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Evolution is an incredibly dumb, very parallel search over long timescales and that managed to turn blobs of carbon soup into brains because that's a useful (bu

Evolution is an incredibly dumb, very parallel search over long timescales and that managed to turn blobs of carbon soup into brains because that's a useful (but not necessary) tool for its primary optimization goal. But that doesn't make carbon soup magical. There's no fundamental physics that privileges information-processing on carbon atoms. We don't have the time-scales of evolution, but we can optimize so much harder on a single goal than it can. So I don't see how it's a movie fantasy any more than bottling up stars is (well, ICBMs do deliver bottled sunshine... uh, the analogy is going too far here). Anyway, the point is that while brains and intelligence are complicated systems there isn't anything at all known that says it's fundamentally impossible to replicate their functionality or something in the general category. And scaling will be a necessary but perhaps not sufficient component of that, just because they're going to be complex systems.

Anotheroneagain 3y ago
The question is if other animals even do have the kind of intelligence that most people call AGI. It seems that this kind of adaptive intelligence may be unique to mammals (and perhaps a few other outliers, like the octopus), with the vast majority of life being limited to inborn reflexes, immitating their conspecifics, and trial and error.
RohMin 3y ago
This is actually a great perspective to have. The idea that there is no fundamental law of physics that should prevent us from replicating or exceeding the functionality of the human brain through artificial means makes this a question of when, not if.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  The idea that there is no fundamental law of physics that should prevent us ... Maybe ... someday. But right now, we don't even fully understand the physics that makes a human brain work. Every time someone starts investigating, they uncover surprising new complexity. https://theness.com/neurologicablog/is-the-brain-analog-or-digital/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/is-the-brain-analog-or-d...
  - the8472 3y ago
    The understanding is not a prerequisite to build one though. Evolution didn't need it. And all the functionality that already emerges from ANNs doesn't need it either. You mostly need to understand the optimizer, not the result. Of course understanding the result is desirable to steer the optimization process better. But if all you care for is getting any result, even potentially undesirable ones, then building bigger optimizers appears to work.
    - jqpabc123 3y ago
      Evolution didn't need it. Yes, it only took a few billion years of trial and error. And it didn't manage to do it with inanimate objects either. We know that the human brain is organic, mostly analog and much more complex than a digital computer.
      - the8472 3y ago
        That's an argument about complexity. And "organic" simply means based on molecules with a carbon backbone. They're versastile, but that does not give them any known information processing advantage over silicon. If analog processing were relevant (it most likely isn't) then Artifical Neural Networks could also be implemented on analog silicon circuits. As for the complexity, well, the systems are getting more complex. Straight lines on log charts. That's what scaling is about. Getting there, to that complexity. So I'm just not seeing any knockout argument from you. We can't predict the future with certainty. But the factors you present do not appear to be fundamental blockers on the possibility. You're pointing at the lack of an existence proof... which is always the case before a protoype. It sounds like you're basically abandoning forward-thinking and will only acknowledge AGI when it hits you over the head. A sign of intelligence is also the ability to plan for an unseen future.
        tlb 3y ago
        Can you clarify what you mean by "no information processing advantage?" Does increased speed or memory capacity provide such an advantage? Or would you also claim that 2024 silicon has no advantage over 1994 silicon despite several orders of magnitude more speed & memory?
chrsw 3y ago
It seems evolution developed intelligence as a way to for organisms to react and move through 3D space. An advantage was gained by organisms who can "understand" and predict, but biology just reused the same hardware for location, moving and modeling the 3D word for more abstract processes like thinking and pattern recognition. So evolution came up with solutions for surviving on planet Earth, which isn't necessarily the same as general problem solving, even though there are significant overlaps. Just the $.02 of a layperson.
jqpabc123 3y ago
But that doesn't make carbon soup magical. The equivalent of a human brain just "emerging" from inert silicon switches without any real understanding of how or why --- that's PFM (Pure Friggin' Magic). There is no logical reason to believe it is even possible or practical --- yet people still believe. It's the modern day version of alchemy --- trying to create a fantastical result from a chemical reaction before it was understood that nuclear physics is the mechanism required. And even with this understanding, we have yet to succeed at turning lead into gold in any practical way.
- Windchaser 3y ago
  "It's the modern day version of alchemy --- trying to create a fantastical result from a chemical reaction before it was understood that nuclear physics is the mechanism required. And even with this understanding, we have yet to succeed at turning lead into gold in any practical way." Well, sure. But then, we never observed nature turning lead to gold in any cheap way, whereas we do observe nature running complex intelligence on relatively cheap hardware (our brains). There's a pretty big difference between trying to do something never Nature did (alchemy), versus trying to replicate in a kinda-parallel kind of way something we've observed Nature doing (intelligence).

