5 ms·

I'm not really sure your self-driving analogy is apt here. Waymo has cars on the road right now that are totally autonomous, and just expanded its footprint. It

by mlsu 2y ago

I'm not really sure your self-driving analogy is apt here. Waymo has cars on the road right now that are totally autonomous, and just expanded its footprint. It has been longer and more difficult than we all thought, and those early tech demos were a glimmer of what was to come; then we had to grind to get there, with a lot of engineering. I think what maybe seems not obvious amidst the hype is that there is a hell of a lot of engineering left to do. The fact that you can squash the weights of a neural net down to 3 bits per param and it still works -- is evidence that we have quite a way to go with maturing this technology. Multimodality, improvements to the UX of it, the human-computer interface part of it. Those are fundamental tech things, but they are foremost engineering problems. Getting latency down. Getting efficiency up. Designing the experience, then building it out. 25 years ago, early tech demos on the internet were promising that everyone would do their shopping, entertainment, socializing, etc... online. Breathless hype. 5 years after that, the whole thing crashed, but it never went away. People just needed time to figure out how to use it and what it was useful for, and discover its limitations. 10 years after that, engineering efforts were systematized and applied against the difficult problems that still remained. And now: look at where we are. It just took time.

achierius 2y ago
I don't think he's saying that AGI is impossible — almost noone (nowadays) would suggest that it's anything but an engineering challenge. The argument is simply one of scale, i.e. how long that engineering challenge will take to solve. Some people are suggesting on the order of years. I think they're suggesting it'll be closer to decades, if that.
- abenga 2y ago
  AGI being "just an engineering challenge" implies that it is conceptually solved, and we need only figure out how to build it economically. It most definitely is not.
saberience 2y ago
Waymo cars are highly geofenced in areas with good weather and good quality roads. They only just (in January) gained the capability to drive on freeways. Let me know when you can get a Waymo to drive you from New York to Montreal in winter.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ux-app 2y ago
  Why do some people gloat about moving goalposts around? 15 years ago self driving of any sort was pure fantasy, yet here we are. They'll release a version that can drive in poor weather and you'll complain that it can't drive in a tornado.
  - jodacola 2y ago
    It's okay! We'll just hook up 4o to the Waymo and get quippy messages like those in 4o's demo videos: "Oh, there's a tornado in front of you! Wow! Isn't nature exciting? Haha!" As long as the Waymo can be fed with the details, we'll be good. ;) Joking aside, I think there are some cases where moving the goalposts is the right approach: once the previous goalposts are hit, we should be pushing towards the new goalposts. Goalposts as advancement, not derision. I suppose the intent of a message matters, but as people complain about "well it only does X now, it can't do Y" - probably true, but hey, let's get it to Y, then Z, then... who knows what. Challenge accepted, as the worn-out saying goes.
  - jodrellblank 2y ago
    > "15 years ago self driving of any sort was pure fantasy, yet here we are." This was 38 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntIczNQKfjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntIczNQKfjQ - "NavLab 1 (1986) : Carnegie Mellon : Robotics Institute History of Self-Driving Cars; NavLab or Navigation Laboratory was the first self-driving car with people riding on board. It was very slow, but for 1986 computing power, it was revolutionary. NavLab continued to lay the groundwork for Carnegie Mellon University's expertise in the field of autonomous vehicles." This was 30+ years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HbVWm7wdmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HbVWm7wdmE - "Short video about Ernst Dickmanns VaMoR and VaMP projects - fully autonomous vehicles, which travelled thousands of miles autonomously on public roads in 1980s." This was 29 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMVogK2TTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMVogK2TTk - "A South Korean professor [... Han Min-hong's] vehicle drove itself 300km (186 miles) all the way from Seoul to the southern port of Busan in 1995." This was 19 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a6GrKqOxeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a6GrKqOxeU - "DARPA Grand Challenge - 2005 Driverless Car Competition"

by mlsu 2y ago

achierius 2y ago

I don't think he's saying that AGI is impossible — almost noone (nowadays) would suggest that it's anything but an engineering challenge. The argument is simply one of scale, i.e. how long that engineering challenge will take to solve. Some people are suggesting on the order of years. I think they're suggesting it'll be closer to decades, if that.

abenga 2y ago
AGI being "just an engineering challenge" implies that it is conceptually solved, and we need only figure out how to build it economically. It most definitely is not.

saberience 2y ago

Waymo cars are highly geofenced in areas with good weather and good quality roads. They only just (in January) gained the capability to drive on freeways. Let me know when you can get a Waymo to drive you from New York to Montreal in winter.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ux-app 2y ago
Why do some people gloat about moving goalposts around? 15 years ago self driving of any sort was pure fantasy, yet here we are. They'll release a version that can drive in poor weather and you'll complain that it can't drive in a tornado.
- jodacola 2y ago
  It's okay! We'll just hook up 4o to the Waymo and get quippy messages like those in 4o's demo videos: "Oh, there's a tornado in front of you! Wow! Isn't nature exciting? Haha!" As long as the Waymo can be fed with the details, we'll be good. ;) Joking aside, I think there are some cases where moving the goalposts is the right approach: once the previous goalposts are hit, we should be pushing towards the new goalposts. Goalposts as advancement, not derision. I suppose the intent of a message matters, but as people complain about "well it only does X now, it can't do Y" - probably true, but hey, let's get it to Y, then Z, then... who knows what. Challenge accepted, as the worn-out saying goes.
- jodrellblank 2y ago
  > "15 years ago self driving of any sort was pure fantasy, yet here we are." This was 38 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntIczNQKfjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntIczNQKfjQ - "NavLab 1 (1986) : Carnegie Mellon : Robotics Institute History of Self-Driving Cars; NavLab or Navigation Laboratory was the first self-driving car with people riding on board. It was very slow, but for 1986 computing power, it was revolutionary. NavLab continued to lay the groundwork for Carnegie Mellon University's expertise in the field of autonomous vehicles." This was 30+ years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HbVWm7wdmE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HbVWm7wdmE - "Short video about Ernst Dickmanns VaMoR and VaMP projects - fully autonomous vehicles, which travelled thousands of miles autonomously on public roads in 1980s." This was 29 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMVogK2TTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMVogK2TTk - "A South Korean professor [... Han Min-hong's] vehicle drove itself 300km (186 miles) all the way from Seoul to the southern port of Busan in 1995." This was 19 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a6GrKqOxeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a6GrKqOxeU - "DARPA Grand Challenge - 2005 Driverless Car Competition"