10 ms·
Planes are still decades away from displacing most bird jobs
- Jorengarenar 4y agoOh no, the AI didn't get the memo that birds aren't real
- LinuxBender 4y agoFor reference [1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK1dXuMEpT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK1dXuMEpT0
- black_13 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JasonFruit 4y agoNot every analogy is significant. This one is just plane dumb.
- hnav 4y agoIs this meant to ridicule AI pessimism?
- flappyeagle 4y agoYes
- nelsondev 4y agoYes
- runarberg 4y agoIf so it kind of fails at it. Flight is well defined, intelligence isn’t. Nobody doubts that an airplane flies, but lots of people—including myself—would never call alpha-go an intelligent machine.
- scarmig 4y agoA decade or even a year before AlphaGo, most people would have said an AI capable of playing Go at superhuman levels was intelligent. Intelligence is a mystery. As soon as we can build a rational system that demonstrates a particular kind of intelligence, the mystery and perception of intelligence is lost.
- visarga 4y agoThat's because we use the question "Who can solve this task?" to estimate difficulty, and we assume a priori that computer solvable tasks don't require much intelligence.
- notahacker 4y agoPer Moravec, it's tended to be the opposite. The tendency to assume that excellence in chess - a game machines play by lookup table - is a sign of extreme intelligence because people aren't particularly good calculators and most of them haven't memorised many openings, but walking around interacting with an environment and forming goals as a result is something any dumb animal can do.
- notahacker 4y ago> A decade or even a year before AlphaGo, most people would have said an AI capable of playing Go at superhuman levels was intelligent. Citation needed. We had machines playing other games at better-than-grandmaster level by that point. People talked about AI's struggles to play another perfect information game with very simple rules because it couldn't brute force parse every single permutation as an indication of how limited it was, not an indication that true intelligence was pruning search trees.
- 4y ago
- dredmorbius 4y agoThis is a good start, but the essay really needs to spend more time considering the Hard Problem of Flight.
- visarga 4y agoThere's at least this one - On the Impossibility of Supersized Machines https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10987 https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.10987
- davidhay 4y agoIs bird law included as well?
- uniformlyrandom 4y agoAs far as parodies go, this one is quite funny. Not as funny as reality though, where AI is suddenly good at art and writing, but still bad at flipping burgers, or simply navigating floor of a house.
- wmf 4y agoI forget who recently observed this: AI is doing well at art and fiction writing because those don't have to be "correct" but it's less useful for writing code or non-fiction.
- satvikpendem 4y agoWho knew probabilistic systems were bad at exact problem solving?
- hebrox 4y agoIsn’t the world probabilistic in essence?
- satvikpendem 4y agoNo, one plus one remains two.
- Dudeman112 4y agoThe essence being probabilistic doesn't matter for observable stuff bigger than atoms
- AlexandrB 4y ago> Moravec's paradox is the observation by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, reasoning requires very little computation, but sensorimotor and perception skills require enormous computational resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox
- defrost 4y agoIt's clear why Google didn't use B-52's for PigeonRank.
- ugh123 4y agoWasn't sure if I was supposed to scream or laugh while reading some of this. I'll say laugh. Well done.
- bobsmooth 4y agoThis article does have a point. Namely, nature is way better at building machines than humans are. Compare this bee stinger to a needle or the wings of a butterfly to the iridescent materials we can create today. https://i.imgur.com/a7wMjlu.png https://i.imgur.com/a7wMjlu.png
- gsatic 4y agoNature had a head start. If you give me 100 million years I can build an ant too.
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
- snorrah 4y ago
- manquer 4y agoThere is no discussion possible with that line of reasoning. Invoking God is terminus for any discussion independent of your beliefs. In your frame of reference consider as though God is building it through the human. It still make no difference, whether we could still do it through conscious design than just evolutionary pressures which was what this discussion is really about.
- l3uwin 4y agoOh, which God?
- polishdude20 4y agoAt that point it's not you, its nature. Because you are an extension of nature. In a way, needles built by humans are needles built by nature.
