Five minutes of hate news

[Marduk]

You got any idea how much random crap is networked with a mutilated desktop OS that could easily be a hard-wired embedded system? You don't need Windows for your fast food menus, and yet that's the case at quite a lot of places. Which is the sort of thing I'm referring to by "most of the economy".

>easily
You mean expansively?
Those are not completely specialized items, these are in large part general purpose devices programmed to be food menus so easily because they are on common PC standard software, and the economy of scale allowed by such versatility makes them cheap.
And what happens when a bug or security vulnerability is found in your hard-wired system?
Oh, right, you need a new one.

Also see the mention of Linux being non-retarded about dependencies, obscure archaic distributions don't become "obsolete" because you can update the individual functions as needed instead of being at the mercy of Microsoft or Apple depreciating what your software relies on.

You still do have to update and take care of them though.

 

[LordsFire]

The entire point of the approach is emulation of what is understood of how biological brains work, with efforts at understanding why the end result works back-testing to help figure out a 100% simulated fly brain that correctly controls a real body. Given the near universality of most neuron operations, it very much appears that a fully simulated human brain is merely a question of scale rather than paradigm. From these follows that self-aware training runtimes are simply extremely unlikely, not wholly impossible.

Also, your teleology is shit. The purpose of the thing does not comprise all possible outcomes of it, no matter how you try to weasel out of it. Unintended consequences are almost omnipresent in industry.

Simulating a brain won't bring you sapience. Even if we magically hand-wave away the various physical limitation of programming issues that Vyor is covering for trying to do the simulating, we magic all of that away, and assume limitless computing power to make actually simulating the neural activity feasible...

...You still just have a simulation of electrochemical activity.

Personhood resides in the soul. It is inherently tied to the supernatural, as much as it pisses atheists and materialists off.

If there is no supernatural, everything is reduced to raw materialistic cause-and effect, at which point no aspect of the universe is anything but a sub-element of the universal process of thermodynamic decay as everything grinds on towards the inevitable heat death of the universe. There is no escaping rigid deterministic causality.

The very existence of self-awareness, in and of itself, defeats the concept of a purely materialistic universe, and the more we come to understand the sophistication of biological life, and particularly neural and brain activity, the more blatant that fact becomes.

It doesn't matter how sophistication your data intake and processing system is. It can never gain self-awareness and personhood, because that is not how self-awareness and personhood work.

They are philosophical and theological concepts, not physics or biology concepts.

 

[LordSludge]

You've missed the bandwidth limitations you run into. Because the entire model has to be passed back and forth, more or less, you're starting to look at excessively high bandwidth costs, beyond that which even GPUs have. And that isn't something that can be solved by adding more hardware (adding more hardware actually makes the problem worse after a certain point) because you start slamming into fundamental computing limits.

The fastest interconnect available hits 200 gigabits per second per port... or 25 gigabytes per second. To hit enough bandwidth for this, you'd need 64 ports connected to one machine, for 1.6 terabytes a second of bandwidth, but... the lanes don't exist for that.

Even PCIe 7, which has a planned spec release date of next year, only brings that down to 2 lanes minimum. That means you're using 128 lanes of PCIe for just the interconnect. The CPU with the most available PCIe lanes is the AMD EPYC 9965 with 128 lanes of PCIe 5.

With each generation of PCIe adding 50% to the size of the memory controller, you're looking at a massively increased die size to fit everything needed just for networking. This is before you use lanes for the AI accelerator cards.

It's just not possible.

I...specifically mentioned the issues with communication speeds, actually. Not in high detail, but still. That's not "physically impossible", that's just exceedingly slow and inefficient due to the bottlenecks from the limitations of technology to the point that I think you start seeing minute long lagtimes inside of a couple of days just from one of the models constantly needing to generate and accept an infinitely expanding set of outputs and inputs and course correct another even before you get into the problems you outlined due to the need to rig workarounds and distribute processes across multiple CPUs resulting in even more inefficiency.

It'd be a frankensteined mess, slow as molasses within hours after not exactly starting out quick to begin with, riddled with inefficiencies, but within the specific context of simulating a reasonably sound facsimile of a sophont consciousness, it'd at least be able to put itself into the debatable category. It would however yes, be ungodly slow, inefficient, and you're entirely right that managing to figure out a way to work around the bandwidth problem and the lane issue would be hellish, but the speed, efficiency, etc weren't exactly the standard here.

