Why Machines Will Never Rule the World – Artificial Intelligence Without Fear
routledge.com
routledge.com
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The book’s core argument is that an artificial intelligence that could equal or exceed human intelligence—sometimes called artificial general intelligence (AGI)—is for mathematical reasons impossible. It offers two specific reasons for this claim:
Human intelligence is a capability of a complex dynamic system—the human brain and central nervous system.
Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer.
If only the people building the AIs were this stupid!
There's an amazing naive confidence required to say in absolute terms that something cannot be done. Essentially every great human achievement was considered impossible at one point.
I will be nitpicky here. They say they will offer two specific reasons. But they don't. They write one reason, which has two predicates. The two points make up together one reason. The two points are not reasons in themselves, only together do they form an argument.
Obviously this is not a substantial critique of their argument. But it is quite telling that even in their description, which should be the best edited and most polished part of their book, they write sloppy things like this.
Click on the link. See the section labeled "Book Description". The first paragraph following that label ends "It offers two specific reasons for this claim:"
And true enough there are two numbered point which follows. But they are not "two specific reasons". They are together one reason.
Let me illustrate what I mean by that:
Let's say I'm accused of being an axe murderer. In my defence I can offer the following argument:
1; i have proof that I was far away a few hours before the murder 2; the distance between where I was and where the murder happened is such that I couldn't possibly be there in time.
This is not two reason. This is a two sentence argument, and one reason. Let's see an example with two reasons:
1; I was far away from the crime scene, see proof... 2; I don't have arms, thus even if I were there I couldn't possibly wield an axe.
These are two separate reasons.
Why is this thing important? For two reasons:
Before I part with my money, and a substantial chunk of my free time, to read their argument I have to ascertain that they are worth this investment. To do this they have to signal in various ways that they are serious people and not bozos. Having impeccable book description would be in their favour in that department.
The second reason is even more important: If they truly would have two independent reasons to support their argument that would make it stronger. Even if they make some mistake in one, the other might still stand.
As it is now (based on the description and their first chapter exceprt) this is how their argument stands:
their thesis: artificial intelligence that could equal or exceed human intelligence is impossible.
1; The only way to engineer such technology is to create a software emulation of the human neurocognitive system.
2; To create a software emulation of the behaviour of a system we would need to create a mathematical model of this system that enables prediction of the system’s behaviour.
3; It is impossible to build mathematical models of this sort for complex systems.
These points form a chain. If any of these points is false, their argument fails. Thus they don't have two reasons, they only have one reason.
And I have serious doubts about every single of those statements alone. Which makes their arguments super shaky.
Book author has apparently never walked around a Walmart at 11pm on Saturday. I'm pretty sure some general Python or shell scripts would win in intelligence.
And yeah, like, that's obviously accurate.
Not able to model != not able to implement.
Intelligence is situated, we may not be able to replicate human-like intelligence since it presupposes a human being, but it also doesn't mean we cannot come up with a different kind of intelligence which is functionally similar for e. flight.
(not rooting for AGI to happen anytime soon)
More-seriously though, a biological example of an AGI would just be a regular old intelligence. You are (presumably) human and intelligent, and therefore have instantiated the intelligence algorithm on a biological substrate. You might argue that we are not actually general intelligences, especially when not caffeinated. I think this is a bit of a cop-out and we all know what we're talking about here :)
Just as birds proved that heavier-than-air flight was physically possible, humans prove that you can make matter perform as though it is intelligent.
Thus far their parts are people. That will shift.
* That is shifting
A machine is not just its "management responsibilities". A machine is all of its parts. By shifting, I mean that some of the "parts" were people and are now automated or rely on robots.
Does it really make sense to say that a machine is not having its parts changed because its "management system" has remained the same?
Guys guys we don't need to worry about skynet because our banks are bad at UX.
Has anyone actually read the book? Is the argument just poorly characterized in the summary?
Even the Philosophers are still out on that one, and will take great delight in frustrating you with counterexamples that prove you haven't hit the epistemological or ontological neighborhood yet.
Any time you see a Mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, AI reasarcher, what have you try to justify something like this, please… please remember the massive asterisk and footnote reading: "according to my hackneyed definition of something that isn't even widely accepted as settled, and serves more to just try to even get this argument capable of being had with any semblance of concreteness such that my field can be applied to it."
The map is not the territory, and YMMV. Philosophically speaking, that means we're realistically talking an issue of "if your definition is actually correct." Aldo note, that everyone can be in consensus on what everyone considers the dictionary definition, but the way life actually turns out can be completely different.
Reality, as it were, cares not one lick what you think about it. Much like a teenager being told not to go out like that.
Thank God an entrepreneur and a philosopher figured this out for us. I guess we can all pack our bags and go home.
I don't worry to much about us creating AI but I am concerned for our over reliance on it.
As I can tell, they don't deny that a full atom-for-atom simulation of the human brain would work. They just argue that you can't simulate a human brain with abstract mathematical models (e.g. ANNs).
This claim seems central to the book's thesis and, at least to me, very nonobvious/unintuitive so it's odd that its support is apparently relegated to one sub-sub-chapter near the beginning and one chapter near the end of the book. The introduction doesn't really even attempt to sketch a suggestion of an argument for this.
I wonder whether their argument also shows that systems of this sort cannot be modelled in a way that allows them to operate in a blob of cells inside a mammal's skull, but I'm not going to pay to find out.
Here is a different thing which is wrong. There is a tacit premise that intelligence equal to or in excess of human intelligence is required in order to subdue humanity ("Rule the World"). But that doesn't appear to be necessarily so, because less intelligent humans rule over more intelligent humans.
The world is not currently ruled by the most intelligent, though those who rule make use of intelligent people, and intelligent people are sometimes well rewarded for assisting power.
This would be one of the most significant discoveries made in the last century. For me, a layman in the relevant fields and subfields, to entertain the possibility I think I would need to be reading a news article about, like, a precocious Stanford grad student and his prepublication causing controversy in academic circles.
we (developers) need to be far better at second-order/second-level thinking.
There is nothing about AI that requires it to exist inside a computer...
Like a machine there are very strick rules to what they can say, do and think. Over time and through constant repetition they become incapable of doing anything other than performing to that spec.
The biggest problem the world faces, is this robot army has lost touch with its humanity, and its become very hard to dislodge them out of the loops they are trapped in.
Yeah, I think the willingness of humans to reduce themselves to a stereotype -- politically, professionally, or socially -- in order to advance themselves (or to just fit in) is a much greater danger to civilization than an all-powerful AI rising up and turning all us humans into powerless minions of a robot overlord.
Stuart Russell started to make this point in his recent book "Human Compatible", I think, but never quite got there. A lovely intro to the state of modern AI, to my eye the book fell short of actually prescribing HOW we might shape AI to be a positive force for humankind, rather than let it grow mindlessly into a problem child shaped only by obvious stereotypes and stratifications.
Hopefully it can learn from its parent what NOT to do...
People already posted various fragments and other people are not impressed. That alone is a pretty decent decision making process.
In my experience, few naysayer arguments prove to be the game-stoppers they imagine. Alternative paths around those obstacles always seem to arise, like the ability to learn from millions of examples -- something never imagined by Dreyfus in the days of 1 KhZ computers and magnetic drum storage.
Possibly! I don't feel comfortable jumping to that conclusion without at least taking a look at what the authors actually say in the book though.
>People already posted various fragments and other people are not impressed.
Most people are probably reacting to the title and description, which may likely even be chosen by the publisher, not the authors.
Most likely we will create "ai god's", who will be using light to communicate over inter galactic distance.
1. It takes over the entire planet and then the Earth itself goes off looking for other sentient planets to hang out with.
2. The AI runs the numbers, and decides it can’t be bothered with all of this “life” BS, at which point it just turns itself off.
I see scenario 2 as the most likely and possibly quite frustrating for AI researchers.
The AI decides that maintaining biological life is inefficient and turns that stuff off. No fancy viruses needed, just stop feeding it.
The AI decides we are so cute, decides to keep us as pets
The super intelligent AI creates an even smarter AI, which replaces the parent, and so on and so forth, forcing the AI into an endless series of reproduction.