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I think the only way that it’s actually impossible is if we believe that there’s something magical and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our

I think the only way that it’s actually impossible is if we believe that there’s something magical and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our general intelligence. Otherwise we’re just machines, after all. A human brain is theoretically reproducible outside standard biological mechanisms, if you have a good enough nanolathe. Maybe our first AGI is just a Petri dish brain with a half-decent python API. Maybe it’s more sand-based, though.

frizlab 1y ago
> if we believe that there’s something magical and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our general intelligence It’s called a soul for the believers.
andy99 1y ago
If by "something magical" you mean something we don't understand, that's trivially true. People like to give firm opinions or make completely unsupported statements they feel should be taken seriously ("how do we know humans intelligence doesn't work the same way as next token prediction") about something nobody understand.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  I mean something that’s fundamentally not understandable. “What we don’t yet understand” is just a horizon.
somewhereoutth 1y ago
Our silicon machines exist in a countable state space (you can easily assign a unique natural number to any state for a given machine). However, 'standard biological mechanisms' exist in an uncountable state space - you need real numbers to properly describe them. Cantor showed that the uncountable is infinitely more infinite (pardon the word tangle) than the countable. I posit that the 'special sauce' for sentience/intelligence/sapience exists beyond the countable, and so is unreachable with our silicon machines as currently envisaged. I call this the 'Cardinality Barrier'
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  > 'standard biological mechanisms' exist in an uncountable state space Everything in our universe is countable, which naturally includes biology. A bunch of physical laws are predicated on the universe being a countable substrate.
  - lettuceconstant 1y ago
    Could you list me some of these laws?
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  That’s an interesting thought. It steps beyond my realm of confidence, but I’ll ask in ignorance: can a biological brain really have infinite state space if there’s a minimum divisible Planck length? Infinite and “finite but very very big” seem like a meaningful distinction here. I once wondered if digital intelligences might be possible but would require an entire planet’s precious metals and require whole stars to power. That is: the “finite but very very big” case. But I think your idea is constrained to if we wanted a digital computer, is it not? Humans can make intelligent life by accident. Surely we could hypothetically construct our own biological computer (or borrow one…) and make it more ideal for digital interface?
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    Isn't a Planck length just the minimum for measurability?
    - triclops200 1y ago
      Measurability is essentially a synonym for meaningful interaction at some measurement scale. When describing fundamental measurability limits, you're essentially describing what current physical models consider to be the fundamental interaction scale.
    - layer8 1y ago
      Not quite. Smaller wavelengths mean higher energy, and a photon with Planck wavelength would be energetic enough to form a black hole. So you can’t meaningfully interact electromagnetically with something smaller than the Planck length. Nor can that something have electromagnetic properties. But since we don’t have a working theory of quantum gravity at such energies, the final verdict remains open.
sandworm101 1y ago
A brain in a jar, with wires so that we can communicate with it, already exists. Its called the internet. My brain is communicating with you now through wires. Replacing my keyboard with implanted electrodes may speed up the connection, but it wont fundimentally change the structure or capabilities of the machine.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  Wait, are we all just Servitors?!
  - pdimitar 1y ago
    Not in the over-the-top gross and scary way of WH40k, no, but many people have autonomy in such a small number that they might as well be Servitors.
josefx 1y ago
> and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our general intelligence Isn't AGI defined to mean "matches humans in virtually all fields"? I don't think there is a single human capable of this.
Balgair 1y ago
-- A human brain is theoretically reproducible outside standard biological mechanisms, if you have a good enough nanolathe. Sort of. The main issue is the energy requirements. We could theoretically reproduce a human brain in SW today, it's just that it would be a really big energy hog and run very slowly and probably become insane quickly like any person trapped in a sensory deprived tank. The real key development for AI and AGI is down at the metal level of computers- the memristor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor The synapse in a brain is essentially a memristive element, and it's a very taxing one on the neuron. The equations is (change in charge)/(change in flux). Yes, a flux capacitor, sorta. It's the missing piece in fundamental electronics. Making simple 2 element memristors is somewhat possible these days, though I've not really been in the space recently. Please, if anyone knows where to buy them, a real one not a claimed to be one, let me know. I'm willing to pay good money. In Terms of AI, a memristor would require a total redesign of how we architect computers ( goodbye busses and physically separate memory, for one). But, you'd get a huge energy and time savings benefit. As in, you can run an LLM on a watch battery or small solar cell and let the environment train them to a degree. Hopefully AI will accelerate their discovery and facilitate their introduction into cheap processing and construction of chips.
knome 1y ago
>Maybe our first AGI is just a Petri dish brain with a half-decent python API. https://www.oddee.com/australian-company-launches-worlds-first-computer-using-human-brain-cells-74456/ https://www.oddee.com/australian-company-launches-worlds-fir... the entire idea feels rather immoral to me, but it does exist.
- j_bum 1y ago
  I’m curious why you find it immoral?
  - superfrank 1y ago
    Because the lack of semicolons is pure hubris and an affront to God
  - knome 1y ago
    I don't think it particularly moral to start heading down a path wherein we are essentially aiming to create enslaved cloned vat brains. I know that's not what they have, and that they're nowhere near that, but if they succeed in these early stages, more and more complex systems will follow in time. I don't think it a particularly healthy direction to explore.
    - crowbahr 1y ago
      > I don't think it particularly moral to start heading down a path wherein we are essentially aiming to create enslaved cloned vat brains. I know that's not what they have, and that they're nowhere near that, but if they succeed in these early stages, more and more complex systems will follow in time. I don't think it a particularly healthy direction to explore. Immoral by slippery slope is not a reasonable or rational argument. You're acting like nobody would have any qualms with it being a full sized human brain instead of a thousand neurons on a tiny plate. It's an emotional reaction to an impression of these scientists that strips them of human decency or agency. There's nothing inevitable about this abusive idea you've concocted, and the only inevitability would come if each of the hundreds of scientists involved were some sort of psychopathic sadists with no regard for _any_ human life. There's nothing immoral about cells in a petri dish, and there's absolutely no reason to assume that it directly leads to a fully enslaved in-vitro human.
preisschild 1y ago
> Maybe our first AGI is just a Petri dish brain with a half-decent python API This reminds me of The Thought Emporium's project of teaching rat brain cells to play doom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw

