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This analogy breaks down easily. What do you propose is special about human-level intelligence? If anything, it is in constant struggle with biological and emo

This analogy breaks down easily. What do you propose is special about human-level intelligence? If anything, it is in constant struggle with biological and emotional needs. Yes, of course, human brains are amazing, the declaration of independence is great, but the entire human project is the push for progress.

rowanG077 5y ago
I can't say what is special about human-level intelligence. Most importantly because the scientific community(and by extension me) can't define what human-level intelligence means. It's just too illusive at this point. That something is undefined by humans doesn't mean you can simply say it's not special.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  There certainly has been a lot of work on defining and measuring intelligence. An example summarizing some of that work is Legg&Hutter https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/15009/1/Legg%20and%20Hutter%20A%20Collection%20of%20Definitions%20of%20Intelligence%202007.pdf https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/15... IMHO in the community there aren't any significant objections to the Legg & Hutter definition proposed in that document "Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments." - perhaps you can tweak the wording some more, but that's the direction implied by people talking about building general intelligence and (at some future point) human-comparable general intelligence; in essence it's about 'wide-coverage' intelligence of being efficient at different purposes and figuring out what is required to be successful for these purposes, as opposed to narrow single-task specific effectiveness; but it's essentially a metric on which one quite reasonably can imagine something being equivalent to or better than the average (or x-th percentile) human.
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    With that definition you can argue humans aren't intelligent at all. The environments we operate in are very limited compared to for example extremophiles. I doubt anyone would argue extremophiles are of genius level intellect compared to humans. That definition can be falsified in dozens of ways. That doesn't mean it can't be useful of course.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      IDK, humans can achieve all kinds of goals not only in temperate climates but also underwater, in the Antarctic and even in outer space; and in the environments where extremophiles operate we can do all kinds of interesting things that they can't. It's not about the capabilities of unassisted body - I can influence stuff in a volcano without sticking my bare hands in it.

rowanG077 5y ago

I can't say what is special about human-level intelligence. Most importantly because the scientific community(and by extension me) can't define what human-level intelligence means. It's just too illusive at this point. That something is undefined by humans doesn't mean you can simply say it's not special.

PeterisP 5y ago
There certainly has been a lot of work on defining and measuring intelligence. An example summarizing some of that work is Legg&Hutter https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/15009/1/Legg%20and%20Hutter%20A%20Collection%20of%20Definitions%20of%20Intelligence%202007.pdf https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/15... IMHO in the community there aren't any significant objections to the Legg & Hutter definition proposed in that document "Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments." - perhaps you can tweak the wording some more, but that's the direction implied by people talking about building general intelligence and (at some future point) human-comparable general intelligence; in essence it's about 'wide-coverage' intelligence of being efficient at different purposes and figuring out what is required to be successful for these purposes, as opposed to narrow single-task specific effectiveness; but it's essentially a metric on which one quite reasonably can imagine something being equivalent to or better than the average (or x-th percentile) human.
- rowanG077 5y ago
  With that definition you can argue humans aren't intelligent at all. The environments we operate in are very limited compared to for example extremophiles. I doubt anyone would argue extremophiles are of genius level intellect compared to humans. That definition can be falsified in dozens of ways. That doesn't mean it can't be useful of course.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    IDK, humans can achieve all kinds of goals not only in temperate climates but also underwater, in the Antarctic and even in outer space; and in the environments where extremophiles operate we can do all kinds of interesting things that they can't. It's not about the capabilities of unassisted body - I can influence stuff in a volcano without sticking my bare hands in it.