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Comment by mkl95 | Hacker News Reader

Last time I checked we shared something like ~99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Finding differences must be way harder than finding similarities.

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While you're correct don't forget the distinction between phenotype and genotype

I've found a lot of people use the similarity of the latter to imply the similarity of the former

Some genes express themselves more than others (often dramatically)

Not really.

Watch: "Are We Really 99% Chimp?" https://youtu.be/IbY122CSC5w

I have to admit I never got the “99% similar” and “octopi are so smart” thing.

May sound like an ignorant meme, but if they’re really so smart and similar, why can’t they build cities or create cultures or do anything better than just survive?

Maybe thumbs are really just that awesome.

Lack of fire, perhaps.

Because genes are more complex than gene A causes trait B

I stop listening most times people use the "99% similar" as the basis for an argument on phenotypes

It might just be a threshold thing; that the brain just crossed a size threshold where it could actually make useful connections that led to where we are now.

Similar to how GPT finally crossed a size threshold where its responses are actually useful to us now rather than just random words. The models are just bigger.

It’s worth noting that a human living in caves and hunting 20k years ago would’ve been perfectly capable of being a modern-day software developer hanging out on the internet. So it’s not even the cities part that matters, it’s something more fundamental, something that must be impossible to achieve without that extra 1%.

I suddenly had this image of a CV by a hunter gatherer looking for dev job. “Dev looking for a job. Skills: Able to work in small tribes, likes to hunt Mammoths, Bears and small rodents for team mates. Basic arithmetic : can count to ten, more with help from others.”

“I’m a fast learner”

“Can sprint on demand and am agile. Willing to hunt bugs, when required.”

Perfect :)

Maybe building cities isn't important for long term survival

Good point. It's still not clear if our way of surviving as a species is more successful as the "old" selection method. For the individual this is also an arbitrary goal even if some buy it as-is.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is what scares me so much about AI researches, many assume that more "human like intelligence" is a good thing, it's been hyper destructive so far, even if unintentional, so I can't see it being much different into the future. Useful yes, not by default always "good".

The hope I have is that we actually do create something that is "actually" really intelligent in the we like to think of ourselves and not the way we actually are.

Homo sapiens is one of the most violent and power and control seeking species ever. I have little hope that what we create is anything but.

Are you mad? I say this to grab your attention more firmly!

Do you think unchecked locusts, would not eat the planet bare? Goats, with no predator, would do the same, destroying all vegetation.

Cats torture their prey for fun. Hippos attack with little provication. Even male beavers, during mating season, are deadly and attack without cause.

Everything on this planet expands endlessly, without predation. Apex predators only die off due to starvarion, see prey/predator population cycles for more info.

Humans are perhaps the most benevolent species, for we actually try to reduce our impact!

Heck, even vegetation cares not for anything but itself. Vegetation changed the entire atmosphere of the planet!

By violence, I don't just mean physical violence. Humanity's emotional violence is astounding. Also, a lot of those animals you mentioned do those things for survival. Humanity is discontented and will often reach for violence that is otherwise not necessary. Animals in the wild will often avoid conflict at all costs.

How do you square "humans try to reduce their impact" with the fact that, exactly like vegetation, we're changing the entire atmosphere of the planet? And getting plastic everywhere from Everest to Mariana Trench, to boot?

> This is what scares me so much about AI researches, many assume that more "human like intelligence" is a good thing, it's been hyper destructive so far, even if unintentional, so I can't see it being much different into the future. Useful yes, not by default always "good".

It is our imperative for self-preservation that drives destruction. Everything else is just human psychology corollaries of the same thing (aggression, deceit, greed). Human drive for destruction doesn't originate in human intelligence, intelligence just amplifies the ability to destroy.

Arguably this is true for all reproducing mammals (whose intelligence is not comparable to humans). If you trap most mammals in a cage and threaten them, they will destroy whatever comes at them to the best of their ability.

So probably more relevant would be to make AGI without a sense of self or at least without an imperative to self-preserve or reproduce, rather than just fearing the development of something that happens to matches human intelligence.

Then again, this type of thinking caused dolphins to lose their autonomy to humans.

Humans have the ability to drive dolphins to extinction, while the reverse is not true.

If they were so smart, dolphins should have invested more in defense.

Why do you think "building cities/creating cultures" is a "smart thing"?

This seems a different topic. It doesn't seem very difficult to imagine why creating civilisations is evidence of intelligence. Even within our species, we'd call subsisting tribes 5000 years ago "primitive". This is just applying that same reasoning to other species.

Are ants intelligent?

I think it is an important distinction to make in every similar discussion - certain animals just have some behavior “hard-coded”. Humans realized the need and the how of building cities/homes.

Let’s be honest. Most humans just barely survive when taken out of an established society, and that’s with over a decade of public education

The most important survival abilities are friendship, family and cooperation. Those are the things our society sometimes lacks.

Over a decade of public education doesn’t give you much to live -in- established society either.

Your cells would also die alone, just like a single ant/bee.

We are social animals to the greatest degree.

Octopi die at around 3 years old (1 - 5 years) from a mutation that closes their digestive tract upon sexual maturity, genetic ailments that occur after reproduction do not get weeded out

A genetically modified octupi that lived far longer may well become something we would have to coexist and collaborate with. Right now we’re just taking advantage of children, who may be far more intelligent than our own children.

Technology does not imply intelligence and vice versa. Animals that live in the ocean are highly constrained by their environment. Animals that lack opposable thumbs are constrained by biomechanics. Plenty of animal species have culture.

You share the majority of your DNA also with a banana - many of it is just “how to be a good eukaryotic cell”.

That 1% is actually quite important.

A glass of water with a stick in is basically the same as a person.

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