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> If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I
by mannykannot 5y ago
> If more people understood why a steam governor or a 1914 autopilot or a corporate bylaw were primitive forms of AI, they wouldn’t be looking for magic. “If I can understand it, it must not be AI”
By the same argument, a person could say "AI is like a steam governor. I understand completely how steam governors work, and I know they cannot possibly translate from one language to another or recognize faces, so any claim that AI can do so is nonsense." This, of course, would a completely fallacious argument - and where it goes wrong is precisely with the assumption that AI is anything like a governor, except in the broadest possible way that gives precedence to a commonplace resemblance over all the substantive ways in which they are almost completely different.
I understand your desire to persuade people to not regard AI as magic, but I do not think this is helping.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoSee the paper from DeepMind on “reward is enough” and Alfred Russel Wallace on the relationship between steam governors and evolution. From that perspective, systems like steam governors can eventually recognize faces.
- mannykannot 5y agoEventually - after they have evolved to the point that they are more unlike steam governors than they are like them, and become something else in the process (a different species, for example.) To the best of my knowledge, no steam governor has ever recognized a face - or evolved into something that has, for that matter. I am also curious as to how you reward a steam governor - does it get more sex, with better governors? You might reward the inventor of a particularly effective governor with orders, but that isn't rewarding the governor.