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Comment by nyrulez

8 years ago

Despite the cynicism and his black and white predictions, I think his rhetoric still has valuable contributions. It forces others to take a true account of what intelligence is and what kind of intelligence is AI capable of in the medium term (evidence: this thread).

For some reason, this doesn't get enough attention and we have people like Elon and Stephen Hawking making dire predictions all over the place.

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nyrulez

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dmreedy  8 years ago

I disagree. I think his rhetoric feeds the 'we already understand it' mythology around the nature of AI technologies, and worse the state of our own understanding of the system they claim to model, and directly contributes to the harmful and frustrating boom-and-bust cycles that AI goes through. I'd lump him in the same category as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking in this space; sellers of fantasy.

I admire his optimism, but I think it's irresponsible to sell it like he does.

  • nyrulez  8 years ago

    Marvin Minsky ("Father" of AI at MIT) made the bold claim in 70s that we will be marrying robots by 2000. After it didn't come to fruition, it led most AI researchers to take stock of the situation and realize these goals aren't that trivial.

    Similarly, if we don't have bold predictions like these that we can actually measure within our lifetimes, we fall prey to fantasies that cannot be measured. Once this prediction fails miserably (I think) it helps many others to re-calibrate all their BS.

    • dmreedy  8 years ago

      Perhaps something operational like, "We will marry robots" is measurable. But "outpace human intelligence"? We're arguably incapable of measuring human intelligence right now, much less artificial intelligence, much less comparing between the two. We don't even really have a good operational definition for what the word 'intelligence' means. The closest we have is the Turing Test, which, while pragmatic, does not answer the question, "is this computer smarter than a human", if it answers any question at all.

      I'd argue that Kurzweil is selling precisely these kinds of fantasies that cannot be measured.

      2 replies →

    • quakeguy  8 years ago

      "Marvin Minsky ("Father" of AI at MIT) made the bold claim in 70s that we will be marrying robots by 2000."

      I admit, not the year 2000 and overly snarky, but people do marry computers nowadays. [0]

      If we think it is what is(the computer controlled mask), we start to believe it really is what it is, a mind(controlling a mask).

      Humans are capable of high degrees of auto-suggestion, up to a point where groups of people, and their dynamics, come into play, and some kind of group-thinking, a cult maybe for lack of a better term, takes over.

      At this point all is believable, maybe not so far away. We may trick us into a false AI, not a GAI in any sense mind you, and get stuck with it, because most of us wanted it. And rest rest has been silenced already, that is very easy, as we all know already today.

      [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvEkEhl999g

ForHackernews  8 years ago

I can't believe there are people genuinely afraid of a hypothetical powerful malevolent AI, yet seemingly not that concerned by actual climate change.

  • sampo  8 years ago

    > I can't believe there are people genuinely afraid of a hypothetical powerful malevolent AI

    I don't think even the AI doomsayers, deep down, actually believe what they preach. It's just a way to signal that one is clever and informed of new tech.

    If they actually believed what they say, they'd be worried of being targeted by violent protestors, like drug testing companies and crop breeding companies have to be.

  • jimbokun  8 years ago

    Who are the people who both predict super human intelligent AI and do not believe in human caused climate change?

    • ForHackernews  8 years ago

      I didn't say they didn't believe in it, I said they were less concerned about it.

      https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-e...

      > Climate change and nuclear war are well-known threats to the long-term survival of our species. Many researchers believe that risks from emerging technologies, such as advanced artificial intelligence and designed pathogens, may be even more worrying.

      ...

      > First, you need to consider which problem you should focus on. Some of the most promising problems appear to be safely developing artificial intelligence, improving biosecurity policy, or working toward the end of factory farming.