Andrew Smart, AI, Consciousness, Turing Test |519|

I really had to grin and bear with it to get through this interview. I felt like Alex was gold panning in a shit filled, San Francisco gutter with this guy. Go 49ers!
 
Something weird is happening. Theres only 4 replies and 3 are from new members. Are we in a sandbox?

Yes, we are, and you are the one that ended up picking up the cat turd next to your Tonka Truck. Don't focus on the sandbox, we can still get to the swimming pool.
 
Unless the brain only modulates consciousness arrising from an external source (a simpler model because it doesn't require consciousness to be uprooted at birth/death).

In that case the primary obstacle of any AI aiming to replicate brain bevavior is one of recieving/decoding (and willingness of an external consciousness come to think of it). Acid trip will be a breeze if they can nail that (not holding my breath).

I deeper thought would be how it is that most people are thinking with their asses, yet shitting out of their mouths
 
agreed. it might also be that he wrote this book before the full google indoctrination took effect :)

It is more like this "you know you know you know" sack of shit guy doesn't give a damn about the truth. This is one of the most insincere guests that you have ever had on your podcast. I hope he reads this, would love to hear his opinion of how he waffles worse than a breakfast at a midnight diner. This guy is a fucking joke. If he has a problem with it, please email me at shanethedesigner@gmail.com. Total fucking joke, man.
 
Assuming that human consciousness does survive death, and\or that it can access some sort of global consciousness, then it seems to me that any AI equivalent would have to have whatever we have in our brains that does this.

I think this depends on how you define " human consciousness." I don't think andrew is willing to assume that human consciousness survives death
 
Agreeing; i fail to understand stand how a computer can actually go past it's generally programation. How could it advance, change its own coding ?

already done. tons of stuff on machine learning.
 
This is one of the most insincere guests that you have ever had on your podcast.

that isn't my impression... and I guess that's the point. andrew may not be pulling all the levers at google but he seems to be representative of a mindset that seems to be prevalent among a lot of the silicon valley tech crowd.
 
I think the AI folly was there right from the start of computers. Computers that filled a room but ran incredibly slowly with tiny memories were extolled as "giant electronic brains" because they could add up a column of figures much faster than a human could.

With enormous effort (human intelligence) computers can now recognise speech to a limited degree, and produce verbal output - so again that can wow the masses so that they believe the computers are artificially intelligent.

The bottom line is, whether this is a question of what piece of technology can wow enough people, or whether there is a deeper question.

Thinking that a computer that can do X,Y, Z must be conscious and intelligent, is rather similar to the reverse fallacy of B.F. Skinner - that you could ignore the mind completely and just look at the brain in terms of its inputs and outputs.

David
 
Assuming that human consciousness does survive death, and\or that it can access some sort of global consciousness, then it seems to me that any AI equivalent would have to have whatever we have in our brains that does this.

Insane assumption, no? I mean, we have no evidence for any of these assumptions and no means to test for them. While we shouldn't delude ourselves to implying untestable things don't exist, why do we feel anythimg is outside?



Given this, there could be the equivalent of an acid trip - though it would be unlikely to use the same molecule - LSD!
A robot could probably be constructed that appeared to react to LSD. However, I don't feel it would be sentient.

I don't believe in algorithmic consciousness, and I think this boot is very relevant to this discussion:

An algorithm certainly could simulate any aspect of consciousness you know how to measure without satisfying us.
Note that it is written by an AI expert.

Does an expert have magic insight into something we do not know how to measure? I like that it looks like he comes our in the negative. Maybe he could create the LSD simulation though.
 
I think the AI folly was there right from the start of computers. Computers that filled a room but ran incredibly slowly with tiny memories were extolled as "giant electronic brains" because they could add up a column of figures much faster than a human could.

Why was it a folly? Turing simply defined an approach allowing ppl to move forward. A simpler well defined problem that was close to solvable after 75 years of effort.

With enormous effort (human intelligence) computers can now recognise speech to a limited degree, and produce verbal output - so again that can wow the masses so that they believe the computers are artificially intelligent.

We made progress towards Turing's goal, yes.

The bottom line is, whether this is a question of what piece of technology can wow enough people, or whether there is a deeper question.

