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> What I deeply believe is: We're never going to invent superintelligence, not because its impossible for computers to achieve, but because we don't even know w

> What I deeply believe is: We're never going to invent superintelligence, not because its impossible for computers to achieve, but because we don't even know what intelligence is. Speak for yourself, not all of humanity. There are plenty of rigorous, mostly equivalent definitions for intelligence: The ability to find short programs that explain phenomena (compression). The capability to figure out how to do things (RL). Maximizing discounted future entropy (freedom). I hate how stupid people propagate this lie that we don't know what intelligence is, just because they lack it. It's quite convenient, because how can they be shown to lack intelligence when the word isn't even defined!

axxto 10mo ago
How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding irony or picking up subtle social cues? Or for formulating effective metaphors and analogies, or boiling down concepts eloquently? How about for mediating complex, multifaceted interpersonal conflicts effectively? How do you measure someone's capacity for empathy, which necessarily involves incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds? Do you think excelling in any of these doesn't require intelligence? You sound like you consider yourself quite intelligent, so are you excellent at all of them? No? How come? Can you tell me which part of an IQ test or your "rigorous, moslty equivalent definitions for intelligence" capture any of them? > I hate how stupid people propagate this lie that we don't know what intelligence is, just because they lack it. It's quite convenient, because how can they be shown to lack intelligence when the word isn't even defined! How's this: "I hate how stupid people propagate this lie that we know what intelligence is, just because they do well within the narrow definition that they made up. It's quite convenient, because how can they be shown to lack intelligence when their definition of it fits their strengths and excludes their weaknesses!"
- programjames 10mo ago
  > How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions. You have to be good at predicting other's predictions to do this well. > How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie. > How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? As in, world-building? That is more of a memory problem than an intelligence problem, though you do need to be good at compressing the whole world into what is relevant to the story. People who are worse at that will have to take more notes and refer back to them more often. > How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? They are better at explaining a phenomenon (their self). > How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding complex, multi-faceted irony or picking up subtle social cues? Refer to the above. Also, using the adjectives 'complex, multi-faceted' is lazy here. Be more introspective and write what you really want to say. > Or for formulating effective metaphors and analogies, or boiling down concepts eloquently? Compression = finding short programs that recover the data. > How about for mediating complex, multifaceted interpersonal conflicts effectively? Quite often not an intelligence problem. > How do you measure someone's capacity for empathy, which necessarily involves incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds? "incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds," however will you do this? Oh, I know! Your brain will have to come up with a small circuit that compresses other people's brain pretty well, as it doesn't have enough capacity to just run the other brain. > Do you think excelling in any of these doesn't require intelligence? You sound like you consider yourself quite intelligent, so are you excellent at all of them? No? How come? I am actually pretty good at pretty much all of these compared to the average person.
