--- Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- Tom McCabe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > --- Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > I posted some comments on DIGG and looked at the > > > videos by Thiel and > > > Yudkowsky. I'm not sure I understand the push > to > > > build AGI with private > > > donations when companies like Google are already > > > pouring billions into the > > > problem. > > > > Private companies like Google are, as far as I am > > aware, spending exactly $0 on AGI. The things > Google > > is interested in, such as how humans process > > information and how they decide what is relevant, > are > > very specific subsets of this goal in the same way > > that "fire" and "iron" are very specific subsets > of > > the internal combustion engine. > > Language and vision are prerequisites to AGI.
No, they aren't, unless you care to suggest that someone with a defect who can't see and can't form sentences (eg, Helen Keller) is unintelligent. Any sufficiently intelligent AGI would be capable of learning language and vision, because it would have full power to rewrite its own source code, but it doesn't flow the other way; a full understanding of language and vision is so insufficient for AGI that you might as well invent the steam engine and use it to claim a patent on the jumbo jet. > Google has an interest in > improving search results. It already does a pretty > good job with natural > language questions. They would also like to return > relevant images, video, > and podcasts without requiring humans to label them. > They want to filter porn > and spam. They want to deliver relevant and > personalized ads. These are all > AI problems. Google has billions to spend on these > problems. Even if Google did all of these automatically on a 486 with ten times more accuracy than any human, it would only get us marginally closer to AGI, because these things are all only small bits and pieces of a working AGI. One of the most important things about an intelligence is its ability to learn, not just new data, but new algorithms; nobody is born knowing chess. Do you seriously think that a Google algorithm is going to be able to learn chess from scratch, without having it programmed in beforehand? That's the caliber of capability you need. > Google already have enough computing problem to do a > crude simulation of a > human brain, but of course that is not what they are > trying to do. Why would > they want to copy human motivations? Even if we simulated a human brain with perfect fidelity, it wouldn't get us AGI instantly or even easily, because we'd still have zero idea how the darned thing worked. > > > Doing this well requires human > > > capabilities such as language > > > and vision, but does not require duplicating the > > > human motivational system. > > > The top level goal of humans is to propagate > their > > > DNA. The top level goal of > > > machines should be to serve humans. > > > > You do realize how hard a time you're going to > have > > defining that? Remember Asimov's First Law: A > robot > > shall not harm a human or through inaction allow a > > human to come to harm? Well, humans are always > hurting > > themselves through wars and such, and so the > logical > > result is totalitarianism, which most of us would > > consider very bad. > > I realize the problem will get harder as machines > get smarter. But right now > I don't see any prospect of a general solution. Then we're all screwed, because without a general solution somebody someday is going to push The Button and kill us all. > It > will have to be solved for > each new machine. But there is nothing we can do > about human evil. If we had a superintelligence powerful enough, we could stop every evil act before it started. > If > someone wants to build a machine to kill people, > well that is already a > problem. The best we can do is try to prevent > accidental harm. > > > > We have always > > > built machines this way. > > > > Do I really need to explain what's wrong with the > > "we've always done it that way" argument? It > hasn't > > gotten any better since the South used it to > justify > > slavery. > > I phrased it in the past tense because I can't > predict the future. What I > should say is that there is no reason to build > machines to disobey their > owners, and I don't expect that we will do so in the > future. Any future Friendly AGI isn't going to obey us exactly in every respect, because it's *more moral* than we are. Should an FAI obey a request to blow up the world? > > > -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: > http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > ____________________________________________________________________________________You snooze, you lose. Get messages ASAP with AutoCheck in the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_html.html ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=8eb45b07
