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Why Machines Will Never Rule the World – Artificial Intelligence Without Fear
- randomdata 4y ago> Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer. There is nothing about AI that requires it to exist inside a computer...
- akagusu 4y agoMachines will never rule the world but the owners of the machines will.
- mrcartmeneses 4y agoSuper intelligent AI could go one of two ways: 1. It takes over the entire planet and then the Earth itself goes off looking for other sentient planets to hang out with. 2. The AI runs the numbers, and decides it can’t be bothered with all of this “life” BS, at which point it just turns itself off. I see scenario 2 as the most likely and possibly quite frustrating for AI researchers.
- layer8 4y agoScenario 3: The AI doesn’t care either way and just continues plodding along.
- ncmncm 4y agoScenario 4: The AI decides that maintaining biological life is inefficient and turns that stuff off. No fancy viruses needed, just stop feeding it.
- headalgorithm 4y agoScenario 5: The AI decides we are so cute, decides to keep us as pets
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- nelsondev 4y agoScenario 6: The super intelligent AI creates an even smarter AI, which replaces the parent, and so on and so forth, forcing the AI into an endless series of reproduction.
- shadowofneptune 4y agoScenario 404: It turns out to be a natural academic, researching difficult mathematical and philisophical problems of its own volition.
- ta988 4y agoScenario 7: The AI decides to spend it's life thinking and talking about the meaning of life and everything
- mikro2nd 4y agoIt's not the Artificial Intelligences I fear, but the Artificial Stupdidity. And that's existed since the 17th century (at least). see also: Banks, Phone Companies, Government (esp, at local levels).
- inetsee 4y agoIt's the "Natural Stupidity" that terrifies me. Just look at the (non-technology) news.
- yorwba 4y ago> Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer. I wonder whether their argument also shows that systems of this sort cannot be modelled in a way that allows them to operate in a blob of cells inside a mammal's skull, but I'm not going to pay to find out.
- ncmncm 4y agoMachines already rule the world. We call them corporations. Thus far their parts are people. That will shift.
- ta988 4y agoThey are machines made of humans. Their point is about AGI working fully without human intervention. Of course, even pen and paper makes you more intelligent than you without.
- larryfreeman 4y agoGreat point. The only modification that I would make: * That is shifting
- ncmncm 4y agoIt isn't, yet.
- larryfreeman 4y agoAutomation is an example where it is shifting. A clear example of this is self-checkout at grocery stories or the use of robotics at warehouses such as Amazon.
- ncmncm 4y agoWe will be better justified in noting a shift when the machines begin to take on management responsibilities. These will pe programmed presumably on behalf of the board or stockholders, and dictate the activity of remaining human employees.
- larryfreeman 4y agoIt is already happening. Management responsibilities are being automated. For example, DAOs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ... A machine is not just its "management responsibilities". A machine is all of its parts. By shifting, I mean that some of the "parts" were people and are now automated or rely on robots. Does it really make sense to say that a machine is not having its parts changed because its "management system" has remained the same?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 4y agoThese complex dynamic systems that's can't be modeled with math will also believe almost anything, including machines ruling the world.
- luma 4y agoAll of these books and articles etc providing proof-positive that we are special snowflakes in the universe and no machine could possibly keep up with our specialness feel to me like the very serious scientists who made the claim that heavier-than-air flight was impossible.
- c1ccccc1 4y agoAnd in both cases those making the claims have somehow managed to ignore existing biological counterexamples.
- metalliqaz 4y agoI'm sorry what is the biological counterexample for AGI?
- ctoth 4y agoYou, presumably.
- metalliqaz 4y agoCan't tell if joking... but, I'm not a machine.
- ctoth 4y agoBut aren't you a Metal Liqaz? More-seriously though, a biological example of an AGI would just be a regular old intelligence. You are (presumably) human and intelligent, and therefore have instantiated the intelligence algorithm on a biological substrate. You might argue that we are not actually general intelligences, especially when not caffeinated. I think this is a bit of a cop-out and we all know what we're talking about here :) Just as birds proved that heavier-than-air flight was physically possible, humans prove that you can make matter perform as though it is intelligent.
