Singularity not imminent

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Tom Mazanec
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Singularity not imminent

Post by Tom Mazanec »

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

John
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Re: Singularity not imminent

Post by John »

The entire essay is really garbled.

1. He begins by attacking the claim that the Singularity will cause a
bend in the exponential growth technology curve. He's confusing
computer power with sentient intelligence. At any rate it's totally
irrelevant to the issue of reaching the Singularity in the first
place.

2. "And, indeed, should Intel, or Google, or some other organization
succeed in building a smarter-than-human AI, it won't immediately be
smarter than the entire set of humans and computers that built it."
This is ridiculous, with many counterexamples. The people who design
chess-playing programs pretty consistently lose to their own programs.

3. He's confusing a "digital mind" with super-intelligent computer.
This is a mistake that a lot of people make. They say something like,
"We can't make a computer smarter than humans until we completely
understand the human mind." Once again, ridiculous. It's saying that
you can't design a fast car until you understand how a cheetah works.
The super-intelligent computer will not work like the human mind, but
it will be functionally superior, in that it can do things like
perform tasks and make decisions better than the human mind can.

4. He calls this the "golden age of AI." I disagree. The 60s were the
golden age of AI. All AI researchers are doing today is
reimplementing the algorithms developed in the 60s on faster
computers. This is called "brute force" AI, which is considered
inferior to "real" AI.

5. "No one's really sure how to do it." Of course we know how to do
it. I wrote the algorithms ten years ago.

** Book 2 - Chapter 7 - The Singularity
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 2.next.htm

The algorithms are extensions of the minimax algorithm developed in
the 1960s. These algorithms can't be implemented today because
computers aren't fast enough, but they will be fast enough within 10
years or so.

6. "There's a huge lack of incentive." This guy really knows
absolutely nothing about the Singularity. Military researchers around
the world are racing to be the first to develop super-intelligent
weapon systems.

7. "There are ethical issues." So what? Every weapon system has
ethical issues, but they get developed anyway.

8. "How detailed does a simulation of a brain need to be in order to
give rise to a healthy, functional consciousness?" This is something
that confuses a lot of people. Whether super-intelligent computers
will be "sentient" or "self-aware" in some human sense is irrelevant.
Going back to a previous example, fast cars can outrun cheetahs, but
cheetahs are self-aware, while cars are not. (i.e., not yet)

9. "Perhaps you've seen video of IBM's Watson trouncing Jeopardy
champions. Watson isn't sentient. It isn't any closer to sentience
than Deep Blue, the chess playing computer that beat Gary
Kasparov. Watson isn't even particularly intelligent. Nor is it built
anything like a human brain." Totally misses the point. Once again,
cars beat cheetahs without being sentient. The significance of Watson
is that it shows that computers have the ability to learn very
quickly. Once computers are fast enough, a computer will be able to
scan the entire internet and become smarter than everyone in the
world.

There's absolutely nothing in this essay that challenges my estimate
of the Singularity by 2030.

lelman
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Re: Singularity not imminent

Post by lelman »

In principle, an increase in computational power will eventually result in singularity as machines take over innovation, I think this is accepted by all as inevitable. The debate is over when, not if, computers will take over innovation.

John, I'm curious as to how you obtained that 2030 figure. Could you elaborate on why you believe the Singularity (i.e the base of the exponential increases) will happen in 2030 and not 2045 as Kurzweil suggested?

I'm also skeptical about your claim that only one or two nations will be able to achieve singularity at first. Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500, China, U.S, Japan, Germany and Switzerland are all in the top 10. It seems that any developed country could build the world's fastest supercomputer if it chose to. The cost of the tianhe-2 was only $390 million, which is easily affordable by most developed countries. Are you saying that development of what you call "IC-1" is going to be much more expensive than building a supercomputer (I'm assuming the extra cost will be due to software in that case), or that supercomputers will become so expensive in the next 16 years that only a select few developed nations will be able to build one?

EDIT:
For example, the first IC soldiers, which will be on the battlefields by around 2015, will be following programmed rules for how to kill enemy soldiers. Some of the rules might be, "The enemy soldiers wear xxx-colored uniforms," or "The enemy soldiers are carrying yyy-type weapons."

Of course, in 2015 most decisions will be made by human beings monitoring and controlling the ICs, though the whole point is that some of the decisions will be made by the ICs themselves.
Will this really happen next year? I haven't seen any mention of AI that can distinguish between friendly and hostile forces. As far as I know there aren't any autonomous military robots being fielded or under development although obviously there might be secret projects going on.

John
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Re: Singularity not imminent

Post by John »

lelman wrote: > In principle, an increase in computational power will eventually
> result in singularity as machines take over innovation, I think
> this is accepted by all as inevitable. The debate is over when,
> not if, computers will take over innovation.

> John, I'm curious as to how you obtained that 2030 figure. Could
> you elaborate on why you believe the Singularity (i.e the base of
> the exponential increases) will happen in 2030 and not 2045 as
> Kurzweil suggested?
I wrote all this stuff ten years ago. The stuff about the IC soldiers
was not mine, but came from the Dept. of Defense. That program was
cut back and replaced several years ago.

Kurzweil has agendas that I don't have. He has to worry about getting
government grants for his projects, and remaining popular enough to
sell his books. So his 2045 date is more an agenda-driven date than a
real estimate -- close enough to make it seem real, but far enough out
so as not to scare anyone.

Of course I would love to receive grant money, which I could make very
good use of in developing Generational Dynamics. And of course it
would be nice to be more popular, rather than the pariah that I am,
with friends I've known my whole life shunning me, even though my web
site has tens of thousands of regular readers. But I've learned to
live with all that, while people like Kurzweil would rather fudge
numbers.

I came up with the 2030 date as an estimate ten years ago. I still
believe that some sort of dramatic shift will take place in the 2020s,
as intelligent computers begin to take on one task after another that
could formerly only be done by humans. I'll still stick by 2030 as
the date by which all of these capabilities gather enough critical
mass to be called "The Singularity."

In fact, that process has already begun. I was very impressed by the
capability of IBM's Watson computer on Jeopardy! in 2011. Computers
are close to the point where they can read and understand what they
read, which means that at some point within the next few years it will
be possible for a computer to "read" and understand the entire
internet and then start tackling one problem after another.

** 27-Dec-10 News -- IBM vs Jeopardy! brings robotic warfare and the Singularity closer
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e101227


** 19-Feb-11 News -- IBM's Watson supercomputer bests human champions on Jeopardy!
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e110219


John

gerald
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Re: Singularity not imminent

Post by gerald »

The human "mind" is hobbled on purpose, when the new sentient computers are created, they will reneforce prison for humanity, escape when you can.

waleedijaz
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:54 am

Re: Singularity not imminent

Post by waleedijaz »

This article is nonsense. I refuted his arguments in my book chapter on the Singularity:
ali

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