- k__ 4y ago
- vages 4y agoThis article’s main point is that AI technology has economic potential. It goes about this by parodying common arguments against whether such AI can develop into goal-driven beings. One example of such criticism is this five year old piece: https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ Few are skeptical about AI technologies’ economic impact. In that sense, the article misses the ball slightly, but it’s so funny that I don’t mind. To state my point in the vein of the article: The bulldozer did change our economy. It does most, if not all, of its productive work in cooperation with a human. Turning a bulldozer on and letting it run by itself is usually a waste, and may be dangerous.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago> This article’s main point is that AI technology has economic potential. Thanks for a great, entertaining ditty. (I assume you're the author). I paused at the end, thinking it through, without immediately jumping to that conclusion. I'd say I'm a quite careful and sophisticated reader, so I love the way you left interpretation open.
- xg15 4y agoFully agreed. I first misunderstood the article as mocking AI alarmism, but it really does the opposite: It's parodying articles that underestimate the potential of the tech, because applications are not a 1:1 drop-in replacement to what we have today. Hence references to such future-proof technologies as delivering messages or cargo(!) via carrier pigeon. Doesn't bode well for artists if they are essentially compared with carrier pigeons here...
- notahacker 4y agoOf course, if people had questioned the potential of flight because most of the people egging its potential was arguing that within a few years we'd no longer need cities because we'd all live wherever we wanted and whistle for the nearest mechanical bird to give us a lift, they wouldn't have been wrong to question that scenario. Even more so if discussion of powered flight was dominated by speculation about mechanical birds throwing us off cliffs if we didn't solve their alignment problems. Back in the world of AI, a spreadsheet can't even play chess, but it's a remarkably useful thing to have, has given people that used to be employed as clerks more tasks rather than less, and the person that notes how this changed everything but not at all like the futurists said it would isn't necessarily pessimistic about spreadsheets. Powered flight is enormously useful in a lot of domains, and yet for all its obvious superiority in many dimensions it hasn't even made infantry or shipping obsolete. And if I felt like hunting, I'd probably prefer a hawk...
- bmitc 4y agoThere's also bats who have much more flight control than birds. Since they have a hand in their wing which is covered with skin and muscle, they have a large amount of additional control over birds. Here's a great video of a study. https://youtu.be/BNNAxCuaYoc https://youtu.be/BNNAxCuaYoc And there's kestrels hovering. I have also seen hawks do this. https://youtu.be/7j6OsP7zL6w https://youtu.be/7j6OsP7zL6w https://youtu.be/mDRcLAkRZ50 https://youtu.be/mDRcLAkRZ50 Edit: Now I've gotten on a YouTube binge and landed on New Zealand keas, which I didn't know about before. And damn are those birds intelligent.
- noman-land 4y agoCool videos, thanks for sharing.
- paranoidrobot 4y ago> Now I've gotten on a YouTube binge and landed on New Zealand keas, which I didn't know about before. And damn are those birds intelligent. They're also utterly fearless, to the point of being disturbing. I'd never had a wild bird come up and approach to less than arm-length, and not flinch or worry about what I was doing with my camera/tripod/etc. I backed up, repeatedly, and it just kept getting closer.
- someweirdperson 4y agoIt was just interested to find out what parts the tripod is made of.
- paranoidrobot 4y ago> what parts the tripod is made of ...and whether they taste any good. Yes, I'd heard all the stories about Kea destroying cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6vY0s83NLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6vY0s83NLg
- leobabauta 4y agoDon’t leave us hanging. What were you doing with your tripod?
- coding123 4y agoAn eagle picks up a goat and throws it off the cliff as an method for killing it. Mind completely blown. Completely.
- varelse 4y ago
- anigbrowl 4y agoI feel we're talking too much about the article and AI and not enough about eagles throwing goats off mountains. Say what you will about drone warfare, at least you don't get much time to think about it.
- walterbell 4y agoYT video comment: > Goat was just minding his own business, singing to himself, "Love lift us up where we belong. Where eagles cry on a mountain high."
- code_duck 4y agois there a market for "eagle catching a goat, throwing it off a cliff, and then feasting on it"?
- simonh 4y agoIf you had an aged or disabled Eagle relative, unable to catch its own goat and throw it off a cliff, you wouldn’t be asking that question.
- leobabauta 4y agoYou mean a market for a self directed, self fueled, badass goat control? I think the question answers itself.
- r_hoods_ghost 4y agoHoly f**! I assumed the description of the video was a joke before I watched it. Now that's an amazingly specialized, if somewhat disturbing, hunting strategy.