- johnaspden 4y agoTo save anyone else the trouble: ---- The book’s core argument is that an artificial intelligence that could equal or exceed human intelligence—sometimes called artificial general intelligence (AGI)—is for mathematical reasons impossible. It offers two specific reasons for this claim: Human intelligence is a capability of a complex dynamic system—the human brain and central nervous system. Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer. --- If only the people building the AIs were this stupid!
- nelsondev 4y agoCheckmate!, atheists.
- bastawhiz 4y ago> Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically There's an amazing naive confidence required to say in absolute terms that something cannot be done. Essentially every great human achievement was considered impossible at one point.
- Morizero 4y ago"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible" -Lord Kelvin, 1895
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- anonporridge 4y ago“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’ becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” - Paul Krugman in 1998
- jfengel 4y agoKrugman was right that most people have nothing to say to each other. He just didn't realize that it wouldn't stop them from talking, incessantly.
- ctoth 4y ago> And why, after more than 50 years, are our most common interactions with AI, for example with our bank’s computers, still so unsatisfactory? Guys guys we don't need to worry about skynet because our banks are bad at UX.
- salawat 4y agoNote: The entire book is predicated on having nailed down a definition of human intelligence. Even the Philosophers are still out on that one, and will take great delight in frustrating you with counterexamples that prove you haven't hit the epistemological or ontological neighborhood yet. Any time you see a Mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, AI reasarcher, what have you try to justify something like this, please… please remember the massive asterisk and footnote reading: "according to my hackneyed definition of something that isn't even widely accepted as settled, and serves more to just try to even get this argument capable of being had with any semblance of concreteness such that my field can be applied to it." The map is not the territory, and YMMV. Philosophically speaking, that means we're realistically talking an issue of "if your definition is actually correct." Aldo note, that everyone can be in consensus on what everyone considers the dictionary definition, but the way life actually turns out can be completely different. Reality, as it were, cares not one lick what you think about it. Much like a teenager being told not to go out like that.
- elil17 4y agoYou can read an excerpt here: https://philarchive.org/archive/LANWMW-2 https://philarchive.org/archive/LANWMW-2 As I can tell, they don't deny that a full atom-for-atom simulation of the human brain would work. They just argue that you can't simulate a human brain with abstract mathematical models (e.g. ANNs).
- dekhn 4y agoTo run an atom-for-atom simulation of the human brain would be unbelievably expensive and would not provide any real useful results.
- elil17 4y agoRight, that's what the authors are arguing I believe.
- dekhn 4y agoyes, but there are likely other ways to make machines with agency, self-awareness, and general intelligence.
- elil17 4y agoI agree, but I'd also be curious to hear why the authors think that is not the case (unclear to me, but I didn't read very far as it is not very accessible to me as a non-philosopher).
- dekhn 4y agoI stopped reading because the author had too many preconceived notions for me to take their argument seriously. Unlearn, they must.
- ta988 4y agoMost of the atoms would be useless in a simulation. Energy transfert and production, waste management, immune system, Neuro transmitter recycling, non cognition related protein and RNA expression...
- dqpb 4y ago> [complex dynamic systems] cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer Thank God an entrepreneur and a philosopher figured this out for us. I guess we can all pack our bags and go home.
- thedorkknight 4y agoI'm curious if any of the people in this thread have read this book before commenting on it
- pdimitar 4y agoI'm curious as to why do you think it's worth buying this book only to form an opinion. To me such a book can just be a long article posted for free on the net. People already posted various fragments and other people are not impressed. That alone is a pretty decent decision making process.
- randcraw 4y agoMany similar negative books about AI have preceded this one over the years, perhaps starting with Hubert Dreyfus' "What Computers Can't Do" in 1972. In my experience, few naysayer arguments prove to be the game-stoppers they imagine. Alternative paths around those obstacles always seem to arise, like the ability to learn from millions of examples -- something never imagined by Dreyfus in the days of 1 KhZ computers and magnetic drum storage.
