Can we build AI without losing control over it? | Sam Harris

[Excited Penguin]

Yeah. What Gemini said still stands though.

Like... yeah I agree I think Harris' conclusion follows from his premises. I'm just not so sure about how sound his premises are anymore... if most experts think they're not.

Who have you that ridiculous idea. In fact most experts think it's coming. The problem is they're not apprehensive enough and a little too enthusiastic about it sometimes.

[Excited Penguin]

Harris' -argument- was strong.  The conclusion follows from the premises listed.  That's independent of anything ai related.

QFT.

That's what I've been trying to say this entire thread. I wish I was as concise as you lol.

You've said as much , Ham. But this guy really is something else, though, IMO. Not one post disappoints lately. That's an incredible feat.

Lol. Let me stop now. Not appropriate. 

[Edwardo Piet]

Which guy?

Looks to me like you're right about Mathilda being in the minority when it comes to the experts... according to RationalWiki:

An artificial general intelligence deciding that humanity is an impediment or superfluous to meeting its goals. Though it is disputed whether this is an X-risk we need to worry about in the short term (many actual AI researchers don't think so), it probably is in the long term. This is because the number of scientists and academics who think we will never be able to reproduce human consciousness in a machine is quite small, and even they aren't necessarily sure that their arguments are true, or relevant (AIs might not need to be either conscious or human-like to be dangerous, for example).

Source:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Existential_risk

My emphasis.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Who have you that ridiculous idea. In fact most experts think it's coming. The problem is they're not apprehensive enough and a little too enthusiastic about it sometimes.

Really? And how do you know this? Have you spoken to them? What exactly is coming? Most experts in AI are like all other scientists and only ever claim what they know.


There are a lot of so called experts out there who aren't actually experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence though, like Sam Harris, Stephen Hawkings, Elon Musk who go out their way to talk about Artificial Intelligence but who don't know anything about it.

It is true that there are a few people who are professionals in the field of Artificial Intelligence like Kevin Warwick etc. But they're generally recognised for what they are. Media scientists.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Which guy?

Looks to me like you're right about Mathilda being in the minority when it comes to the experts... according to RationalWiki:

An artificial general intelligence deciding that humanity is an impediment or superfluous to meeting its goals. Though it is disputed whether this is an X-risk we need to worry about in the short term (many actual AI researchers don't think so), it probably is in the long term. This is because the number of scientists and academics who think we will never be able to reproduce human consciousness in a machine is quite small, and even they aren't necessarily sure that their arguments are true, or relevant (AIs might not need to be either conscious or human-like to be dangerous, for example).

Source:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Existential_risk

My emphasis.

Saying that we can theoretically reproduce it given enough computing power is that very different from saying that we will eventually reproduce it .

And there's equivocation here about reproduce. Does it mean here to simulate it or create it?

You can't create human consciousness in something that is not human because then it would not be human consciousness.

If that's what Rationalwiki is saying then it is wrong and I don't think many people working in the field of artificial consciousness would disagree with me on that.

I believe that we can give AI consciousness for example. I think we should and I believe that it's not a hard problem. It won't ever be human consciousness though. I believe that given enough processing power we can simulate or approximate human consciousness, but that isn't actually human consciousness.

[I_am_not_mafia]

No ham. It's the other way around. Mathilda, here, is in the minority among her own ilk AFAIK.

And you've spoken and worked with them have you?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Well, you may have a greater understanding of something like intelligence but if the definition of intelligence is about comprehension and you're talking about things that have nothing to do with comprehension then we're not actually talking about comprehension.

That's not a useful definition in the field of artificial intelligence.

Let me demonstrate this by asking a few questions.

What does it mean to comprehend?

[I_am_not_mafia]

That's a lay person's understanding of intelligence and is a very small proportion of what the brain does.

And only a very small portion of what the brain does is actually relevant to intelligence.

Depending on how you define intelligence.

But that doesn't help if you are trying to create artificial intelligence. This is why classical AI failed after trying to get some success after 40 years. This is why the fields of new AI / non-symbolic AI  and artificial Life came about.

Intelligence isn't just about reasoning about abstract things. It includes sensory processing, linguistics, motor co-ordination. This all requires learning and adaptation to an environment. Why wouldn't you call that intelligence?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Welcome to the world of Harris apologists. You start discussing what he said and you end up talking almost exclusively about what he -didn't- say.

Because that's totally unimportant when he talks about things like that. We should embrace every word coming from his mouth and kiss the ground he walks on without reflecting on the actual possibility of his scenario to happen.

Exactly. He really is like a substitute charismatic religious leader for atheists. He proclaims judgement about things on which he has no expertise, experience or knowledge and his adherents follow him blindly without question.

A fundamental part of being trained up as a scientist is to only make speculations that can be backed up by hard evidence. It's always sad to see an ex scientist drop all this as they fall in love with people hanging on their every word about all kinds of things that they know nothing about.

[abaris]

Exactly. He really is like a substitute charismatic religious leader for atheists. He proclaims judgement about things on which he has no expertise, experience or knowledge and his adherents follow him blindly without question.

For some he is. For me he's the William Lane Craig of atheism. Brilliant rhetoric, little substance.

And here the sheer basics of any piece of technology were up for debate. These basics won't change over time. There will always be the need for some kind of casing, for some kind of processing power and most of all energy.

That's only scratching the surface, since, I guess, hardly anyone is aware of the amount of processing power and storeage necessary to simulate something like a brain that interactively reacts and learns from any kind of situation that's thrown at it and not just a small enclosed environment for special purposes. Apart from the need to store everyb bit of informmation without overwriting another one. And with complexity comes the need for constant maintanance.

But I think, they don't even care. They just love the premisse and what Harris turns it into. Asking questions is blasphemy for some and a nuisance.