Comment by dcposch
4 years ago
FWIW this is the same argument once made against human flight. In the late 19th century, there were a lot of debates in the form
> Clearly flight is possible, birds do it
> Sure but how/why is one of the many mysteries of the universe, one we will likely never solve.
"Man won't fly for a million years – to build a flying machine would require the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanics for 1-10 million years." - NYT 1903
The real answer to how birds fly is that they're extremely light weight so that wing muscles can lift them. Common pigeons or seagulls only weigh about 2 or 3 pounds. The largest birds of prey top out around 18. Anything heavier is flightless. A 150-pound human isn't getting anywhere on wing muscle power.
The largest Pterosaur are estimated to have had wingspans of more than 9m and weigh up to 250kg (550 pounds) and we believe they were able to fly. [1]
But that's not the most relevant point here. The fact that humans did achieve to fly, but through a different method than birds is exactly a supporting argument that we might achieve AGI with a different approach than how our brains do it.
There are countless similar examples. We see a natural phenomenon, we know it's possible and we find a way to replicate the desired effect (not the whole phenomenon) artificially. I haven't heard anything here that it will be any different for intelligence, except that we don't know how yet.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size
The chain of reasoning that everything observable in nature is replicable by humans would also imply us being able to replicate creation of a living cell from non living material and then endow that organism with consciousness.
Further more it would also imply us being able to replicate birth of stars, black holes, and "the big bang" itself.
I am not qualified enough to speak if there is anything fundamentally impossible with all of these, but that would basically make human race "God".
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Paper planes are over two thousand years old.
NYT is just the epitome of the dunning-kruger in the west.
Argument by analogy is not much of an argument.
More of one than ascar made.