2 ms·

I find this take strange. My observation has been the opposite. We used to say it would take human intelligence to play chess. Then Deep Blue came up and we sai

I find this take strange. My observation has been the opposite. We used to say it would take human intelligence to play chess. Then Deep Blue came up and we said, no, not like that. Then it was go. Then AlphaGo came up and we said no, not like that. Along the way, it was recognizing images. And then AlexNet came along, and we said no, not like that. Then it was creating art, and then LLMs came along, and we said no, not like that. I agree a narrowing has happened. But the narrowing is to move us closer to saying "if it's not implemented in a brain, located inside a skull, in a body that was developed by DNA-coded cells replicating in a controlled manner over a period of years, it's not really AI." There's an emotional attachment to intelligence being what makes us human that causes people to lose their minds when machines approach our intelligence. Machines aren't humans. If we value humanity, we should recognize that distinction—even as machines become intelligent and even sentient. And we should definitely think twice, or, you know, many many many many more times, before building intelligent machines. But I don't think pretending we're not doing that right now is helpful.

simonw 2y ago
This is called the "AI effect" - the constant shifting of goalposts when the term AI is used, which has been going on for 50+ years at this point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
voidhorse 2y ago
I think that's a great take and though they appear contradictory, I actually think both perspectives are correct. I think what both viewpoints show is that, at the end of the day, intelligence is a broad, fuzzily defined thing, and attempting to claim that a single capability is evidence of intelligence always seems to be insufficient (from either direction). I also think your points about our own emotional attachment and thinking carefully about intelligent machines are superb. I see a lot of people chasing certain tech right now and I see a far smaller number asking whether or not this tech is something we need or want. I personally don't need to live in a world in which robots are 1:1 emulations of humans (or better). I'd be just as content to live in a world of highly specific and highly optimized collections of robots or "intelligences" only capable of doing one thing really well (a unix theory of "agents", as it were)

simonw 2y ago

This is called the "AI effect" - the constant shifting of goalposts when the term AI is used, which has been going on for 50+ years at this point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect

voidhorse 2y ago

I think that's a great take and though they appear contradictory, I actually think both perspectives are correct. I think what both viewpoints show is that, at the end of the day, intelligence is a broad, fuzzily defined thing, and attempting to claim that a single capability is evidence of intelligence always seems to be insufficient (from either direction). I also think your points about our own emotional attachment and thinking carefully about intelligent machines are superb. I see a lot of people chasing certain tech right now and I see a far smaller number asking whether or not this tech is something we need or want. I personally don't need to live in a world in which robots are 1:1 emulations of humans (or better). I'd be just as content to live in a world of highly specific and highly optimized collections of robots or "intelligences" only capable of doing one thing really well (a unix theory of "agents", as it were)