8 ms·

That is a very big assumption.

ImHereToVote 3y ago
Which might turn out to be correct. Might be wrong also. We have no priors to AGI developing. Only NGI, and we know preciously little about how to achieve NGI too, except the bedroom way.
- joaogui1 3y ago
  In vitro fertilization too!
- furyofantares 3y ago
  We have a lot of priors - everything we've ever done has not produced AGI. Maybe scaling transformers is the best way forward. I'm hopeful. But it's a big assumption that it will produce AGI.
kromem 3y ago
It really depends on the definition. "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" is a much lower bar than most people on HN might think. I have vendors who instead of filling out a web form which remembers their inputs and eventually even fills everything out for them instead print it out and fax it back in. We're probably only about 2-3 years away from transformers being self-optimizing enough in prompts and evaluations to outpace the average worker in most tasks in most roles. (It won't necessarily be that much cheaper after the multiple passes and context windows required, and crucially probably won't be better at all tasks in most roles.) If you define AGI as "better than any human at profitable tasks" or "better than average at all tasks" then yes, we're a long ways off and transformers alone probably won't get us there.
- shafyy 3y ago
  > "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" This is not the definition of AGI. You can't just make up a random definition to fit your argument, lol.
  - exe34 3y ago
    No that's the economically dominating definition. The philosophical one will happen much later or may never happen, but human society may change beyond recognition with the first one alone.
    - hnben 3y ago
      "The philosophical one" seems to get updated with every new breakthrough. 20 years ago, GPT3 would have been considered AGI (or "strong AI", as we called it back then). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
      - exe34 3y ago
        Dennett describes it as real magic. The magic that can be performed is not considered real magic (it's merely a trick of confidence), whereas real magic is that which couldn't possibly be done.
  - falcor84 3y ago
    I'm actually all in on people making up new definitions for vague terms at the start of an argument as long as they're explicit about it. And I particularly like this one, which is much more clearly measurable. If you feel AGI is taken, maybe we should coin this one as APGI or something like that
  - worldsayshi 3y ago
    I don't think the main intention was to define AGI but to zoom in on an interpretation of AGI that would provide enough value to be revolutionary.
  - johnthewise 3y ago
    There is no single definition of AGI. Performing most intellectual tasks human perform today is both general and a form of intelligence, so I too agree with it.
  - ibejoeb 3y ago
- lm28469 3y ago
  > "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" I think the HN crowd forgets that what really runs the world are min wage workers running around and doing real world things, not code monkeys and glorified type writers filling excel sheets. So yes, replacing the bullshit jobs we invented to keep people busy will be relatively easy, that's if you don't account for the fact you'll now have to create bullshit+ jobs to keep them busy And even then we're far away, sure it can shit out code for a todo webapp and create semi realistic images of a monkey eating a burrito but that's about it. More than a year ago someone betted against me here that chatgpt would revolutionise the world in the next year, nothing happened really, geeks are excited, execs are buying the hype, tons of money is transferred, yet there was no 4th industrial revolution. What happened though is that the web is flooded with absolutely useless content, amazon is full of ai generated books, students rely more and more on chatgpt to generate homeworks, thesis, "find" solutions, &c. it might very well end up being a net negative for the average joe in the long run
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    >I think the HN crowd forgets that what really runs the world are min wage workers running around and doing real world things, not code monkeys and glorified type writers filling excel sheets. This is not true at all. How many products do you use that come primarily from minimum wage workers? If a few people responsible for Google maps running stopped working the GDP loss would be much bigger than if magnitudes more minimum wage workers did the same.
    - diggan 3y ago
      Forget "how many", without those people, you'd end up without food on your table. Then the rest of the products you use wouldn't matter.
      - hotdogscout 3y ago
        Also not true, I know the big farms of my state and they don't depend on minimum wage workers and I live in a third world country. I doubt agricultural wages or truck drivers are minimum wage jobs where you live. Assuming US https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farm_Labor/fl_allwg.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farm_Labor/fl_allw...
- Buttons840 3y ago
  > I have vendors who instead of filling out a web form which remembers their inputs and eventually even fills everything out for them instead print it out and fax it back in. Somewhere along the way we built computer that are so intuitive people find printing and faxing easier than our web apps. This isn't completely the fault of any single web app, users have a lot of learned avoidance because of bad experiences with many apps. In the end completely automating the job ended up being easier than building a good interface for a human to do the job.
  - kromem 3y ago
    AI as a reconstruction of UX is one of the more interesting angles in the next few years.
- goatlover 3y ago
  Robotics is more important to AGI, because the bulk of human intelligence comes from manipulating and navigating the physical world. Which includes a large amount of social interaction. Allan’s are tools to assist humans. They aren’t automating most jobs away anytime soon.
- Jensson 3y ago
  Need to be better than an average expert. Humans are general intelligences since you can train a human to do anything, so a general intelligent machine needs to be able to be trained and become equal to human experts, matching an average untrained human isn't worth much.

