Comment by tzumaoli
9 hours ago
Is this the scenario described in Ted Chiang's short story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Human_Science where scientists are "catching crumbs from the table" trying to decipher the results generated by superhuman intelligence?
It's still an optimistic scenario. Artificial superintelligence may develop hypermathematics of a kind that never will be accesible to human mind, enhanced or not. One can't teach geometry to ants even if you put them on a Moebius strip.
It would be more like Lem's novel where it completely disappears from the human horizon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_XIV
Which is why if humanity had empathy, it would be working on how to make smarter ants, so that they can learn more advanced geometry.
I love that as a goal!
Perhaps indeed a better understanding of what intelligence really is would allow this sort of Uplift (as in Brin's books).
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Sounds like a great use of AI.
It's quite possible ants understand a geometry more advanced than our own.
What do you think we're doing?!
Ant Intelligence will be next big thing in machine learning after this bubble bursts
What’s optimistic or non-optimistic specifically about the machine having a system of mathematics beyond our comprehension within it? Why should we care about that in itself?
In the first case, we'd still have a chance to take a glance at the frontier of discovery (even if ordinary human mathematicians had to spent years translating what metahumans achieved).
In the second case all human-level maths would be solved and what lies beyond would be always out of our scope.
Why would this be optimistic? This sounds extremely negative to me…