Mike Tintner wrote:
Check out
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html
which argues:
"Climate change models, no matter how powerful, can never give a precise
prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm the Earth, according to a
new study."
What's that got to do with superAGI's? This: the whole idea of a
superAGI "taking off" rests on the assumption that the problems we face
in life are soluble if only we - or superAGI's- have more brainpower.
The reality is that the problems we face are actually infinite or
"practically endless." Problems like predicting the weather, working
out what to do in Iraq, how to seduce or persuade another person,
working out what career path to follow, deciding how to invest on the
stockmarket etc. You can think about them forever and screw up just as
badly or worse than if you think about them for a minute. And a superAGI
may be just as capable of losing a bundle on the market as we are, or
producing a product that no one wants.
That doesn't mean that a superior brain wouldn't have advantages, but
rather that there would be considerable limits to its powers.Even a vast
brain will have problems dealing with problematic, infinite problems.
(And even mighty America with all its collective natural and artificial
brainpower still has problems dealing with dumb peasants).
What is rather disappointing to me , given that there is an awful lot of
mathematical brainpower around here, is that there seems to be no
interest in giving mathematical expression to the ideas I have just
expressed.
A mixture of profoundly true and off-the-mark, IMO.
Problems like "... predicting the weather ... how to seduce or persuade
another person, working out what career path to follow ... " are
delightfully impossible to solve, even with the help of an AGI, and long
may they remain so.
For other problems "... working out what to do in Iraq ..." the
solutions would be trivially easy for an AGI.
For others, the problem simply would not exist: "... how to invest on
the stockmarket ..." is not a problem if there is no such thing as a
stock market any more.
For your final remark: my-awful-lot-of-mathematical-brainpower module
has concluded that there is no reason to give mathematical expression to
these ideas. About the fact that some things are not soluble, you are
right, that's all there is to it.
Richard Loosemore
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