3 ms·

The fun question is whether human cognition similarly lacks deep insights or said theory of mind. I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence

The fun question is whether human cognition similarly lacks deep insights or said theory of mind. I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence improves. Once we'd have been happy with smarter than an especially stupid person, now I think we're aiming at smarter than the smartest person.

stcredzero 3y ago
I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence improves. We get a better and better idea of what this hazy term "intelligence" means as we DIY tinker with making our own new ones. Once we'd have been happy with smarter than an especially stupid person, now I think we're aiming at smarter than the smartest person. We're going to get there sooner than we think. When we get there, we will have new things to regret in ways we'd never thought of before.
- Filligree 3y ago
  > We're going to get there sooner than we think. When we get there, we will have new things to regret in ways we'd never thought of before. I'll take that. My own expectation is I'll have a few minutes-to-months to say "I told you so".
vacuity 3y ago
I think it has to do with the notion that many (most?) people who could hone, and employ, respectable cognitive skills neglect or refuse to do so in favor of putting down other species and LLMs. They point to the human exemplars and think having the same DNA template elevates them to that level. They have to be superior even if it means applying ridiculous biases around intelligence.
swatcoder 3y ago
> I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence improves. Goal posts only exist in games. These systems are engineering products to be leveraged in enginenering processes. We want to understand what they're good at and what they're bad at, and what potential they show for further refinement. There are no goal posts or "happy with" criteria in that context, and when we find ourselves adjusting the language we use to describe them because of how we see them work, we're trying to refine our ability to express their capabilities and suitabilities. Intelligence, in particular, is a very poor and ambiguous word to be stuck using in technical contexts and so we're likely to just gradually shed it over time to reduce confusion as we hone in on better ways to talk about these systems. We've repeatedly done the same for earlier advances in the field, and for the same reason.
mcguire 3y ago
I believe those goalposts have always been way farther out than many people think. If you look at the discussion around Turing's original Imitation Game paper, you'll find people wanting the machine to be able to do things that most humans cannot. And its perfectly valid to do so. If you regard "an especially stupid person" as someone with significant cognitive or communication limits, then Parry and Eliza's Doctor are pretty fair simulations of paranoid schizophrenia (as it was understood at the time) and Rogerian therapy. Likewise, chess and go AIs are pretty damn smart, except they can't do anything else. The point is that, if you accept limits on what the machine needs to do, then "intelligence" as defined by behavior you can recognize becomes trivially and meaninglessly easy. (It's sort of like evaluating a person's competence: a minority person has to be more competent than their cohort because non-minority people get the benefit of the doubt.)

stcredzero 3y ago

I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence improves. We get a better and better idea of what this hazy term "intelligence" means as we DIY tinker with making our own new ones. Once we'd have been happy with smarter than an especially stupid person, now I think we're aiming at smarter than the smartest person. We're going to get there sooner than we think. When we get there, we will have new things to regret in ways we'd never thought of before.

Filligree 3y ago
> We're going to get there sooner than we think. When we get there, we will have new things to regret in ways we'd never thought of before. I'll take that. My own expectation is I'll have a few minutes-to-months to say "I told you so".

vacuity 3y ago

I think it has to do with the notion that many (most?) people who could hone, and employ, respectable cognitive skills neglect or refuse to do so in favor of putting down other species and LLMs. They point to the human exemplars and think having the same DNA template elevates them to that level. They have to be superior even if it means applying ridiculous biases around intelligence.

swatcoder 3y ago

> I perceive a moving of the goalposts as machine intelligence improves. Goal posts only exist in games. These systems are engineering products to be leveraged in enginenering processes. We want to understand what they're good at and what they're bad at, and what potential they show for further refinement. There are no goal posts or "happy with" criteria in that context, and when we find ourselves adjusting the language we use to describe them because of how we see them work, we're trying to refine our ability to express their capabilities and suitabilities. Intelligence, in particular, is a very poor and ambiguous word to be stuck using in technical contexts and so we're likely to just gradually shed it over time to reduce confusion as we hone in on better ways to talk about these systems. We've repeatedly done the same for earlier advances in the field, and for the same reason.

mcguire 3y ago

I believe those goalposts have always been way farther out than many people think. If you look at the discussion around Turing's original Imitation Game paper, you'll find people wanting the machine to be able to do things that most humans cannot. And its perfectly valid to do so. If you regard "an especially stupid person" as someone with significant cognitive or communication limits, then Parry and Eliza's Doctor are pretty fair simulations of paranoid schizophrenia (as it was understood at the time) and Rogerian therapy. Likewise, chess and go AIs are pretty damn smart, except they can't do anything else. The point is that, if you accept limits on what the machine needs to do, then "intelligence" as defined by behavior you can recognize becomes trivially and meaninglessly easy. (It's sort of like evaluating a person's competence: a minority person has to be more competent than their cohort because non-minority people get the benefit of the doubt.)