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There's no actual new theory here, just the same ideas Kurzweil said in the late 90s re-hashed. It's pure conjecture when AGI will actually happen. GPT-3 and T

by reso 5y ago

There's no actual new theory here, just the same ideas Kurzweil said in the late 90s re-hashed. It's pure conjecture when AGI will actually happen. GPT-3 and Transformers are impressive but still many orders of magnitude away from human performance. By now, we have lots of examples of technological problems where the last 1% is orders of magnitude harder than the first 99%.

mkaic 5y ago
(Author here) > There's no actual new theory here, just the same ideas Kurzweil said in the late 90s re-hashed. I have no idea who Kurzweil is. These ideas may not be unique but I have arrived at them at least somewhat independently. > It's pure conjecture when AGI will actually happen. GPT-3 and Transformers are impressive but still many orders of magnitude away from human performance. By now, we have lots of examples of technological problems where the last 1% is orders of magnitude harder than the first 99%. There are also many examples of technological problems that we have gotten many orders of magnitude better at in the past 20 years. You're right, there's no telling for sure when any of this will happen. That's why I qualified my article with a little "this is all speculation" disclaimer in the introduction. These are simply my best guesses.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  He was writing about the singularity before a lot of the people posting here were born. Maybe google him.
  - mkaic 5y ago
    I will, thanks for the recommendation! I hope my original response didn't dismissive -- it wasn't intended to if so.
- reso 5y ago
  Kurzweil did most of the work to popularize the idea of the Singularity through a series of books (and related speaking tours) in the 90s/2000s. The title of your essay, "The Singularity is Close?" appeared to be a play on the title of Kurzweil's 2005 book "The Singularity is Near". I believe you that you've never heard of him, but I suspect he's influenced you indirectly through other tech culture/language. He'd be worth a read probably. It might be interesting to you to see how some of these ideas have been around for a while.
  - mkaic 5y ago
    Awesome, thanks for the recommendation. I'll look into his writing!
jollybean 5y ago
And people miss the point when talking about GPT-3. That will not be 'the emergence'. It will be 'Siri'. Children having conversations with their 'all knowing' Siri assistant, all the while daddy computer scientists tries to create an AGI 'algorithm'? The power of the network makes the notion of 'automaton' style AI (i.e. discrete units of intelligence) a bit pedantic. The 'AI Doctor' will not be a 'Computer Doctor'. It will be a voice interface, with language filters, with interaction filters, with policy inputs, medical database, and other services. Most of which will be reused for so many other things. A 'confluence of machines and services' will outperform humans and 'general AI' on everything the point of 'AGI' will seem a bit misplaced as a concept in retrospect. Siri will 'feel human by any means we have to measure it' many decades before we create an automaton that does the same thing,

by reso 5y ago

mkaic 5y ago

(Author here) > There's no actual new theory here, just the same ideas Kurzweil said in the late 90s re-hashed. I have no idea who Kurzweil is. These ideas may not be unique but I have arrived at them at least somewhat independently. > It's pure conjecture when AGI will actually happen. GPT-3 and Transformers are impressive but still many orders of magnitude away from human performance. By now, we have lots of examples of technological problems where the last 1% is orders of magnitude harder than the first 99%. There are also many examples of technological problems that we have gotten many orders of magnitude better at in the past 20 years. You're right, there's no telling for sure when any of this will happen. That's why I qualified my article with a little "this is all speculation" disclaimer in the introduction. These are simply my best guesses.

bobsmooth 5y ago
He was writing about the singularity before a lot of the people posting here were born. Maybe google him.
- mkaic 5y ago
  I will, thanks for the recommendation! I hope my original response didn't dismissive -- it wasn't intended to if so.
reso 5y ago
Kurzweil did most of the work to popularize the idea of the Singularity through a series of books (and related speaking tours) in the 90s/2000s. The title of your essay, "The Singularity is Close?" appeared to be a play on the title of Kurzweil's 2005 book "The Singularity is Near". I believe you that you've never heard of him, but I suspect he's influenced you indirectly through other tech culture/language. He'd be worth a read probably. It might be interesting to you to see how some of these ideas have been around for a while.
- mkaic 5y ago
  Awesome, thanks for the recommendation. I'll look into his writing!

jollybean 5y ago

And people miss the point when talking about GPT-3. That will not be 'the emergence'. It will be 'Siri'. Children having conversations with their 'all knowing' Siri assistant, all the while daddy computer scientists tries to create an AGI 'algorithm'? The power of the network makes the notion of 'automaton' style AI (i.e. discrete units of intelligence) a bit pedantic. The 'AI Doctor' will not be a 'Computer Doctor'. It will be a voice interface, with language filters, with interaction filters, with policy inputs, medical database, and other services. Most of which will be reused for so many other things. A 'confluence of machines and services' will outperform humans and 'general AI' on everything the point of 'AGI' will seem a bit misplaced as a concept in retrospect. Siri will 'feel human by any means we have to measure it' many decades before we create an automaton that does the same thing,