4 ms·

"I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 10^9, to make them play the imitation g

by NhanH 12y ago

"I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 10^9, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning." - You-Know-Who, in 1950. It's a bit ironic that Sam missed this one quote that would have be very relevant to the post, both in term of the conclusion and the topic at hand (it's hard to predict stuffs) ;). It's interesting to note that the prediction was wrong on both counts: our machine is like a gazillion times more powerful than the quote, and we're doing nowhere near the capability of the prediction. From the last HN comments on the topic, while it's true that there are certain people who believe that strong AI is impossible, the stance I've got from AI/robotics researchers were that it's just silly to talk about general AI at this point: it's so far away. This post from Karpathy would be one, for example: http://karpathy.github.io/2012/10/22/state-of-computer-vision/ http://karpathy.github.io/2012/10/22/state-of-computer-visio... . Because of that, any talk and concern on the topic is a bit silly, especially about regulation of the subject. I mean, can you imagine people in the 1600 trying to figure out how to regulate the air traffic that we have right now? Or should we talk about space travel regulation now? Because seriously, chance are that will happen before we have singularity/ strong AI. If we're really concern about the danger of strong AI, then I'm more in favored dealing with it by the way of Eliezer Yudkowsky and the Singularity Institute (by making sure that whatever we're researching toward is "Friendly"). Even though I'm also thinking that they're too optimistic. I'm not against immortality in my lifetime though. Now, a talk about more sophisticated automated/ autonomous system that do funny things (in a good or bad way), or their risk, that's something worth discussing about. For a fun (philosophical) remark, if the robots are to become our overlords, it may be a bad idea trying to regulate them! Google "Roko's basilisk" for more details

