5 ms·

> What about a simple test: it means being able to create better versions of ChatGPT and StableDiffusion. This doesn't follow at all. An ant will haphazardly c

by dbspin 4y ago

> What about a simple test: it means being able to create better versions of ChatGPT and StableDiffusion. This doesn't follow at all. An ant will haphazardly create a better (fitter) version of an ant simply through breeding and natural selection. Meanwhile humans cannot intentionally create 'better versions' of humans (with any degree of reliability for a given selection criteria). There's no intelligence on earth (arguably including humans) whose goal is 'to create a better version of itself'. The goal for lifeforms is reproduction, specifically at the levels of gene and individual selection. Increases in fitness are due to the process of the environment shaping the adaptation. So it follows that while a future GPT might well be able to duplicate or improve itself, that wouldn't directly reflect its intelligence in comparison to living intelligences. Nor would it necessarily generalise beyond domain specificity.

Retric 4y ago
Humanity has developed technology to improve humanity. Glasses correct issues, and microscopes added new capacity. We haven’t gone down the genetic engineering path but we could fix issues with our DNA.
- bmitc 4y ago
  > Humanity has developed technology to improve humanity. I would argue that the vast majority of technology has hurt humanity and that a large proportion of technology is simply solving problems caused by other technology.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    I am not entirely convinced you really hold this view, but if so, you could reduce technology's pernicious effects on yourself by not participating in this discussion.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bmitc 4y ago
      Is this a discussion, or are you just being spiteful? Because that's a little much, isn't it?
      - mannykannot 4y ago
        It is, and for that I apologize. I must admit that I strongly doubted you truly hold this view, and suspected you were just saying it here in order to be argumentative, but now I see you do. I realize that it is not strictly inconsistent to both take advantage of technology and hold that its net effects are harmful. Even so, it is beside the point - humanity has demonstrably been applying its intelligence to improving technology's capabilities, which is a fact regardless of whether it has been beneficial, and that is enough for it being a candidate measure of machine intelligence. I realize that there's an argument saying that if the machines start improving themselves of their own volition, it would be the beginning of the end for humanity, and I do not think that it can be summarily dismissed. If it turns out to be correct, you would be vindicated! - though neither of us want that.
        bmitc 4y ago
        I do hold the opinion, and I’m continually working it out and finding information that quantifies it. I at least posted some numbers in an adjacent comment. I know it sounds extreme, but I can’t see any way around it. Stress levels, depression and anxiety, food problems, wealthy inequality and concentration, loneliness, and more are hitting all time highs by no small margin. And a lot of this has occurred over the past 100-200 years. I think that even without further investigation, one has to admit a strong correlation to industrialization. Societal changes, I would argue, are largely driven by technological developments. And this ignores environmental and non-human animal suffering. Orcas in the Pacific Northwest are riddle with toxins and starve directly due to human technology. The waters off the cost of India and Thailand are so hypoxic that fish must swim at the top surface of the water, which has led to dramatic changes in whale feeding behavior. This is again due to technology. Again due to technology, we have decimated forests. These numbers are from memory, but I believe we have decreased worldwide forest coverage from around 75% in the early 1900s to around 25% today (these are rough numbers from memory). The numbers paint a pretty grim picture. Yes, a lot of medical technology is wonderful, but from everything I can see, industrialization is generally not causing harmful trends to go down. The argument isn’t that all technology is bad.
  - jcelerier 4y ago
    feel free to go back live 2500 years ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bmitc 4y ago
      What is that an argument for? The amount of technology developed by humans is highly skewed to the past couple hundred years. In that couple of hundred years, more people are starving today, right now, than there were people alive just a couple hundred years ago. One has to ask, why is that? I would argue that our technological explosion and industrialization are key components to this. For example, there's the idea that technological development feeds inequality.
      - Retric 4y ago
        > more people are starving today, right now, than there where people alive just a couple hundred years ago. This is false, more people are in extreme poverty today but that isn’t starvation as witnessed by these people going not dying off quickly. 99% of people living a couple hundred years ago where living in what we would consider extreme poverty so that’s basically complaining we have more people today. People without access to modern medicine, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and education used to more or less just be people.
        bmitc 4y ago
        It is not false. There’s data to back it up. I did use the word starving, which has a gradient of meanings (see below for separate numbers for the gradients), and I did not mean dying of starvation. The latest numbers are (definitions of state in the links): * 828 million people are hungry * 345 million are experiencing acute hunger * 924 million experience severe food insecurity * 2.3 billion people experience moderate or severe food insecurity * at least 9 million people die of starvation every year https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/un-report-global-hunger-SOFI-2022-FAO/en https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/un-report-global-hunger-... https://www.concernusa.org/story/world-hunger-facts/ https://www.concernusa.org/story/world-hunger-facts/ https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-hunger-numbers-rose-to-as-many-as-828-million-in-2021 https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-h... https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/losing-25000-hunger-every-day https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/losing-25000-hunger-... World populations: * 1850: 1.2 billion * 1800: 959 million * 1750: 629 million https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+population+1750 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+population+1750 Wealth concentration has dramatically increased since the 1970s and 1800s.
adrian_b 4y ago
While it is impossible to predict if and when humans will become able to make other more intelligent humans, there are good chances that during this century, maybe already during the first half of this century, it will become possible to make versions of humans with various simple improvements, for instance with the ability to make vitamin C in the liver, like all our more distant ancestors and relatives, in order to no longer be dependent on an adequate daily intake from external sources.

