3 ms·
For me, this perfectly sums up the futility of the Strong AI / AGI research project. So much of what we consider to be 'intelligence' or repercussions of intell
by mikk0j 14y ago
For me, this perfectly sums up the futility of the Strong AI / AGI research project. So much of what we consider to be 'intelligence' or repercussions of intelligence are in fact language-based communications and culture - with an immense genetical legacy, bias, and quite frankly, burden. To create human-equivalent intelligence, most or indeed all of these evolutionary biases would have to be built in.
Consider a different example: constructing artificial vision. Human vision is the result of evolution, of course. It is incredibly inefficient, but evolution is blind (sorry). When we now construct computer vision, we capture an optical image and transmit it optically as long as possible, since this preserves information. The human eye does not: it sends information via neurons to the visual cortex, compromising immensely in bandwidth. That's why we need visual error-correction mechanisms in the brain, and redundancy of visual information (achieved by the eye moving rapidly many times per second, for example).
When we construct optical computer vision that achieves the a similar thing as human vision, the two have nothing in common. You can't plug in the artificial front end into the biological back end. The two systems produce literally different images, that are not comparable. The systems will not communicate with each other. We have skipped the legacy of biological evolution completely. To create an artificial system that accurately corresponds to the biological would be an immense waste.
The same goes for intelligence. Our 'wet' evolved intelligence is an entirely different picture from the project of Strong AI. They will produce very different manifestations of interacting with the world. Why would the latter ever result in the illusion of free will or the self-referentiality of personal identity, two things we assume are parts of human-level intelligence? They are like the neurological channels for conveying an optical image: hopelessly inefficient, but the ones that make sense in the light of our evolutionary legacy.
As a side note, yes we know of a time when there was no language, but it not a good representation to consider that a binary switch. We know of complex communication between other animals, and given that even current languages are in rapid flux, I think it is is fair to think of the transition from pre-language to language a continuum. Language is still arising.
- koningrobot 14y agoI don't understand what bearing this should have on the probability of AGI succeeding. What we (should) care about is not whether the system is conscious or even human-like. What matters is that it performs well on the tasks it is assigned. I consider it highly likely that we can do better than evolution did, in less time than evolution took.