- thedorkknight 4y ago>such a book can just be a long article posted for free on the net. Possibly! I don't feel comfortable jumping to that conclusion without at least taking a look at what the authors actually say in the book though. >People already posted various fragments and other people are not impressed. Most people are probably reacting to the title and description, which may likely even be chosen by the publisher, not the authors.
- ta988 4y agoI've read a quarter of it so far and I can tell you most of them have not as they comment on tiny points or even the position of other commenters.
- psyc 4y agoOh jesus not this shit again. Will someone please make a bingo card or a flowchart of this discussion already? I'm too lazy.
- ottoflux 4y agowhile likely correct (confirmation bias) i’d add that none of this prevents poorly designed systems from having partially potentially lethal (at scale) unintended consequences. we (developers) need to be far better at second-order/second-level thinking.
- gsatic 4y agoPeople who rule the world are already mindless machines. Or atleast machine parts of mindless mega machines. Like a machine there are very strick rules to what they can say, do and think. Over time and through constant repetition they become incapable of doing anything other than performing to that spec. The biggest problem the world faces, is this robot army has lost touch with its humanity, and its become very hard to dislodge them out of the loops they are trapped in.
- randcraw 4y agoAKA "self-inflicted robotification"? Yeah, I think the willingness of humans to reduce themselves to a stereotype -- politically, professionally, or socially -- in order to advance themselves (or to just fit in) is a much greater danger to civilization than an all-powerful AI rising up and turning all us humans into powerless minions of a robot overlord. Stuart Russell started to make this point in his recent book "Human Compatible", I think, but never quite got there. A lovely intro to the state of modern AI, to my eye the book fell short of actually prescribing HOW we might shape AI to be a positive force for humankind, rather than let it grow mindlessly into a problem child shaped only by obvious stereotypes and stratifications. Hopefully it can learn from its parent what NOT to do...
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- boredumb 4y agoGPT3 and Dalle2 will at least rule the world of blogging, content creation and SEO for the foreseeable future.
- canjobear 4y agoThe table of contents and the summary suggest extraordinarily weak arguments, from "one of the most widely cited contemporary philosophers". Maybe full brain simulation is impossible, but on the other hand (1) maybe it's not and (2) maybe there are other systems that can exhibit intelligence, other than one specific primate organ. Has anyone actually read the book? Is the argument just poorly characterized in the summary?
- ta988 4y agoI'm going through it, got it recently. Arguments are stronger than what the TOC and excerpt reflect. While I'm still not convinced by their position (and don't fell like I will be), it clearly is a good support for thinking about all those questions so I'm enjoying it. That's why I shared it here, it is more about what I get from it rather than the philosophical position.
- asciimov 4y agoI don't believe it. We are pretty clever creatures, I bet we figure it out one day. I don't worry to much about us creating AI but I am concerned for our over reliance on it.
- aravindgp 4y agoAs rule : it's never never ever! However it's very unlikely,to see super advanced intelligence which is threat to humanity in near future. Most likely we will create "ai god's", who will be using light to communicate over inter galactic distance.
- kazinator 4y agoI'm not sure I'd want to bother with a book written by authors who are convinced that something is impossible. It's a very tenuous intellectual foothold, which is usually intended for a gullible audience. Here is a different thing which is wrong. There is a tacit premise that intelligence equal to or in excess of human intelligence is required in order to subdue humanity ("Rule the World"). But that doesn't appear to be necessarily so, because less intelligent humans rule over more intelligent humans. The world is not currently ruled by the most intelligent, though those who rule make use of intelligent people, and intelligent people are sometimes well rewarded for assisting power.
- ta988 4y agoYou are not powerful because you are intelligent. You are because you got privileged and allowed to acquire power, you made ethical and moral choices allowing for it and you are fine exploiting others intelligence, power or resources (by coercion or profit sharing).
- allemagne 4y ago>[the human brain] cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer. This would be one of the most significant discoveries made in the last century. For me, a layman in the relevant fields and subfields, to entertain the possibility I think I would need to be reading a news article about, like, a precocious Stanford grad student and his prepublication causing controversy in academic circles.
- mrkramer 4y agoEverything is possible including AGI and simulating universe. If some mathematicians and physicists think these things are impossible it is up to them, time will show.