4 ms·

I wonder if you get how much we've moved the goalposts on "intelligence." Once upon a time, it was considered "intelligent" to be able to add. Then "intellige

I wonder if you get how much we've moved the goalposts on "intelligence." Once upon a time, it was considered "intelligent" to be able to add. Then "intelligence" was tool use, which we thought only humans could do. Then we swore it took "intelligence" to play Go as well as a beginner human. What set of tasks would you, right now, consider to be demonstrative of "intelligence" if a computer can do them? Then we can look back later at your response, and see how long it took each one to happen.

mdp2021 4y ago
> demonstrative of "intelligence" Nothing. Nothing that just looks like intelligence is intelligence - convincing appearances cannot make a nature. Either it is an judicial ontology refiner, or it is not intelligence.
- VikingCoder 4y ago
  If you cannot come up with evidence that would convince you that you are wrong, then you are not making a scientific claim.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    Logic is sufficient, there is no scientific claim involved: it has to respect a definition. It has to /be/ something, not /look like/ something - which in the latter case and in this context would make it the opposite. If it refines its ontology through critical productive analysis that makes it "see details" then it may be an intelligence, while if it outputs mockeries it is /the opposite/ of intelligence. And in fact, many tentative toys nowadays are completely astray with regard to the concept of intelligence, because the secondary meaning of the term, as used traditionally in this technical context, is "able to provide solutions somehow replacing an engineer": the solutions are verified on effectiveness, not on "vero-pseudo-similarity".
    - VikingCoder 4y ago
      > If it refines its ontology through critical productive analysis that makes it "see details" then it may be an intelligence, while if it outputs mockeries it is /the opposite/ of intelligence. To help me understand your definition well enough, how could I prove to you whether my Cousin Sarah is intelligent? I have some experience in this field, and even I have no idea what you mean by "refining your ontology through critical productive analysis." In practice, what's an example of that? What could someone (an actual person) do, to demonstrate that to you? The Turing Test is a well-understood example. How could we formalize your test? I also don't understand what evidence I could possibly give you that something /is/ something, rather than something /looks like/ something. What's the measurable difference between /looking like/ and /being/?
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        Now we start being in a context of science, supposing we have to assess something in absence of the blueprint. But that is complementary to engineering, where we decide the blueprint - making it much easier to tell and plan "is" aut "seems". And in a context of science, you cannot prove me whether your cousin is intelligent, until we open her and check the wiring - but I can be convinced that she is not intelligent, if her behaviour so shows. Plenty of clear hints come from machines and, more unfortunately, humans - I listed a few recently elsewhere. This that does not know that you cannot ring the doorbell of Caius Julius Caesar though it read a biography; that which would indicate the swan right there as white in spite of being told differently; that which goes full delirious. An intelligent entity has to be able to know entities and assess their relations with foundations. It is not difficult to reveal when this is not happening, and the literature contains a number of "codified" examples: one is that of understanding the pronoun in the sentences "The trophy will not enter the case: it is too big" and "The trophy will not enter the case: it is too small", which can betray the absence in the engine of a capability for (sub)world modelling. Prof. Patrick Winston said that intelligence is "that you have never run with a bucket full of gravel but you know what it entails regardless", because you can reliably "tell yourself a story". That is a requirement: the "intelligent" entity has to know what "bucket", "gravel", "running", and all possibly related concepts, and be able to refine them sensibly combining them, and produce statements that are solid at the state of development of its ontology. So, before going into finer details, let us have a system that definitely builds an ontology, made of virtual scenarios in which entities are known progressively, and let us see how it reasons about it. Because when this is missed, then Intelligence is missed in spite of any mockery of actual intelligence. A photocopier do not make one an artist, and capabilities for imitation are a risk, not a goal: they define a warning that makes the "real thing" trickier to discriminate. And since we already know that by design the "real thing" is not there, failure under some field condition is already foreseeable. If you cannot tell "looking like" from "being", then you have a problem - because what "is not" will probably reveal so. You have to build the system so that the core is foreseen. And if instead the "foundation" of the outputs comes from crunching the most likely fitting response, that is directly the opposite of intelligence - which understands /why/ something works, and does not just record what "works". It is the opposite