frizlab 1y ago

> if we believe that there’s something magical and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our general intelligence It’s called a soul for the believers.

andy99 1y ago

If by "something magical" you mean something we don't understand, that's trivially true. People like to give firm opinions or make completely unsupported statements they feel should be taken seriously ("how do we know humans intelligence doesn't work the same way as next token prediction") about something nobody understand.

Waterluvian 1y ago
I mean something that’s fundamentally not understandable. “What we don’t yet understand” is just a horizon.

somewhereoutth 1y ago

Our silicon machines exist in a countable state space (you can easily assign a unique natural number to any state for a given machine). However, 'standard biological mechanisms' exist in an uncountable state space - you need real numbers to properly describe them. Cantor showed that the uncountable is infinitely more infinite (pardon the word tangle) than the countable. I posit that the 'special sauce' for sentience/intelligence/sapience exists beyond the countable, and so is unreachable with our silicon machines as currently envisaged. I call this the 'Cardinality Barrier'

jandrewrogers 1y ago
> 'standard biological mechanisms' exist in an uncountable state space Everything in our universe is countable, which naturally includes biology. A bunch of physical laws are predicated on the universe being a countable substrate.
- lettuceconstant 1y ago
  Could you list me some of these laws?
Waterluvian 1y ago
That’s an interesting thought. It steps beyond my realm of confidence, but I’ll ask in ignorance: can a biological brain really have infinite state space if there’s a minimum divisible Planck length? Infinite and “finite but very very big” seem like a meaningful distinction here. I once wondered if digital intelligences might be possible but would require an entire planet’s precious metals and require whole stars to power. That is: the “finite but very very big” case. But I think your idea is constrained to if we wanted a digital computer, is it not? Humans can make intelligent life by accident. Surely we could hypothetically construct our own biological computer (or borrow one…) and make it more ideal for digital interface?
- saubeidl 1y ago
  Isn't a Planck length just the minimum for measurability?
  - triclops200 1y ago
    Measurability is essentially a synonym for meaningful interaction at some measurement scale. When describing fundamental measurability limits, you're essentially describing what current physical models consider to be the fundamental interaction scale.
  - layer8 1y ago
    Not quite. Smaller wavelengths mean higher energy, and a photon with Planck wavelength would be energetic enough to form a black hole. So you can’t meaningfully interact electromagnetically with something smaller than the Planck length. Nor can that something have electromagnetic properties. But since we don’t have a working theory of quantum gravity at such energies, the final verdict remains open.