pjungwir 12y ago
I'm glad someone is challenging this incredibly glib argument in support of taking away freedoms and smothering innovation under regulation, because of poorly-defined fears that experts mostly discount. Sam's proposal for regulation depends on a prediction too. It is no less a prediction than those who disagree with him. Not every technology we can dream up is destined to come true. Is strong, hostile AI the same kind of tech as warp drives and teleporters and flying cars? Who can say? So to me this post argues against Sam's goal of regulations, because why should we take away freedoms for the sake of such a dubious prediction?
- ggreer 12y ago
  Unlike your warp drive or teleporter examples, we're pretty sure human-level AI is possible because human-level natural intelligence exists. The brain isn't magic. Eventually, people will figure out the algorithms running on it, then improve them. After that, there's nothing to stop the algorithms from improving themselves. And they can be greatly improved. Current brains are nowhere near the pinnacle of possible intelligences. > Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization—a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it. — Nick Bostrom. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies[1] 1. http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom-ebook/dp/B00LOOCGB2/ http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-N...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - duderific 12y ago
    It seems to me merely figuring out the algorithms isn't enough; you have to have a similar scale of processing power, and the brain has some 100 trillion connections, which cannot easily be replicated with silicon chips. So for all intents and purposes, the brain might as well be magic. I suppose someday we'll be able to grow brain tissue and use it in a computing environment. Maybe that will allow us to approach true AI.
    - leot 12y ago
      Here is some knowledge: http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf
  - pjungwir 12y ago
    Thank you for your response! I agree that unlike a warp drive we can at least say that intelligence exists. But I think that is begging the question. For as long as we have records, people have experienced the mind as something sui generis compared to the physical. Maybe it's not magic, but it's far from understood. I think it remains to be seen if it is replicatable by physical processes.
dougmany 12y ago
The article you linked with ends with "only way to build computers that can interpret scenes like we do is to allow them to get exposed to all the years of (structured, temporally coherent) experience we have" This may appear daunting until you realize robots can share memories. Five robots running around for a year is equivalent to one robot running around for five years. Does not Google have 25 cars driving around experiencing the world right now? I also see skeptics running to computer vision as an example of how far we are from human level AI. Is that just the hardest problem to solve? Is it the most useful problem to solve?
- craigching 12y ago
  Besides sharing, who's to say that the machines couldn't do it faster/more efficiently than humans do and so gain the experience at a faster rate.
- edejong 12y ago
  That seems reasonable, until you factor in that language and communication are itself part of intelligent life. Sharing knowledge and cooperation are fundamental to learning and intelligence, keeping in mind that these learned strategies are fundamentally asymmetric (and thus cannot be shared by simple copying). We need to appreciate that intelligence is not an individual trait, but part of a shared strategy, utilizing diversity to be able to react quickly to changing demands. For example, lets say we have a group of people with a shared task of moving a (large) set of boxes from one source to one destination. When performing this task initially, different strategies are tried and a winning strategy is chosen, without one person coordinating the group and without each individual having total knowledge of the strategy. However, when a similar task is presented, the group will quickly perform the winning strategy again. Who possesses the intelligence? Would we gain anything when all the knowledge would be shared? (Given limited time and space, the answer is no for most strategies)
- deeviant 12y ago
  The statement is all kinds of wrong. You can transfer large quantities of data to an intelligent computer system nearly instantaneous. It seems plausible that this data could encapsulate said years of experience. What is missing is that ability to create a computer than can process said data and create consciousness with it. Sure in the first truly AI-capable systems it will most likely be easier training them over the years in human-time, but it seems to me very unlikely to be needed when AI becomes established and at that point you should be able to create X copies of intelligence(s) at will. And for all this talk about AI terminator doomsdays, these seems to be much less talk about what can be accomplished with it. Let's say you create AI system, it lives in a air-gapped system, the system is carefully crafted to establish reality for the AI(s) that exists solely in the virtual world. Then you create a scientist AI, mathematician AI, engineer AI, etc. Then you have a hard problem you want to solve, great, spin up 1000 scientist AI's, 10000 engineer AI's, X project coordinator AI's, etc. Let's just say they have roughly the same capabilities as their human counterparts and work at similar speed, but do not sleep, grow tired, form unions, nor do anything other than work on the task assigned. Create a system (API?) that allows them to somehow interact with our physical reality but without understanding it whatsoever to allow them to do experiments and test results. How long would it take for such a system to recreate all of google's infrastructure, or develop the next space shuttle, or cure cancer? I think it's important to note the a true AI(however you define it) does not have to be self aware. It doesn't even have to be aware of our physical reality. Once we reach the point where we understand consciousness well enough to recreate it, it seems likely that will be able to tune it however which way we'd like: remove self-consciousness making it act on more what we would consider instinct, configure it's reward pathways in whatever way the directs the agent to whatever task the AI designer wishes and yes, even improve it. It will be very interesting when the system spins on not 1 average human level engineer but something like a Einstein-Newton hybrid that works several orders of magnitude faster than human time. I would guess the danger there would be less from the AI(as you could isolate it from our physical reality by isolating in a virtual world) and more the extremely advanced knowledge/technology gained from such a system.
dynofuz 12y ago
What are your thoughts on AI? Poll: AI Possible or Not, Friend or Foe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140132
kashkhan 12y ago
yep beam transportation a'la star trek is just round the corner. The fools that say it will take a thousands years are just as misguided as einstein was on nuclear energy. We need to urgently enact regulation for beaming, otherwise bad androids might start beaming themselves into my bedroom.
nhaehnle 12y ago
> our machine is like a gazillion times more powerful than the quote Really? Around 2000, storage capacity of 10^9 sounds pretty reasonable. Given that this is a prediction that's trying to hit an exponential development on a half-century time scale, I find it pretty impressive.
- teraflop 12y ago
  Yeah, I fairly-arbitrarily picked an advertisement from the January 2000 issue of PC Magazine, and it looks like $750 would buy you a machine with 10^9 bits of RAM and 10^11 bits of hard disk space, so depending on how you define "storage capacity" it's uncannily accurate. https://books.google.com/books?id=UEgKC-lu4_IC&lpg=PA32&dq=pc%20mag%202000&pg=PA245#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=UEgKC-lu4_IC&lpg=PA32&dq=p...
- NhanH 12y ago
  I wasn't thinking of personal computer when I wrote the comment. I was thinking about more of a state-of-the-art super computer type (in 2000 that would have been ASCI RED), which would have probably be the same magnitude in term of physical size with "computer" in Turing time! Prediction should be judged based on "the best it could be". Otherwise, it seems like an arbitrary pick (why personal computer and not tablet?), doesn't it? Anyway, since it's an exponential development, the line between "supercomputer" to "big server" to "personal computer" is only a few years off. So yes, it was impressive. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I meant that even with access to computing power a gazillion more powerful than mentioning in the quote (again, not personal computer), we still couldn't pass the Turing test. The prediction was off on both the necessary computing resources, as well as the difficulty of the test itself.
deciplex 12y ago
> For a fun (philosophical) remark, if the robots are to become our overlords, it may be a bad idea trying to regulate them! Google "Roko's basilisk" for more details Eh... not everyone should look up Roko's basilisk. If you're the sort that takes thought experiments really seriously sometimes, like if you hyperventilate just by imagining certain barely-possible possible worlds, then you probably shouldn't Google it. That probably isn't going to prevent anyone from actually doing it I guess, but just know that there are a particular set of neuroses that would indicate you should not be exposed to the idea. You've been warned :-)

