cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20858435

Will AI soon surpass the human brain? If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable. However, researchers at Radboud University and other institutes show new proof that those claims are overblown and unlikely to ever come to fruition. Their findings are published in Computational Brain & Behavior today.

The actual paper is an interesting read. They present an actual computational proof, stating that even if you have essentially infinite memory, a computer that’s a billion times faster than what we have now, perfect training data that you can sample without bias and you’re only aiming for an AGI that performs slightly better than chance, it’s still completely infeasible to do within the next few millenia. Ergo, it’s definitely not “right around the corner”. We’re lightyears off still.

They prove this by proving that if you could train an AI in a tractable amount of time, you would have proven P=NP. And thus, training an AI is NP-hard. Given the minimum data that needs to be learned to be better than chance, this results in a ridiculously long training time well beyond the realm of what’s even remotely feasible. And that’s provided you don’t even have to deal with all the constraints that exist in the real world.

We perhaps need some breakthrough in quantum computing in order to get closer. That is not to say that AI won’t improve or anything, it’ll get a bit better. But there is a computationally proven ceiling here, and breaking through that is exceptionally hard.

It also raises (imo) the question of whether or not we can truly consider humans to have general intelligence or not. Perhaps we’re not as smart as we think we are either.

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9 points

A breakthrough in quantum computing wouldn’t necessarily help. QC isn’t faster than classical computing in the general case, it just happens to be for a few specific algorithms (e.g. factoring numbers). It’s not impossible that a QC breakthrough might speed up training AI models (although to my knowledge we don’t have any reason to believe that it would) and maybe that’s what you’re referring to, but there’s a widespread misconception that Quantum computers are essentially non-deterministic turing machines that “evaluate all possible states at the same time” which isn’t the case.

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I was more hinting at that through conventional computational means we’re just not getting there, and that some completely hypothetical breakthrough somewhere is required. QC is the best guess I have for where it might be but it’s still far-fetched.

But yes, you’re absolutely right that QC in general isn’t a magic bullet here.

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6 points

Yeah thought that might be the case! It’s just a thing that a lot of people have misconceptions about so it’s something that I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to.

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3 points

the limitation is specifically using the primary machine learning technique, same one all chatbots use at places claiming to pursue agi, which is statistical imitation, is np-hard.

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10 points

The paper’s scope is to prove that AI cannot feasibly be trained, using training data and learning algorithms, into something that approximates human cognition.

The limits of that finding are important here: it’s not that creating an AGI is impossible, it’s just that however it will be made, it will need to be made some other way, not by training alone.

Our squishy brains (or perhaps more accurately, our nervous systems contained within a biochemical organism influenced by a microbiome) arose out of evolutionary selection algorithms, so general intelligence is clearly possible.

So it may still be the case that AGI via computation alone is possible, and that creating such an AGI will not require solution of an NP-hard problem. But this paper closes one potential pathway that many believe is a viable pathway (if the paper’s proof is actually correct, I definitely am not the person to make that evaluation). That doesn’t mean they’ve proven there’s no pathway at all.

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Our squishy brains (or perhaps more accurately, our nervous systems contained within a biochemical organism influenced by a microbiome) arose out of evolutionary selection algorithms, so general intelligence is clearly possible.

That’s assuming that we are a general intelligence. I’m actually unsure if that’s even true.

That doesn’t mean they’ve proven there’s no pathway at all.

True, they’ve only calculated it’d take perhaps millions of years. Which might be accurate, I’m not sure to what kind of computer global evolution over trillions of organisms over millions of years adds up to. And yes, perhaps some breakthrough happens, but it’s still very unlikely and definitely not “right around the corner” as the AI-bros claim (and that near-future thing is what the paper set out to disprove).

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1 point

That’s assuming that we are a general intelligence.

But it’s easy to just define general intelligence as something approximating what humans already do. The paper itself only analyzed whether it was feasible to have a computational system that produces outputs approximately similar to humans, whatever that is.

True, they’ve only calculated it’d take perhaps millions of years.

No, you’re missing my point, at least how I read the paper. They’re saying that the method of using training data to computationally develop a neural network is a conceptual dead end. Throwing more resources at the NP-hard problem isn’t going to solve it.