because intelligence by definition "reads in", investigates, while the other fully "delegates out". Did not you mention Science? Well, to be intelligent an entity has to be a Philosopher and a Scientist. And if it expresses like one, if it is a black box your duty is to check thoroughly with renewed effort that you are not tricked, that there is substance behind it - far from being contented. -- Edit: you want a "moving goalpost"-like test? The Resnik-Halliday-Krane Physics textbook contains a number of exercises: the AI has to be able to solve them correctly and properly - "properly" more than "correctly". And then, for all disciplines, there will be similar exercises - from "Why would the radical school of Austrian Economics fail in the Kholomity region, and why would it succeed", to "Why would implementing radical school of Austrian Economics measures in the Kholomity region be immoral, and why would it be moral"; "legal/illegal" etc. Make it pass examinations for degrees. But it remains key that no tricks are employed: it has to build instances of subworlds, made of organically developed concepts, including laws, and make its tests and reasoning on them, and draw conclusions. Tricks are always possible, and "copying from the neighbour or learning answers etc" cannot count.
Jensson 4y ago
> What set of tasks would you, right now, consider to be demonstrative of "intelligence" if a computer can do them? Be able to apply for, get and hold a remote job and get paid for a year without anyone noticing, or something equivalent to that. I said this many years ago and it still hasn't happened. The people who are moving the goalposts aren't the sceptics, it is the optimists who always move the goalposts to exactly where we are right now and say "see, we reached this incredible goalpost, now you must concede that this is intelligent!".
- VikingCoder 4y ago
  Why must it apply for a job, rather than just DO a job? But maybe some combination of this [1] and this [2] would do it. If you want to know about a computer actually DOING a remote job for a year without anyone noticing, I'll conclude with many links [a-i]. [1] : https://thisresumedoesnotexist.com/ https://thisresumedoesnotexist.com/ (Sorry for the bad certificates.) [2] : https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoker-wrote-code-spam-kellogg-strike-busting-job-ad-site-2021-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoker-wrote-code-spam-kel... [a] : An original claim of just that: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2igq9/i_automated_my_job_over_a_year_ago_and_havent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2igq9/i_automate... [b] : Coverage of that post: https://www.newsweek.com/no-harm-done-it-employee-goes-viral-automating-job-playing-video-games-1668914 https://www.newsweek.com/no-harm-done-it-employee-goes-viral... [c] : https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/p3wvdy/i_automated_the_vast_majority_of_both_my_job_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/p3wvdy/i_automate... [d] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jcdad/my_wife_works_from_home_and_ive_automated_her_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jcdad/my_wife_wo... [e] : https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/277zih/that_time_that_i_automated_a_woman_out_of_a_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/277zi... [f] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_... [g] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vomtn/update_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vomtn/update_my_... [h] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ew6gmd/aita_for_automating_my_job_and_getting_paid_while/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ew6gmd/aita_... [i] : https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/7tjdkr/that_time_i_helped_automate_20_people_out_of_a_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/7tjdk... I mostly share the last few because of all of the "me, too" comments on them. There are several instances in there where an employer has no idea they are paying a salary, but a computer is doing the vast majority of the actual work. I feel like this is a "business world Turing test," like, "would an employer pay money for it, thinking it was a human." And I feel like I've provided evidence that has actually occurred.
rsfern 4y ago
Yeah, that’s a fair point. I am kind of coming from this place where we’ve been treating structure solution as an optimization/search problem for a long time. To me the competing methods to AlphaFold seem a lot more like computer chess systems than human grandmasters. The first structure solution by a human I guess would be closer to the grandmaster in this analogy. (Caveat: I’m in an adjacent field so not a direct expert) I think higher level scientific tasks are like evaluating evidence under different mechanistic hypotheses, designing experiments to disambiguate these, coming up with novel mechanistic hypotheses, etc. I’m also not sure that automated systems for these tasks require intelligence. They just have to obsolete the current intelligent systems (humans) that perform these tasks, like computer chess. I don’t know, maybe this is “no true Scotsman” for machine intelligence?

mdp2021 4y ago

> demonstrative of "intelligence" Nothing. Nothing that just looks like intelligence is intelligence - convincing appearances cannot make a nature. Either it is an judicial ontology refiner, or it is not intelligence.

