- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20858435
Will AI soon surpass the human brain? If you ask employees at OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large tech companies, it is inevitable. However, researchers at Radboud University and other institutes show new proof that those claims are overblown and unlikely to ever come to fruition. Their findings are published in Computational Brain & Behavior today.
Sounds really counterintuitive to say that it’s impossible.
The article says that we would run out of computing power, and that’s definitely true for current hardware and software. It’s just that they are being developed all the time, so I think we need to leave that door open. Who knows how efficient things can get within the next decade or century. The article didn’t even mention any fundamental obstacle that would make AGI completely impossible. It’s not like AGI would be violating the laws of physics.
Whenever I hear someone say that something is impossible with current technology, I think about my grandma. When she was a kid, only some important people had telephones. Doctors, police, etc.
In her lifetime we went from that to today, and, since she’s still alive, even further into the future.
Whenever someone calls something impossible, I think about how far technology will progress in my own lifetime and I know that they’ve got no idea what they’re talking about. (Unless, like you said, it’s against the laws of physics. But sometimes even then I’m not so sure, cause it’s not like we understand those entirely. )
Could take a while, but how long? Progress tends to be non-linear, so things can slow down and speed up suddenly. I’m pretty sure we’ll get there sooner or later unless we nuke ourselves to oblivion before that.
If AI development isn’t prioritized, it could take centuries. Maybe we’re still missing some crucial corner stores we haven’t even thought of yet. Just imagine what it was like to build an airplane in an age when the internal combustion engine hadn’t been invented yet. Maybe we’re still missing something that big. On the other hand, it could also be just around the corner, but I find it unlikely.
That’s not an apt comparison.
More like “we’ll have flying cars 50 years from now.”
Let’s put it this way: If in our lifetime we can simulate the intelligence of a vinegar fly as general intelligence, that would be a monumental landmark in AGI. And we’re far, far, far away from it.
As far as the iron age was from the metal alloys used in the Space Shuttle.
Talking about AGI simulating higher intelligence at the level of a dog or a cat, dear I say a pigeon or a crow is as far fetched as expecting ancient Egyptians to harness the power of the atom.
I get what you mean here and I agree with it, if we’re talking about current “AI”, which isn’t anywhere close. I know, because I’ve programmed some simple “AIs” (Mainly ML models) myself.
But your comparison to ancient egypt is somewhat lacking, considering we had the aptly named dark ages between then and now.
Lot’s of knowledge got lost all the time during humanity’s history, but ever since the printing press, and more recently the internet, came into existence, this problem has all but disappeared. As long as humanity doesn’t nuke itself back to said dark ages, I recon we aren’t that far away from AGI, or at least something close to it. Maybe not in my lifetime, but another ~2000 years seems a little extreme.