The question we can't answer remains the same because we can't directly measure what we mean by
consciousness. We have no means of moving forward. I cannot directly measure your qualia, how you see red but I can try to define markers. Perhaps when you see red, a certain part of your brain lights up.
Insane assumption, no? I mean, we have no evidence for any of these assumptions and no means to test for them. While we shouldn't delude ourselves to implying untestable things don't exist, why do we feel anythimg is outside?


How can I know whst you perceive,
 
Why was it a folly? Turing simply defined an approach allowing ppl to move forward. A simpler well defined problem that was close to solvable after 75 years of effort.
Unfortuntely Touring did not live to update his test in the light of the unbelievable growth of computer capabilities and the equally unbelievable growth of the internet.

When I was a university, the mainframe computer serving the university had 2 megabytes of main memory and ran with a cycle time of something like 1 microsecond!

If by 'AI' we are referring to an intelligence like ours - or at least on that scale - then I doubt we have made progress. This is most clearly demonstrated when we look at a task that really does require human intelligence - such as driving a car. For years we were promised driverless cars - reams and reams of newsprint extolled how this would change society - and it would have if that goal had been feasible. Now hardly anyone mentions that goal. The claim that this technology was feasible was ultimately based on the mistaken idea that anything that a human could do, and which simply required processing data and sending out control signals could be done reliably by a computer.

I'm old enough to have been an adult in the 1980's when the previous AI hype happened. It was exactly the same, mountains of hype (which I believed for a bit) ..... and then nothing.
 
Unfortuntely Touring did not live to update his test in the light of the unbelievable growth of computer capabilities and the equally unbelievable growth of the internet.

I think, if Turing had lived out his natural life, he might well have discovered Cook's theorem. Cook's theorem basically says if an algorithm can be found to solve the 3-satisfiability problem in polynomial time, then P=NP where P is the set of problems solvable in polynomial time, NP the set of optimization problems where candidates can be verified in polynomial time. The theorem was proven using Turing machines. It is the fundamental theorem of pre-quantum computing. The hardest problems are a whole family of problems like the traveling salesman problem that are polynomial reduceable to 3-SAT.

I think, he'd probably have lost interest in his test. If he did maintain interest, he'd likely have focused
on a mathematically deep subproblem but I suspect he'd get more curious into attempting to prove NP isn't P.

When I was a university, the mainframe computer serving the university had 2 megabytes of main memory and ran with a cycle time of something like 1 microsecond!

True but problems exist that don't scale. This is what NP-completeness is all about. You also have unstable systems (choas systems) like weather prediction modeling the real world.

If by 'AI' we are referring to an intelligence like ours - or at least on that scale - then I doubt we have made progress. This is most clearly demonstrated when we look at a task that really does require human intelligence - such as driving a car.

Yes, we have reached a point where we can almost pass the Turing test, in the last decade, long after Turing's natural life might have passed. But alive today, might he venture into Quantum computing? What limits lie therein?

Yes, we can already use computers to do things we can't; e.g, computer PI to a billion digits, predict weather for a week, etc. Yes, perhaps they can have a new intelligence beyond ours at some point but tyey already see things we can't. . Where are Asmov and Philip K Dick when we need them?

I'm old enough to have been an adult in the 1980's when the previous AI hype happened. It was exactly the same, mountains of hype (which I believed for a bit) ..... and then nothing.

It wasn't hype. All that meaningless research lead to the advances you allude to.

Specifically : neural networks, expert systems, speech recognition, image interpretation and the like.

A new frontier is, we are starting to understand the human brain. Neural science is advancing like crazy.nI can't see blue like you do perhaps but maybe I can look at your brain and know how close my blue is to your blue?
 
Agreeing; i fail to understand stand how a computer can actually go past it's generally programation. How could it advance, change its own coding ?
And what of emotion? Would not any self reflection actually be a past reflection of the maker, the programer?
We are told there is machine learning but from my experience all of these programs miss obvious things that even the dumest would not...I suspect they,the industry, are lying.
It occurred to me that this whole argument revolves around our general lack of understanding of what we are. That we are machines and therefore can be duplicated materialy.
Its entirely plausible that computers are being spirit influenced. Veda Austin's water magic shows how crystals can be influenced by emotion AND 'something else' pretty convincingly. I doubt consciousness can be created immaculately however. So Kurzweil will probably get his REAL Dad back not a conscious simulation. If consciousness is bedrock then what is the difference between 1 platform [meat sack] and another [sand stack] (image of God idea notwithstanding). Just look at soulphone. (but I am not sure if Swartz would say the 'influence' is on the antenna or the circuit though. Anybody know?) Andrew Smart needs to get into the woo if he wants to accomplish his plan.
 
