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.
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.
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. )
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.
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.
That’s not an apt comparison.
More like “we’ll have flying cars 50 years from now.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Possible or not I don’t think we’ll get to the point of AGI. I’m pretty sure at some point someone will do something monumentally stupid with AI that will wipe out humanity.
Maybe. But I have a feeling it’ll be a dumb single mistake that’ll make someone say “ah, shit” just before we’re wiped out.
When the Soviets trained anti-tank dogs in WW2 they did so on tanks that weren’t running to save fuel: “Their deployment revealed some serious problems… In the field, the dogs refused to dive under moving tanks.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog
History is littered with these kinds of mistakes. It would only take one military AI with access to autonomous weapons to have a similar issue in it’s training data to potentially kill us all.
The steam engine won’t replace John Henry!!!
I like SCUMM but AGI is okay I just don’t like typing commands
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.
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.
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
