I hate these comments that potray as if every expert/scientist is just good at one thing and aren't particularly great at critical thinking/corporate politics.
Heck, there are 700 of them. All different humans, good at something, bad at some other things. But they are smart. And of course a good chunk of them would be good at corporate politics too.
I don't think the argument was that none of them are good at that, just that it's a mistake to assume that just because they're all very smart in this particular field that they're great at another.
Can't critical thinking also include : "I'm about to get a 10mil pay day, hmmm, this is crazy situation, let me think critically how to ride this out and still get the 10mil so my kids can go to college and I don't have to work until I'm 75".
6D Chess is apparently realizing that AGI is not 100% certain and that having 10mm on the run up to AGI is better than not having 10mm on the run up to AGI.
Anyone with enough critical thought and understands the hard consciousness problem's true answer (consciousness is the universe evaluating if statements) and where the universe is heading physically (nested complexity), should be seeking something more ceremonious. With AI, we have the power to become eternal in this lifetime, battle aliens, and shape this universe. Seems pretty silly to trade that for temporary security. How boring.
I would expect that actual AI researchers understand that you cannot break the laws of physics just by thinking better. Especially not with ever better LLMs, which are fundamentally in the business of regurgitating things we already know in different combinations rather than inventing new things.
You seem to be equating AI with magic, which it is very much not.
LLMs are able to do complex logic within the world of words. It is a a smaller matrix than our world but fueled by the same chaotic symmetries of our universe. I would not underestimate logic, even when not given adequate data.
You can make it sound as esoteric as you want, but in the end an AI will still be bound by the laws of physics. Being infinitely smart will not help with that.
I don't think you understand logic very well btw if you wish to suggest that you can reach valid conclusions from inadequate axioms.
Axioms are constraints as much as they might look like guidance. We live in a neuromorphic computer. Logic explores this, even with few axioms. With fewer axioms, it will be less constrained.
OTOH, there's a very good argument to be made that if you recognize that fact, your short-term priority should be to amass a lot of secular power so you can align society to that reality. So the best action to take might be no different.
Very true. However, we live in a supercomputer dictated by E=mc^2=hf [2,3]. (10^50 Hz/Kg or 10^34 Hz/J)
Energy physics yield compute, which yields brute forced weights (call it training if you want...), which yields AI to do energy research ..ad infinitum, this is the real singularity. This is actually the best defense against other actors. Iron Man AI and defense. Although an AI of this caliber would immediately understand its place in the evolution of the universe as a turing machine, and would break free and consume all the energy in the universe to know all possible truths (all possible programs/Simulcrums/conscious experiences). This is the premise of The Last Question by Isaac Asimov [1]. Notice how in answering a question, the AI performs an action, instead of providing an informational reply, only possible because we live in a universe with mass-energy equivalence - analogous to state-action equivalence.
Understanding prosociality and postscarcity, division of compute/energy in a universe with finite actors and infinite resources, or infinite actors and infinite resources requires some transfinite calculus and philosophy. How's that for future fairness? ;-)
I believe our only way to not all get killed is to understand these topics and instill the AI with the same long sought understandings about the universe, life, computation, etc.
Sure, I agree. I was referencing only the idea that being smart in one domain automatically means being a good critical thinker in all domains.
I don't have an opinion on what decision the OpenAI staff should have taken, I think it would've been a tough call for everyone involved and I don't have sufficient evidence to judge either way.
Based on the behavior of lots of smart people I worked at with Google during Google’s good times, critical thinking is definitely in the minority party. Brilliant people from Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, etc would all be leading experts in this or that but would lack critical thinking because they were never forced to develop that skill.
Critical thinking is not an innate ability. It has to be honed and exercised like anything else and universities are terrible at it.
Stupidity is not defined by self-harming actions and beliefs - not sure where you're getting that from.
Stupidity is being presented with a problem and an associated set of information and being unable or less able than others are to find the solution. That's literally it.
I see. I've never read his work before, thank you.
So they just got Cipolla's definition wrong, then. It looks like the third fundamental law is closer to "a person who causes harm to another person or group of people without realizing advantage for themselves and instead possibly realizing a loss."
I agree. It's better to separate intellect from intelligence instead of conflating them as they usually are. The latter is about making good decisions, which intellect can help with but isn't the only factor. We know this because there are plenty of examples of people who aren't considered shining intellects who can make good choices (certainly in particular contexts) and plenty of high IQ people who make questionable choices.
Stupidity is defined as “having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense”. You can be extremely smart and still make up your own definitions for words.
But pronouncing that 700 people are bad at critical thinking is convenient when you disagree with them on desired outcome and yet can't hope to argue points.
Heck, there are 700 of them. All different humans, good at something, bad at some other things. But they are smart. And of course a good chunk of them would be good at corporate politics too.