this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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IIRC, within computer science, which is the field most heavily driving AI design and research forward, an 'intelligent agent' is essentially defined as any 'agent' which takes external stimulai from a collection of sensors in some form of environment, processes that stimulai in a dynamic fashion (one of the criteria IIRC is a branching decision tree based on the stimulai), and then applies that processing to a collection of affectors in the environment.
Yes, this definition is an extremely low bar and includes a massive amount of code, software and scripts. It also includes basic natural intelligences such as worms, ants, amoeba, and even viruses. One example of mechanical AI are some of Theo Jansen's StrandBeasts
"Artificial intelligence" is for the marketing department's benefit. At least mainly so. What people envision with the term AI is because of preconceived notions based science fiction not what it actually is.
@JayDee so two things.
First: sure, we can redefine words in any way we want, but then:
talking about "AI" becomes much less interesting if it merely means "walking a decision tree based on data coming from external sensors"
the whole talk about "intelligence" becomes a bait-and-switch, as the conversation started with the term "intelligence" being used in the general sense we tend to apply to people and some animals.
I am not bait-and-switching here. The switchers were the business-minded grifters which made the term synonymous with LLMs and eventually destroyed its meaning completely.
The definition I gave is from the most popular and widely used CS textbook on AI and has been the meaning used in the field since the early 90s. It's why videogame NPCs are always called AI, because they fit the conventional CS definition, and were one of the major things it was about the most.
As for your '1', AI is a wide-but-very-specialized field and pertains from everything from robots to text autocomplete. If you want the most out of it, you need to get down into the nitty gritty and really research the field.
On a Seperate note, while AI safety, AGI, and the risk of the intelligence explosion are somewhat related to computer science's pursuit of AI systems, they are much more philosophical currently, and adhere to much vaguer definitions of AI, Such as Alan Turing's.
@JayDee I didn't say you are, I clarified in my later post. Sorry, should have been clearer.
I am vehemently agreeing with you here, in fact.
The context is the conversation above in the thread, where it was claimed that "AGI" is "pretty inevitable".
And the point I've been making is:
we don't have a good definition of what "intelligence" is, in the sense presumably used above;
if we decide to use a somewhat simplistic definition, the whole "AI" issue stops being all that exciting.
@JayDee AI as the wide, specialized field you mention makes no claims about building anything with *actual* human-like intelligence, I feel. People who understand how the math and code work in these systems know better than to do that.
And yes, "AGI" debate is a philosophical one. The problem is it is not recognized as such, because of the AI hype. People seem to think that AGI is "inevitable" and "just around the corner", because salespeople from companies that benefit from that hype say so.
Alright, I see what you're saying now. We're on the same page.
As an additional thing regarding AGI, I think it should be noted that 'human-level' and 'human-like' are importantly distinct when talking about this topic.
In reality, if an AGI is ever created, it will most likely not be human-like at all. Humans think the way we do out of an evolutionary conditioning for survival, a history an AGI will not be coming from. One example given by Robert Miles is a staple making machine becoming an ASI, where it essentially would exist solely to make as many staples as it could with its hyperintelligence.
We mean to say that this AGI is a 'human-level' intelligence in that it can learn to utilize abstractions and tools, be able to function in a large variety of environments without intervention or training, and be able to learn in a realtime fashion.
Obviously, these criteria for any AI shows just how far away we are from achieving anything right now.these concepts are very vague and the arguments for each one's impossibility or inevitability are equally vague and philosophical. It's still mostly just stuffy academics arguing with each other.
One statement I agree with, though, comes from the AI safety collective: We don't know what we're doing, and we should really sort that out. If any of this is actually possible and we accidentally make an AGI/ASI before having any failsafes or contingencies, it could be very bad.
@JayDee
> We don’t know what we’re doing, and we should really sort that out.
True. But the bigger problem is not the mythical and hypothetical "AGI/ASI" stuff that maybe will happen one day, but very real harms already being caused by misuse and misapplication of algorithmic and "AI"-based systems.
So that's what I think we should be focusing on instead.
True, I would say that there's multiple issues dealing with AI that are more pressing:
These aren't all of them. One thing I've noticed, however, is that these aren't really AI-specific issues - these are all issues caused by automation and lack of regulation. This lack of proactive regulation is also very likely a failing of our currently neoliberal government systems.
I think that is why so many AI hype-mongers draw attention towards A(G)I safety, because they don't want attention drawn to the actual danger which is automation safety in general.