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But the spectrum is an illusion. It’s not like humans are just chimpanzees (or ants or cats) with more compute. Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or c

But the spectrum is an illusion. It’s not like humans are just chimpanzees (or ants or cats) with more compute. Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or chimpanzee and made it compute more data infinitely faster, you wouldn’t get AGI. Humans can do something fundamentally unique. They are universal explainers. They can take on board any explanation and use it for creative thought instantly. They do not need to be trained in the sense that neural nets do. Creating new ideas, making and using explanations, and critiquing our own thoughts is what makes humans special. You can’t explain something to a goldfish and have it change its behavior. A goldfish isn’t thinking “what if I go right after the third left in the maze”. Credit to David Deutsch for these ideas.

zmgsabst 4y ago
> Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or chimpanzee and made it compute more data infinitely faster, you wouldn’t get AGI. Citation needed. > They can take on board any explanation and use it for creative thought instantly. They do not need to be trained in the sense that neural nets do. This is patently false: I can explain a math topic people can’t immediately apply — and require substantial training (ie, repeated exposure to examples of that data) to get it correct… if they ever learn it at all. Anyone with a background in tutoring has experienced this claim being false. > Creating new ideas, making and using explanations, and critiquing our own thoughts is what makes humans special. Current AI has approaches for all of these.
- tdehnel 4y ago
  >Citation needed. That's a lazy critique. With a lack of concrete evidence either way, we can only rely on the best explanation (theory). What's your explanation for how an AGI is just an ant with more compute? I've given my explanation for why it's not: an AGI would need to have the ability to create new explanatory knowledge (i.e. not just synthesize something that it's been trained to do). As an example, you can currently tell almost any person (but certainly no other animal or current AI) "break into this room without destroying anything and steal the most valuable object in it". Go ahead and try that with a faster ant. On your tutoring example, just because a given person doesn't use their special capabilities doesn't mean they don't have them. Your example could just as easily be interpreted to mean that tutors just haven't figured out how to tutor effectively. As a counter example, would you say your phone doesn't have the ability to run an app which is not installed on it? >Current AI has approaches for all these. But has it solved them? Or is there an explanation as to why it hasn't solved them yet? What new knowledge has AI created? I know as a member of a ML research group you really want current approaches to be the solution to AGI. We are making progress I admit. But until we can explain how general intelligence works, we will not be able to program it.
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zmgsabst 4y ago

> Put differently, if you took an ant or cat or chimpanzee and made it compute more data infinitely faster, you wouldn’t get AGI. Citation needed. > They can take on board any explanation and use it for creative thought instantly. They do not need to be trained in the sense that neural nets do. This is patently false: I can explain a math topic people can’t immediately apply — and require substantial training (ie, repeated exposure to examples of that data) to get it correct… if they ever learn it at all. Anyone with a background in tutoring has experienced this claim being false. > Creating new ideas, making and using explanations, and critiquing our own thoughts is what makes humans special. Current AI has approaches for all of these.

tdehnel 4y ago
>Citation needed. That's a lazy critique. With a lack of concrete evidence either way, we can only rely on the best explanation (theory). What's your explanation for how an AGI is just an ant with more compute? I've given my explanation for why it's not: an AGI would need to have the ability to create new explanatory knowledge (i.e. not just synthesize something that it's been trained to do). As an example, you can currently tell almost any person (but certainly no other animal or current AI) "break into this room without destroying anything and steal the most valuable object in it". Go ahead and try that with a faster ant. On your tutoring example, just because a given person doesn't use their special capabilities doesn't mean they don't have them. Your example could just as easily be interpreted to mean that tutors just haven't figured out how to tutor effectively. As a counter example, would you say your phone doesn't have the ability to run an app which is not installed on it? >Current AI has approaches for all these. But has it solved them? Or is there an explanation as to why it hasn't solved them yet? What new knowledge has AI created? I know as a member of a ML research group you really want current approaches to be the solution to AGI. We are making progress I admit. But until we can explain how general intelligence works, we will not be able to program it.
- deleted 4y ago
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