by NhanH 12y ago

pjungwir 12y ago

I'm glad someone is challenging this incredibly glib argument in support of taking away freedoms and smothering innovation under regulation, because of poorly-defined fears that experts mostly discount. Sam's proposal for regulation depends on a prediction too. It is no less a prediction than those who disagree with him. Not every technology we can dream up is destined to come true. Is strong, hostile AI the same kind of tech as warp drives and teleporters and flying cars? Who can say? So to me this post argues against Sam's goal of regulations, because why should we take away freedoms for the sake of such a dubious prediction?

ggreer 12y ago
Unlike your warp drive or teleporter examples, we're pretty sure human-level AI is possible because human-level natural intelligence exists. The brain isn't magic. Eventually, people will figure out the algorithms running on it, then improve them. After that, there's nothing to stop the algorithms from improving themselves. And they can be greatly improved. Current brains are nowhere near the pinnacle of possible intelligences. > Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization—a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it. — Nick Bostrom. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies[1] 1. http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom-ebook/dp/B00LOOCGB2/ http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-N...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- duderific 12y ago
  It seems to me merely figuring out the algorithms isn't enough; you have to have a similar scale of processing power, and the brain has some 100 trillion connections, which cannot easily be replicated with silicon chips. So for all intents and purposes, the brain might as well be magic. I suppose someday we'll be able to grow brain tissue and use it in a computing environment. Maybe that will allow us to approach true AI.
  - leot 12y ago
    Here is some knowledge: http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf
- pjungwir 12y ago
  Thank you for your response! I agree that unlike a warp drive we can at least say that intelligence exists. But I think that is begging the question. For as long as we have records, people have experienced the mind as something sui generis compared to the physical. Maybe it's not magic, but it's far from understood. I think it remains to be seen if it is replicatable by physical processes.

dougmany 12y ago

The article you linked with ends with "only way to build computers that can interpret scenes like we do is to allow them to get exposed to all the years of (structured, temporally coherent) experience we have" This may appear daunting until you realize robots can share memories. Five robots running around for a year is equivalent to one robot running around for five years. Does not Google have 25 cars driving around experiencing the world right now? I also see skeptics running to computer vision as an example of how far we are from human level AI. Is that just the hardest problem to solve? Is it the most useful problem to solve?

