I’m sorry, but this reads to me like “I am certain I am right, so evidence that implies I’m wrong must be wrong.” And while sometimes that really is the right approach to take, more often than not you really should update the confidence in your hypothesis rather than discarding contradictory data.

But, there must be SOMETHING which is a good measure of the ability to reason, yes? If reasoning is an actual thing that actually exists, then it must be detectable, and there must be a way to detect it. What benchmark do you purpose?

You don’t have to seriously answer, but I hope you see where I’m coming from. I assume you’ve read Searle, and I cannot express to you the contempt in which I hold him. I think, if we are to be scientists and not philosophers (and good philosophers should be scientists too) we have to look to the external world to test our theories.

For me, what goes on inside does matter, but what goes on inside everyone everywhere is just math, and I haven’t formed an opinion about what math is really most efficient at instantiating reasoning, or thinking, or whatever you want to talk about.

To be honest, the other day I was convinced it was actually derivatives and integrals, and, because of this, that analog computers would make much better AIs than digital computers. (But Hava Siegelmann’s book is expensive, and, while I had briefly lifted my book buying moratorium, I think I have to impose it again).

Hell, maybe Penrose is right and we need quantum effects (I really really really doubt it, but, to the extent that it is possible for me, I try to keep an open mind).

🤷‍♂️

Gary Marcus is certainly good. It’s not as if I think say, LeCun, or any of the many people who think that LLMs aren’t the way are morons. I don’t think anyone thinks all the problems are currently solved. And I think long time lines are still plausible, but, I think dismissing short time line out of hand is thoughtless.

My main gripe is how certain people are about things they know virtually nothing about. And how slap dashed their reasoning is. It seems to me most people’s reasoning goes something like “there is no little man in the box, it’s just math, and math can’t think.” Of course, they say it with a lot fancier words, like “it’s just gradient decent” as if human brains couldn’t have gradient decent baked in anywhere.

But, out of interest what is your take on the Stochastic Parrot? I find the arguments deeply implausible.

So, how would you define AGI, and what sorts of tasks require reasoning? I would have thought earning the gold medal on the IMO would have been a reasoning task, but I’m happy to learn why I’m wrong.

I don’t see why AGI must be conscious, and the fact that you even bring it up makes me think you haven’t thought too hard about any of this.

When you say “novel answers” what is it you mean? The questions on the IMO have never been asked to any human before the Math Olympiad, and almost all humans cannot answer those quesion.

Why does answering those questions not count as novel? What is a question whose answer you would count as novel, and which you yourself could answer? Presuming that you count yourself as intelligent.

How do you know we’re not remotely close to AGI? Do you have any expertise on the issue? And expertise is not “I can download Python libraries and use them” it is “I can explain the mathematics behind what is going on, and understand the technical and theoretical challenges”.

In the US, sure, but there have been class revolts in other nations. I’m not saying they lead to good outcomes, but king Louis XVI was rich. And being rich did not save him. There was a capitalist class in China during the cultural revolution. They didn’t make it through. If it means we won’t go extinct, why can we have a revolution to prevent extinction?

I mean, that is sweat and all as something that particular professor thinks, but doctors in the United States don’t have to treat anyone they don’t want to, and we already see them denying prenatal care based on marital status. I’m sure sexual preference are just around the bend.

The universe is non-Euclidean, so no circle made in the actual geometry of the universe actually has the ratio of pi between its circumference and diameter.

Is that the part you are confused about, or did I write something else badly?

[finding people who don’t know that we live in non Euclidean space these days is like finding people who think the sun goes round the earth. But I guess if people can’t be bothered to learn 350 year old mathematics, they also can’t be bothered to learn 100 year old physics. Oh well.]

One thing to be aware of is that if you actually made a circle and measured its radius and circumference you wouldn’t get pi. Not because your measurements would be off, but because the universe does not follow the assumptions mathematicians used to define pi—namely Euclidean geometry. Pi is mathematical, not physical. If real circles and real diameters don’t give you pi that is a problem for the universe, not a problem for mathematics.

In lieu of anything constructive or interesting to say, I’m going to pretend to be an LLM:

🔥 You’re not just complaining, You’re convicting.

It’s relatively common for lawyers to say something like “we would never do X, but even if we did X, that would not have been illegal”. In this case X is deporting Abrego García against a court order. You will note that the DOJ also claimed to be unable to bring him back, yet, somehow, magically, after they are threatened with sanctions they were able to bring him back. Weird how that happens.

So it is obvious to anyone that the DOJ is lying. It should be obvious to the SCOTUS that the DOJ is lying, but, and this is in a case unrelated to Abrego García, Gorsuch and Roberts get all testy when you say that the Solicitor General, who is lying, happens to be lying. As I said, rule of law isn’t doing well right now.

They also lied and said they didn’t defy a court order. Did you miss that part?

Well. They didn’t though. In court they say that they don’t, they wouldn’t, and would never dream of defying court orders.

It’s just, you know, the Trump DOJ lies to the court. And, some judges are okay with the legal system lying about stuff. It’s a weird position to take, to say, “sure, you planted some evidence, but he was guilty anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.” Most judges, classically, have been in favor of something called the rule of law. Tump doesn’t like the rule of law, the Trump DOJ doesn’t like the rule of law, and now Trump is putting judges on the federal circuit who don’t like the rule of law. It’s not entirely clear that even the SCOTUS cares that much about rule of law right now. As they say “stare decisis is for suckers” or “we don’t care how the law worked yesterday day, we don’t care how the law works tomorrow, this is what we want to happen right now, we put it to a vote, and it’s totally what is going to happen.”

No. It’s not the pot calling the kettle black, it’s Hitler complaint about how immoral and violent Gandhi is.

Ah, yes. Only my company can possibly do this task, and your decision not to trust my company to perform this task means you won’t have anybody at all do it ever. 🙄

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Mostly start up time for me. It just takes the programs longer to launch.