Oh, I was not meaning to invalidate your knowledge, universeness! I'm very sorry about that! Really. :sad:
I most probably pushed it to far. I do that sometimes. It has nothing to do with the other person. It has to do with myself, who has read and heard --and I still do-- so much crap about AI, that it makes me puke. And this, because I am a AI programmer and I always try do make people aware and know what AI is actually about. But the wall of ignorance is too thick for me to break and it becomes strongher and higher with time. So, maybe it's time for me to stop doing that. In fact, stop caring about that and let people live in their ignorance. Besides, this situation is so old as the dawn of Man.

I'm sorry again, @universeness. — Alkis Piskas

No problem Alkis. I enjoy the challenge of the differences in our viewpoints, as I have always found you an honest interlocuter and those are not so easy to find. You have no 'stealth agenda.' You are more like a WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get.
I would be interested in more details regarding what AI system you used to, or still do, program for.
From previous posts, I assumed your expertise is in linguistics and linguistic translation. Is it AI NLP systems you worked with (NLP as in Natural Language Process(ing)(ors))?

I think the 'posthuman future' will be intrastellar-intraplanetary — 180 Proof

:lol: You continue to demonstrate you wordsmith skills!
I googled 'intrastellar' and the only useful sentence I got was:
Is the word intrastellar commonly used to refer to objects within our solar system by astronomers, or is it just the editors creative reversal of interstellar.

I assume you are invoking the idea of 'inside stars' by 'intra.'
So, do you think a ASI will quickly create a Dyson sphere?

'Stellar' denotes star-system, not just "star" (i.e. solar), so intra-stellar means (inhabiting) 'within a star-system' in contrast to inter-stellar meaning (traveling) 'between star-systems'. Maybe my usage is unorthodox but that's what I meant in my last post.

As for "Dyson spheres", I don't think so. Artificial black holes would have far more energy density for far less energy expenditure (no planetary orbit-megaengineering). But what do I know compared to "the Monolith"? :sweat:

Just a small TPF tech point ucarr. Have you noticed that your 'number of posts' variable seems to be stuck on 561! I noticed that it had not moved past 561, due to your recent postings on this and other threads. Perhaps worth raising with @Jamal
:blush: Oh! I think I just did! :halo:

Ah! Ok, I get your meaning now.
Surely an ASI will send probes to places like Alpha Centauri and Barnards star. They are only a few light years away. Might even be able to send augmented humans, no? Do you not think so?

But if you watch the material coming out from current AI experts, such as Nick Bostrom, Demis Hassabis, et al. You should accept that what they are reporting, is not like listening to a preacher talking BS from a pulpit. What they are saying, has a credence level, backed by scientific projections, that we should all pay attention to. — universeness

Yes, I remember well Hassabis, introduded to me by you, and that in my thanking-for-that-introduction answer to you (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718045), I said "Yet, I got almost nothing from there," referring to consciousness. Otherwise, of course I accept what he had to say. (About the other guy I know absolutely nothing and I will have to read about what he has to say on the subject of consciousness.)

Data has no meaning! — universeness

No, it has no meaning in or by itself. The meaning of the data is created by us.
こんにちは is Japanese data and has no meaning. But I can find its meaning from someone who knows it. It means "Hello". Then only these symbols acquire a meaning for me. (Of course, most probably I won't recognize them the next time I see them and they will continue to have no meaning for me ! :grin:)

A book contains contextualised data, labelled data, data with associated meaning — universeness

Exactly. "Data with associated meaning." It has no meaning in or by itself, unless we associate one to it.

That sentence is NOT DATA, it is INFORMATION (data with meaning) — universeness

Right. You have correctly drawn a line between the two, somthing which people in general don't. Even dictionaries don't! They usually use the terms interchangeably.

AI can never become self-aware or even just aware. Awareness is an attribute of life (living organisms).
— Alkis Piskas
Wanna bet?? :grin: — universeness

Sure. But who will be the judge? :grin:

My quote above was referring to what science knows about the exact 'tipping point' ... — universeness

Well, I admit I have to examine this closely --if not study it-- before I can judge.

Developing AGI and ASI may fill in many of those gaps and by doing so, silence any theistic and theosophistic residuals, that are still holding back, human growth and progress. — universeness

This is what I call great aspirations! ... Or should I say, Great Expectations? :grin:

I find it fascinating that ASI might mean our extinction, — universeness

Why am I not afraid of that? I have dozens of other things in my mind that might lead us to extinction, but not that. Well, who knows were you and I would be --if we are still alive-- when such a thing would actually happen? :grin:

I enjoy exchanging views with you also. — universeness

Glad to hear that, @universeness!

I really liked this response by Victor Toth on Quora to the question:

To which degree can quantum mechanics be truly understood (Thinking about what Richard Feynman said about it)?
“True understanding” is in the eye of the beholder.

So let me tell you instead what it is that, in my considered opinion, cannot be done: You can never understand quantum physics if you try to conceptualize it using the classical concepts of a particle or a wave. Classical concepts do not apply. Intuition does not apply. Visualization does not apply.