Anotheroneagain 3y ago

The question is if other animals even do have the kind of intelligence that most people call AGI. It seems that this kind of adaptive intelligence may be unique to mammals (and perhaps a few other outliers, like the octopus), with the vast majority of life being limited to inborn reflexes, immitating their conspecifics, and trial and error.

RohMin 3y ago

This is actually a great perspective to have. The idea that there is no fundamental law of physics that should prevent us from replicating or exceeding the functionality of the human brain through artificial means makes this a question of when, not if.

jqpabc123 3y ago
The idea that there is no fundamental law of physics that should prevent us ... Maybe ... someday. But right now, we don't even fully understand the physics that makes a human brain work. Every time someone starts investigating, they uncover surprising new complexity. https://theness.com/neurologicablog/is-the-brain-analog-or-digital/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/is-the-brain-analog-or-d...
- the8472 3y ago
  The understanding is not a prerequisite to build one though. Evolution didn't need it. And all the functionality that already emerges from ANNs doesn't need it either. You mostly need to understand the optimizer, not the result. Of course understanding the result is desirable to steer the optimization process better. But if all you care for is getting any result, even potentially undesirable ones, then building bigger optimizers appears to work.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    Evolution didn't need it. Yes, it only took a few billion years of trial and error. And it didn't manage to do it with inanimate objects either. We know that the human brain is organic, mostly analog and much more complex than a digital computer.
    - the8472 3y ago
      That's an argument about complexity. And "organic" simply means based on molecules with a carbon backbone. They're versastile, but that does not give them any known information processing advantage over silicon. If analog processing were relevant (it most likely isn't) then Artifical Neural Networks could also be implemented on analog silicon circuits. As for the complexity, well, the systems are getting more complex. Straight lines on log charts. That's what scaling is about. Getting there, to that complexity. So I'm just not seeing any knockout argument from you. We can't predict the future with certainty. But the factors you present do not appear to be fundamental blockers on the possibility. You're pointing at the lack of an existence proof... which is always the case before a protoype. It sounds like you're basically abandoning forward-thinking and will only acknowledge AGI when it hits you over the head. A sign of intelligence is also the ability to plan for an unseen future.
      - tlb 3y ago
        Can you clarify what you mean by "no information processing advantage?" Does increased speed or memory capacity provide such an advantage? Or would you also claim that 2024 silicon has no advantage over 1994 silicon despite several orders of magnitude more speed & memory?

chrsw 3y ago

It seems evolution developed intelligence as a way to for organisms to react and move through 3D space. An advantage was gained by organisms who can "understand" and predict, but biology just reused the same hardware for location, moving and modeling the 3D word for more abstract processes like thinking and pattern recognition. So evolution came up with solutions for surviving on planet Earth, which isn't necessarily the same as general problem solving, even though there are significant overlaps. Just the $.02 of a layperson.

jqpabc123 3y ago

But that doesn't make carbon soup magical. The equivalent of a human brain just "emerging" from inert silicon switches without any real understanding of how or why --- that's PFM (Pure Friggin' Magic). There is no logical reason to believe it is even possible or practical --- yet people still believe. It's the modern day version of alchemy --- trying to create a fantastical result from a chemical reaction before it was understood that nuclear physics is the mechanism required. And even with this understanding, we have yet to succeed at turning lead into gold in any practical way.

Windchaser 3y ago
"It's the modern day version of alchemy --- trying to create a fantastical result from a chemical reaction before it was understood that nuclear physics is the mechanism required. And even with this understanding, we have yet to succeed at turning lead into gold in any practical way." Well, sure. But then, we never observed nature turning lead to gold in any cheap way, whereas we do observe nature running complex intelligence on relatively cheap hardware (our brains). There's a pretty big difference between trying to do something never Nature did (alchemy), versus trying to replicate in a kinda-parallel kind of way something we've observed Nature doing (intelligence).