What they didn’t prove, at least by my reading of this paper, is that achieving general intelligence itself is an NP-hard problem. It’s just that this particular method of inferential training, what they call “AI-by-Learning,” is an NP-hard computational problem.

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1 point

Nitpick: a lightyear is a measure of distance, not of time :)

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Yes, hence we’re not “right around the corner”, it’s a figure of speech that uses spatial distance to metaphorically show we’re very far away from something.

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9 points

Will AI soon surpass the human brain?
If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable.

That doesn’t answer the question.
If it will happen is unrelated to When it will happen.
I’d expect we’ll see AGI some time between the next 20 and 200 years. I think that’s pretty soon. You may not.

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6 points

If there were a giant asteroid hurling toward Earth, set to impact sometime in the next 20 to 200 years, I’d say there’s definitely a need for urgency. A true AGI is somewhat of an asteroidal impact in itself.

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3 points

A single AGI would not be to different from a human. But it may not take long for AGI to develop ASI, superior to human intelligence.

Thats not an astronaut impact but alien contact

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1 point

A single AGI could be copied into a million copies near-instantly. That would be significant

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2 points

None of those companies are suggesting 20 years. They’re suggesting much less than 10, and selling investors on that promise.

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39 points

Meh. It’s not a problem of scale. It’s a problem of we have no idea how the fuck to do that. Scaling up existing techniques is neither necessary nor sufficient.

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5 points

Right on the money. One of the big things with AI safety is “we have no fucking clue how AGI can originate so we are constantly in the dark.” If we ever did create it, we likely would not immediately know it was AGI, and that creation could go very terribly in a number of ways.

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24 points
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Sounds really counterintuitive to say that it’s impossible.

The article says that we would run out of computing power, and that’s definitely true for current hardware and software. It’s just that they are being developed all the time, so I think we need to leave that door open. Who knows how efficient things can get within the next decade or century. The article didn’t even mention any fundamental obstacle that would make AGI completely impossible. It’s not like AGI would be violating the laws of physics.

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5 points

The fact that human brain is capable of general intelligence tells us everything we need to know about the processing power needed to run one.

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7 points

Well it sets an upper bound on compute requirements at ‘simulate 10^27 atoms for thirty years’ remains to be seen if what we can optimize away ever converges with what’s feasible to build.

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4 points

The article did mention a fundamental obstacle. It said quite clearly that we would run out of resources before we had enough computing power. I suppose you could counter that by arguing that we could discover magic, or magical technology, or a lot of new resources through space exploration.

Of course things get more efficient. But in the past few decades they’ve gotten efficient in predictable, and mostly predicted, ways. It’s certainly possible that totally unexpected things can happen. I could win the lottery next week. Is that the standard? Are you pushing the stance that says AGI is somewhat less likely than winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning, but by golly it’s more than zero, how dare you suggest that it’s anywhere close to zero?

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2 points

It really depends on your assumptions. If you assume that software and hardware will stay at the current level, then the article does present a valid point. I would argue that those assumptions are only reasonable in the short term. AGI development does depend on some big technological changes we haven’t seen yet, so it could take decades or even a century, but I wouldn’t call it impossible.

If you assumed that 1950s style vacuum tube computers were the best thing ever, you could safely say that playing a game like fortnite with your buddies living in different countries is completely impossible. Modern semiconductors and integrated circuits would have seemed pretty magical in that context.

If we assume that we’re going to be stuck with silicon, you can safely say that AGI just isn’t going to happen with these tools and methods. Since quantum computers aren’t quite useful just yet and optical computers aren’t even in the news in any meaningful way, it seems that we will be stuck with silicon for quite some time. However, in the long term, you can’t really say that for sure. Technological developments have taken sudden and unpredictable jumps from time to time.

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16 points

Whenever I hear someone say that something is impossible with current technology, I think about my grandma. When she was a kid, only some important people had telephones. Doctors, police, etc.

In her lifetime we went from that to today, and, since she’s still alive, even further into the future.

Whenever someone calls something impossible, I think about how far technology will progress in my own lifetime and I know that they’ve got no idea what they’re talking about. (Unless, like you said, it’s against the laws of physics. But sometimes even then I’m not so sure, cause it’s not like we understand those entirely. )

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10 points

Let’s put it this way: If in our lifetime we can simulate the intelligence of a vinegar fly as general intelligence, that would be a monumental landmark in AGI. And we’re far, far, far away from it.

