[ExI] Limiting factors of intelligence explosion speeds

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Fri Jan 21 14:40:18 UTC 2011


On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 02:24:22PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> 1) Computers are vastly inferior to humans in some specific tasks, yet
> vastly superior in others. Why human-like features would be so much
> more crucial in defining the computer "intelligence" than, say, faster
> integer factorisation?

Humans are competitive in the real world. They're reasonably well-rounded
for a reference point. 
 
> 2) If the Principle of Computational Equivalence is true, what are we
> really all if not "computers" optimised for, and of course executing,
> different programs? Is AGI ultimately anything else than a very

Can I check out your source? No, not the genome, the actual data
in your head.

> complex (and, on contemporary silicon processor, much slower and very
> inefficient) emulation of typical carbo-based units' data processing?

Inefficient in terms of energy, initially, yes. But if you can spare
a few 10 MW you can do very interesting things with today's primitive
technology. Any prototype is inefficient, but these tend to ramp up
extremely quickly. In terms of physics of computation we people are
extremely inefficient. We only look good because the next-worst spot
is so much worse. But we're fixed, while our systems are improving
quite nicely.
 
> 3) What is the actual level of self-understanding of the average
> biological, or even human, brain? What would "self-understanding" mean

Degree of introspection is extremely limited, and it's not necessary
for operation. Physical layer activities and neural circuitry is
extremely opaque, and resistant to mathematical analysis.

> for a computer? Anything radically different from a workstation
> utilised to design the next Intel processor? And if anything more is
> required, what difference would it make to put simply a few neurons in
> a PC? a whole human brain? a man (fyborg-style) at the keyboard? This
> would not really slow down things one bit, because as soon as
> something become executable in a faster fashion on the rest of the
> "hardware", you simply move the relevant processes from one piece of
> hardware to another, as you do today with CPUs and GPUs. In the
> meantime, everybody does what he does best, and already exhibit at
> increasing performance level whatever "AGI" feature one may think
> of...

The current interfacing is extremely crude, and since it's not
modular you can't just outsource it. 

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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