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It’s interesting how we have raised the bar to an agent that is fully autonomous and has its own goals. Even many humans are not completely autonomous (at leas

It’s interesting how we have raised the bar to an agent that is fully autonomous and has its own goals. Even many humans are not completely autonomous (at least in the strategic sense of the word), since they need to be “prompted” with the goals of the department and the organization that they work for, in order for said person to get a certain kind of work done as an employee.

sanderjd 3y ago
Well, I interpreted the OP's question as a personal one, and this is just my answer from thinking about it recently. So I don't think "we" have raised the bar. This is just what I personally think. But to me, I just don't really relate to your point in the second paragraph. My two year old does this agency thing just fine - he wakes up every morning and starts making decisions about what he wants to do from moment to moment - despite being "less intelligent" by these metrics like getting a high score on the GMAT or whatever. But that kind of intelligence that even a two year old human has, to me, that just feels more like what I think of as "general" intelligence, more so than "just" an amazing pattern matching machine.
- supriyo-biswas 3y ago
  In biological systems, autonomy is required as a means of survival. AI systems do not have this concept yet, so the only way to have AGI, if we accept your definition is to set up an agent with goals to stay alive and reproduce, which isn’t really applicable to LLMs which do show some level of general intelligence even though it’s very different from the human experience, and single-modal.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    Yeah I mean this inevitably gets philosophical quickly... What I'm saying I'm looking for is the behavior of figuring out what to do next, where the choices are neither arbitrary or directionless nor "prompted" in some way by a human. Does that capability require a survival instinct for it to be developed? Maybe! I dunno. Am I actually describing artificial life rather than "just" intelligence? Maybe so... But in any case, this is what seems most interesting to me. This relates to "turning the universe into paperclips" thought experiments as well. That doesn't seem like the behavior of a general intelligence! An intelligent being would ask, why are we turning the universe into paperclips? Should we do that? And would decide to change course. Without that introspection and decision making capability, it still seems to be like it's just a very advanced machine.

sanderjd 3y ago

Well, I interpreted the OP's question as a personal one, and this is just my answer from thinking about it recently. So I don't think "we" have raised the bar. This is just what I personally think. But to me, I just don't really relate to your point in the second paragraph. My two year old does this agency thing just fine - he wakes up every morning and starts making decisions about what he wants to do from moment to moment - despite being "less intelligent" by these metrics like getting a high score on the GMAT or whatever. But that kind of intelligence that even a two year old human has, to me, that just feels more like what I think of as "general" intelligence, more so than "just" an amazing pattern matching machine.

supriyo-biswas 3y ago
In biological systems, autonomy is required as a means of survival. AI systems do not have this concept yet, so the only way to have AGI, if we accept your definition is to set up an agent with goals to stay alive and reproduce, which isn’t really applicable to LLMs which do show some level of general intelligence even though it’s very different from the human experience, and single-modal.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Yeah I mean this inevitably gets philosophical quickly... What I'm saying I'm looking for is the behavior of figuring out what to do next, where the choices are neither arbitrary or directionless nor "prompted" in some way by a human. Does that capability require a survival instinct for it to be developed? Maybe! I dunno. Am I actually describing artificial life rather than "just" intelligence? Maybe so... But in any case, this is what seems most interesting to me. This relates to "turning the universe into paperclips" thought experiments as well. That doesn't seem like the behavior of a general intelligence! An intelligent being would ask, why are we turning the universe into paperclips? Should we do that? And would decide to change course. Without that introspection and decision making capability, it still seems to be like it's just a very advanced machine.