Zompist Bboard Again

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 5:13 pmCompletely ridiculous. Everything in human life had some horrible people among the people involved in its development. The point is neither striking nor damning.

Let me clarify that I don't necessarily consider this proof that computers are inherently evil and that we ought to junk them immediately. That would constitute the genetic fallacy after all, admittedly a common pitfall for leftists. Nonetheless this goes beyond one nasty individual in an otherwise benign field. Babbage pretty much invented the concept of computers as we know them for explicitly malign reasons. Whether rationally or not, it does make me somewhat uncomfortable with computers.

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 4:25 pmrich people can fund both sides. this is not anything new -- Jefferson would have been familiar with the behavior.

The rich people in tech are doing Nazi salutes on stage while showering millions on right wing political campaigns. They certainly aren't funding the other side of the political spectrum.

also, we've noticed connections, yes; we just don't lie down in traffic waiting for the T-800s to march over us.

I also urge resistance, but often feels like people (especially here) don't understand the danger. Far too many people dismiss AI as smoke and mirrors or imagine that oligarchs will give us UBI after machines have eliminated our jobs.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 5:49 pm Babbage pretty much invented the concept of computers as we know them

Not really; IIRC, his ideas were mostly forgotten for a while, and then later redeveloped by others.

More generally, I'd say how much bad historical influences damn something depends on to which extent it has what might be called "intellectual content". I wouldn't want to follow a philosophy that was invented by a fascist, but if I would learn tomorrow that the inventor of the ballpoint pen was a fascist, that wouldn't make me stop using ballpoint pens. IMO, an AI is, in that context, closer to a philosophy; but computing in general is more like the ballpoint pen. Other people might draw the line elsewhere.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 5:49 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 4:25 pmrich people can fund both sides. this is not anything new -- Jefferson would have been familiar with the behavior.

The rich people in tech are doing Nazi salutes on stage while showering millions on right wing political campaigns. They certainly aren't funding the other side of the political spectrum.

what was that about fallacies? Musk=/=all rich tech people.

also, we've noticed connections, yes; we just don't lie down in traffic waiting for the T-800s to march over us.

I also urge resistance,

not that I recall ever seeing.

is that something you do IRL but not online?

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 6:17 pmwhat was that about fallacies? Musk=/=all rich tech people.

Perhaps so, but the rest of the tech industry is hardly any better. Everyone from Jeff Bezos to Sam Altman has thrown their weight behind the MAGA regime in one way or another.

not that I recall ever seeing.

is that something you do IRL but not online?

I have spent the past two years urging people to reject AI only for everyone to dismiss my concerns as paranoia or declare that humans don't need creativity after all. Most of my battle thus far has been getting people to acknowledge the problem. Only once they have gotten that far can we hope to resist this threat effectively.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 6:43 pm has thrown their weight behind the MAGA regime in one way or another.

oh? what are the various 'or another's?

not that I recall ever seeing.

is that something you do IRL but not online?

I have spent the past two years urging people to reject AI only for everyone to dismiss my concerns as paranoia or declare that humans don't need creativity after all. Most of my battle thus far has been getting people to acknowledge the problem.

except you haven't framed it as a problem - you've been framing it as a reason to curl up and surrender preemptively.

God may be dead but some AI proponents want to bring him back. Admittedly the author makes some metaphysical claims that I find unsatisfying.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:21 pm God may be dead but some AI proponents want to bring him back. Admittedly the author makes some metaphysical claims that I find unsatisfying.

With the possible exception of rotting bones, I don't think anyone in this thread would deny that AI bros are a bunch of wankers. It's you who constantly insists on taking their claims seriously.

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:27 pmWith the possible exception of rotting bones, I don't think anyone in this thread would deny that AI bros are a bunch of wankers. It's you who constantly insists on taking their claims seriously.

Many of their claims rest on uncontroversial principles like the basis of cognition in the material brain rather than an immaterial soul. Once you accept that all of our cognitive abilities stem from physical neurons operating according to objective physical laws, it seems hard to avoid the implication that another physical object could emulate this process.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:50 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:27 pmWith the possible exception of rotting bones, I don't think anyone in this thread would deny that AI bros are a bunch of wankers. It's you who constantly insists on taking their claims seriously.

Many of their claims rest on uncontroversial principles like the basis of cognition in the material brain rather than an immaterial soul. Once you accept that all of our cognitive abilities stem from physical neurons operating according to objective physical laws, it seems hard to avoid the implication that another physical object could emulate this process.

You haven't been listening. The matter is not anything about an immaterial soul or whatnot -- the matter is that not only are our most powerful AI's pathetic in their actual mental capacity compared to actual humans (where AI's can outperform humans, e.g. playing chess, folding proteins, or diagnosing cancer, turn out to be special cases that are easy to optimize for), but we simply don't know how an AGI would really work yet. It simply isn't a matter of making bigger, more powerful AI's than our current ones, despite what some of the AI cheerleaders would have you believe.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:50 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:27 pmWith the possible exception of rotting bones, I don't think anyone in this thread would deny that AI bros are a bunch of wankers. It's you who constantly insists on taking their claims seriously.

Many of their claims rest on uncontroversial principles like the basis of cognition in the material brain rather than an immaterial soul. Once you accept that all of our cognitive abilities stem from physical neurons operating according to objective physical laws, it seems hard to avoid the implication that another physical object could emulate this process.

