[bluealienpie]

We argued that AI would free us to explore the arts. Instead it first came for written language and images. So what's left when it can write all the programs, drive all the cars, and AI sensors on farms can monitor and distribute nutrients. I remember watching TED Talks about how AI weapons need to be carefully studied, and instead we see them autonomously picking targets. I'm not seeing any higher values, instead I'm seeing how we're on a path to assured destruction.

[noufalibrahim]

I see that point of view but there's another that I've recently been thinking about.

Many of the fields that were traditionally considered for "smart" people (STEM etc.) are the ones that are being really hammered by AI. Whereas, things which people considered lightweight often involving social relationships and interpersonal skills are still beyond the scope of AI (much of it even theoretically beyond the scope although perhaps robots might have an effect there).

There used to be a sysad T-shirt from the BOFH days "Go away or I'll replace you with a very small shell script" which pushed the idea that whatever could be replaced by a computer was something trivial. Now we find that the things which we thought were only for "smart people" are the very things being replaced by computer programs which is telling. Perhaps what we considered tough and smart really wasn't.

[oblio]

This is actually a very old AI insight, acknowledged at least as early as the 80s, let me see if I can find the quote.

Found it:

> Rodney Brooks explains that, according to early AI research, intelligence was "best characterized as the things that highly educated male scientists found challenging", such as chess, symbolic integration, proving mathematical theorems and solving complicated word algebra problems. "The things that children of four or five years could do effortlessly, such as visually distinguishing between a coffee cup and a chair, or walking around on two legs, or finding their way from their bedroom to the living room were not thought of as activities requiring intelligence. Nor were any aesthetic judgments included in the repertoire of intelligence-based skills.

[gowld]

Brooks is weirdly sexist, but it's unsurprising that (higher) "intelligence" should mean things that are hard, not things that are easy.

[FabHK]

Moravec's paradox:

> "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox

[jmalicki]

But the hard things are things a child can do.

The things like proving complicated theorems are things that are acquired by education within a lifetime, and that's why they're easy for AI.

The things a child can do are acquired through millions of years of evolution. While they don't require much explicit education, that doesn't mean they're easier.

[noufalibrahim]

Fair enough but even thing acquired within a lifetime have a hierarchy. Many societies, for example, assume that the kids who are good in Math are smart but the ones who write well or are exemplary in "co-curricular" subjects simply aren't that bright.

As an example, the kid who can solve Math problems has less of an edge over AI than the kid who automatically becomes the captain of the neighbourhood football team but older human beings often assume that the former is smarter.

[oblio]

I'm a guy and stereotypes exist for a reason.

Also, who do you think were the vast majority of AI researcher in the 50s, 60s, 70s?

[jrflowers]

> I'm a guy and stereotypes exist for a reason.

What reason is that?

[andai]

A neural network is a machine for detecting patterns in data.

[oblio]

> Brooks is weirdly sexist, but it's unsurprising that (higher) "intelligence" should mean things that are hard, not things that are easy.

Way to miss the mark (and also shift the discussion to woke conversation points on a comment from 4+ decades ago).

The point of his entire comment is that it seems like the "hard things" (aka abstract science) will be a lot harder for AI than "easy things" (a 5 year old or a dog understanding their environment in great detail, from depth perception to smells, sounds, etc, etc).

Your comment looks like it was written by exactly the kind of man Brooks was mocking.

[noufalibrahim]

Thanks. Is this quote from a book?

[oblio]

https://archive.org/details/robotfutureoffle0000broo/mode/2u...

[andai]

AI has autism. To emulate the normie is an impossible task.

[jmalicki]

Picking vegetables is still really tough for robots.

Pick and place robots, or humanoid robots that can fold laundry, are still a lot tougher than automating knowledge workers and a lot more expensive to the point it's questionable if they're worth it.

We may not be on a path to assured destruction, we may be on a path to becoming livestock.