5 ms·

I can’t be the only one who has watched this all unfold with a sense of inevitability, surely. When the first serious CUDA based ML demos started appearing a d

I can’t be the only one who has watched this all unfold with a sense of inevitability, surely. When the first serious CUDA based ML demos started appearing a decade or so ago, it was, at least to me, pretty clear that this would lead to AGI in 10-15 years - and here we are. It was the same sort of feeling as when I first saw the WWW aged 11, and knew that this was going to eat the world - and here we are. The thing that flummoxes me is that now that we are so obviously on this self-reinforcing cycle, how many are still insistent that AI will amount to nothing. I am reminded of how the internet was just a fad - although this is going to have an even greater impact on how we live, and our economies.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Downvoters are responding to a perceived arrogance. What does agi mean to you?
- nineteen999 2y ago
  Could be arrogance, or could be the delusion.
  - madaxe_again 2y ago
    Why is it a delusion, in your opinion?
    - andai 2y ago
      It's a delusion on the part of the downvoters.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Indeed, it sure could be arrogance.
xen0 2y ago
What makes you think AGI is either here or imminent? For me the current systems still clearly fall short of that goal.
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  They do fall short, but progress in this field is not linear. This is the bit that I struggle to comprehend - that which was literally infeasible only a few years ago is now mocked and derided. It’s like jet engines and cheap intercontinental travel becoming an inevitability once the rubicon of powered flight is crossed - and everyone bitching about the peanuts while they cruise at inconceivable speed through the atmosphere.
  - diffeomorphism 2y ago
    Just like supersonic travel between Europe and America becoming common place was inevitable. Oh, wait. Optimism is good, blind optimism isn't.
    - madaxe_again 2y ago
      It is yet inevitable - but it wasn’t sustainable in the slightest when it was first attempted - Concorde was akin to the Apollo programme, in being precocious and prohibitively expensive due to the technical limitations of the time. It will, ultimately, be little more remarkable than flying is currently, even as we hop around on suborbital trajectories. It isn’t a question of optimism - in fact, I am deeply pessimistic as to what ML will mean for humanity as a whole, at least in the short term - it’s a question of seeing the features of a confluence of technology, will, and knowledge that has in the past spurred technical revolution. Newcomen was far from the first to develop a steam engine, but there was suddenly demand for such beasts, as shallow mines became exhausted, and everything else followed from that. ML has been around in one form or another for decades now - however we are now at the point where the technology exists, insofar as modern GPUs exist, the will exists, insofar as trillions of dollars of investment flood into the space, and the knowledge exists, insofar as we have finally produced machine learning models which are non-trivial. Just as with powered flight, the technology - the internal combustion engine - had to be in place, as did the will (the First World War), and the knowledge, which we had possessed for centuries but had no means or will to act upon. The idea was, in fact, ridiculous. Nobody could see the utility - until someone realised you could use them to drop ordnance on your enemies. With supersonic flight - the technology is emerging, the will will be provided by the substantial increase in marginal utility provided by sub-hour transit compared to the relatively small improvement Concorde offered, and the knowledge, again, we already have. So no, not optimism - just observance of historical forces. When you put these things together, there tend to be technical revolutions, and resultant societal change.
oersted 2y ago
What do you think is next?
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  An unravelling, as myriad possibilities become actualities. The advances in innumerate fields that ML will unlock will have enormous impacts. Again, I cannot understand for the life of me how people cannot see this.
  - alexander2002 2y ago
    I had a hypothesis once and It is probably 1000% wrong. But I will state here. /// Once computers can talk to other computers over network in human friendly way <abstraction by llm> and such that these entities completely control our interfaces which we humans can easily do and use them effectively multi-modality then I think there is a slight chance "I" might belive there is AGI or atleast some indications of it
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      It's unsettling how the Turing Test turned out to be so independent of AGI, isn't it?
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Not really, unless someone reading pop-science misunderstood the "Turing Test" as somehow being clear proof of intelligence--whatever that word really means.
        madaxe_again 2y ago
        Indeed. Until we know exactly how a human brain works, we should be cautious about describing humans as intelligent. It could just be a simulation of intelligence, for all we know.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

Downvoters are responding to a perceived arrogance. What does agi mean to you?

nineteen999 2y ago
Could be arrogance, or could be the delusion.
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  Why is it a delusion, in your opinion?
  - andai 2y ago
    It's a delusion on the part of the downvoters.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Indeed, it sure could be arrogance.

xen0 2y ago

What makes you think AGI is either here or imminent? For me the current systems still clearly fall short of that goal.

madaxe_again 2y ago
They do fall short, but progress in this field is not linear. This is the bit that I struggle to comprehend - that which was literally infeasible only a few years ago is now mocked and derided. It’s like jet engines and cheap intercontinental travel becoming an inevitability once the rubicon of powered flight is crossed - and everyone bitching about the peanuts while they cruise at inconceivable speed through the atmosphere.
- diffeomorphism 2y ago
  Just like supersonic travel between Europe and America becoming common place was inevitable. Oh, wait. Optimism is good, blind optimism isn't.
  - madaxe_again 2y ago
    It is yet inevitable - but it wasn’t sustainable in the slightest when it was first attempted - Concorde was akin to the Apollo programme, in being precocious and prohibitively expensive due to the technical limitations of the time. It will, ultimately, be little more remarkable than flying is currently, even as we hop around on suborbital trajectories. It isn’t a question of optimism - in fact, I am deeply pessimistic as to what ML will mean for humanity as a whole, at least in the short term - it’s a question of seeing the features of a confluence of technology, will, and knowledge that has in the past spurred technical revolution. Newcomen was far from the first to develop a steam engine, but there was suddenly demand for such beasts, as shallow mines became exhausted, and everything else followed from that. ML has been around in one form or another for decades now - however we are now at the point where the technology exists, insofar as modern GPUs exist, the will exists, insofar as trillions of dollars of investment flood into the space, and the knowledge exists, insofar as we have finally produced machine learning models which are non-trivial. Just as with powered flight, the technology - the internal combustion engine - had to be in place, as did the will (the First World War), and the knowledge, which we had possessed for centuries but had no means or will to act upon. The idea was, in fact, ridiculous. Nobody could see the utility - until someone realised you could use them to drop ordnance on your enemies. With supersonic flight - the technology is emerging, the will will be provided by the substantial increase in marginal utility provided by sub-hour transit compared to the relatively small improvement Concorde offered, and the knowledge, again, we already have. So no, not optimism - just observance of historical forces. When you put these things together, there tend to be technical revolutions, and resultant societal change.

oersted 2y ago

What do you think is next?

madaxe_again 2y ago
An unravelling, as myriad possibilities become actualities. The advances in innumerate fields that ML will unlock will have enormous impacts. Again, I cannot understand for the life of me how people cannot see this.
- alexander2002 2y ago
  I had a hypothesis once and It is probably 1000% wrong. But I will state here. /// Once computers can talk to other computers over network in human friendly way <abstraction by llm> and such that these entities completely control our interfaces which we humans can easily do and use them effectively multi-modality then I think there is a slight chance "I" might belive there is AGI or atleast some indications of it
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    It's unsettling how the Turing Test turned out to be so independent of AGI, isn't it?
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Not really, unless someone reading pop-science misunderstood the "Turing Test" as somehow being clear proof of intelligence--whatever that word really means.
      - madaxe_again 2y ago
        Indeed. Until we know exactly how a human brain works, we should be cautious about describing humans as intelligent. It could just be a simulation of intelligence, for all we know.