The important word here is "could". Of course it could. That doesn't tell us much about how likely any of the current attempts to invent AI are to achieve that goal.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:56 pm despite what some of the AI cheerleaders would have you believe.

Wait...Malloc isn't a cheerleader? coulda sworn otherwise, but my bad.

(i mean, Malloc couldn't be an AI trying to convince us all to kneel before Zod Malloc...right?)

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:56 pmThe matter is not anything about an immaterial soul or whatnot -- the matter is that not only are our most powerful AI's pathetic in their actual mental capacity compared to actual humans (where AI's can outperform humans, e.g. playing chess, folding proteins, or diagnosing cancer, turn out to be special cases that are easy to optimize for)

Sure but all those "special cases" add up. Everyday the machines master some new cognitive task once thought exclusive to humans and they show no signs of slowing down. They have learned everything from medical diagnosis to creative writing to playing difficult mental games. What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:56 pmThe matter is not anything about an immaterial soul or whatnot -- the matter is that not only are our most powerful AI's pathetic in their actual mental capacity compared to actual humans (where AI's can outperform humans, e.g. playing chess, folding proteins, or diagnosing cancer, turn out to be special cases that are easy to optimize for)

Sure but all those "special cases" add up. Everyday the machines master some new cognitive task once thought exclusive to humans and they show no signs of slowing down. They have learned everything from medical diagnosis to creative writing to playing difficult mental games. What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

Those special cases do not lead us any closer to robots making coffee in strange kitchens. They are hard-coded, often brute-force solutions, not general intelligence tasks. Computers beating human grandmasters at chess and go won't lead us any closer to AGI.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 2:56 pmThe matter is not anything about an immaterial soul or whatnot -- the matter is that not only are our most powerful AI's pathetic in their actual mental capacity compared to actual humans (where AI's can outperform humans, e.g. playing chess, folding proteins, or diagnosing cancer, turn out to be special cases that are easy to optimize for)

Sure but all those "special cases" add up.

Malloc, why do you keep trying to make ladders out of sand? Nearly all those "special cases" either don't add up, because they overlap to various degrees, or they don't add up, because you're essentially adding 3 and K in the hopes of using the results to rule the world for us.

Everyday the machines master some new cognitive task once thought exclusive to humans and they show no signs of slowing down.

And this is why I thought you were a cheerleader.

They have learned everything from medical diagnosis to creative writing to playing difficult mental games.

You ever see an episode of The Flash or the movie Sonic 2, where the main character runs through a maze, solving it by going down every single turn and bend. If an AI does that, you'd praise them, calling them the next god-emperor; if a human did that, you'd ridicule them for taking forever and getting so many wrong turns.

What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to think.

keenir wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 10:20 pm

What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to think.

Er, what? Animals can think…

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 11:36 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 10:20 pm

What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to think.

Er, what? Animals can think…

i conceede that.

still outside the abilities of the AIs.

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:09 pm What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to decide what to do with one's cognitive abilities. Is any of the great chess- or Go-playing software bundles able to decide whether it wants to play chess, or Go?

And then there's the ability to research something without coming up with a shitton of stuff that's simply not true.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 4:15 am

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:09 pm What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to decide what to do with one's cognitive abilities. Is any of the great chess- or Go-playing software bundles able to decide whether it wants to play chess, or Go?

Once again this reminds me of Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach:

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:46 am

Hofstadter wrote: Question: Will there be chess programs that can beat anyone?

Speculation: No. There may be programs which can beat anyone at chess, but they will not be exclusively chess players. They will be programs of general intelligence, and they will be just as temperamental as people. "Do you want to play chess?" "No, I'm bored with chess. Let's talk about poetry." That may be the kind of dialogue you could have with a program that could beat everyone. That is because real intelligence inevitably depends on a total overview capacity-that is, a programmed ability to "jump out of the system", so to speak-at least roughly to the extent that we have that ability. Once that is present, you can't contain the program; it's gone beyond that certain critical point, and you just have to face the facts of what you've wrought.

Obviously this specific claim dated pretty badly, but like you I think there’s something to the overall idea of an AI needing to have volition.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 4:20 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 4:15 am

malloc wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:09 pm What cognitive abilities would you say are still exclusive to humans?

The ability to decide what to do with one's cognitive abilities. Is any of the great chess- or Go-playing software bundles able to decide whether it wants to play chess, or Go?

Once again this reminds me of Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach:

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:46 am

Hofstadter wrote: Question: Will there be chess programs that can beat anyone?

Speculation: No. There may be programs which can beat anyone at chess, but they will not be exclusively chess players. They will be programs of general intelligence, and they will be just as temperamental as people. "Do you want to play chess?" "No, I'm bored with chess. Let's talk about poetry." That may be the kind of dialogue you could have with a program that could beat everyone. That is because real intelligence inevitably depends on a total overview capacity-that is, a programmed ability to "jump out of the system", so to speak-at least roughly to the extent that we have that ability. Once that is present, you can't contain the program; it's gone beyond that certain critical point, and you just have to face the facts of what you've wrought.

Obviously this specific claim dated pretty badly, but like you I think there’s something to the overall idea of an AI needing to have volition.

malloc, you can claim we have AGI when we have AI's that can of their own will decide to learn chess from first principles and then go on and compete with humans at it -- or decide to play go and then go on and compete with humans at that, or decide that they don't like playing board games and reject the idea altogether. Currently what we have are AI's that are hard-wired to play chess and which have no will of their own. This isn't AGI at all!