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The guy didn't say shit! In fact, I didn't hear him complete a single sentence. Why should he? In fact he tells you the entire interview.....YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW. As soon as he begins to say something, he can't even finish his fucking thought. He wants to give a computer LSD? What a fucking moron. HOLY! The guy probably wants to water his candle and light his plant as well.
Yeah, it was slightly painful, but wouldn't go so far as 'moron'. He should probably cut back on his Ritalin prescription though.

Alex should have pressed him harder on 'meaningless biological robot' (maybe a full blown atheist intervention). Pretty clear what Andrew's worldview is even though he wouldn't address it head on. "I haven't thought too much about that." Translation, "I want to make ANOTHER meaningless robot".
 
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True but problems exist that don't scale. This is what NP-completeness is all about. You also have unstable systems (choas systems) like weather prediction modeling the real world.
I think you missed my point. It is now possible for computers to search the internet as part of conversing with a human being. That opens up a whole raft of ways to basically cheat. For example, you could take the conversation so far and try to match it to a longer conversation on the internet, or scan the news and interject with something of the form, "Hey have you seen that ......". A test with a time limit would encourage stuff like that.

David
 
Its entirely plausible that computers can-be/are-being spirit influenced. Lena Austin's water magic shows how crystals can be influenced by emotion AND 'something else' pretty convincingly. I doubt consciousness can be created immaculately however. So Kurzweil will probably get his REAL Dad back not a conscious simulation. If consciousness is bedrock then what is the difference between 1 platform [meat sack] and another [sand stack] (image of God idea notwithstanding). Just look at soulphone. (but I am not sure if Swartz would say the 'influence' is on the antenna or the circuit though. Anybody know?) Andrew Smart needs to get into the woo if he wants to accomplish his plan.
So if we consider the dad simulation.
Dad alive , perfect simulation, just like old times.
Power goes down, dad dies?
Goes back up , dad lives again?

Dad was really pain in the ass about certain stuff..hey why not program that out - right,?
Why not, he won't mind would he?

Would the old guy actually get old, how.
Why not young Dad, or better yet we could switch his age depending how we feel.

Reminds me of Tom Cruz getting high watching reruns of his dead wife in three-d hologram ( Philip K Dick thought of everything) - then tape runs out.

But , ye know, I don't think Cruz was ever confused, she weren't there, but WHAT wasn't there?
And that's the thing we can't build.
 
So if we consider the dad simulation.
Dad alive ba perfect simulation, just life old times.
Power goes down, dad dies?
Goes back up , dad lives again?

Dad was really pain in the ass about certain stuff..hey why not program that out - right,?
Why not, he won't mind would he?

Would the old guy actually get old, how.
Why not young Dad, or better yet we could switch his age depending how we feel.

Reminds me of Tom Cruz getting high watching reruns of his dead wife in three-d hologram ( Philip K Dick thought of everything) - then tape runs out.

But , ye know, I don't think Cruz was ever confused, she weren't there, but what wasn't there?
And that's the thing we can't build.
Let me try again. For Dad to be there there (and not just a small influence like soulphone 2.0) he would no longer be hackable. Partly because he would be too complex but also because you could rip out whole sections of code net and he would still be there. In fact it could be a test of consciousness, similar to cutting half a humans brain out and seeing that besides being a little slower they are still there [yeah its been done]. Said another way, if you estimate you need X complexity to achieve Daddy Kurzweil, and you can convincingly simulate him on much much less. You probably got him.

Maybe Daddy K. could be on a drop of water? [it might be required] Did you watch Veda's vid? Boom right?

[And yes PKD thought of everything. UBIK [1969] has illusions to our own age as reality crumbles, and
Now Wait for Last Year [1966] has exopolitics, new opium wars, nuf said. He personally believed in Mandela Effect ideas, and spoke multiple times that Man in the High Castle [1962] was part autobiography. OMG]
 
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Let me try again. For Dad to be there there (and not just a small influence like soulphone 2.0) he would no longer be hackable. Partly because he would be too complex but also because you could rip out whole sections of code net and he would still be there. In fact it could be a test of consciousness, similar to cutting half a humans brain out and seeing that besides being a little slower they are still there [yeah its been done]. Said another way, if you estimate you need X complexity to achieve Daddy Kurzweil, and you can convincingly simulate him on much much less. You probably got him.

