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> a human brain definitely counts as "general intelligence", that implemented in silicon is enough to get basically all the things promised by AGI: if that's d

> a human brain definitely counts as "general intelligence", that implemented in silicon is enough to get basically all the things promised by AGI: if that's done at the 20 watts per brain that biology manages, then all of humanity can be simulated within the power envelope of the USA electrical grid… three times over. So far the only thing that has been proven is we can get low entropy from all the low entropy we've published on the internet. Will it get to a point where models can give us more low entropy than what is present in the training data? Categorically: no.

ben_w 2y ago
You are using "entropy" in a way I do not recognise. Whatever you mean, our brains prove it's possible to have a system that uses 20 watts to demonstrate human-level intelligence.
- namaria 2y ago
  Whatever you mean, it took 13 billion years and the whole universe as far as we can tell to create the 20 watt human intelligence brain. And it doesn't take 20 watt of energy to maintain humans, it takes a whole ecosystem capable of sustaining a human population. And for us to operate at our current level of information processing it takes a whole planetary civilization. So no you haven't proved anything by saying that a human brain consumes only 20 watts of energy. We spread an awful lot of entropy around that has to be kept away from our delicate biological and social systems. You're positing a way to create human intelligence-like in a bottle, that's the same as speculating about the shape of a reality where we have FTL travel or teleportation or whatever else you fancy. If we're talking about what current ML/AI can do, they can extract patterns from training data and than apply those patterns to other inputs. This can give us great automation, but it won't give us anything better than the training data, solve physics, global warming, poverty or give us human intelligence in a chip. Whatever quantity Q of entropy in the training data, the total output will be more Q all accounted for. That's true for humans and machines. No shape of possible AGI will give us any output with less Q than the combination of inputs had. The dream that a machine will solve all problems that humanity can't hinges on negating that, which goes against thermodynamics. As it stands, the planet cannot cope with all the entropy we're spreading around. It will eventually collapse civilization/the ecosystem, whatever buckles first, from the excess entropy. Because global warming, poverty, or ignorance is just entropy. Disorder. Things not being just so as we need them to be.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Whatever you mean, it took 13 billion years and the whole universe as far as we can tell to create the 20 watt human intelligence brain. It's grossly unreasonable to include the entire history of the universe given the Earth only formed about 4 billion years ago; and given that evolution wasn't even aiming for intelligence, even starting from our common ancestors being small rodents 65 million years ago is wildly overstating the effort required — even the evolution of primates is too far back without intentional selective breeding. > You're positing a way to create human intelligence-like in a bottle, that's the same as speculating about the shape of a reality where we have FTL travel or teleportation or whatever else you fancy. FTL may well well be impossible. If you seriously think human intelligence is impossible, then you also think you don't exist: You, yourself, are a human like intelligence in a bottle. The bottle being your skull. > This can give us great automation, but it won't solve physics, global warming, poverty or give us human intelligence in a chip. AI has already been in widesprad use in physics for a while now, well before the current zeitgeist of LLMs. There's a Y Combinator startup: "Charge Robotics is building robots that automate the most labor-intensive parts of solar construction". Poverty has many causes, some of which are already being reduced or resolved by existing systems — and that's been the case since one of the ancestor companies of IBM, Tabulating Machine Company, was doing punched cards for the US census. As for human intelligence on a chip? Well, (1) it's been quite a long time since humans were capable of designing the circuits manually, given the feature size is now at the level where quantum mechanics must be accounted for or you get surprise tunnelling between gates; and (2) one of the things being automated is feature segmentation and labelling of neural micrographs, i.e. literally brain scanning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/
    - namaria 2y ago
      I never said human intelligence is impossible. All I am saying is that Sam Altman's promises (remember the original topic) hinge on breaking thermodynamics. Humans evolved on a planet that was just so. The elements on Earth that make life possible couldn't have been created in a younger universe. So it take the full history of the universe to produce human intelligence. It also doesn't exist in a vacuum. Current human civilization is not a collection of 8 billion 20 watt boxes. > As for human intelligence on a chip? Well, (1) it's been quite a long time since humans were capable of designing the circuits manually, given the feature size is now at the level where quantum mechanics must be accounted for or you get surprise tunnelling between gates; and (2) one of the things being automated is feature segmentation and labelling of neural micrographs, i.e. literally brain scanning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ I don't understand any of this so I won't comment.