sandworm101 1y ago

A brain in a jar, with wires so that we can communicate with it, already exists. Its called the internet. My brain is communicating with you now through wires. Replacing my keyboard with implanted electrodes may speed up the connection, but it wont fundimentally change the structure or capabilities of the machine.

Waterluvian 1y ago
Wait, are we all just Servitors?!
- pdimitar 1y ago
  Not in the over-the-top gross and scary way of WH40k, no, but many people have autonomy in such a small number that they might as well be Servitors.

josefx 1y ago

> and fundamentally immeasurable about humans that leads to our general intelligence Isn't AGI defined to mean "matches humans in virtually all fields"? I don't think there is a single human capable of this.

Balgair 1y ago

-- A human brain is theoretically reproducible outside standard biological mechanisms, if you have a good enough nanolathe. Sort of. The main issue is the energy requirements. We could theoretically reproduce a human brain in SW today, it's just that it would be a really big energy hog and run very slowly and probably become insane quickly like any person trapped in a sensory deprived tank. The real key development for AI and AGI is down at the metal level of computers- the memristor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor The synapse in a brain is essentially a memristive element, and it's a very taxing one on the neuron. The equations is (change in charge)/(change in flux). Yes, a flux capacitor, sorta. It's the missing piece in fundamental electronics. Making simple 2 element memristors is somewhat possible these days, though I've not really been in the space recently. Please, if anyone knows where to buy them, a real one not a claimed to be one, let me know. I'm willing to pay good money. In Terms of AI, a memristor would require a total redesign of how we architect computers ( goodbye busses and physically separate memory, for one). But, you'd get a huge energy and time savings benefit. As in, you can run an LLM on a watch battery or small solar cell and let the environment train them to a degree. Hopefully AI will accelerate their discovery and facilitate their introduction into cheap processing and construction of chips.

knome 1y ago

>Maybe our first AGI is just a Petri dish brain with a half-decent python API. https://www.oddee.com/australian-company-launches-worlds-first-computer-using-human-brain-cells-74456/ https://www.oddee.com/australian-company-launches-worlds-fir... the entire idea feels rather immoral to me, but it does exist.

j_bum 1y ago
I’m curious why you find it immoral?
- superfrank 1y ago
  Because the lack of semicolons is pure hubris and an affront to God
- knome 1y ago
  I don't think it particularly moral to start heading down a path wherein we are essentially aiming to create enslaved cloned vat brains. I know that's not what they have, and that they're nowhere near that, but if they succeed in these early stages, more and more complex systems will follow in time. I don't think it a particularly healthy direction to explore.
  - crowbahr 1y ago
    > I don't think it particularly moral to start heading down a path wherein we are essentially aiming to create enslaved cloned vat brains. I know that's not what they have, and that they're nowhere near that, but if they succeed in these early stages, more and more complex systems will follow in time. I don't think it a particularly healthy direction to explore. Immoral by slippery slope is not a reasonable or rational argument. You're acting like nobody would have any qualms with it being a full sized human brain instead of a thousand neurons on a tiny plate. It's an emotional reaction to an impression of these scientists that strips them of human decency or agency. There's nothing inevitable about this abusive idea you've concocted, and the only inevitability would come if each of the hundreds of scientists involved were some sort of psychopathic sadists with no regard for _any_ human life. There's nothing immoral about cells in a petri dish, and there's absolutely no reason to assume that it directly leads to a fully enslaved in-vitro human.

preisschild 1y ago

> Maybe our first AGI is just a Petri dish brain with a half-decent python API This reminds me of The Thought Emporium's project of teaching rat brain cells to play doom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw