Comment by zackmorris

The most important part of the talk was when Kurzweil mentioned running partially-trained AIs in simulation to generate more training data than exists in the real world. That was the first clear description of imagination that I've seen, although others have hinted at it, for example the running stick figures (that I think Google's DeepMind) trained to run an obstacle course several times before they actually did it. I might be remembering that wrong, but there have been a few similar examples.

Anyway, the reason why the imagination part is important is that nobody today is talking about parallelization when it comes to AI. A few "rules" of AI computing and their limits:

* Processing power doubles every year or two for the same cost -> processing power will someday be approximately infinite (for certain classes of computation)

* The search space for even the simplest problems is effectively infinite if we don't know the hidden models -> if we know all the hidden models, then large search spaces become tractable

* The sequential portion of intelligent decision making is less complex than the parallel portion (computers have been beating us at all sequential operations since perhaps the mid 60s or 70s) -> when the parallel portions are solved, then computers will beat us at all intelligent decision making

That last point is really important and exciting, because most of us simply aren't accustomed to thinking in terms of solving problems in parallel. We're thinking "how do we train a self-driving AI to recognize pedestrians and swerve to avoid them" instead of "how do we optimize the solution to the series of equations to drive to the store and back without hitting anything, in a single pass".

AIs will soon be looking forward from their current model of the world, running some number of simulations (potentially billions) and choosing the best outcomes, then feeding back those solutions to improve their hidden models of the world. All in parallel, with virtually unlimited computing power. At that point we'll be training AIs like children and will start to see emergent behavior that mimics life.

Personally, I don't see how this can possibly be any more than 10 years away, 20 at most (even for rank amateurs like me), given the number of people tinkering on these evolutionary patterns, and the amount of open source research being generated.

It kind of haunts me actually. Like, we just started investing in our 401k at work, but I don't have the heart to tell everyone that the singularity will probably arrive before their investments mature. Like, how does one have a child when it's looking like the 20th century reality we're living in isn't going to be around much longer? Do we suffer through the daily grind, the 40 hour weeks of converting our time to money, when AGI will overshoot that within weeks of surpassing our definition of sentience? It literally might make more sense to become a beach bum, or travel the world, go to Amsterdam and spend a few years in a drug-induced haze.

Or is the correct answer to keep going through the motions of running the rat race, knowing that it's all a waste of time but constructing some kind of inner monologue to distract us from the depression induced by the real world's unfolding existential nightmare? Is there a way to un-take the red pill and go back to the blue pill?

I guess I digress, but this is literally all I think about anymore. The futility of work/culture/technology in a world of ever-increasing human subterfuge. Why can't we admit that the dystopia is playing out before our eyes and begin to escape the yoke?

I guess the one thing that keeps me going is that we might be able to break down a single day into its component parts and automate away anything that's beneath human potential so that we can do the stuff we'd like to do (like nothing). The Roomba can vacuum (done). The self-driving Uber can take us to work and back (almost done). The rooftop solar panels can pay our electric bill (effectively done). And so on, until there is no minutia left.

The last step will be to spin up a partial (of oneself) to go to work and earn the paycheck, or literally grow the food to feed us so we no longer have any external dependencies. This is the part that I think is roughly 10 years away.