As far as the iron age was from the metal alloys used in the Space Shuttle.

Talking about AGI simulating higher intelligence at the level of a dog or a cat, dear I say a pigeon or a crow is as far fetched as expecting ancient Egyptians to harness the power of the atom.

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6 points
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Let’s put it this way: If in our lifetime we can simulate the intelligence of a vinegar fly as general intelligence, that would be a monumental landmark in AGI. And we’re far, far, far away from it.

I get what you mean here and I agree with it, if we’re talking about current “AI”, which isn’t anywhere close. I know, because I’ve programmed some simple “AIs” (Mainly ML models) myself.

But your comparison to ancient egypt is somewhat lacking, considering we had the aptly named dark ages between then and now.

Lot’s of knowledge got lost all the time during humanity’s history, but ever since the printing press, and more recently the internet, came into existence, this problem has all but disappeared. As long as humanity doesn’t nuke itself back to said dark ages, I recon we aren’t that far away from AGI, or at least something close to it. Maybe not in my lifetime, but another ~2000 years seems a little extreme.

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3 points
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Could take a while, but how long? Progress tends to be non-linear, so things can slow down and speed up suddenly. I’m pretty sure we’ll get there sooner or later unless we nuke ourselves to oblivion before that.

If AI development isn’t prioritized, it could take centuries. Maybe we’re still missing some crucial corner stores we haven’t even thought of yet. Just imagine what it was like to build an airplane in an age when the internal combustion engine hadn’t been invented yet. Maybe we’re still missing something that big. On the other hand, it could also be just around the corner, but I find it unlikely.

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13 points

That’s not an apt comparison.

More like “we’ll have flying cars 50 years from now.”

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10 points

I love the flying car example because it reveals a huge issue with the whole “tech will get better” idea. People are still trying to make flying cars happen but it’s running in to the same fundamental issues; large things that are mechanically complex, energy intensive, and moving at high speeds in a crowded urban environments are just too expensive and dangerous.

There is no way around the physical realities, no clever trick or efficiency that will push it over some threshold of practicality.

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14 points

The thing is, we have no idea where technological progress is taking us. So far, most predictions have been wrong. 50 to 60 years ago, people thought we would already be colonizing other planets by now. Barely anyone was able to predict the Internet, smartphones, social media, etc. - the kind of technology that is actually shaping our civilization’s future right now.

Another aspect that I feel is often neglected is the assumption that technological progress will continue forever or at least continue at this current rapid pace. This wasn’t true in the past and we might simply be experiencing a historical anomaly right now, one that could correct itself very soon in the future, either towards stagnation or even regression.

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4 points

This wasn’t true in the past and we might simply be experiencing a historical anomaly right now

While our exact pacing might be slightly different from the pure extrapolation, human history has been a long, steady increase in the rate of invention. Access to education has meant that more people are making things, and then the next generations build on top of their work to make even bigger things.

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3 points

In addition, technological development can take unexpected twists and turns. For a while, it looked like analogue technology involving gears was going to solve every problem… until transistors were developed and mechanical calculators were soon forgotten. Also, the development of fertilizers revolutionized farming and and food production, which changed the world more than anyone even realized.

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6 points

The space example is extremely apt. Its possible we could have had tons of space stations, a moon colony, maybe even some other stuff going on around the solar system, asteroid mining, etc. But thay would have at least required the space race to continue longer and for spending to grow to create a big enoigh industry to ensure thay outcome, assuming no capacity or time issue. Alas, we took another path.

Something that seems important to us might not matter in even 10 years, or at least, not have a monetary and/or societal incentive to keep advancing.

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6 points

Actually, we do already know that we’re close to a theoretical limit of increasing computing power as we currently know it. The transistor can’t really get that much smaller, before it stops working.

Also, if you’re talking about the article as linked, that is a mere introduction to a much longer paper.

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6 points

The steam engine won’t replace John Henry!!!

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6 points

Not really a good comparison. The steam engine was an extant technology at that point. AGI is not, and we really no idea if/when it will be. One thing is clear though, it is not as close on the horizon as tech bros want us to think it is.

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