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I should have expected to see a bunch of blather about AI overpromising and underdelivering. Nevermind the fact that Expert systems such as the descendants of M

I should have expected to see a bunch of blather about AI overpromising and underdelivering. Nevermind the fact that Expert systems such as the descendants of Mycin and DART have been making billions of dollars in profits for decades when applied in specialized domains like logistics and health diagnostics. Nevermind the fact that we can't go a week on HN without seeing an article gushing about driverless cars. Nevermind the fact that mass production of everything from cars to toothbrushes is impossible/infeasible without it. Nevermind the fact that nearly all forms and modes of mass transportation are scheduled using algorithms developed in AI research. Nevermind the fact that you can actually use email, thanks to the AI research underpinning spam filtering. Nevermind the fact that computers have beat the best humans in some of the most well known games of strategy and trivia. Nevermind the fact that one of today's largest corporations, Google, makes nearly all of its profit from a single application of AI. No. AI is just making a bunch of ridiculous promises that it never intends to keep...solely because general intelligence isn't f*ing Skynet yet and because Siri can't tell the difference between Ichiro and Itchy Euro.

tantalor 13y ago
The fact is ConceptNet does not claim to be a general intelligence, so comparing it to a four-year-old is comparing apples to oranges.
Houshalter 13y ago
Be glad that we don't have AGI yet. The world would be a very different place with machines much smarter than us.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  AGI - Artificial General Intelligence.
- Jach 13y ago
  I'm sad because such a world is probably a better one, so long as the AGI is Friendly and doesn't turn us into paperclips or worse.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    I don't know. It honestly sounds boring to live in a world where all our problems have been solved and there is nothing left to do or accomplish. Maybe we will all live in simulated realities, but that sounds kind of dystopic to me.
    - Jach 13y ago
      That sounds more like a failure of imagination than an argument that there will be no more fun or challenge or creative endeavors in the universe once the worst of our problems are solved. Do you really think that in a future where you no longer have to worry about death and taxes, and you have a superior brain which you can modify however you want, thus ending akrasia and unwanted depression among other things like having an even deeper sense of fun or an understanding of new problems we can't even fathom yet at our current development, that you will have less fun than you're having right now, today, reading HN? You might like to read http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/
      - Houshalter 13y ago
        What would be the point in doing anything? Anything you could build, program, or discover, could be done ten times better by an AI. It could probably even design entertainment, like movies, games, music, etc, far better than human artists. A version of myself with vastly increased intelligence sounds interesting, but I'm not even sure it would be me. If you make enough modifications to your brain you become a completely different being. Different personality and thought process and little resemblance to who I am now. Which is disturbing to me at least. Along the thought of living inside of a computer doesn't exactly sound pleasant. Even society itself might not exist anymore. Why would people interact with each other if there is nothing left to talk about that can't be instantly communicated? Why would people even spend time with each other if there are virtual realities to live in that are far more "fun". Spending eternity in a fantasy world sounds awful. Yes I want to cure diseases and make everyone rich, but if you keep going, make a machine that solves every last minor problem and does everything there is to do, then there is nothing left for us. And that's assuming that friendly AI is even possible, which I doubt it is, and I doubt will be discovered before AGI anyways. But either way the world we know will be utterly destroyed.
pistacchioso 13y ago
It's just a false clam and treated as such. Hacking a program that solves certain specific problems, given precise parameters and boundaries, like or better than a 4 year kid does not mean it has the intelligence of a being that routinely learns by himself, explores the world making up opinions about, expresses creativity and emotions. This is just like claiming that Google Translate is more intelligent that the average American first grader because it can translate from Hebrew to Finnish better.
- saosebastiao 13y ago
  An autistic savant can learn extremely well given precise parameters and boundaries...and yet may never learn to tie his shoes or look both ways before crossing the street. But we still call them intelligent.
  - tekromancr 13y ago
    I think that gets to the core question of intelligence. I think that is merely a question of functional complexity. I am more intelligent than an ant because the mechanics of my decision-making process are far more complex and tuned. The question of "Is X more intelligent then Y?" is meaningless without narrowly defining the word intelligence.
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      Practically speaking, intelligence is just the ability to achieve your goals. An AI, ideally, would have some kind of utility function and make predictions about what actions will lead to the highest utility. The better the AI, the better it's ability to make predictions and get the outcomes it wants. The amount of complexity is irrelevant. There are terribly complicated algorithms which do worse than simple ones.
      - tekromancr 13y ago
        I think part of it would be formulating goals. If you have a process that can very rapidly sum numbers, it ranks lower than one that is incapable of that speed, but can decide that summing numbers is a means to accomplish that goal.
thewarrior 13y ago
Why would you need AI to mass produce toothbrushes ?