  - axxto 10mo ago
    Reducing comedy to 'subverting predictions' and empathy to 'compression algorithms' is like explaining music as 'organized sound waves', technically defensible yet completely missing the point. Missing the forest for the trees is an objective sign of limited metacognition, by the way. The fact that you claim to be 'above average' at empathy and social cues while writing this robotic dismissal that completely misses the point (I asked for measurement methods, you provided questionable definitions) is the ultimate proof of my argument. You haven't defined intelligence, you've just compressed the meaning of it until it's small enough to fit inside your ego.
soiltype 10mo ago
Honestly not sure if this is a bit, it's so on-the-nose... Taking it at face value, you are literally claiming to know precisely what intelligence is? You would be the first to know if so. You should probably publish quickly before someone steals your definition! In your post is demonstrated one of the deep mysteries of intelligence: How can a smart person make such a dumb assertion? (I'll give a hint: consider that "intelligence" is not a single axis)
- programjames 10mo ago
  I think Solomonoff beat me by about 70 years, and Wissner-Gross & Freer by about 10 years. Even if I had something novel to publish in this area, I think I would rather do something like solve ARC-AGI and make a lot of money.
  - soiltype 10mo ago
    If that's true, why is there broad consensus today that intelligence is ill-defined?
    - programjames 10mo ago
      1. Religious mysticism. The murkier people are on concepts like thinking, consciousness, and intelligence, the easier it is to claim they include some metaphysical aspect. Since you cannot actually pin down the metaphysical aspect, they must claim it is because you cannot pin down the physical aspect. 2. People do not like feeling less intelligent than other people, so they try to make the comparator ill-defined.
      - soiltype 10mo ago
        #2 is not relevant, and it also seems basically untrue. So your belief is that the global scientific community broadly agrees that "intelligence" has not been rigorously defined because the global scientific community is trapped in religious mysticism? I am going to be honest, and I'm not saying this as a jab - this is starting to sound completely disconnected from reality. The people who study intelligence are not, as a rule, mired in metsphysical hand-waving.
jdefr89 10mo ago
Ok.. Let’s ask a different question. Assuming development of super-intelligence is possible.. How do you measure it? What criteria satisfies the “this is super intelligence”? You honestly sound like most pseudo-intellectuals I hear discussing this very topic..: Ironic how you think you’re the brilliant one and it’s others who are stupid… Actually not really ironic a fool doesn’t know he is a fool.
- programjames 10mo ago
  I literally gave you the criterion. You can measure, "I have this model that is supposed to compress data. I have this data. Does it compress the data into fewer bits than other models? Than humans?" Or, "I have this game and this model. Does the model win the game more often than other models or humans?" Or, "I have this model that takes in states in an environment and outputs actions. I have this environment. Does the actions it outputs have a higher discounted future entropy than other models or humans?"
827a 10mo ago
If you want to have a discussion in good faith, then you need to work on your rhetoric. People are unlikely to want to engage with you, here or in your real life, if you regularly talk like that. Seek help.
- programjames 10mo ago
  My goal wasn't to have a discussion, it was to shut down the propagation of lies. This is one of those memetic viruses that people keep passing around, that most people passing around don't even bother to think about, and it has some pretty negative consequences, such as aiding in the elimination of American gifted programs.

