4 ms·

The problem of not having a definition is over-emphasized. There is a widespread consensus that there is something that is an important part of human behavior a

The problem of not having a definition is over-emphasized. There is a widespread consensus that there is something that is an important part of human behavior and being human (and exhibited to some degree by many other species, not to mention extinct hominids), and that concept is well-enough constrained that we can study it. Defining it is something we will work towards as we come to understand it better. I suspect the idea that we need definitions first comes from education, where much of what we know is presented in this manner. This is rarely, however, the way our initial understanding was achieved - just consider how our concepts and definitions of 'energy' and 'matter' have changed over time.

3pt14159 4y ago
We have perfectly fine definitions for intelligence amongst creatures that are not closely related to humans, and it mostly centres around problem solving, even when introduced to problems that the creature and its ancestors had never grappled with. In these situations does the creature try the eager solution despite it obviously not working near the end? For example, does it take the close bridge that gets it 99% of the way across the river or does it not even bother and travel to the farther one that actually gets it across. If it uses small sticks in nature will it employ artificially introduced tools to solve artificially introduced problems? Etc. The key here is to apply the test without breeding for it first. That is how you tell the individual is intelligent rather than the breeding mechanism. For example, I don't think the individuals are at all intelligent in OpenAI's[0] Hide and Seek. It's basically burned in instincts since the introduction of a button that would, say, swap positions with the farthest enemy agent wouldn't be utilized for hundreds of rounds of play. The learning is the brain and replication together. Reminds me of a story about aliens on LessWrong[1] about baby eating aliens. [0] https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/ https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/ [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n5TqCuizyJDfAPjkr/the-baby-eating-aliens-1-8 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n5TqCuizyJDfAPjkr/the-baby-e...
PurpleRamen 4y ago
The definition marks the goal. We can reach the goal without definition, but would we recognize it? And how much time and effort will be wasted by blindly tinkering around in the dark? The definition is a light beacon. Having it, will speed up progress significantly.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >We can reach the goal without definition, but would we recognize it? You can very easily shoot a porn, even without being able to define what is pornographic and what is not (a proverbially notoriously difficult to define thing, often times debated legally in various countries, for example "movie where sex acts are performed" or "movie meant to arouse the viewer sexually" both don't cut it).
  - PurpleRamen 4y ago
    Because people know how sex works and how filming works. The debate is about organizing the space, how to divide the already revealed map.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >Because people know how sex works and how filming works. Not exactly, because both sex and filming could be done in a non-porn setting - including those two together (e.g. a sexual art film). And the question mentioned wasn't what is a "film that has sex", but what is porn - and even more so, what is it's definition (the same thing you asked for in the original comment, as necessary to "marks the goal"). The answer here (but how do we know we made a porn if we can't give a strict definition of what porn is) is that we can tell intuitively. Well, the same holds for intelligence. That's perhaps the case for many things. Famously, we don't need to know what quadratic equations are to catch a baseball. Even though formally predicting its trajectory means solving one.

3pt14159 4y ago

We have perfectly fine definitions for intelligence amongst creatures that are not closely related to humans, and it mostly centres around problem solving, even when introduced to problems that the creature and its ancestors had never grappled with. In these situations does the creature try the eager solution despite it obviously not working near the end? For example, does it take the close bridge that gets it 99% of the way across the river or does it not even bother and travel to the farther one that actually gets it across. If it uses small sticks in nature will it employ artificially introduced tools to solve artificially introduced problems? Etc. The key here is to apply the test without breeding for it first. That is how you tell the individual is intelligent rather than the breeding mechanism. For example, I don't think the individuals are at all intelligent in OpenAI's[0] Hide and Seek. It's basically burned in instincts since the introduction of a button that would, say, swap positions with the farthest enemy agent wouldn't be utilized for hundreds of rounds of play. The learning is the brain and replication together. Reminds me of a story about aliens on LessWrong[1] about baby eating aliens. [0] https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/ https://openai.com/blog/emergent-tool-use/ [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n5TqCuizyJDfAPjkr/the-baby-eating-aliens-1-8 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n5TqCuizyJDfAPjkr/the-baby-e...

PurpleRamen 4y ago

The definition marks the goal. We can reach the goal without definition, but would we recognize it? And how much time and effort will be wasted by blindly tinkering around in the dark? The definition is a light beacon. Having it, will speed up progress significantly.

coldtea 4y ago
>We can reach the goal without definition, but would we recognize it? You can very easily shoot a porn, even without being able to define what is pornographic and what is not (a proverbially notoriously difficult to define thing, often times debated legally in various countries, for example "movie where sex acts are performed" or "movie meant to arouse the viewer sexually" both don't cut it).
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  Because people know how sex works and how filming works. The debate is about organizing the space, how to divide the already revealed map.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >Because people know how sex works and how filming works. Not exactly, because both sex and filming could be done in a non-porn setting - including those two together (e.g. a sexual art film). And the question mentioned wasn't what is a "film that has sex", but what is porn - and even more so, what is it's definition (the same thing you asked for in the original comment, as necessary to "marks the goal"). The answer here (but how do we know we made a porn if we can't give a strict definition of what porn is) is that we can tell intuitively. Well, the same holds for intelligence. That's perhaps the case for many things. Famously, we don't need to know what quadratic equations are to catch a baseball. Even though formally predicting its trajectory means solving one.