ben_w 2y ago

You are using "entropy" in a way I do not recognise. Whatever you mean, our brains prove it's possible to have a system that uses 20 watts to demonstrate human-level intelligence.

namaria 2y ago
Whatever you mean, it took 13 billion years and the whole universe as far as we can tell to create the 20 watt human intelligence brain. And it doesn't take 20 watt of energy to maintain humans, it takes a whole ecosystem capable of sustaining a human population. And for us to operate at our current level of information processing it takes a whole planetary civilization. So no you haven't proved anything by saying that a human brain consumes only 20 watts of energy. We spread an awful lot of entropy around that has to be kept away from our delicate biological and social systems. You're positing a way to create human intelligence-like in a bottle, that's the same as speculating about the shape of a reality where we have FTL travel or teleportation or whatever else you fancy. If we're talking about what current ML/AI can do, they can extract patterns from training data and than apply those patterns to other inputs. This can give us great automation, but it won't give us anything better than the training data, solve physics, global warming, poverty or give us human intelligence in a chip. Whatever quantity Q of entropy in the training data, the total output will be more Q all accounted for. That's true for humans and machines. No shape of possible AGI will give us any output with less Q than the combination of inputs had. The dream that a machine will solve all problems that humanity can't hinges on negating that, which goes against thermodynamics. As it stands, the planet cannot cope with all the entropy we're spreading around. It will eventually collapse civilization/the ecosystem, whatever buckles first, from the excess entropy. Because global warming, poverty, or ignorance is just entropy. Disorder. Things not being just so as we need them to be.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Whatever you mean, it took 13 billion years and the whole universe as far as we can tell to create the 20 watt human intelligence brain. It's grossly unreasonable to include the entire history of the universe given the Earth only formed about 4 billion years ago; and given that evolution wasn't even aiming for intelligence, even starting from our common ancestors being small rodents 65 million years ago is wildly overstating the effort required — even the evolution of primates is too far back without intentional selective breeding. > You're positing a way to create human intelligence-like in a bottle, that's the same as speculating about the shape of a reality where we have FTL travel or teleportation or whatever else you fancy. FTL may well well be impossible. If you seriously think human intelligence is impossible, then you also think you don't exist: You, yourself, are a human like intelligence in a bottle. The bottle being your skull. > This can give us great automation, but it won't solve physics, global warming, poverty or give us human intelligence in a chip. AI has already been in widesprad use in physics for a while now, well before the current zeitgeist of LLMs. There's a Y Combinator startup: "Charge Robotics is building robots that automate the most labor-intensive parts of solar construction". Poverty has many causes, some of which are already being reduced or resolved by existing systems — and that's been the case since one of the ancestor companies of IBM, Tabulating Machine Company, was doing punched cards for the US census. As for human intelligence on a chip? Well, (1) it's been quite a long time since humans were capable of designing the circuits manually, given the feature size is now at the level where quantum mechanics must be accounted for or you get surprise tunnelling between gates; and (2) one of the things being automated is feature segmentation and labelling of neural micrographs, i.e. literally brain scanning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/
  - namaria 2y ago
    I never said human intelligence is impossible. All I am saying is that Sam Altman's promises (remember the original topic) hinge on breaking thermodynamics. Humans evolved on a planet that was just so. The elements on Earth that make life possible couldn't have been created in a younger universe. So it take the full history of the universe to produce human intelligence. It also doesn't exist in a vacuum. Current human civilization is not a collection of 8 billion 20 watt boxes. > As for human intelligence on a chip? Well, (1) it's been quite a long time since humans were capable of designing the circuits manually, given the feature size is now at the level where quantum mechanics must be accounted for or you get surprise tunnelling between gates; and (2) one of the things being automated is feature segmentation and labelling of neural micrographs, i.e. literally brain scanning: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32619485/ I don't understand any of this so I won't comment.