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This makes sense if we're trying to recreate a human mind artifically, but I don't think that's the goal? There's no reason an equivalent or superior general i

This makes sense if we're trying to recreate a human mind artifically, but I don't think that's the goal? There's no reason an equivalent or superior general intelligence needs to be similar to us at all

card_zero 1y ago
There's no reason to the idea "superior intelligence". Nobody can say what that means, except by assuming that animal intelligence is the same category as the kind we want and differs from human intelligence in degree rather than qualitatively, and then extrapolating forward from this idea of measuring intelligence on the intelligence meter that we don't have one of. Besides which we already defined "artificial intelligence" to mean non-intelligence: are we now going to attain "artificial general intelligence" by the same process? Should we add another letter to the acronym, like move on to "genuine artificial general intelligence"?
- AstroBen 1y ago
  Is there really no agreement to what intelligence refers to? I've seen it defined as the ability to reach a goal, which was clear to me. Eg. a chess AI with 1500 ELO is more intelligent than one at 1000
  - ben_w 1y ago
    That's capability, intelligence can also be how quickly it learned to get to that capability. Consider the difference in intelligence between a kid who skipped five years of school vs one who was held back a year: if both got the same grade in the end, the one who skipped five years was smarter.
    - AstroBen 1y ago
      makes sense. Maybe a combination of both would be most accurate - how fast you can learn + what's your peak capability Looking at it solely on rate of learning has LLMs way smarter than humans already which doesn't seem right to say
      - ben_w 1y ago
        > Looking at it solely on rate of learning has LLMs way smarter than humans already which doesn't seem right to say Sure, but "rate" also has two meanings, both useful, but importantly different: per unit of wall-clock time, and per example. Transistors are just so much faster than synapses, that computers can (somewhat) compensate for being absolutely terrible by the latter meaning — at least, in cases where there's enough examples for them to learn from. In cases where the supply of examples is too small (and cannot be enhanced with synthetic data, simulations and so on), state of the art AI models still suck. In cases where there is sufficient data, for example self-play in games of chess and go, the AI can be super-human by a substantial margin.
alganet 1y ago
LLMs are trained on human data, and aimed at perform tasks in human roles. That's the goal. It is supposed to be super, but superhuman. Able to interact with us. Which leads us to the Turing Test (also, not a test... "the imitation game" is more of a philosophical exploration on thinking machines). My comment assumes this is already understood as Turing explained. If the thing is not human, then there's absolutely no way we can evaluate it. There's no way we can measure it. It becomes an impossible task.
- AstroBen 1y ago
  What's wrong with measuring and evaluating its outputs directly? If it can accurately file taxes better than us does it matter if it does it in a human manner? Birds and planes both fly and all
  - alganet 1y ago
    If your definition of AGI is filing taxes, then it's fine. Once we step into any other problem, then you need to measure that other problem as well. Lots of problems are concerned with how an intelligent being could fail. Our society is built on lots of those assumptions.
xyzzy123 1y ago
For _investment_ purposes the definition of AGI is very simple. It is: "to what extent can it replace human workers?". From this perspective, "100% AGI" is achieved when AI can do any job that happens primarily on a computer. This can be extended to humanoid robots in the obvious way.
- alganet 1y ago
  I don't see how that changes anything. Failing like a human would is not a cute add-on. It's a fundamental requirement for creating AIs that can replace humans.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - laterium 1y ago
    Industrial machines don't fail like humans yet they replaced human workers. Cars don't fail like horses yet they replaced them. ATMs don't fail like bank tellers... Why is this such a big requirement?
    - alganet 1y ago
      Microwaves didn't replace ovens. The Segway didn't replaced bikes. 3D movies didn't replace IMAX. I can go on and on... Some things fail, or fail to meet their initial overblown expectations. The microwave oven was indeed a commercial success. And that's fine, but it sucks at being an oven. Everyone knows it. Now, this post is more about the scientific part of it, not the commercial one. What makes an oven better than a microwave oven? Why is pizza from an oven delicious and microwave pizza sucks? Maybe there's a reason, some Maillard reaction that requires hot air convection and can't be replicated by shaking up water molecules. We are talking about those kinds of things. What makes it tick, how does it work, etc. Not if it makes money or not. Damn, the thing doesn't even make money yet. Why talk about a plus that the technology still doesn't have?
      - 1y ago

