|
I've been reading an excellent book (ok, imo), Possible Minds.
The book offers 25 thoughtful perspectives concerning AI and the impacts it could have on humanity.
There are two camps:
1) AI is a potential existential threat.
2) AI is nothing to worry about; we know what we're doing and we can control it.
It seems like we are in a moment similar to the one just after the Manhattan Project produced the first nuclear bombs - humans were in possession of and using a power we really didn't fully understand.
We create something that kind of feels like 1), but then we collectively act like it's 2).
From your perspective as a software developer, what camp do you fall in? If neither, define your own.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
|
|
|
|
|
It's not the AI that worries me, it's the people creating the AI and influencing them in their decision making. Remember GIGO!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
|
|
|
|
|
Forogar wrote: It's not the AI that worries me, it's the people creating the AI and influencing them in their decision making. Remember GIGO QA!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
Forogar wrote: Remember GIGO!
Wasn't that a Madonna movie?
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
Can you imagine if Clippy had become self-aware?
'Nuff said.
The Beer Prayer - Our lager, which art in barrels, hallowed be thy drink. Thy will be drunk, I will be drunk, at home as it is in the tavern. Give us this day our foamy head, and forgive us our spillage as we forgive those who spill against us. And lead us not to incarceration, but deliver us from hangovers. For thine is the beer, the bitter and the lager, for ever and ever. Barmen.
|
|
|
|
|
Quote: Can you imagine if Clippy had become self-aware?
"It looks like you are attempting to destroy all life on Earth. Let me do that for you."
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
|
|
|
|
|
In my student days, I bought a book for one single reason - its title: "Machines who think".
Considering how long ago that is, I am not holding my breath while waiting for the self-aware machines.
If you really want to loose your sleep over such issues: Pick up some of the SciFi novels by James P. Hogan, such as "The two faces of tomorrow" or "Realtime interrupt". "Two faces" is from my student days as well ("Realtime" is more recent), but Hogan had the top AI experts at C-M and MIT review his manuscripts: Even today they hold water, seen from a professional perspective. Obviously, we have extended our understanding since the books were written, but the knowledge on which the books are built is essentially still "correct". Both books are higly recommended.
|
|
|
|
|
MikeTheFid wrote: It seems like we are in a moment similar to the one just after the Manhattan Project produced the first nuclear bombs
And that's the difference. We had nuclear bombs.
AI? Give me a break. Show me something that actually can be described as artificial intelligence --
something that can perceive the world, contemplate an action, and have the means to interact with the physical world to implement that action. And implement it in a way poses a threat to anything (but you won't get past the first condition.)
What, are all those self-driving cars going to suddenly join Lyft and go on strike?
Even the tragic Boeing crashes are not an AI running amok but a poorly programmed expert system. As in, some intelligence on the plane didn't suddenly say, "hey, let's go kill some people."
There is no AI. There is no "Intelligence" - sure, we have extremely limited systems that can learn and adapt, that require huge training sets that result in a complex weighted network. You call that thinking? You call that intelligence? A worm is smarter.
Latest Article - A 4-Stack rPI Cluster with WiFi-Ethernet Bridging
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
|
|
|
|
|
Marc Clifton wrote: There is no AI.
Exactly. The majority of people on earth do not understand this.
|
|
|
|
|
If I'm reading this I'm asking me: Is there intelligence at all? 
It does not solve my Problem, but it answers my question
modified 19-Jan-21 21:04pm.
|
|
|
|
|
Slacker007 wrote: The majority of people on earth do not understand this.
Sadly, the majority of people on earth lack the intelligence to understand this. How ironic.
Latest Article - A 4-Stack rPI Cluster with WiFi-Ethernet Bridging
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
|
|
|
|
|
The thing a lot of people forget is that we are machines ourselves. We're (very complex) multi-celled organisms, that at some point got our "singularity" and became self-aware.
At some point, that will happen to the very advanced AI, whether we like/believe it or not. And I have a feeling it's not going to be pretty.
|
|
|
|
|
Computers only do EXACTLY what they are told to do. So, no, there is no threat unless a programmer programs it to make poor choices.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
But that's not true for neural networks. They aren't programmed, they are trained, and they aren't nearly as deterministic as coded programs. They are working on fuzzy logic the same as we do, and they can make mistakes like we do.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
|
Dean Roddey wrote: , they are trained
It still comes down to what the programmer has made possible. A computer can never think or reason like a human. It's still if else statements at its simplest.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
again, most people in the world do not understand the point you just made.
|
|
|
|
|
But it's not. You should bone up on DNNs a bit more. There is zero problem domain knowledge coded into a DNN. It's just a set of level driven nodes just as our brain's neurons are. There can be problem domain aware code around a DNN do other parts of the job, but the DNN is NOT just doing something it was programmed to do.
It doesn't matter if you consider it intelligent or not. The fact is it will take in lots of information and which generate a choice not based on being told what choices to make and not based on any inputs it has ever seen before. And, like a human, it can make mistakes similar to how we make them, not off/on right/wrong mistakes but fuzzy mistakes.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
|
Dean Roddey wrote: You should bone up on DNNs a bit more
I actually intend to. At the end of the days, it's just 0's and 1's based on what some programmer made possible.
Dean Roddey wrote: but the DNN is NOT just doing something it was programmed to do.
I get that. But it CAN'T do anything that the code won't allow.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
The codes doesn't ALLOW anything. That's sort of the point of DNNs. They aren't programs in the sense that most programs are. They are more like meta-programs. The program is just the pipes through which the data flows. The decisions are not made by those pipes, it's made by how the data flowing through those pipes interact with each other, which is why it can deal with information it's never seen before.
That's a fundamental difference.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
|
Dean Roddey wrote: why it can deal with information it's never seen before
Because some programmer wrote code to do that. It's just code. It can't think. It's not alive.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
It doesn't matter if it's alive or really 'thinks' by your or my definition of what that means. The fact is that it can make decisions much more in the way that we do than like a software program does. They aren't anything alike really.
That means it can be used for things that regular software programs cannot hope to do. And those things it can do very well are things that are potentially very dangerous to us, because human nature will insure that we use them thusly.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
|
All I hear is a lot of general theory from you. I have to disagree with you.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
OK, the earth is flat, if that's what you want to hear.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
|
That's a little extreme. I disagree with you. That's OK.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
|
|
|
|
|
So, here's a good example of why you are mistaken. I challenge you to write a program that can recognize any picture of a banana with high accuracy. You will find that that is very difficult. And, when you are done, you will have a program that only recognizes bananas. If you need to recognize something else, like stock manipulation patterns, you will have write a different program that will also be very difficult.
DNNs don't have to be changed to do different jobs like that. That's a fundamental difference. The same algorithm can recognize a banana or find patterns in financial transactions or understand written characters or recognize sounds in spoken words, without any changes.
That's because it's not a program of if/elses that you write. It's a program that accepts data, lets that data interfere with itself in ways that creates a pattern that gives a confidence level that the input represents this or that. It's nothing like a bunch of if/else statements making hard coded decisions. Nowhere in there is any code written related to 'is this a banana?' at all.
It doesn't make any difference whether it's 'alive' or 'intelligent' at all in terms of the practical impact that's already having on our lives and the vastly larger impact it will have in the future.
Explorans limites defectum
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
