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It is easier to make a flying machine than it is to make a machine that flies by the exact principles that birds use to fly (with flapping wings and such). Do
by drdeca 2y ago
It is easier to make a flying machine than it is to make a machine that flies by the exact principles that birds use to fly (with flapping wings and such).
Do you have an argument for why general intelligence couldn’t be like flight in this way? You just said that it is obvious. I do not share this intuition. Could you give an explanation for why you expect it to be unlike flight in this respect?
- almostgotcaught 2y ago> It is easier to make a flying machine than it is to make a machine that flies by the exact principles that birds use to fly do you think that "flying machines" aren't simulated before manufacturing?
- drdeca 2y agoI believe airplanes were made before the first good simulations of bird flight.
- almostgotcaught 2y agoyes and they only flew ~100 feet https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1903-wright-flyer/nasm_A19610048000 https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1903-wright-fl...
- drdeca 2y agoThe first aircraft? Ok. And how far did aircraft get before we were able to make functioning wings that work by flapping in the way of birds? (Actually, have we even done the latter? I imagine we have, but I’m not sure.)
- almostgotcaught 2y agoi don't understand your fixation on a direct analogy between flight and birds. modern aircraft are absolutely simulated to astronomical levels of detail and the compute associated with such simulation is commensurately astronomical - such simulations are exactly what so-called "supercomputers" at national labs do.
- drdeca 2y agoBecause full brain simulation would be achieving intelligence in the same way brains achieve it? Are you saying that simulating a brain is analogous to simulating an airplane? A simulated airplane doesn’t actually fly. A simulated brain actually thinks (for at least some senses of “think”.. some might argue that it wouldn’t have internal experience no matter the accuracy of simulation. I don’t think that’s true, but even if it is, it would still “think” in the relevant sense of its external behavior.).
- almostgotcaught 2y ago> Are you saying that simulating a brain is analogous to simulating an airplane? Am I taking crazy pills? You brought up airplanes as an apt comparison and I said well airplanes are in fact simulated. But now airplanes aren't analogous? Do you like have a single material fact regarding brains and/or AI to substantiate your arguments or is it all only conjecture and metaphor?
- drdeca 2y agoI brought up making airplanes, not simulating airplanes. You brought up simulating airplanes. The point I am interested in making is primarily based on metaphor/precedent. Seems like a good basis for estimating how hard a task that hasn’t been done before is. For a variety of things that various animals do, it is easier for us to make a machine that accomplishes the same kind of thing in a substantially different way than it is for us to make a machine that accomplishes the task in the same way. Why would this pattern not hold for intelligence as well?