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I occasionally wonder what would be examples of types of problems/questions that would be easy for post-singular superhuman AGI but very hard/impossible for hu

I occasionally wonder what would be examples of types of problems/questions that would be easy for post-singular superhuman AGI but very hard/impossible for humans? Not in sense how fast the problem is solved, but in the sense that the question/answer is even understood? So far I have come up with high-dimensional spatial awareness (not sure how well we could get what happens in 1000 dimensions).

zone411 4y ago
It's an interesting question. Solving extremely difficult math problems, e.g. the Riemann hypothesis or P vs NP, would be very impressive. Or coming up with algorithms given many examples of desired results. There should be many benefits to having a much better short-term memory and instant access to the accumulated human knowledge. We've already seen AI do surprising things through just pattern recognition, such as predicting a patient's race from medical images when human experts cannot do it. AI might be able to understand an extremely complex system, such as the world economy, and tell us what to change to make it work better. It might not be what you asked for but in practice "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" rule will come into play even with just quantitative advances. And we might get practical quantum computers at some point...
sinenomine 4y ago
It is also interesting to consider problems that will likely be still hard even for advanced AIs: Control of (complex) nonlinear dynamical systems over long timescales will likely pose a problem and will require high-level unsavory shortcuts to work out. This may or may not include large-scale genetic engineering of mammals (including us) to express new characteristics later in life. The moderate-scale genetic engineering, for example to uplift our cognitive capability or extend our lifespans could be easier for AIs, while for our own scientists it turned out to be barely tractable. Some will disagree here, noting the political red tape around the fields in question.

zone411 4y ago

It's an interesting question. Solving extremely difficult math problems, e.g. the Riemann hypothesis or P vs NP, would be very impressive. Or coming up with algorithms given many examples of desired results. There should be many benefits to having a much better short-term memory and instant access to the accumulated human knowledge. We've already seen AI do surprising things through just pattern recognition, such as predicting a patient's race from medical images when human experts cannot do it. AI might be able to understand an extremely complex system, such as the world economy, and tell us what to change to make it work better. It might not be what you asked for but in practice "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" rule will come into play even with just quantitative advances. And we might get practical quantum computers at some point...

sinenomine 4y ago

It is also interesting to consider problems that will likely be still hard even for advanced AIs: Control of (complex) nonlinear dynamical systems over long timescales will likely pose a problem and will require high-level unsavory shortcuts to work out. This may or may not include large-scale genetic engineering of mammals (including us) to express new characteristics later in life. The moderate-scale genetic engineering, for example to uplift our cognitive capability or extend our lifespans could be easier for AIs, while for our own scientists it turned out to be barely tractable. Some will disagree here, noting the political red tape around the fields in question.