craigching 12y ago
Besides sharing, who's to say that the machines couldn't do it faster/more efficiently than humans do and so gain the experience at a faster rate.
edejong 12y ago
That seems reasonable, until you factor in that language and communication are itself part of intelligent life. Sharing knowledge and cooperation are fundamental to learning and intelligence, keeping in mind that these learned strategies are fundamentally asymmetric (and thus cannot be shared by simple copying). We need to appreciate that intelligence is not an individual trait, but part of a shared strategy, utilizing diversity to be able to react quickly to changing demands. For example, lets say we have a group of people with a shared task of moving a (large) set of boxes from one source to one destination. When performing this task initially, different strategies are tried and a winning strategy is chosen, without one person coordinating the group and without each individual having total knowledge of the strategy. However, when a similar task is presented, the group will quickly perform the winning strategy again. Who possesses the intelligence? Would we gain anything when all the knowledge would be shared? (Given limited time and space, the answer is no for most strategies)
deeviant 12y ago
The statement is all kinds of wrong. You can transfer large quantities of data to an intelligent computer system nearly instantaneous. It seems plausible that this data could encapsulate said years of experience. What is missing is that ability to create a computer than can process said data and create consciousness with it. Sure in the first truly AI-capable systems it will most likely be easier training them over the years in human-time, but it seems to me very unlikely to be needed when AI becomes established and at that point you should be able to create X copies of intelligence(s) at will. And for all this talk about AI terminator doomsdays, these seems to be much less talk about what can be accomplished with it. Let's say you create AI system, it lives in a air-gapped system, the system is carefully crafted to establish reality for the AI(s) that exists solely in the virtual world. Then you create a scientist AI, mathematician AI, engineer AI, etc. Then you have a hard problem you want to solve, great, spin up 1000 scientist AI's, 10000 engineer AI's, X project coordinator AI's, etc. Let's just say they have roughly the same capabilities as their human counterparts and work at similar speed, but do not sleep, grow tired, form unions, nor do anything other than work on the task assigned. Create a system (API?) that allows them to somehow interact with our physical reality but without understanding it whatsoever to allow them to do experiments and test results. How long would it take for such a system to recreate all of google's infrastructure, or develop the next space shuttle, or cure cancer? I think it's important to note the a true AI(however you define it) does not have to be self aware. It doesn't even have to be aware of our physical reality. Once we reach the point where we understand consciousness well enough to recreate it, it seems likely that will be able to tune it however which way we'd like: remove self-consciousness making it act on more what we would consider instinct, configure it's reward pathways in whatever way the directs the agent to whatever task the AI designer wishes and yes, even improve it. It will be very interesting when the system spins on not 1 average human level engineer but something like a Einstein-Newton hybrid that works several orders of magnitude faster than human time. I would guess the danger there would be less from the AI(as you could isolate it from our physical reality by isolating in a virtual world) and more the extremely advanced knowledge/technology gained from such a system.

dynofuz 12y ago

What are your thoughts on AI? Poll: AI Possible or Not, Friend or Foe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9140132

kashkhan 12y ago

yep beam transportation a'la star trek is just round the corner. The fools that say it will take a thousands years are just as misguided as einstein was on nuclear energy. We need to urgently enact regulation for beaming, otherwise bad androids might start beaming themselves into my bedroom.

nhaehnle 12y ago

> our machine is like a gazillion times more powerful than the quote Really? Around 2000, storage capacity of 10^9 sounds pretty reasonable. Given that this is a prediction that's trying to hit an exponential development on a half-century time scale, I find it pretty impressive.

teraflop 12y ago
Yeah, I fairly-arbitrarily picked an advertisement from the January 2000 issue of PC Magazine, and it looks like $750 would buy you a machine with 10^9 bits of RAM and 10^11 bits of hard disk space, so depending on how you define "storage capacity" it's uncannily accurate. https://books.google.com/books?id=UEgKC-lu4_IC&lpg=PA32&dq=pc%20mag%202000&pg=PA245#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=UEgKC-lu4_IC&lpg=PA32&dq=p...
NhanH 12y ago
I wasn't thinking of personal computer when I wrote the comment. I was thinking about more of a state-of-the-art super computer type (in 2000 that would have been ASCI RED), which would have probably be the same magnitude in term of physical size with "computer" in Turing time! Prediction should be judged based on "the best it could be". Otherwise, it seems like an arbitrary pick (why personal computer and not tablet?), doesn't it? Anyway, since it's an exponential development, the line between "supercomputer" to "big server" to "personal computer" is only a few years off. So yes, it was impressive. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I meant that even with access to computing power a gazillion more powerful than mentioning in the quote (again, not personal computer), we still couldn't pass the Turing test. The prediction was off on both the necessary computing resources, as well as the difficulty of the test itself.

deciplex 12y ago

> For a fun (philosophical) remark, if the robots are to become our overlords, it may be a bad idea trying to regulate them! Google "Roko's basilisk" for more details Eh... not everyone should look up Roko's basilisk. If you're the sort that takes thought experiments really seriously sometimes, like if you hyperventilate just by imagining certain barely-possible possible worlds, then you probably shouldn't Google it. That probably isn't going to prevent anyone from actually doing it I guess, but just know that there are a particular set of neuroses that would indicate you should not be exposed to the idea. You've been warned :-)