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In this wide ranging interview, Steven Wolfram [creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha] talks about what he's been thinking about for the last 30+ years, and how some of the questions he's had for a long time are now being answered.
I looked for pull quotes, but narrowing down to just one or two quotes from a long interview seemed like it might send the SN discussion down a rabbit hole... if nothing else, this is a calm look at the same topics that have been all over the press recently from Hawking, Musk and others.
One interesting topic is about goals for AIs -- as well as intelligence (however you define it), we humans have goals. How will goals be defined for AIs? Can we come up with a good representation for goals that can be programmed?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:08PM
Can't learn/adapt without goals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:42PM
Not to reject the idea you've got here entirely, but evolution by natural selection is a perfect example of adapting without goals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by miljo on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:57PM
Would survival of the species itself be an innate goal?
One should strive to achieve, not sit in bitter regret.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday July 30 2015, @02:07PM
No. No one decided that mattered. It lacks the identity of a goal in any real way.
Moreover, things not surviving contributes to the process just as much as organisms surviving. Natural selection and mutation plays out all on its own for any self-reproducing anything.
...I just realized I'm way too depressed to have one of my normal arguments.
(Score: 1) by miljo on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:23PM
So the meaning of life is something akin to nihilism, or 42.
One should strive to achieve, not sit in bitter regret.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:25PM
Not at all. I'm just sad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2015, @02:35AM
yes, someone did. each individual decides what to eat, where to sleep, and who to screw in order to survive.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2015, @02:13PM
No, I think you mistake it for "inane", in the "mindless" sense of it.
Also, stop anthropomorphizing nature, it hates it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 30 2015, @06:33PM
in·nate
adjective
inborn; natural.
Survival seems to be one of those inborn, natural things that all forms of life do.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 30 2015, @09:55PM
Which doesn't necessarily mean is a goal. Emergent behaviour maybe, but not a goal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:09PM
Evolution does not mandate emergence of intelligence.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:19PM
Oh, let's head down this road, I guess.
Define intelligence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:48PM
No, let's not. But I concede, adaptation occurs without *conscious* goals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by marcello_dl on Thursday July 30 2015, @02:07PM
Take a look at life, life has no programmed goal, but the way the universe is implemented* makes entities that do not adhere to the process called life disperse with higher probability.
As I said in the green site, statistically speaking:
- stable thingies exist for longer than unstable ones
- among these, those that grow exist for longer than those that don't grow
- among these those that grow even when divided (replicate) exist for longer
- among these, those that mutate exist for longer (hence death of the single individual becomes a way to increase variation)
- among these, those that sense surroundings... those that predict what they will sense and behave accordingly... those that sense themselves as present in the environment... those that behave egoistically.... those that form a collective... those that communicate....
So, I assert that an AI that is programmed to resemble life is not alive, one that shows emergent properties that resemble those of living creatures does. One that is alive in a virtual environment is at the mercy of the owner of said environment, one that is alive in the real world is A FUCKING COMPETITOR THAT MUST BE STOMPED... er... sorry, my usual survival instinct...
*) I am not implying there must be an Implementor, but nonetheless there is a set of laws that model the universe while others don't model it, this make the universe an implementation. Even if somebody mathematically proved that this set of laws is the only one conceivable, he'd have done it from the universe conceived by them, using a logic infrastructure that does not extend to all inconceivable universes, nor to all conceivable ones for that matter. So it would be a tautology with limited scope instead of a proof.