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I have a hard time taking these kinds of posts seriously. Maybe I'm not up to date on AI research, but I draw a distinction between a conscious program and str

by daenz 12y ago

I have a hard time taking these kinds of posts seriously. Maybe I'm not up to date on AI research, but I draw a distinction between a conscious program and strong AI. So what, a program can identify the type of clothing specific person is wearing from a video using cutting-edge machine learning and computer vision. So what, a program can interpret the movie I'm talking about just from hearing me describe a scene in it. So what, a program can beat the human champion in Jeopardy. Are those programs super intelligent? I don't believe we're close to building something with any sort of self-directed "purpose." The fact that we can't even discern a purpose for ourselves makes it all the less likely. I think we're implementing very advanced machine learning algorithms, but I don't think those translate to consciousness. The consciousness we have is a product of an unfathomable amount of time being molded and naturally selected specifically for this world. Now, do I think that AI capabilities are something to worry about? Sure. If you give a sufficiently "intelligent" AI mobility and a weapon, I think that becomes a serious threat. But am I worried about using AI to efficiently manage our resources, and have it go rogue and choose to wipe out humanity? Nope.

AceJohnny2 12y ago
> So what, a program can identify the type of clothing specific person is wearing from a video using cutting-edge machine learning and computer vision. So what, a program can interpret the movie I'm talking about just from hearing me describe a scene in it. So what, a program can beat the human champion in Jeopardy. Are those programs super intelligent? All these programs are doing great at recognizing things. Neural networks are good at that, and "deep learning" has been a breathrough in the field (even if overhyped). This is reactive. I don't see anyone showing algorithms that can do good planning. A good "cuccoo field" for that would be video games, where such planning systems would be a holy grail. For now, we only have ad-hoc and specialized systems.
- jal278 12y ago
  Perhaps you missed this: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature1... A neural network that learns to play 40 different atari games at human-competitive level given only raw pixels and a few days of play time.
- DennisP 12y ago
  Planning is a big part of AI. One example is a recent system[1] that learned to play 49 Atari games, most at better than human skill. It had no specific programming for playing those games, or even video games in general. Its only input was the game video and the score, which it tried to optimize, and it was programmed to learn from its mistakes. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a14276/why-this-atari-playing-algorithm-could-be-the-future-of-ai/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a14276/why-th...
- aamar 12y ago
  As others have indicated, AI planning is a significant field, critical to self-driving cars, space probes, etc. Markov Decision Processes is a great sub-field. > A good "cuccoo field" for that would be video games, where such planning systems would be a holy grail. The game developer conventional wisdom for some time has been that very good AI is not worth building [1] because it is not very entertaining. I believe that's by far the dominant opinion. But, there are some interesting ways that AI is being explored in ways other than strong AI opponents [2]. [1] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-part-1-the-lost-future-of-ai/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-p... [2] http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/sitemaker/workshop/27/vanLent.pdf http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/sitemaker/workshop/27/vanLen...
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
I think the whole debate is confused and irrational. Most software has purpose. E.g. nmap has a purpose, and can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Imagine taking nmap up a notch or two, and creating an automated source code parser that looks for code patterns that correlate with previous security vulns. You now have a dangerous tool made out of some fairly basic machine learning (or even just regex - it probably doesn't need to be very clever). It's nowhere close to being conscious. It's certainly not going to pass the Turing test. Is it an AI? No. But it doesn't need to be. So I think the debate is missing some very obvious threats and possible Red Queen races that are likely <i>now</i>, and don't require any game-changing developments. There's already an ecosystem of viruses, a culture of script-kiddies and black hats, and the NSA to worry about. Consciousness is really not the issue. There's plenty of problematic consciousness around already. The fact that it's human doesn't make it safer to live with.

by daenz 12y ago

AceJohnny2 12y ago

> So what, a program can identify the type of clothing specific person is wearing from a video using cutting-edge machine learning and computer vision. So what, a program can interpret the movie I'm talking about just from hearing me describe a scene in it. So what, a program can beat the human champion in Jeopardy. Are those programs super intelligent? All these programs are doing great at recognizing things. Neural networks are good at that, and "deep learning" has been a breathrough in the field (even if overhyped). This is reactive. I don't see anyone showing algorithms that can do good planning. A good "cuccoo field" for that would be video games, where such planning systems would be a holy grail. For now, we only have ad-hoc and specialized systems.

jal278 12y ago
Perhaps you missed this: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature1... A neural network that learns to play 40 different atari games at human-competitive level given only raw pixels and a few days of play time.
DennisP 12y ago
Planning is a big part of AI. One example is a recent system[1] that learned to play 49 Atari games, most at better than human skill. It had no specific programming for playing those games, or even video games in general. Its only input was the game video and the score, which it tried to optimize, and it was programmed to learn from its mistakes. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a14276/why-this-atari-playing-algorithm-could-be-the-future-of-ai/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a14276/why-th...
aamar 12y ago
As others have indicated, AI planning is a significant field, critical to self-driving cars, space probes, etc. Markov Decision Processes is a great sub-field. > A good "cuccoo field" for that would be video games, where such planning systems would be a holy grail. The game developer conventional wisdom for some time has been that very good AI is not worth building [1] because it is not very entertaining. I believe that's by far the dominant opinion. But, there are some interesting ways that AI is being explored in ways other than strong AI opponents [2]. [1] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-part-1-the-lost-future-of-ai/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-p... [2] http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/sitemaker/workshop/27/vanLent.pdf http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/sitemaker/workshop/27/vanLen...

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

I think the whole debate is confused and irrational. Most software has purpose. E.g. nmap has a purpose, and can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Imagine taking nmap up a notch or two, and creating an automated source code parser that looks for code patterns that correlate with previous security vulns. You now have a dangerous tool made out of some fairly basic machine learning (or even just regex - it probably doesn't need to be very clever). It's nowhere close to being conscious. It's certainly not going to pass the Turing test. Is it an AI? No. But it doesn't need to be. So I think the debate is missing some very obvious threats and possible Red Queen races that are likely <i>now</i>, and don't require any game-changing developments. There's already an ecosystem of viruses, a culture of script-kiddies and black hats, and the NSA to worry about. Consciousness is really not the issue. There's plenty of problematic consciousness around already. The fact that it's human doesn't make it safer to live with.