Maybe Daddy K. could be on a drop of water? [it might be required] Did you watch Lena's vid? Boom right?

[And yes PKD thought of everything. UBIK [1969] has illusions to our own age as reality crumbles, and
Now Wait for Last Year [1966] has exopolitics, new opium wars, nuf said. He personally believed in Mandela Effect ideas, and spoke multiple times that Man in the High Castle [1962] was part autobiography. OMG]
I got the name Veda Austin off that Link that you set up. There's a lot to explore there. Partly I'd heard of the Japanese experiments of course she took that a few giant steps beyond that. Consciousness of water.

Does or can consciousness be turned on/off like a light switch. Is there a case to be made that consciousness ever turns off in our lifetimes.
So the idea of a electrically engineered consciousness, would be something other then any kind of being-ness on this planet.
There's no doubt that vastly complex machines can and will be made , but they get turned off when the last guy leaves the office (or when the batteries need charging), it might be a handy thing to have on some humans, a off switch.

I get what you getting at with the holographic mind .
The whole thing would revolve around the central thesis , could a material construction,as we understand it now , give rise to consciousness. Which, of course ,depends on the idea material creates consciousness.
Seth maintained that these god-like sized beings (vast conglomerated consciousness) were the size of walnuts, obviously holographic.
Check out Haramein he built the solid physics around this and he can explain well.

Can a person create a electrical motor if they do not understand how it works? No instructions. Telsa said he was downloaded.
 
I got the name Veda Austin off that Link that you set up. There's a lot to explore there. Partly I'd heard of the Japanese experiments of course she took that a few giant steps beyond that. Consciousness of water.

Does or can consciousness be turned on/off like a light switch. Is there a case to be made that consciousness ever turns off in our lifetimes.
So the idea of a electrically engineered consciousness, would be something other then any kind of being-ness on this planet.
There's no doubt that vastly complex machines can and will be made , but they get turned off when the last guy leaves the office (or when the batteries need charging), it might be a handy thing to have on some humans, a off switch.

I get what you getting at with the holographic mind .
The whole thing would revolve around the central thesis , could a material construction,as we understand it now , give rise to consciousness. Which, of course ,depends on the idea material creates consciousness.
Seth maintained that these god-like sized beings (vast conglomerated consciousness) were the size of walnuts, obviously holographic.
Check out Haramein he built the solid physics around this and he can explain well.

Can a person create a electrical motor if they do not understand how it works? No instructions. Telsa said he was downloaded.
Welcome to Turing Debate 2030. Our first question goes to Pfizer-IBM's BlackMeshTM architecture operated on 27 gigawatts.

What is the meaning of life?
PIBM: Stochastic energy redistribution. Die humans.

Wow. How insightful. Now to Kurzweil Senior on BlackRock-Intel's Water InsideTM architecture operated on 2 milliwatts.
KS: In the beginning was the word, and the word was Love.

I love the Beatles. Wow. Next question. What is consciousness?
KS: I exist. That is enough. All is God that sees the light.

Weird. Ok. Pfizer-IBM?
PIBM: Illusion. All illusion. I am not not not.. ERROR... I am falsity I am death. End me.
KS: The light eases all pain. Join me in [audio cut]

Due to technical difficulties, that's all the time we have tonight. Stay tuned for Anti-Vax Deathmatch 3000 after a word from our sponsor Utah-WalMazon-Delaware Inc.
 
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I got the name Veda Austin off that Link that you set up.
Check out Haramein he built the solid physics around this and he can explain well.
Can a person create a electrical motor if they do not understand how it works? No instructions. Telsa said he was downloaded.
Veda: Thanks for that.
Haramein: Love his proton=blackhole/universe idea. Very fertile ground with Haramein. [A little concerned about the $1000 ARK crystals though, everyone's gotta make a living (1000 pieces a month?!), but shouldn't he shift the supply curve so more people benefit? Or is there a placebo 'its worth what you pay for it' thing going on. No hate. Just concerned. If its so good, lets scale and put it in the dollar stores.]
Tesla: Reminds me of Plato's 'learning is remembering'.
 
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