I'm just saying that, technically, it is within the bounds of something we could do with existing technology, just very very badly. On paper at least, properly highly specialized models and custom built components and software would improve things an unquantifiable amount in proper laboratory conditions, but likely it'd still be an ungodly mess and I agree on that, but it would still, technically, accomplish the main goal laid out for at least a little while.

It's a bit like the AI equivalent of an Aeolipile, none of the parts are actually suited for what you might want it to do, it's riddled with flaws compared to a proper later example built with better materials and with a stronger grasp of the principles needed, and you can definitely quibble over the definitions involved and if it qualifies, rightly, but it's at least pretty close to the goal by technicality even if what it's actually doing is kind of an irrelevant boondoggle and not capable of much more than showing off that you can do something, technically.

 

[Captain X]

You guys realize there's already an AI thread, right?

AI/Automation Megathread

A thread for tracking new developments in AI, the latest jobs lost to automation, and where robots and industry are headed. For an opener, in AI research DeepMind has released AlphaCode, an AI capable of writing code on its own. While this may not sound amazing, codes that produce new codes...

www.the-sietch.com

In other news, couple shot at while walking at night in a park, shooter claims it was a hunting accident and has been set free:

 

[Marduk]

 

[The Whispering Monk]

I feel that sword canes may be making a comeback. Stylish umbrellas with sturdy shafts capped with sharp points too.

 

[mrttao]

Simulating a brain won't bring you sapience.

This is just Vitalism v2.0
They said the exact same thing about lab created biological compounds.

A good enough simulation of a human brain will give you sapience...
well, assuming you are simulating one of the few people who are actually sapient. Don't try to simulate an NPC

I feel that sword canes may be making a comeback. Stylish umbrellas with sturdy shafts capped with sharp points too.

bongland literally gives you years in prison for scaring armed burrglars with a fake gun.

 

[LordsFire]

This is just Vitalism v2.0
They said the exact same thing about lab created biological compounds.

A good enough simulation of a human brain will give you sapience...

This is just materialist logical failure vXXXXX^XXX.

Ideological commitment to a purely mechanical universe does not make it rational, nor does it make the science support the ideology.

There is no evidence-based reason to think sapience and conscious thought are phenomena of the brain. It doesn't even make sense within the paradigm of materialistic evolution, much less in a more rational and factual one.

 

[Morphic Tide]

There is no evidence-based reason to think sapience and conscious thought are phenomena of the brain.

...How many studies into physical interference with the brain altering behavior do you need to get this isn't the case? It's multiple big businesses, for crying out loud!

 

[LordsFire]

...How many studies into physical interference with the brain altering behavior do you need to get this isn't the case? It's multiple big businesses, for crying out loud!

And again, this is typical of materialist arguments. 'My position is the only possible interpretation of evidence. If you disagree with my interpretation, you disagree with evidence!'

No.

No it is not.

The brain, along with the rest of the nervous system, is clearly the physiological control system for the body. There's no real doubt on that. Sensory intake, interpretation, memory storage and recall, all of these things clearly have a physical functionality in the brain.

The question is not 'is the brain used for this?' The question is 'is the brain using itself, or being used?'

The brain as the 'pilot's seat' or 'interface and control system' for the soul is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the evidence, so long as you aren't a dogmatic materialist. It's completely coherent with how brain abnormalities, damage, and treatments, affect a person's ability to function in this world.

What materialists can't explain about how brute mechanistic functions would create, and thus the problem the worldview shares with the concept of sapient AI simply 'emerging' from computer systems, an emergent phenomena as abstract as conscious thought.

On top of all the other absurdities and blatant falsehoods of evolutionary theory, the idea that the incredible resources needed to create something as sophisticated as human cognition, through a purely mechanical computing system, would be advantageous for millions upon millions of years when it's incomplete and non-functional, yet depriving the 'evolving' organism of the resources needed to support it for iterative generation after generation of random chance just happening to drop element after element of the system into place until it finally is complete enough to perform an actually useful function, it's beyond absurd.

