tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post3631472947069971877..comments2023-10-30T04:16:25.917-04:00Comments on Sentient Developments: Hear that? It's the Singularity coming.Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13003484633933455827noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-10108113719235636112011-07-07T18:21:49.840-04:002011-07-07T18:21:49.840-04:00I'm studying AI at the moment from the perspec...I'm studying AI at the moment from the perspectives of natural and artificial intelligence. One of the concepts I've been particularly taken with is that of emergent behaviour. In a system that that utilises emergent behaviour its extremely difficult if not impossible to understand the minutia of what is going on in the system at any given time, it's unpredictable to a large degree. But interestingly, what becomes clear is that it is the complex emergent behaviour that is important and not the underlying detail. An example is the use of ant colony optimisation in communications network routing.<br /><br />The point I'm making is that a brain like system could potentially be constructed with the intention of generating consciousness as an emergent behaviour without our needing to obsess over the possibly incalculable processes taking place. To achieve this we would need a better understanding of those basic processes of the cortex and a shed load more computing power. Both of which are obtainable in the near term.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16376596267483256845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-69040540685680167122011-07-05T18:12:15.534-04:002011-07-05T18:12:15.534-04:00I have a good friend in a related field who works ...I have a good friend in a related field who works a lot with genetic algorithms, and we've spent a fair amount of time discussing their implementation. I've tended to view it through the lens of FPGA design synthesis, which also generates results too complex for us to understand in a direct way. Basically, both of our experiences have led us to believe that these things are exceedingly difficult to integrate into a fully functional system, and basically never work by accident. Yet, that's how I tend to see George's description of expert systems taking on capabilities. I've never seen an expert-type system that doesn't start to break down very rapidly outside carefully-defined scenarios, and there are a lot of good theoretical reasons to believe that this is not an accident. It would be like saltational speciation in evolution: an evocative idea that keeps coming up, but there's good reasons to believe it has never happened in all of evolutionary history.<br /><br />Thus I think that the real "danger" is of humans intentionally integrating expert systems into a proven multi-modal attention and goal management system: the human brain. That's not to say that this would involve veridical neurons; I'm really just claiming that the only near-term-accessible plan for integrating all sorts of new perceptual/inferential capabilities is something at least roughly modeled on the human brain.<br /><br />I disagree with ZarPaulus about how much progress we've made toward understanding the brain, and I think humanlike AI is highly achievable in the next 2-3 decades. I also think that such 'human' AI entities could, if developed for military or similar purposes, 'leave out' some of the troublesome parts of brain design that make us recognizably human, producing useful sociopaths and the like. Or they *don't* leave out those parts, but condition those AIs not to see themselves as one of us but as Others. That's my fear.<br /><br />But the truly alien intelligences? I just don't see them working well in complex environments without direction from humans to close the design feedback loop, and even then the level of integration would be limited by our own capacity for managing complexity. Maybe a subsequent generation of augmented humans might get into more trouble on this point, but of course I can't speculate much into the other side of the Singularity.Natohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05273666908715766390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-18613293630400943582011-07-04T22:25:31.290-04:002011-07-04T22:25:31.290-04:00I believe there will be a singularity or rather th...I believe there will be a singularity or rather that ultimately we will develop AI represented in software.<br /><br />The timescales that are floating around for this occuring seem wildy optimistic to me though. I would love to be wrong about this.<br /><br />I think we are not really very good at programming yet, have very little grasp on intelligence and even less knowledge about how we create new knowledge.<br /><br />So I ultimately agree we will get there but would probabaly add another 50, 100, 200 years to Kurzweil's projections.Chehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08365841071725848998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-48774960968190968762011-07-04T18:25:21.828-04:002011-07-04T18:25:21.828-04:00Great article.
There is an irresistible process dr...Great article.<br />There is an irresistible process driving us toward our future. Like it or not we are heading into the radically unknown in the very near term.<br /><br />It is very important that we should be as aware as possible about what is happening and what may happen so that we are able to deal with it and (hopefully) benefit.<br /><br />I don't like the term Singularity personally, it tends to foster an image of nerd culture or religion. It is not an event, it is merely a point in time in our near future beyond which it is impossible to predict anything for Humanity. I would highly recommend anyone to do even the most brief of research into this subject. It is important.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16376596267483256845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-41762359070930265542011-07-03T23:58:09.677-04:002011-07-03T23:58:09.677-04:00Excellent article, George !Excellent article, George !Martin Andersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10889102674534999108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-11863399843918530622011-07-02T15:47:08.480-04:002011-07-02T15:47:08.480-04:00This is what I hear: *crickets*
To extrapolate fr...This is what I hear: *crickets*<br /><br />To extrapolate from chess and Jeopardy victories to some grandiose transcendence of humanity via computers is an insane fallacy. These machines are idiot-savants; they have no consciousness, no creativity, no imagination of any kind. <br /><br />The proper use of computers is to construct a Matrix where we can escape from this hostile universe into the Multiverse of our minds. The kind of technology you're talking about leads directly to AI arms races, robot wars and cybernetic apocalypse. Wake up, you fool!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-71234237054534651632011-06-30T10:55:19.841-04:002011-06-30T10:55:19.841-04:00I can give you three of my own reasons why there w...I can give you three of my own reasons why there won't be a Singularity:<br /><br />1. Neurons are not transistors: The impulses traveling down an axon and across a synapse may be discrete, but the impulses coming in through the dendrites and going through the cell body vary immensely in strength. The brain is more like a hybrid system with analog inputs and digital outputs but even then that's a very poor analogy.<br /><br />2. Processing power is just speed: Assuming we do succeed in making a human equivalent AI and Moore's law holds out long enough for us to give it considerably more processing power than a human brain, that won't make automatically make it any smarter than a human. It'll just think a lot faster and be much better at multi-tasking. In fact it would probably go insane trying to communicate with us "meat-glaciers".<br /><br />3. The brain is still a mystery: We've barely scratched the surface of the thing that gives us consciousness, and most attempts at messing with it have given us poor results.<br /><br />And I don't want to hear a word about "seed AI", evolution is too much of a crapshoot. Not to mention too inefficient for most investors.ZarPaulushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10923548883992534673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-83688987998843815142011-06-30T02:55:47.194-04:002011-06-30T02:55:47.194-04:00Hi George,
It seems like you're envisioning a...Hi George,<br /><br />It seems like you're envisioning a singularity with distinct machine and human components, wherein the people quickly get surpassed by the technology. <br /><br />Is that right, or do you think it's likely that humans themselves will integrate with the technology (via implants or nanobots or something external) such that they remain, if not equal to the technology, at least nearby peers? Wouldn't even super-intelligent programs be able to come up with creative solutions to the problems of integrating man and machine?<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />JohnAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com