Which might turn out to be correct. Might be wrong also. We have no priors to AGI developing. Only NGI, and we know preciously little about how to achieve NGI too, except the bedroom way.

joaogui1 3y ago
In vitro fertilization too!
furyofantares 3y ago
We have a lot of priors - everything we've ever done has not produced AGI. Maybe scaling transformers is the best way forward. I'm hopeful. But it's a big assumption that it will produce AGI.

kromem 3y ago

It really depends on the definition. "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" is a much lower bar than most people on HN might think. I have vendors who instead of filling out a web form which remembers their inputs and eventually even fills everything out for them instead print it out and fax it back in. We're probably only about 2-3 years away from transformers being self-optimizing enough in prompts and evaluations to outpace the average worker in most tasks in most roles. (It won't necessarily be that much cheaper after the multiple passes and context windows required, and crucially probably won't be better at all tasks in most roles.) If you define AGI as "better than any human at profitable tasks" or "better than average at all tasks" then yes, we're a long ways off and transformers alone probably won't get us there.

shafyy 3y ago
> "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" This is not the definition of AGI. You can't just make up a random definition to fit your argument, lol.
- exe34 3y ago
  No that's the economically dominating definition. The philosophical one will happen much later or may never happen, but human society may change beyond recognition with the first one alone.
  - hnben 3y ago
    "The philosophical one" seems to get updated with every new breakthrough. 20 years ago, GPT3 would have been considered AGI (or "strong AI", as we called it back then). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
    - exe34 3y ago
      Dennett describes it as real magic. The magic that can be performed is not considered real magic (it's merely a trick of confidence), whereas real magic is that which couldn't possibly be done.
- falcor84 3y ago
  I'm actually all in on people making up new definitions for vague terms at the start of an argument as long as they're explicit about it. And I particularly like this one, which is much more clearly measurable. If you feel AGI is taken, maybe we should coin this one as APGI or something like that
- worldsayshi 3y ago
  I don't think the main intention was to define AGI but to zoom in on an interpretation of AGI that would provide enough value to be revolutionary.
- johnthewise 3y ago
  There is no single definition of AGI. Performing most intellectual tasks human perform today is both general and a form of intelligence, so I too agree with it.
- ibejoeb 3y ago
lm28469 3y ago
> "Better than the average human at most profitable tasks" I think the HN crowd forgets that what really runs the world are min wage workers running around and doing real world things, not code monkeys and glorified type writers filling excel sheets. So yes, replacing the bullshit jobs we invented to keep people busy will be relatively easy, that's if you don't account for the fact you'll now have to create bullshit+ jobs to keep them busy And even then we're far away, sure it can shit out code for a todo webapp and create semi realistic images of a monkey eating a burrito but that's about it. More than a year ago someone betted against me here that chatgpt would revolutionise the world in the next year, nothing happened really, geeks are excited, execs are buying the hype, tons of money is transferred, yet there was no 4th industrial revolution. What happened though is that the web is flooded with absolutely useless content, amazon is full of ai generated books, students rely more and more on chatgpt to generate homeworks, thesis, "find" solutions, &c. it might very well end up being a net negative for the average joe in the long run
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  >I think the HN crowd forgets that what really runs the world are min wage workers running around and doing real world things, not code monkeys and glorified type writers filling excel sheets. This is not true at all. How many products do you use that come primarily from minimum wage workers? If a few people responsible for Google maps running stopped working the GDP loss would be much bigger than if magnitudes more minimum wage workers did the same.
  - diggan 3y ago
    Forget "how many", without those people, you'd end up without food on your table. Then the rest of the products you use wouldn't matter.
    - hotdogscout 3y ago
      Also not true, I know the big farms of my state and they don't depend on minimum wage workers and I live in a third world country. I doubt agricultural wages or truck drivers are minimum wage jobs where you live. Assuming US https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farm_Labor/fl_allwg.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Farm_Labor/fl_allw...
Buttons840 3y ago
> I have vendors who instead of filling out a web form which remembers their inputs and eventually even fills everything out for them instead print it out and fax it back in. Somewhere along the way we built computer that are so intuitive people find printing and faxing easier than our web apps. This isn't completely the fault of any single web app, users have a lot of learned avoidance because of bad experiences with many apps. In the end completely automating the job ended up being easier than building a good interface for a human to do the job.
- kromem 3y ago
  AI as a reconstruction of UX is one of the more interesting angles in the next few years.
goatlover 3y ago
Robotics is more important to AGI, because the bulk of human intelligence comes from manipulating and navigating the physical world. Which includes a large amount of social interaction. Allan’s are tools to assist humans. They aren’t automating most jobs away anytime soon.
Jensson 3y ago
Need to be better than an average expert. Humans are general intelligences since you can train a human to do anything, so a general intelligent machine needs to be able to be trained and become equal to human experts, matching an average untrained human isn't worth much.