Elon and AI

[Aegon]

You could argue that he's not as educated on the topic as some, including yourself, and others who are personally working on AI itself. But I'm laughing at your wording. He knows "fuck all"? He's one of the brightest minds on the planet who is CEO of a company that revolves around AI and has the most advanced consumer-accessible AI vehicles on the market, and are constantly leaping towards advancing artificial intelligence in our lives. I don't know what Drich is referring to, but it's most likely another legitimate addition to this defense of his knowledge. You think he'd be able to reach this point if he knew fuck all about one of the main aspects of the business that keeps him famous?

I mean come on... you really think so highly of yourself that you feel comfortable putting down Elon Musk in such a flippant manner? I'm not just going to believe you when you say it like that. It feels like I'm on /r/iamverysmart.

No. It's a sign of someone utterly fucking fed up to the back teeth of people like Elon Musk, Sam Harris, Nick Bostrom, and even Steven Hawking who pretend that they have some knowledge of AI and talk about it with no real understanding of the fundamental principles behind it. They don't understand the basic history of AI research. These are futurists, philosophers and entrepreneurs (always men) that have never actually worked on strong AI (which is what Elon Musk is referring to when he talks about it in the future).  These are people who are good at selling themselves while people who do the actual work themselves get ignored.

I can understand that. Plenty of very smart people overstep their boundaries in terms of expertise. However I feel as though Musk is a bit more connected to the whole sphere of AI than anyone else you listed, considering the businesses he operates.

The very nature of strong AI is that your theory gets blown out the water the moment you try putting it into practice. Any one who works at the coal face finds this out very quickly if they are doing anything novel.

AI is not like a natural science where you have something that already exists that you can study.

AI is not like conventional engineering. When you engineer something you know what constraints you have to fulfill. You know the requirements. The essential problem of AI comes down to, how do you solve a whole range of problems when you don't actually know what those problems are going to be? Because if you knew this, you wouldn't need an intelligent solution.

What do you mean by this? What sort of problems are we looking to solve that aren't actually problems yet? Is there an example? It seems to me there are many problems we know exist, or can be sure will exist in the next 5 years or so, that AI can assist with. The public health sphere comes to mind.

Also, what's your take on Andrew Yang and his fear that AI will kill so many jobs we will need a guaranteed basic income provided by the government?

The challenge of AI comes down to making it scale. Not recognising this has tripped up thousands of projects, ruined careers and closed start ups. People like Elon Musk and the futurists I described above extrapolate the curve and assume progress is constant. It never is. The current paradigm is already hitting the limits of how it can scale. These people mistakenly make assumptions that anyone who does practical work in the area knows from painful experience are utterly flawed.

The reason why people can get away with making such bold and flawed predictions is because we have made so little progress in strong AI. It's not like we can say ah, this is how to do it. All there generally is are real researchers who know what doesn't work and no one listens to them because that's not exciting.

Are you really that pessimistic about the advanced AI could make in the next 10, 20, 50, etc years? Look at how technology has transformed our lives in the last 10 years alone; we are reliant on it entirely. It's a staple of our society now. In developed, affluent countries, it's how we communicate, how we entertain ourselves, how we learn information... it's taken over every aspect of our lives, and it's because we figured out how to put a whole-ass computer in our pockets. Homo sapiens are officially radically changed because of it. You don't see AI making similar strides? Does more intensely advanced technology not demand AI progression?

Elon Musk one of the brightest minds on the planet? You think he personally designed the SpaceX rockets, Tesla cars and AI? No. He hired people to do that for him. His talent is in spotting opportunity and hiring talent. He is not Tony Stark.

He doesn't have to personally design the rockets or cars to be one of the brightest minds on the planet. But he's working 18 hour days and sleeping in his factory office. What's he doing? Tweeting? Thinking of business strategy? He has significant involvement in the actual engineering and science of it. You really don't think he has a greater understanding of AI, as CEO of a company whose product revolves around utiliation of AI, than the average joe? I feel like you're exaggerating his lack of knowledge.

I don't have a problem with the idea that he might be "leading on" the public with his unrealistic expectations of AI technology, or that he might be wrong about some things. My issue is your bravado, as if the guy is completely clueless. He is plainly, obviously not.