by dbspin 4y ago

Retric 4y ago

Humanity has developed technology to improve humanity. Glasses correct issues, and microscopes added new capacity. We haven’t gone down the genetic engineering path but we could fix issues with our DNA.

bmitc 4y ago
> Humanity has developed technology to improve humanity. I would argue that the vast majority of technology has hurt humanity and that a large proportion of technology is simply solving problems caused by other technology.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  I am not entirely convinced you really hold this view, but if so, you could reduce technology's pernicious effects on yourself by not participating in this discussion.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Is this a discussion, or are you just being spiteful? Because that's a little much, isn't it?
    - mannykannot 4y ago
      It is, and for that I apologize. I must admit that I strongly doubted you truly hold this view, and suspected you were just saying it here in order to be argumentative, but now I see you do. I realize that it is not strictly inconsistent to both take advantage of technology and hold that its net effects are harmful. Even so, it is beside the point - humanity has demonstrably been applying its intelligence to improving technology's capabilities, which is a fact regardless of whether it has been beneficial, and that is enough for it being a candidate measure of machine intelligence. I realize that there's an argument saying that if the machines start improving themselves of their own volition, it would be the beginning of the end for humanity, and I do not think that it can be summarily dismissed. If it turns out to be correct, you would be vindicated! - though neither of us want that.
      - bmitc 4y ago
        I do hold the opinion, and I’m continually working it out and finding information that quantifies it. I at least posted some numbers in an adjacent comment. I know it sounds extreme, but I can’t see any way around it. Stress levels, depression and anxiety, food problems, wealthy inequality and concentration, loneliness, and more are hitting all time highs by no small margin. And a lot of this has occurred over the past 100-200 years. I think that even without further investigation, one has to admit a strong correlation to industrialization. Societal changes, I would argue, are largely driven by technological developments. And this ignores environmental and non-human animal suffering. Orcas in the Pacific Northwest are riddle with toxins and starve directly due to human technology. The waters off the cost of India and Thailand are so hypoxic that fish must swim at the top surface of the water, which has led to dramatic changes in whale feeding behavior. This is again due to technology. Again due to technology, we have decimated forests. These numbers are from memory, but I believe we have decreased worldwide forest coverage from around 75% in the early 1900s to around 25% today (these are rough numbers from memory). The numbers paint a pretty grim picture. Yes, a lot of medical technology is wonderful, but from everything I can see, industrialization is generally not causing harmful trends to go down. The argument isn’t that all technology is bad.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  feel free to go back live 2500 years ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bmitc 4y ago
    What is that an argument for? The amount of technology developed by humans is highly skewed to the past couple hundred years. In that couple of hundred years, more people are starving today, right now, than there were people alive just a couple hundred years ago. One has to ask, why is that? I would argue that our technological explosion and industrialization are key components to this. For example, there's the idea that technological development feeds inequality.
    - Retric 4y ago
      > more people are starving today, right now, than there where people alive just a couple hundred years ago. This is false, more people are in extreme poverty today but that isn’t starvation as witnessed by these people going not dying off quickly. 99% of people living a couple hundred years ago where living in what we would consider extreme poverty so that’s basically complaining we have more people today. People without access to modern medicine, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, and education used to more or less just be people.
      - bmitc 4y ago
        It is not false. There’s data to back it up. I did use the word starving, which has a gradient of meanings (see below for separate numbers for the gradients), and I did not mean dying of starvation. The latest numbers are (definitions of state in the links): * 828 million people are hungry * 345 million are experiencing acute hunger * 924 million experience severe food insecurity * 2.3 billion people experience moderate or severe food insecurity * at least 9 million people die of starvation every year https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/un-report-global-hunger-SOFI-2022-FAO/en https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/un-report-global-hunger-... https://www.concernusa.org/story/world-hunger-facts/ https://www.concernusa.org/story/world-hunger-facts/ https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-hunger-numbers-rose-to-as-many-as-828-million-in-2021 https://www.who.int/news/item/06-07-2022-un-report--global-h... https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/losing-25000-hunger-every-day https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/losing-25000-hunger-... World populations: * 1850: 1.2 billion * 1800: 959 million * 1750: 629 million https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+population+1750 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=world+population+1750 Wealth concentration has dramatically increased since the 1970s and 1800s.

adrian_b 4y ago

While it is impossible to predict if and when humans will become able to make other more intelligent humans, there are good chances that during this century, maybe already during the first half of this century, it will become possible to make versions of humans with various simple improvements, for instance with the ability to make vitamin C in the liver, like all our more distant ancestors and relatives, in order to no longer be dependent on an adequate daily intake from external sources.