[ExI] Superhuman Poker

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 10:43 AM Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

>> People were always asking human geniuses like Einstein and Feynman how
>> they got their ideas but they could never give satisfactory answers, if
>> they could we'd all be as smart as they were.
>>
>
> *> At least Einstein and Feynman could talk intelligently about abstract
> concepts.*
>

They couldn't talk intelligently about all abstract concepts, such as why
they are so intelagent because they didn't know how their mind worked any
better than you know how your mind works.


> > *no, I don't think that knowing how they got their ideas would one as
> smart as they were.*
>

If you knew how they did it then you could do it too, but even they didn't
know how they did it.


> *> They weren't special because of their knowledge, they were special
> because of their intelligence.*
>

If it was not given to you on a silver platter but you had to deduce it
from next to nothing then I'm not sure if intelligence or knowledge is the
best word to describe it but I am sure of one thing, it doesn't matter.


> >> I don't know what you mean by that, the changes that the program made
>> in its own code is the very thing that made it extraordinary; if it only
>> used the code that the humans had written it would play lousy Poker.
>>
>
> *> You're mistaken about how it works. From*
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02156-9:
>

I find nothing in that article that contradicts anything I said.

*> Pluribus isn't modifying it's own code. When I said it'd say "I just
> pick the statistically best play", that was overly simplified. It more like
> "I pick the statistically best play and continually look at my previous
> play and try different things and adjust the probabilities so I can do
> better next time".*
>

Dave, a program is just code. If a program has changed its behavior then
the code must have changed. If a human didn't change the code and the
program received no new input from the outside world then from the process
of elimination it must have been the program itself that changed the code.
And if that change resulted in it making more money playing Poker then the
program has become more intelagent.

>> I think you're whistling through the graveyard. Everyday the field of
>> AI's expertise becomes less narrow, and the super impressive thing is we
>> didn't teach them how to do it, they taught themselves.
>>
>
> *> I think you're anthropomorphizing. *
>

Of course I'm anthropomorphizing, but you almost make that sound like a bad
thing.

> Intelligence isn't everything, John.
>

Intelligence may not be everything but results certainly are, and AI
advances has resulted in the number of tasks that humans can do better than
machines becoming smaller every day.

> You have to consider motivation, drive, understanding, knowledge,
> abilities, etc.
>

Why? You can use all the above excuses and no doubt find many more to
explain away why you were outsmarted by a machine, but it wouldn't change
the bottom line result, you were outsmarted by a machine.

 John K Clark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20190718/17d68cec/attachment.htm>