3 ms·

There’s so much baggage attached with it. The only thing a neural network “wants” is to minimize its loss function. That’s all.

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
All humans “want” to do is obey the laws of physics.
csours 3y ago
Can we anthropomorphize the loss function then?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  That's like anthropomorphizing utility functions in place of the humans that (are conjectured to) have them, isn't it?
srcreigh 3y ago
You must not believe in human free will then. Or maybe you don’t believe the brain is the key aspect of human intelligence. Or believe the brain is more than just a organic NN
- janalsncm 3y ago
  I’m saying that neural networks are so different from brains that anthropomorphizing them runs a real risk of glossing over important differences. Terms like “free will” and “intelligence” are too fuzzy to talk about precisely unless we’re on the exact same page regarding what we mean. And applying our imprecise definitions to machines is not doing us any favors.
mitthrowaway2 3y ago
The neural network doesn't want to minimize its loss function any more than you want to maximize your inclusive genetic fitness. The neural network training process wants to minimize the neural network's loss function. The neural network, if it "wants" anything, will have such wants as were embedded in its weights through the process of minimize its loss function, which will mostly be "wants" whose satisfactions correlate with reduced loss function. Of course this is using the term "want" in a behaviourally-descriptive sense, not a subjective-experience sense. For example, AlphaGo's training routine wants to minimize AlphaGo's loss function. AlphaGo wants to beat you at Go.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  See also: Reward is not the optimization target https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/pdaGN6pQyQarFHXF4/reward-is-not-the-optimization-target https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/pdaGN6pQyQarFHXF4/reward-...

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago

All humans “want” to do is obey the laws of physics.

csours 3y ago

Can we anthropomorphize the loss function then?

dragonwriter 3y ago
That's like anthropomorphizing utility functions in place of the humans that (are conjectured to) have them, isn't it?

srcreigh 3y ago

You must not believe in human free will then. Or maybe you don’t believe the brain is the key aspect of human intelligence. Or believe the brain is more than just a organic NN

janalsncm 3y ago
I’m saying that neural networks are so different from brains that anthropomorphizing them runs a real risk of glossing over important differences. Terms like “free will” and “intelligence” are too fuzzy to talk about precisely unless we’re on the exact same page regarding what we mean. And applying our imprecise definitions to machines is not doing us any favors.

mitthrowaway2 3y ago

The neural network doesn't want to minimize its loss function any more than you want to maximize your inclusive genetic fitness. The neural network training process wants to minimize the neural network's loss function. The neural network, if it "wants" anything, will have such wants as were embedded in its weights through the process of minimize its loss function, which will mostly be "wants" whose satisfactions correlate with reduced loss function. Of course this is using the term "want" in a behaviourally-descriptive sense, not a subjective-experience sense. For example, AlphaGo's training routine wants to minimize AlphaGo's loss function. AlphaGo wants to beat you at Go.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
See also: Reward is not the optimization target https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/pdaGN6pQyQarFHXF4/reward-is-not-the-optimization-target https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/pdaGN6pQyQarFHXF4/reward-...