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from the this-is-the-way-the-world-ends-not-with-a-bang-but-a-goto dept.
Forget super-AI. Crappy AI is more likely to be our downfall, argues researcher.
[...] It's not that computer scientists haven't argued against AI hype, but an academic you've never heard of (all of them?) pitching the headline "AI is hard" is at a disadvantage to the famous person whose job description largely centers around making big public pronouncements. This month that academic is Alan Bundy, a professor of automated reasoning at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who argues in the Communications of the ACM that there is a real AI threat, but it's not human-like machine intelligence gone amok. Quite the opposite: the danger is instead shitty AI. Incompetent, bumbling machines.
Bundy notes that most all of our big-deal AI successes in recent years are extremely narrow in scope. We have machines that can play Jeopardy and Go—at tremendous cost in both cases—but that's nothing like general intelligence.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-real-threat-is-machine-incompetence-not-intelligence
An interesting take on the AI question. What do Soylentils think of this scenario ?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday February 08 2017, @07:25PM
Computers track 1s and 0s. Like trying to do an oil painting with charcoals if you ask me.
Computers could use those 0s and 1s to simulate neurons, along with their chemistry and electrical activity, if required, to arbitrary precision. We already use computers to simulate things far more complicated than 1s and 0s.
We don't know what consciousness is. There is nothing that says it must adhere to mathematics as we currently understand it, or that it won't.
There's every reason to suspect it does adhere to mathematics and physics and chemistry, because that's how the universe works.
If intelligence can't be created artificially, in any way, then you basically have to accept that our consciousness is literally magical.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Thursday February 09 2017, @01:02AM
>We already use computers to simulate things far more complicated than 1s and 0s.
Yeah, and they aren't that precise or accurate. Like charcoal renditions of oil paintings (if you're generous). The atmospheric models of the North Atlantic area last year during the El Nino were a joke. They couldn't cope with vertical wind shear at all. Even when they are bang on they don't describe the conditions with very much precision. The last two swells I rode were identical according to the models, and one was great and they other kinda sucked. The nuance of sea state is unreal and very difficult to describe, let alone forecast. Snowfall is similar. These are among the most sophisticated models we have running on the most powerful hardware we have. And while I love them to bits (just poring over charts for tomorrow - it's going to be pumping! (probably)) and they are orders of magnitude more precise and accurate than when I was a kid - in the grand scheme of recreating the oil painting that is our amazing world, it don't happen. (but they are great!! NOAA is amazing)
>If intelligence can't be created artificially, in any way, then you basically have to accept that our consciousness is literally magical.
Bingo! It can't be proven either way at present so to dismiss it outright is naive. I'm not advocating either position.
Moreover, where the fuck did you get "can't be created artificially, in any way."
Wow, talk about putting words in someone's mouth. In another post in this thread I said I thought maybe qubits could do it.
>suspect it does adhere to mathematics ... because that's how the universe works
Get back to me when you figure out what dark matter is. Then you can tell me how the universe works. For now we'll have to keep debating it.