Re: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Lukasz Stafiniak
On 10/12/07, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > some of us are much impressed by it. Anyone with even a surface grasp > of the basic concept on a math level will realize that there's no > difference between self-modifying and writing an outside copy of > yourself, but *either one* i

Re: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
Tim Freeman wrote: My point is that if one is worried about a self-improving Seed AI exploding, one should also be worried about any AI that competently writes software exploding. There *is* a slight gap between competently writing software and competently writing minds. Large by human stand

RE: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Derek Zahn
Linas Vepstas:> > >Let's take Novamente as an example. ... It cannot improve itself> > >until the following things happen:> > >> > >1) It acquires the knowledge and skills to become a competent> > > programmer, a task that takes a human many years of directed> > > training and practical experien

Re: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Tim Freeman
From: Derek Zahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >You seem to think that self-reference buys you nothing at all since it >is a simple matter for the first AGI projects to reinvent their own >equivalent from scratch, but I'm not sure that's true. The "from scratch" part is a straw-man argument. The AGI projec

Re: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Linas Vepstas
> >Let's take Novamente as an example. ... It cannot improve itself > >until the following things happen: > > > >1) It acquires the knowledge and skills to become a competent > > programmer, a task that takes a human many years of directed > > training and practical experience. Wrong. This wa

Re: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Vladimir Nesov
Derek, Tim, There is no oversight: self-improvement doesn't necessarily refer to actual instance of self that is to be improved, but to AGI's design. Next thing must be better than previous one for runaway progress to happen, and one way of doing it is for next thing to be a refinement of previous

RE: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Derek Zahn
Tim Freeman:> No value is> added by introducing considerations about self-reference into> conversations about the consequences of AI engineering.> > Junior geeks do find it impressive, though. The point of that conversation was to illustrate that if people are worried about Seed AI exploding, th

RE: Self-improvement is not a special case (was Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content)

2007-10-12 Thread Derek Zahn
Tim Freeman writes:> >Let's take Novamente as an example. ... It cannot improve itself> >until the following things happen:> >> >1) It acquires the knowledge and skills to become a competent> > programmer, a task that takes a human many years of directed> > training and practical experience.> >