Fwd: ChatGPT Learns Computing

ChatGPT isn’t actually delivering me groceries — but it’s not far off! One limitation is I actually had to select the Instacart plugin; you can only have 3 loaded at a time. Still, that is a limitation that will be overcome, and it seems certain that there will be many more plugins to come; one could certainly imagine OpenAI both allowing customers to choose and also selling default plugin status for certain categories on an auction basis, using the knowledge it gains about users. This is also rather scary, and here I hope that Hawkins is right in his theory. He writes in A Thousand Brains in the context of AI risk: Intelligence is the ability of a system to learn a model of the world. However, the resulting model by itself is valueless, emotionless, and has no goals. Goals and values are provided by whatever system is using the model. It’s similar to how the explorers of the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries worked to create an accurate map of Earth. A ruthless military general might use the map to plan the best way to surround and murder an opposing army. A trader could use the exact same map to peacefully exchange goods. The map itself does not dictate these uses, nor does it impart any value to how it is used. It is just a map, neither murderous nor peaceful. Of course, maps vary in detail and in what they cover. Therefore, some maps might be better for war and others better for trade. But the desire to wage war or trade comes from the person using the map. Similarly, the neocortex learns a model of the world, which by itself has no goals or values. The emotions that direct our behaviors are determined by the old brain. If one human’s old brain is aggressive, then it will use the model in the neocortex to better execute aggressive behavior. If another person’s old brain is benevolent, then it will use the model in the neocortex to better achieve its benevolent goals. As with maps, one person’...

...s model of the world might be better suited for a particular set of aims, but the neocortex does not create the goals. The old brain Hawkins references is our animal brain, the part that drives emotions, our drive for survival and procreation, and the subsystems of our body; it’s the neocortex that is capable of learning and thinking and predicting. Hawkins’ argument is that absent the old brain our intelligence has no ability to act, either in terms of volition or impact, and that machine intelligence will be similarly benign; the true risk of machine intelligence is the intentions of the humans that wield it. To which I say, we shall see! I agree with Tyler Cowen’s argument about Existential Risk, AI, and the Inevitable Turn in Human History : AI is coming, and we simply don’t know what the outcomes will be, so our duty is to push for the positive outcome in which AI makes life markedly better. We are all, whether we like it or not, enrolled in something like the grand experiment Hawkins has long sought — the sailboats are on truly uncharted seas — and whether or not he is right is something we won’t know until we get to whatever destination awaits. (View Highlight)