axxto 10mo ago

How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding irony or picking up subtle social cues? Or for formulating effective metaphors and analogies, or boiling down concepts eloquently? How about for mediating complex, multifaceted interpersonal conflicts effectively? How do you measure someone's capacity for empathy, which necessarily involves incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds? Do you think excelling in any of these doesn't require intelligence? You sound like you consider yourself quite intelligent, so are you excellent at all of them? No? How come? Can you tell me which part of an IQ test or your "rigorous, moslty equivalent definitions for intelligence" capture any of them? > I hate how stupid people propagate this lie that we don't know what intelligence is, just because they lack it. It's quite convenient, because how can they be shown to lack intelligence when the word isn't even defined! How's this: "I hate how stupid people propagate this lie that we know what intelligence is, just because they do well within the narrow definition that they made up. It's quite convenient, because how can they be shown to lack intelligence when their definition of it fits their strengths and excludes their weaknesses!"

programjames 10mo ago
> How do you measure the capacity for improvisational comedy? What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions. You have to be good at predicting other's predictions to do this well. > How do you measure a talent for telling convincing lies? You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie. > How do you measure someone's capacity for innovating in a narrative medium? As in, world-building? That is more of a memory problem than an intelligence problem, though you do need to be good at compressing the whole world into what is relevant to the story. People who are worse at that will have to take more notes and refer back to them more often. > How do you measure someone's ability for psychological insight and a theory of self? They are better at explaining a phenomenon (their self). > How do you measure someone's capacity for understanding complex, multi-faceted irony or picking up subtle social cues? Refer to the above. Also, using the adjectives 'complex, multi-faceted' is lazy here. Be more introspective and write what you really want to say. > Or for formulating effective metaphors and analogies, or boiling down concepts eloquently? Compression = finding short programs that recover the data. > How about for mediating complex, multifaceted interpersonal conflicts effectively? Quite often not an intelligence problem. > How do you measure someone's capacity for empathy, which necessarily involves incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds? "incredibly complex simulations and mental models of other people's minds," however will you do this? Oh, I know! Your brain will have to come up with a small circuit that compresses other people's brain pretty well, as it doesn't have enough capacity to just run the other brain. > Do you think excelling in any of these doesn't require intelligence? You sound like you consider yourself quite intelligent, so are you excellent at all of them? No? How come? I am actually pretty good at pretty much all of these compared to the average person.
- axxto 10mo ago
  Reducing comedy to 'subverting predictions' and empathy to 'compression algorithms' is like explaining music as 'organized sound waves', technically defensible yet completely missing the point. Missing the forest for the trees is an objective sign of limited metacognition, by the way. The fact that you claim to be 'above average' at empathy and social cues while writing this robotic dismissal that completely misses the point (I asked for measurement methods, you provided questionable definitions) is the ultimate proof of my argument. You haven't defined intelligence, you've just compressed the meaning of it until it's small enough to fit inside your ego.

soiltype 10mo ago

Honestly not sure if this is a bit, it's so on-the-nose... Taking it at face value, you are literally claiming to know precisely what intelligence is? You would be the first to know if so. You should probably publish quickly before someone steals your definition! In your post is demonstrated one of the deep mysteries of intelligence: How can a smart person make such a dumb assertion? (I'll give a hint: consider that "intelligence" is not a single axis)

programjames 10mo ago
I think Solomonoff beat me by about 70 years, and Wissner-Gross & Freer by about 10 years. Even if I had something novel to publish in this area, I think I would rather do something like solve ARC-AGI and make a lot of money.
- soiltype 10mo ago
  If that's true, why is there broad consensus today that intelligence is ill-defined?
  - programjames 10mo ago
    1. Religious mysticism. The murkier people are on concepts like thinking, consciousness, and intelligence, the easier it is to claim they include some metaphysical aspect. Since you cannot actually pin down the metaphysical aspect, they must claim it is because you cannot pin down the physical aspect. 2. People do not like feeling less intelligent than other people, so they try to make the comparator ill-defined.
    - soiltype 10mo ago
      #2 is not relevant, and it also seems basically untrue. So your belief is that the global scientific community broadly agrees that "intelligence" has not been rigorously defined because the global scientific community is trapped in religious mysticism? I am going to be honest, and I'm not saying this as a jab - this is starting to sound completely disconnected from reality. The people who study intelligence are not, as a rule, mired in metsphysical hand-waving.

jdefr89 10mo ago

Ok.. Let’s ask a different question. Assuming development of super-intelligence is possible.. How do you measure it? What criteria satisfies the “this is super intelligence”? You honestly sound like most pseudo-intellectuals I hear discussing this very topic..: Ironic how you think you’re the brilliant one and it’s others who are stupid… Actually not really ironic a fool doesn’t know he is a fool.

programjames 10mo ago
I literally gave you the criterion. You can measure, "I have this model that is supposed to compress data. I have this data. Does it compress the data into fewer bits than other models? Than humans?" Or, "I have this game and this model. Does the model win the game more often than other models or humans?" Or, "I have this model that takes in states in an environment and outputs actions. I have this environment. Does the actions it outputs have a higher discounted future entropy than other models or humans?"

827a 10mo ago

If you want to have a discussion in good faith, then you need to work on your rhetoric. People are unlikely to want to engage with you, here or in your real life, if you regularly talk like that. Seek help.

programjames 10mo ago
My goal wasn't to have a discussion, it was to shut down the propagation of lies. This is one of those memetic viruses that people keep passing around, that most people passing around don't even bother to think about, and it has some pretty negative consequences, such as aiding in the elimination of American gifted programs.