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slatestarcodex's profile
Scott Alexander
Scott Alexander
Scott Alexander
@slatestarcodex

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Scott Alexander

@slatestarcodex

I have a place where I say complicated things about philosophy and science. That place is my blog. This is where I make terrible puns.

slatestarcodex.com
Joined June 2013

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    1. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 20 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @slatestarcodex

      What I'm really missing here is an argument or evidence that is it indeed feasible to cross the threshold between solving symbolic rule systems / concrete pattern matching tasks, and super(general)intelligence. AlphaGo isn't evidence towards that according to me.

      1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
    2. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap

      Seems like a weird place to put the burden of proof. "Sure, cars went at 20 mph last year and 30 mph this year, but nobody can prove we can ever make a 40 mph car, so why worry?"

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    3. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @slatestarcodex @norswap

      I agree it's possible that at some point the hitherto-consistently-improving wave of AI progress hits a mysterious brick wall and stops because our brains are magic and impossible to replicate, but I don't think it should be our default assumption.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    4. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @slatestarcodex @norswap

      Also, some of the stuff going on with machine vision now seems very different from just symbolic rules / concrete pattern matching. Ability to replicate vague artistic styles seems like good example of moving beyond the easily discretized. Obviously still far from human level.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    5. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @slatestarcodex

      What neural nets do is approximate a mathematical functions: a mapping from a set of bits to another. I can see the artistic styles used in the experiment being expressed as a mathematical transform: apply some filters, turn a few knobs on your image editor.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    6. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap @slatestarcodex

      AI has not progressed constantly but rather by fits and starts. And each time the view of what was possible has been over-optimistic, on the "natural language solved by next summer" scale.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    7. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap @slatestarcodex

      What we see currently, I think: the low-hanging fruits of a new technique (actually an old technique finally made practical) and the higher-hanging fruits of painstakingly combining it with other well established AI building blocks (Alpha Go).

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    8. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap @slatestarcodex

      Computing is, as a rule, not that surprising. Solving Go is certainly not outside the realm of the imaginable. Neural nets were conceived decades ago. But the vaguely-defined superintelligence, that is something else, more akin to making you 20 mph cars reach Mach 1.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    9. Norswap  🏴‍☠️‏ @norswap 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap @slatestarcodex

      Many things that the FAQ describes it as capable off, I think can be achieved - even with today's ideas given enough work. But to think of techniques that would enable all of them, and go beyond, I haven't an inkling how that could be done. No one has.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    10. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @norswap

      Everything in AI seems boring once it's been accomplished. People used to say that beating humans at chess would mean an AI had true creative thought; now even making beautiful art doesn't. When AIs are superintelligent, that'll look like "just math" too.

      1 reply 2 retweets 5 likes
      Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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      Replying to @slatestarcodex @norswap

      Although there has definitely been a lot of hype about AI, a lot of the "natural language solved by next summer" style stories are urban legends. See https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence/what-should-we-learn-past-ai-forecasts … .

      7:48 PM - 21 Dec 2017
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        2. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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          Replying to @slatestarcodex @norswap

          My impression from talking to AI researchers is people generally underestimated pace of AI progress over past 5-10 years. EG just before AlphaGo, people predicted would be decades before AIs could beat people at Go. Some aspects of vision/speech recognition equally impressive.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Scott Alexander‏ @slatestarcodex 21 Dec 2017
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          Replying to @slatestarcodex @norswap

          I agree can't make superintelligence today, requires new insights. But to stick to your metaphor, only 40 years between 20 mph Model T and first Mach 1 flight. Good forecaster in 1910 wouldn't have said "There's no way to reach Mach 1 now, so probably we never will".

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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