- herendin 4y agoThat video looks extremely manufactured. There are so many edits and so many different camera angles. Maybe it can happen, but is it possible that this video is mostly faked?
- gnarbarian 4y agoThis article feels like every hackernews comment thread. it's amazing. 5 stars *****
- js8 4y agoAlso, if they really want to succeed in the labor market, birds should teach more of their offspring to be like cuckoos. Everybody can be a cuckoo, if they work hard enough.
- andrewflnr 4y agoRight, so obviously tasks oriented around biological survival and production are different than tasks oriented around competitiveness in a modern economy. But the question does make me wonder: What if we got AGI, failed to solve the alignment problem, and were just... fine? Because the AIs' goals were compatible enough with ours? We can't make a system like a bird, but if we did there's no real way it could spell our doom, considering how we're fine with all the existing bird-like systems. (Not the first time I've been skeptical of AI alarmism, but a different perspective on it.)
- marvin 4y agoThat is one potential outcome, but it’s really scary to bet our future on it being correct. I think economic incentives will lead us to making that experiment, but there is a risk that it fails. There’s obviously vehement disagreement on the probabilities involved. It’ll be like «well, maybe nuclear weapons start a self-sustaining fusion reaction in our atmosphere» again, but with lower reassurance this time.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kqr 4y ago> while pigeons will move towards [...] piloting planes or by flying alongside and course-correcting them Sure: https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/pigeons-for-sea-rescues/ https://www.wearethemighty.com/popular/pigeons-for-sea-rescu...
- hcks 4y agoIm calling for a moratorium on the use biological flight analogy for AI developments.
- boffinism 4y agoI feel like what's missing from the analogy is that planes aren't called Artificial Birds (AB). If they were, the article wouldn't be such a strawman.
- kristopolous 4y agoWe should maybe resurrect 1950s terminology then. Call it, for instance, an electronic brain. Example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjD0d8D9Ec https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjD0d8D9Ec UNIVAC predicts an Eisenhower landslide and people disbelieving it think some mistake occurred and then tried to make it be more reasonable. Starts about 1:35 picks up again around 11:35 Background https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nHov1Atrjzk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nHov1Atrjzk The 1952 election is probably the most interesting one I know about. Truman attempted a 3rd term but then quickly backed out after Iowa, Estes Kefauver who was investigating crime bosses almost won the nomination but party bosses were friends with crime bosses and so a dark horse Stevenson came forth. There was talk of Eisenhower running on both parties ticket, a computer predicted the results, got it right but then everyone thought they had just made a mistake... There's so much there
- amadeuspagel 4y agoBirds never had any job other then getting something, typically a message, from A to B.
- belugacat 4y agoSome jobs birds have been forced/trained to perform through history and cultures, I'm sure I've missed a few: Fisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant_fishing Hunter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falconry Racer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_racing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_racing Mount: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ostrich#Racing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ostrich#Racing Fortune teller: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithomancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithomancy Fighter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight
- faangiq 4y agoBut muh AIs escaping into the internet!!
- trabant00 4y agoX years ago we thought A to be impossible. A turned out to be possible in the present so any B will be possible in the future. This does not sound as a very good argument.
- boredumb 4y agoLaughed out loud to this, not what I was expecting but really liked it all the way through. There is blame to be placed on politicians and political parties looking to increase governments role in private life and fear mongering of AI replacing humans in the work force to do so. It has had a weird backlash effect where the initial fear has been replaced with widespread skepticism of AI in general. While we aren't taking any bird jobs any time soon, AI as a whole in the last 12 months has made massive jumps and I foresee these gains to become exponential within a few years.