VikingCoder 4y ago
If you cannot come up with evidence that would convince you that you are wrong, then you are not making a scientific claim.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Logic is sufficient, there is no scientific claim involved: it has to respect a definition. It has to /be/ something, not /look like/ something - which in the latter case and in this context would make it the opposite. If it refines its ontology through critical productive analysis that makes it "see details" then it may be an intelligence, while if it outputs mockeries it is /the opposite/ of intelligence. And in fact, many tentative toys nowadays are completely astray with regard to the concept of intelligence, because the secondary meaning of the term, as used traditionally in this technical context, is "able to provide solutions somehow replacing an engineer": the solutions are verified on effectiveness, not on "vero-pseudo-similarity".
  - VikingCoder 4y ago
    > If it refines its ontology through critical productive analysis that makes it "see details" then it may be an intelligence, while if it outputs mockeries it is /the opposite/ of intelligence. To help me understand your definition well enough, how could I prove to you whether my Cousin Sarah is intelligent? I have some experience in this field, and even I have no idea what you mean by "refining your ontology through critical productive analysis." In practice, what's an example of that? What could someone (an actual person) do, to demonstrate that to you? The Turing Test is a well-understood example. How could we formalize your test? I also don't understand what evidence I could possibly give you that something /is/ something, rather than something /looks like/ something. What's the measurable difference between /looking like/ and /being/?
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      Now we start being in a context of science, supposing we have to assess something in absence of the blueprint. But that is complementary to engineering, where we decide the blueprint - making it much easier to tell and plan "is" aut "seems". And in a context of science, you cannot prove me whether your cousin is intelligent, until we open her and check the wiring - but I can be convinced that she is not intelligent, if her behaviour so shows. Plenty of clear hints come from machines and, more unfortunately, humans - I listed a few recently elsewhere. This that does not know that you cannot ring the doorbell of Caius Julius Caesar though it read a biography; that which would indicate the swan right there as white in spite of being told differently; that which goes full delirious. An intelligent entity has to be able to know entities and assess their relations with foundations. It is not difficult to reveal when this is not happening, and the literature contains a number of "codified" examples: one is that of understanding the pronoun in the sentences "The trophy will not enter the case: it is too big" and "The trophy will not enter the case: it is too small", which can betray the absence in the engine of a capability for (sub)world modelling. Prof. Patrick Winston said that intelligence is "that you have never run with a bucket full of gravel but you know what it entails regardless", because you can reliably "tell yourself a story". That is a requirement: the "intelligent" entity has to know what "bucket", "gravel", "running", and all possibly related concepts, and be able to refine them sensibly combining them, and produce statements that are solid at the state of development of its ontology. So, before going into finer details, let us have a system that definitely builds an ontology, made of virtual scenarios in which entities are known progressively, and let us see how it reasons about it. Because when this is missed, then Intelligence is missed in spite of any mockery of actual intelligence. A photocopier do not make one an artist, and capabilities for imitation are a risk, not a goal: they define a warning that makes the "real thing" trickier to discriminate. And since we already know that by design the "real thing" is not there, failure under some field condition is already foreseeable. If you cannot tell "looking like" from "being", then you have a problem - because what "is not" will probably reveal so. You have to build the system so that the core is foreseen. And if instead the "foundation" of the outputs comes from crunching the most likely fitting response, that is directly the opposite of intelligence - which understands /why/ something works, and does not just record what "works". It is the opposite because intelligence by definition "reads in", investigates, while the other fully "delegates out". Did not you mention Science? Well, to be intelligent an entity has to be a Philosopher and a Scientist. And if it expresses like one, if it is a black box your duty is to check thoroughly with renewed effort that you are not tricked, that there is substance behind it - far from being contented. -- Edit: you want a "moving goalpost"-like test? The Resnik-Halliday-Krane Physics textbook contains a number of exercises: the AI has to be able to solve them correctly and properly - "properly" more than "correctly". And then, for all disciplines, there will be similar exercises - from "Why would the radical school of Austrian Economics fail in the Kholomity region, and why would it succeed", to "Why would implementing radical school of Austrian Economics measures in the Kholomity region be immoral, and why would it be moral"; "legal/illegal" etc. Make it pass examinations for degrees. But it remains key that no tricks are employed: it has to build instances of subworlds, made of organically developed concepts, including laws, and make its tests and reasoning on them, and draw conclusions. Tricks are always possible, and "copying from the neighbour or learning answers etc" cannot count.

