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I believe human-level general intelligence (and beyond) is already inevitable, even if we don't make significant developments in "solving" intelligence. Project
by mappum 13y ago
I believe human-level general intelligence (and beyond) is already inevitable, even if we don't make significant developments in "solving" intelligence. Projects that are already developing stuff like this (e.g. IBM Blue Brain) are just copying the human brain as closely as possible. Of course, this isn't as efficient as it could be (they simulate it all at the molecular level, so you can only get 1 neuron per CPU). However, as Moore's Law progresses, even if we don't make the software more efficient, we will eventually be able to create a fully functional simulation.
But if you look at the history of technology, things we create aren't usually exactly based on models seen in nature. Airplanes aren't exactly like birds. I believe we will find a more "man made" model for general intelligence (maybe not even a neuronal model) that works much more efficiently with the hardware we have available.
Going back to the airplane analogy, we already have the people who strap wooden wings to their arms and jump off buildings (like Blue Brain), but we are looking for the first Wright brothers design.
- elwell 13y ago> things aren't usually exactly based on models seen in nature I prefer to view everything as nature and natural.
- mappum 13y agoMore specifically, I mean systems designed by biological evolution vs. systems designed by human thought.
- elwell 13y agoPartially relevant link to resource helping engineers think in terms of biomimicry: http://www.asknature.org/ http://www.asknature.org/
- napoleond 13y agoI think that airplane analogy is really important for innovation in general. A lot of the activity often ascribed to progress really just amounts to someone building a lighter set of wings for the guy getting ready to jump off a building. (The counterargument, of course, being that that is progress--even if the lighter construction isn't too helpful in the current design it would be later on--but it's not the "macro" progress it's so often billed as.) Anyway, it's just interesting to be reminded that context is important. Being able to distinguish between insanity and genius seems like it would be a super-power.
- nl 13y agoThere are plenty of AI projects that don't copy the brain and are pretty successful. IBM Watson is the obvious example, and the many successful Deep Learning-powered image recognition projects are another.
- cma 13y agoThey don't simulate it at the molecular level. It takes super computers like DE Shaw's Anton (hundreds of customized cores specifically designed for molecular simulation) weeks to simulate a few milliseconds of one single protein in water. IBM's approach is at a much higher level and is taking way more shortcuts.
- mappum 13y agoYou're right, they take a lot of shortcuts, but the point I was making is that simulating parts of organic chemistry probably isn't inherently necessary for intelligence.
- lgas 13y agoLikewise, since all computation is equivalent[1], organic chemistry itself is not necessary for intelligence and in fact could be viewed as the "hard way" to achieve it :) [1] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquival...
- TeMPOraL 13y ago"So... why didn't the flapping-wing designs work? Birds flap wings and they fly. The flying machine flaps its wings. Why, oh why, doesn't it fly?" http://lesswrong.com/lw/vx/failure_by_analogy/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/vx/failure_by_analogy/ A very relevant article, both to the main topic and bird/airplane example. Yes, biology has solved some problems and can suggest some solutions, but we can't go cargo-cult on it and expect things to work just because they look similar.
- moconnor 13y agoWe were trying to make airplane-sized birds, which don't exist in nature for a variety of very good reasons. Equally, our materials science wasn't good enough for flapping wings at the time. I expect to see flapping wing designs appearing in micro-flyers within a decade. At the insect scale they're really useful: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/casestudies/2011/Pages/Tinyflyingmachineswillrevolutionisesurveillancework.aspx http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/casestudies/2011/Pages/Tin...
- giardini2 13y agoThe "airplane analogy" is flawed - we (so far) have no lower-level model as useful as those the Wright brothers had, namely, experimental aerodynamics. Furthermore, while pattern recognition is universally found in "living" critters, human intelligence seems to be uniquely different. We need to find the critical difference.