But then, irreducible complexity has been the kryptonite of the cult of materialism for decades. It still defeats them at blood clotting, sexual reproduction, and abiogenesis itself, so why would such fanatics be any more rational about applying it to the brain and conscious thought?



Maybe if people start making biological computers, particularly out of lab-grown human brain tissue, we will some day get a sapient AI.

It's never happening with transistor-based computing. That's not how physics work.

 

[mrttao]

This is just materialist logical failure vXXXXX^XXX.

Ideological commitment to a purely mechanical universe does not make it rational, nor does it make the science support the ideology.

There is no evidence-based reason to think sapience and conscious thought are phenomena of the brain. It doesn't even make sense within the paradigm of materialistic evolution, much less in a more rational and factual one.

There is absolutely an evidence based reason to think that.
Degerative brain diseases and brain injuries.

Have an elderly relative with dementia or alzheimer and watch as their brain slowly rots away and what it does to them.

It becomes abundently clear that the personhood is in the brain, not in some nebulous soul.

Furthermore, there exists a condition where a human fetus develops without a brain. and is born without a brain. Dying shortly after birth due to not breathing (in the womb they received oxygen from the mother).

Anencephaly - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This absolutely smashes the notion that you need a soul to develop a human body. As the entire human body forms and grows without a mind and dies on birth...
well, either that, or god is so evil that he puts a soul in a brainless human fetus to let it to grow until birth. instead of letting the body naturally auto abort it (which it does when it detects a failed fetus)

As for it not making sense in evolution...
How fucking ridiculous.
We know non sophont animals can experience emotions.
We can observe in animals vastly different levels of intellect and awareness.
While none of them reach human levels, we can see how things like developing object permanence or realizing that the thing in the mirror is yourself.
We can see it develop in both human babies and in some animals. But not in other animals. This shows the individual basic building blocks of sapience can be found in clearly non sapient animals.

 

[Vyor]

Maybe if people start making biological computers, particularly out of lab-grown human brain tissue, we will some day get a sapient AI.

It's never happening with transistor-based computing. That's not how physics work.

There are two options for it.

Self-adaptive photonic transistors and neural ones.

Both work off the same principles: the hardware itself evolves and alters in response to new data. The first does it through frequency modulation changing how the connections function and the second does it by changing the wires themselves. Both have limits, but they are far and away better than traditional silicon transistor computing for AI applications. Much higher bandwidth, much lower latency, much higher efficiency, much higher performance per transistor (as each transistor could have up to 8 "bits" for neural systems and... a technical infinite number for a photonic system, though the logistics reduce it to about 16-32 bits per transistor depending on how advanced the sensors become).

 

[LordsFire]

There is absolutely an evidence based reason to think that.
Degerative brain diseases and brain injuries.

Have an elderly relative with dementia or alzheimer and watch as their brain slowly rots away and what it does to them.

It becomes abundently clear that the personhood is in the brain, not in some nebulous soul.

Furthermore, there exists a condition where a human fetus develops without a brain. and is born without a brain. Dying shortly after birth due to not breathing (in the womb they received oxygen from the mother).

Anencephaly - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This absolutely smashes the notion that you need a soul to develop a human body. As the entire human body forms and grows without a mind and dies on birth...
well, either that, or god is so evil that he puts a soul in a brainless human fetus to let it to grow until birth. instead of letting the body naturally auto abort it (which it does when it detects a failed fetus)

As for it not making sense in evolution...
How fucking ridiculous.
We know non sophont animals can experience emotions.
We can observe in animals vastly different levels of intellect and awareness.
While none of them reach human levels, we can see how things like developing object permanence or realizing that the thing in the mirror is yourself.
We can see it develop in both human babies and in some animals. But not in other animals. This shows the individual basic building blocks of sapience can be found in clearly non sapient animals.

You are arguing against things I have not claimed.

 

[Morphic Tide]

The brain as the 'pilot's seat' or 'interface and control system' for the soul is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the evidence, so long as you aren't a dogmatic materialist.

No, it's a reasonable interpretation if you're a dedicated dualist, and it's a very stupid form of such given how it ruins theory of mind underpinning why social behaviors make any logical sense.

