[FRIAM] AI Musings

Steve Smith sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Apr 1 15:09:32 EDT 2023


It sounds like "the Adjacent Possible"  just ain't possible* in AI 
land?  With the punchline "you just can't get there from here"?

So what is the graph geodesic distance across the adjacent possible 
between "today" and Kurzweil's /singularity/?  And is the topology of 
"the Singularity" a fully connected graph in the AP with a max distance 
of 1?   All things are (equally) possible?   Like the graph-theoretic 
equivalent of a black hole? Thus /singularity/? /Everything, Everywhere, 
All at Once /?  Sounds like the "entropy death" of the multiverse?

Or is the conceit that there is a practical limit to human's ability to 
"keep up" and we are simply "overcome by events" while the *universe* 
continues to be roughly as complex as ever, just with human's complexity 
overshadowed/outstripped by that of machine intelligence?   WE Be 
Deprecated?

On 4/1/23 8:29 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> I think that it depends on having a board of directors/private owner 
> prepared to take their hands off the wheel.
>
> The main problem would be trolls attempting adversarial prompts.  
> However comfortable you might get with the ai's ability to handle the 
> day to day affairs, would you ever feel safe from some ai whisperer 
> persuading it to give everything away and become a yogi?  I suppose 
> you have the same problem with meat C-suite officers, too.
>
> I tried to get Bard to talk with me about the adjacent possible (AP) 
> the other day.  It agreed that the AP could not be represented as a 
> mathematical set, but it continued to talk about the AP as if it were 
> a set.  So it suggested formulating the AP as a graph, or a tree, or 
> as the states of a dynamical system.  I pushed for a non-set formalism 
> and it gave me fuzzy sets.  I guess I have to try harder.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Sat, Apr 1, 2023 at 8:05 AM Grant Holland 
> <grant.holland.sf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     Good point, Cody!
>
>>     On Mar 31, 2023, at 9:16 PM, cody dooderson <d00d3rs0n at gmail.com>
>>     wrote:
>>
>>     While I think that AI could soon handle the managerial part of a
>>     CEO's job, they may have trouble playing golf. It might not
>>     matter if the stock is going up.
>>     I am very ignorant about what CEO's do 'though.
>>
>>     On Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:33 PM Grant Holland
>>     <grant.holland.sf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>         So what do you think? Are CEOs, CFOs etc. and corporate board
>>         members at any medium or short-term risk of losing their jobs
>>         to machine learning? I like to hear some opinions on this.
>>
>>         Thx,
>>         Grant
>>
>>         > On Mar 31, 2023, at 1:21 PM, Gary Schiltz
>>         <gary at naturesvisualarts.com> wrote:
>>         >
>>         > Arrrr... looking more closely, Grant wrote CxO not QxO.
>>         Google quickly
>>         > enlightened me on the former. Sorry for the noise.
>>         >
>>         > On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 2:19 PM Gary Schiltz
>>         <gary at naturesvisualarts.com> wrote:
>>         >>
>>         >> I must admit my ignorance here, not aided in the least by
>>         a cursory
>>         >> Google search: What is QxO?
>>         >>
>>         >> On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 10:59 AM Grant Holland
>>         >> <grant.holland.sf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>         >>>
>>         >>> Frank,
>>         >>>
>>         >>> I'm wondering why no-one seems to raise the specter that
>>         AI could start replacing management personnel. And I’m
>>         including CxO’s here; because I’m not convinced that CxO-ing
>>         is rocket science or quantum mechanics. Think of the billions
>>         saved. After all, if machine learning cannot get good at
>>         making better decisions than humans, and constantly improving
>>         at it, I would be very surprised.
>>         >>>
>>         >>> Grant
>>         >>>
>>         >>> On Mar 30, 2023, at 8:58 AM, Frank Wimberly
>>         <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>         >>>
>>         >>> Not particularly relevant to your main point but Raj
>>         Reddy, close colleague of Newell and Simon, once said, "It is
>>         easier use AI to replace a college professor than a bulldozer
>>         operator" or words tho that effect.
>>         >>>
>>         >>> Frank
>>         >>>
>>         >>> ---
>>         >>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>         >>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>         >>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>         >>>
>>         >>> 505 670-9918
>>         >>> Santa Fe, NM
>>         >>>
>>         >>> On Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 8:50 AM Prof David West
>>         <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> The "AI Pause" made national TV news yesterday (long
>>         after those on this list noted and reacted to it) and that
>>         made me revisit a theme I have thought about since Newell,
>>         Simon, and Shaw created Logic Theorist.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> Advocates take a caricature (perhaps too strong a word)
>>         of human intelligence, write a program to emulate it and
>>         declare the program "intelligent."
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> The original conceit: true intelligence was the kind of
>>         thinking exhibited by college professors and scientists.
>>         Almost trivial to emulate (Newell and Simon programmed Logic
>>         Theorist on 3x5 cards before Shaw was able to implement on a
>>         computer).
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> Maybe reading—correctly converting text to sound, like a
>>         child—was more indicative of human intelligence, and
>>         Sejnowski created NetTalk. that, somewhat eerily, produced
>>         discoveries of sounds, and errors, and achieved near perfect
>>         ability to "read." Listen to the tapes sometime and contrast
>>         them with tapes of a human child learning to read. Of course,
>>         comprehension of what was read did not make the cut.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> State of the art improved dramatically and the
>>         caricatures of human intelligence are more sophisticated and
>>         the achievements of the programs more interesting.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> But, it seems to me there is still a critical gap. We
>>         can program an AI (or let one learn) to fly a commercial jet
>>         as well or better than a human pilot—BUT, could even the best
>>         of of breed of such an AI pull a Shullenberger and land on
>>         the Hudson River?
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> Another factor behind the "hysteria" (sorry for the
>>         sexism) over AIs causing massive unemployment is a corollary
>>         to the caricaturization of human intelligence. Since the
>>         Industrial Revolution, and certainly since the age of
>>         Taylorism and the rise of automation; work itself has been
>>         dehumanizing.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> If you define human work in terms of what can be done by
>>         a computer then it is tautological to claim an AI is
>>         intelligent because it can perform human work.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> I was contemplating ChatAIs and quickly realized that my
>>         profession—college professor—was one at immense risk of
>>         replacement. I would bet good money that a ChatAI could
>>         produce, and maybe deliver, lectures far better than any I
>>         created in 30 years teaching. And probably most, if not all,
>>         of the presentations I made at professional conferences over
>>         the years.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> I am still vain enough to think that some of the papers
>>         and books I have written are beyond an AI, and certain that
>>         no AI could do as well in spontaneious Q&A after a
>>         presentation than I.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> Bottom line, I still believe that AI can and does equate
>>         to HI, only when some aspect of HI is ommitted from the
>>         equation. This is not essentialism, but analogous to the
>>         digitization of a sine wave, no matter the finite sampling
>>         rate, there is always some missing information.
>>         >>>>
>>         >>>> davew
>>         >>>>
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