tantalor 13y ago

The fact is ConceptNet does not claim to be a general intelligence, so comparing it to a four-year-old is comparing apples to oranges.

Houshalter 13y ago

Be glad that we don't have AGI yet. The world would be a very different place with machines much smarter than us.

MichaelApproved 13y ago
AGI - Artificial General Intelligence.
Jach 13y ago
I'm sad because such a world is probably a better one, so long as the AGI is Friendly and doesn't turn us into paperclips or worse.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  I don't know. It honestly sounds boring to live in a world where all our problems have been solved and there is nothing left to do or accomplish. Maybe we will all live in simulated realities, but that sounds kind of dystopic to me.
  - Jach 13y ago
    That sounds more like a failure of imagination than an argument that there will be no more fun or challenge or creative endeavors in the universe once the worst of our problems are solved. Do you really think that in a future where you no longer have to worry about death and taxes, and you have a superior brain which you can modify however you want, thus ending akrasia and unwanted depression among other things like having an even deeper sense of fun or an understanding of new problems we can't even fathom yet at our current development, that you will have less fun than you're having right now, today, reading HN? You might like to read http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      What would be the point in doing anything? Anything you could build, program, or discover, could be done ten times better by an AI. It could probably even design entertainment, like movies, games, music, etc, far better than human artists. A version of myself with vastly increased intelligence sounds interesting, but I'm not even sure it would be me. If you make enough modifications to your brain you become a completely different being. Different personality and thought process and little resemblance to who I am now. Which is disturbing to me at least. Along the thought of living inside of a computer doesn't exactly sound pleasant. Even society itself might not exist anymore. Why would people interact with each other if there is nothing left to talk about that can't be instantly communicated? Why would people even spend time with each other if there are virtual realities to live in that are far more "fun". Spending eternity in a fantasy world sounds awful. Yes I want to cure diseases and make everyone rich, but if you keep going, make a machine that solves every last minor problem and does everything there is to do, then there is nothing left for us. And that's assuming that friendly AI is even possible, which I doubt it is, and I doubt will be discovered before AGI anyways. But either way the world we know will be utterly destroyed.

pistacchioso 13y ago

It's just a false clam and treated as such. Hacking a program that solves certain specific problems, given precise parameters and boundaries, like or better than a 4 year kid does not mean it has the intelligence of a being that routinely learns by himself, explores the world making up opinions about, expresses creativity and emotions. This is just like claiming that Google Translate is more intelligent that the average American first grader because it can translate from Hebrew to Finnish better.

saosebastiao 13y ago
An autistic savant can learn extremely well given precise parameters and boundaries...and yet may never learn to tie his shoes or look both ways before crossing the street. But we still call them intelligent.
- tekromancr 13y ago
  I think that gets to the core question of intelligence. I think that is merely a question of functional complexity. I am more intelligent than an ant because the mechanics of my decision-making process are far more complex and tuned. The question of "Is X more intelligent then Y?" is meaningless without narrowly defining the word intelligence.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Practically speaking, intelligence is just the ability to achieve your goals. An AI, ideally, would have some kind of utility function and make predictions about what actions will lead to the highest utility. The better the AI, the better it's ability to make predictions and get the outcomes it wants. The amount of complexity is irrelevant. There are terribly complicated algorithms which do worse than simple ones.
    - tekromancr 13y ago
      I think part of it would be formulating goals. If you have a process that can very rapidly sum numbers, it ranks lower than one that is incapable of that speed, but can decide that summing numbers is a means to accomplish that goal.

thewarrior 13y ago

Why would you need AI to mass produce toothbrushes ?