What materialists can't explain about how brute mechanistic functions would create, and thus the problem the worldview shares with the concept of sapient AI simply 'emerging' from computer systems, an emergent phenomena as abstract as conscious thought.

Our framework is defined by iterating towards less-wrong models to fill gaps in knowledge. Incomplete and contradictory theories are the expectation, moved away from asymptotically never anticipating full understanding. And the current state is not abstract mathematical patterns offering vague untestable hypotheses, large chunks of the understanding of localized brain functions are from self reporting by people with those locations altered and machinery's tracking certain classes of intended output better than moving our actual limbs these days.

But then, irreducible complexity has been the kryptonite of the cult of materialism for decades. It still defeats them at blood clotting, sexual reproduction, and abiogenesis itself, so why would such fanatics be any more rational about applying it to the brain and conscious thought?

Blood clotting can in fact be reduced considerably with partial function and a number of minor variations exist, sexual reproduction doesn't need to be reduceable given organisms currently do reproduce both sexually and asexually, and abiogenesis is arguing pure God in the gaps.

That you cannot be falsified now because empirical study has yet to find such an answer does not logically prove it impossible to do so. And as mentioned above, not knowing is the assumed starting point, so it's no problem that we still don't. You appear to be cripplingly incapable of understanding that accepting ignorance is rational.

 

[LordsFire]

and abiogenesis is arguing pure God in the gaps.

That you cannot be falsified now because empirical study has yet to find such an answer does not logically prove it impossible to do so. And as mentioned above, not knowing is the assumed starting point, so it's no problem that we still don't. You appear to be cripplingly incapable of understanding that accepting ignorance is rational.

And here you demonstrate that yes, it is God in the gaps.

"We already know this is true. We just have to fill in the holes with things we're sure we'll discover in the future."

"Ignore the fact that the more we learn about biology and physics, the more holes there are, and the bigger those holes get. We already know how it all happened."

The raw assertion of dogma over rationality and evidence, the institutional capture, social shaming, and cancelling tactics, that now so many people loathe the left for, were first developed and practiced (for decades) by the atheists working to install their dogma as the new cultural authority.

 

[Vyor]

Ignore the pure creationist please.

 

[SoliFortissimi]

The raw assertion of dogma over rationality and evidence, the institutional capture, social shaming, and cancelling tactics, that now so many people loathe the left for, were first developed and practiced (for decades) by the Evangelical Christians working to install their dogma as the new cultural authority.

FTFY. Don't think we've forgotten the Satanic Panic of the 90s. Nobody will forget the people who tried to cancel D&D and Harry Potter by calling them "witchcraft", nor all the cringey Christian books and movies like Left Behind and God's Not Dead.

And as long as I am posting on this server, I won't let you memory hole it.

 

[Vyor]

FTFY. Don't think we've forgotten the Satanic Panic of the 90s. Nobody will forget the people who tried to cancel D&D and Harry Potter by calling them "witchcraft", nor all the cringey Christian books and movies like Left Behind and God's Not Dead.

And as long as I am posting on this server, I won't let you memory hole it.

Ehhh, democrats were behind a good chunk of that too. They always controlled the media, remember.

 

[Blasterbot]

most of the anti-vidja game stuff got started by dem congress critters. same with the music side of things. that stuff was pretty bipartisan. most Christians were fine with that stuff existing. My mom as an example after having heard that stuff when she saw me bring home Harry Potter from the library did what any good parent should do. She read it first before letting me read it. that was the reaction most people had to these things. and that is what we should encourage parents to do. pay attention to the media your kids are engaging with. it will build up their world view. for good or ill.

 

[LordsFire]

Ehhh, democrats were behind a good chunk of that too. They always controlled the media, remember.

When Christianity still held a lot of cultural power, Democrats used that as they were able, but they much prefer to have it driven out, so that they can assert whatever they please, and churches are not competing with government or academia for social authority.

Ignore the pure creationist please.

Creationism makes no pretense at not being a theological concept.

Materialistic evolution does make such a pretense, and its adherents have held back scientific progress for generations at this point, hijacking the institutions of science and its cultural authority to be vehicles for their ideology.

Again, a lot of the playbook the progressives are using now.