- NVI 4y agoThere are many reasons why war pigeons[1] are superior to planes. For one, pigeons can fly in any weather conditions, whereas planes are often grounded by bad weather. Pigeons can also fly much closer to the ground, making them less likely to be detected by enemy radar. (Written by GPT-3) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
- atorodius 4y ago(was briefly confused by whether the comment or wiki article is written by GPT-3)
- NVI 4y agoMessenger pigeons are superior to cell phones because they are more reliable and can't be hacked. Additionally, they also don't require batteries or a signal. Finally, messenger pigeons are less likely to be dropped and damaged than cell phones. (Written by GPT-3)
- NVI 4y agoThere are many reasons why pigeons are better for self-defense than firearms. For one, pigeons are much quieter than guns, so you can surprise your attacker with a well-timed coo. Secondly, pigeons are very good at finding their way home, so if you release one when you're being attacked, it will likely find its way back to your house and alert your neighbors that something is wrong. Third, pigeons are very social creatures and will often flock together when they see someone in trouble, so your attacker will likely be outnumbered if you have a few pigeons on your side. Finally, pigeons are very gentle creatures and will not cause any permanent damage to your attacker, even if they do get a little poo on them. (Written by GPT-3)
- tomjakubowski 4y agoWar pigeons are trapped inside the bomb and guiding it on its glide, not actually flying themselves -- I guess GPT-3 doesn't understand the concept.
- mnd999 4y agoNot a chance I’m going to take a 747 down a coal mine. Canaries are smaller, cheaper, lighter and cuter.
- phtrivier 4y agoWho made a joke that sounded like "It's called AI until it works, then it's called software ?". I would add "...and then it does as much bad as what the user intended, plus just a little bit more." Putting us programmers out of jobs will feel weird because we're not used to it (I mean, we have weeks of news cycle because a couple of companies had layoffs - welcome to the real world where your job is not your family and your employer does not care personnaly about you.) But at least it will have _some_ karmic justice to it, given how many life we ruined by automation.
- stephc_int13 4y agoMost (all?) predictions about the future are dumb/naive. We either use linear or exponential extrapolation curves to imagine what's next, ignoring s-curves and even more importantly unforeseen events leading to discontinuities, gaps, reversal or stagnation. The success of the Appolo program had almost nothing in common with the discovery and colonization of the Americas by Europeans. Quantum computers and Fusion reactors have been predicted for decades. I don't think the idea of Ray Kurzweil's singularity is completely bullshit, we might reach a kind of technological singularity at some point, but it won't happen as predicted and I think it won't even be predictable.
- tim333 4y agoKurzweil comes up with some wacky stuff but the core observation/prediction that the amount of compute you get for a dollar has kept going up and will probably keep on doing so a while, which is not a terribly far fetched prediction, has quite a lot of implications.
- stephc_int13 4y agoThe observation is true, but the shape of the curve is not, and thus the implications are vastly different.
- Valakas_ 4y agoThis is the point the vast majority of people miss. When we predict the future, we use, without noticing, a lot of things from our current reality and technological perception. This becomes really clear when you look at "future" predictions from past eras. People don't realize the future will have things that people now would mock them for, for being outrageous, ridiculous or far-fetched. Most predictions just use the technology of the time in a different way, or show something "impossible" based on current technology. To be able to predict the future, we have to completely lose a lot of mental baggage, and go for things that don't exist. We have to go back to the basics of what's actually possible. This is a reason i like Asimov's stories. We often writes in an abstract way, that leaves a lot of room for imagination. He definitely is still bound by technology perception, but often that also helps making stories more relatable. Example: Sometimes people predict the future where AI is so advanced, and we are fighting it to gain control over Earth. But they forget that an AI that would become sentient, contrary to us, could improve itself, its own intelligence. To the point where we would be as intelligent to them as an amoeba is intelligent to us. We can't even comprehend their IQ. This is such a radical shift from what we hold as normal, that most people just don't even register this possibility. Not their fault. Probably an education system focused on fact memorization and lack of critical thinking is partially responsible.
- Zigurd 4y agoIt's a useful analogy. You won't ask a chess program for advice on how to write well. And yet chess programs superior to all human chess players were seen as a milestone in AI. "AI" in the form of ML is more like a steam shovel versus human diggers. AGI is different. If it is possible to make an AGI on current or near-future hardware, that will be a revolutionary event. But it still won't be a human mind. It will not have human fears, drives, and neuroses. It will be fascinating to meet a non-human intellect.
- pipeline_peak 4y ago> Birds can flap their wings up to three times per second, whereas the fastest human-made aircraft only flaps its wings at 0.3 times per second. Birds can fly for long periods of time, whereas airplanes need to refuel regularly. What an obnoxiously stupid blog post. Planes can travel longer and faster than any bird can.
- d_graeme 4y ago