concrete objects and peaks in the extreme abstraction of physics and math research. The other starts from social and emotional game playing, with a side order of resource control and acquisition. And peaks in the extreme game playing of political and economic systems. So what's called AI is a very partial and limited attempt to start climbing one of those peaks. The other is being explored in covert collective form on social media. And it's far more dangerous than a hypothetical paperclip monster, because it can affect what we think, feel, and believe, not just what we can do. The point is that it's a default assumption that the point of AI is to create something that is somehow recognisable as a human individual, no matter how remotely. But it's far more likely to be a kind of collective presence which doesn't just lack a face, it won't be perceived as a presence or influence at all.
hooande 5y ago
A warp drive is theoretically possible, and also driven by boring chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. humans may create one of those at some very far point in the future, too
- mlyle 5y ago
  > A warp drive is theoretically possible, Dubious > and also driven by boring chemical/thermal/electrical interactions. Implausible exotic matter, negative energy, etc, are usually prerequisites. Just like the existence of flying birds were a hint that flying machines might be possible, the existence of thinking creatures is a hint that thinking machines might be possible.