card_zero 1y ago

There's no reason to the idea "superior intelligence". Nobody can say what that means, except by assuming that animal intelligence is the same category as the kind we want and differs from human intelligence in degree rather than qualitatively, and then extrapolating forward from this idea of measuring intelligence on the intelligence meter that we don't have one of. Besides which we already defined "artificial intelligence" to mean non-intelligence: are we now going to attain "artificial general intelligence" by the same process? Should we add another letter to the acronym, like move on to "genuine artificial general intelligence"?

AstroBen 1y ago
Is there really no agreement to what intelligence refers to? I've seen it defined as the ability to reach a goal, which was clear to me. Eg. a chess AI with 1500 ELO is more intelligent than one at 1000
- ben_w 1y ago
  That's capability, intelligence can also be how quickly it learned to get to that capability. Consider the difference in intelligence between a kid who skipped five years of school vs one who was held back a year: if both got the same grade in the end, the one who skipped five years was smarter.
  - AstroBen 1y ago
    makes sense. Maybe a combination of both would be most accurate - how fast you can learn + what's your peak capability Looking at it solely on rate of learning has LLMs way smarter than humans already which doesn't seem right to say
    - ben_w 1y ago
      > Looking at it solely on rate of learning has LLMs way smarter than humans already which doesn't seem right to say Sure, but "rate" also has two meanings, both useful, but importantly different: per unit of wall-clock time, and per example. Transistors are just so much faster than synapses, that computers can (somewhat) compensate for being absolutely terrible by the latter meaning — at least, in cases where there's enough examples for them to learn from. In cases where the supply of examples is too small (and cannot be enhanced with synthetic data, simulations and so on), state of the art AI models still suck. In cases where there is sufficient data, for example self-play in games of chess and go, the AI can be super-human by a substantial margin.

alganet 1y ago

LLMs are trained on human data, and aimed at perform tasks in human roles. That's the goal. It is supposed to be super, but superhuman. Able to interact with us. Which leads us to the Turing Test (also, not a test... "the imitation game" is more of a philosophical exploration on thinking machines). My comment assumes this is already understood as Turing explained. If the thing is not human, then there's absolutely no way we can evaluate it. There's no way we can measure it. It becomes an impossible task.

AstroBen 1y ago
What's wrong with measuring and evaluating its outputs directly? If it can accurately file taxes better than us does it matter if it does it in a human manner? Birds and planes both fly and all
- alganet 1y ago
  If your definition of AGI is filing taxes, then it's fine. Once we step into any other problem, then you need to measure that other problem as well. Lots of problems are concerned with how an intelligent being could fail. Our society is built on lots of those assumptions.

xyzzy123 1y ago

For _investment_ purposes the definition of AGI is very simple. It is: "to what extent can it replace human workers?". From this perspective, "100% AGI" is achieved when AI can do any job that happens primarily on a computer. This can be extended to humanoid robots in the obvious way.

alganet 1y ago
I don't see how that changes anything. Failing like a human would is not a cute add-on. It's a fundamental requirement for creating AIs that can replace humans.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- laterium 1y ago
  Industrial machines don't fail like humans yet they replaced human workers. Cars don't fail like horses yet they replaced them. ATMs don't fail like bank tellers... Why is this such a big requirement?
  - alganet 1y ago
    Microwaves didn't replace ovens. The Segway didn't replaced bikes. 3D movies didn't replace IMAX. I can go on and on... Some things fail, or fail to meet their initial overblown expectations. The microwave oven was indeed a commercial success. And that's fine, but it sucks at being an oven. Everyone knows it. Now, this post is more about the scientific part of it, not the commercial one. What makes an oven better than a microwave oven? Why is pizza from an oven delicious and microwave pizza sucks? Maybe there's a reason, some Maillard reaction that requires hot air convection and can't be replicated by shaking up water molecules. We are talking about those kinds of things. What makes it tick, how does it work, etc. Not if it makes money or not. Damn, the thing doesn't even make money yet. Why talk about a plus that the technology still doesn't have?
    - 1y ago