Jensson 4y ago

> What set of tasks would you, right now, consider to be demonstrative of "intelligence" if a computer can do them? Be able to apply for, get and hold a remote job and get paid for a year without anyone noticing, or something equivalent to that. I said this many years ago and it still hasn't happened. The people who are moving the goalposts aren't the sceptics, it is the optimists who always move the goalposts to exactly where we are right now and say "see, we reached this incredible goalpost, now you must concede that this is intelligent!".

VikingCoder 4y ago
Why must it apply for a job, rather than just DO a job? But maybe some combination of this [1] and this [2] would do it. If you want to know about a computer actually DOING a remote job for a year without anyone noticing, I'll conclude with many links [a-i]. [1] : https://thisresumedoesnotexist.com/ https://thisresumedoesnotexist.com/ (Sorry for the bad certificates.) [2] : https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoker-wrote-code-spam-kellogg-strike-busting-job-ad-site-2021-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktoker-wrote-code-spam-kel... [a] : An original claim of just that: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2igq9/i_automated_my_job_over_a_year_ago_and_havent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s2igq9/i_automate... [b] : Coverage of that post: https://www.newsweek.com/no-harm-done-it-employee-goes-viral-automating-job-playing-video-games-1668914 https://www.newsweek.com/no-harm-done-it-employee-goes-viral... [c] : https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/p3wvdy/i_automated_the_vast_majority_of_both_my_job_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/p3wvdy/i_automate... [d] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jcdad/my_wife_works_from_home_and_ive_automated_her_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jcdad/my_wife_wo... [e] : https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/277zih/that_time_that_i_automated_a_woman_out_of_a_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/277zi... [f] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_... [g] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vomtn/update_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vomtn/update_my_... [h] : https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ew6gmd/aita_for_automating_my_job_and_getting_paid_while/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ew6gmd/aita_... [i] : https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/7tjdkr/that_time_i_helped_automate_20_people_out_of_a_job/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/7tjdk... I mostly share the last few because of all of the "me, too" comments on them. There are several instances in there where an employer has no idea they are paying a salary, but a computer is doing the vast majority of the actual work. I feel like this is a "business world Turing test," like, "would an employer pay money for it, thinking it was a human." And I feel like I've provided evidence that has actually occurred.

rsfern 4y ago

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I am kind of coming from this place where we’ve been treating structure solution as an optimization/search problem for a long time. To me the competing methods to AlphaFold seem a lot more like computer chess systems than human grandmasters. The first structure solution by a human I guess would be closer to the grandmaster in this analogy. (Caveat: I’m in an adjacent field so not a direct expert) I think higher level scientific tasks are like evaluating evidence under different mechanistic hypotheses, designing experiments to disambiguate these, coming up with novel mechanistic hypotheses, etc. I’m also not sure that automated systems for these tasks require intelligence. They just have to obsolete the current intelligent systems (humans) that perform these tasks, like computer chess. I don’t know, maybe this is “no true Scotsman” for machine intelligence?