The reason? Up until the point where quantum mechanics uses a mathematical apparatus to describe the “state” of a system, it remains consistent with classical physics and thus it could be intuited. But then comes a critical step: a quantum system can be in a “superposition” of classical states. That is to say, that electron can indeed be in two (or three, or seventy-seven, or an infinite number of) places at once. In this state, that elementary particle has no well-defined position or momentum. In fact, it only has classically well-defined properties when it interacts with a classical system (or something indistinguishable from a classical system) such as an instrument, a camera, a cat, a human. And therein lies the other conceptually difficult issue: how does a quantum system “know” that it must evolve towards such an “eigenstate”, anticipating a future interaction with a classical instrument? Or perhaps it doesn’t know and the transition is instantaneous and therefore retroactive?

Long story short, classical concepts do not apply here. So if “true understanding” means “explain in terms of classical analogies, appealing to intuition or visualization” the answer is that it cannot be done.

But if understanding means getting rid of classical concepts and analogies altogether, accept the math as a valid description of Nature (after all, the predictions match reality) and move on, recognizing the limitations of the human brain to “internalize” certain difficult, counterintuitive truths, then perhaps “true understanding” is possible.

As I said, what “true understanding” means is in the eye of the beholder.

This is the kind of issue that I think an AGI or ASI would be able to help us understand.

Sure. But who will be the judge? — Alkis Piskas

I will send £50 to @Jamal, you do the same. As soon as an AGI/ASI gets created and convinces YOU that it is self-aware and conscious then @Jamal will transfer the £100 to me.
If I die before that happens then he can transfer the £100 to you. If You die before me or we both die before @Jamal, then he can donate the £100 to the maintenance costs of TPF.
In truth, I think @jamal could just use the £100 for TPF whenever he needs to as I think neither of us is likely to win the bet. :lol:

I doubt it. Sending self-replicating AGI (an)droids would be far more energy and resources efficient.

I don’t know what you’re talking about but I felt it was polite to respond to being tagged, especially as money seems to be involved :grin:

This is what I call great aspirations! ... Or should I say, Great Expectations? — Alkis Piskas

Absafragginlootly!

Why am I not afraid of that? I have dozens of other things in my mind that might lead us to extinction, but not that. Well, who knows were you and I would be --if we are still alive-- when such a thing would actually happen? — Alkis Piskas

Perhaps yer just a tough dude Alkis, No fears my dears!

Glad to hear that, universeness! — Alkis Piskas

:up: By the way, when you type @universness, don't use the @ on your keyboard. Choose it from the tool list at the top of your blank response box. I then get informed that I have been mentioned in a post so that I go and read it. It works similarly to the 'quote' tab you can choose after highlighting someone's text you wish to quote and respond to. Sorry, if you already know all about this.

Just based on my recent exchange with Alkis and our posts at:

AI can never become self-aware or even just aware. Awareness is an attribute of life (living organisms). — Alkis Piskas

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13868/emergent/p26#:~:text=the%20human%20brain.-,AI%20can%20never%20become%20self%2Daware%20or%20even%20just%20aware.%20Awareness,%3Agrin%3A,-Science%20knows%20very

Did you read my note to ucarr about his 'number of posts' variable seemingly stuck on 561?

Did you read my note to ucarr about his 'number of posts' variable seemingly stuck on 561? — universeness

Yes. If after a week it’s still keeping me awake at night, I’ll look into it.

Thank you for youe kind words, @universeness. :pray:
Although, we are not here for that, are we? :grin:

You are more like a WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. — universeness

I believe this fits me and you got it right! :smile:

I would be interested in more details regarding what AI system you used to — universeness

As you well know, AI is a huuuge field, so I'm gettting in and out of it, programming-wise, since I'm involved in all sort of programming fields. And work mainly for my own pleasure and personal development.
I would like to note that I am an autodidact and I don't like theory much. So I miss some "deep" knowledge of AI systems from that aspect. I'm more of a "coder" if you like. Programming was my first profession (1986~1997) and back then I was mainly a system programmer but also an analyst.

So, I am not involved in some particular project regarding AI. Lately, I was working for about month on Web scraping. Veeery interesting field! But in general, I'm just learning more and more about AI, esp. its applications and mainly through experience, as I always did. I just love to program! It's more that a hobby. It's a passion.

As for my 20-year translantion career, an autodidact again, it has offered me a great deal of linguistic knowledge but mainly money! :grin: Something that programming hasn't!

Is it AI NLP systems you worked with — universeness

NLP only by itself is a huuuge subject and --you got that right too!-- it's maybe the most fascinating for me. Most probably because of my rich linguistic background ...

Yes. If after a week it’s still keeping me awake at night, I’ll look into it. — Jamal

Aw diddum's! do our issue's keep you awake at night?

Thanks for the notification.

@universeness ucarr is now at 562 posts, indicating that your imagination cooked up the whole thing.

A future ASI maybe as comparable with the intellect of Anne Sullivan as you or I are comparable with the intellect of a chimpanzee. — universeness

Of what use will ASI be? It has nothing that will ever qualify it for good human judgment. No human experience and no feelings. To have feelings, there must be a body that can feel. Chimpanzees would not exist if they did not care for each other. They are social animals and regulated by hormones that give the body feelings that determine behaviors. Social animals can teach us more about being humans, than ASI will ever know. ASI can have information but without experience, information is not knowledge.

You are attempting to compare human intellect with current AI. Current AI is advancing in functionality and capability. Systems like chatGPT are very advanced compared to an early system such as ELIZA.
ELIZA was considered a significant advance on historical AI.
How close are we to creating AGI? — universeness

I thinks humans maybe the only animal that treats a fantasy as a reality.

AGI would have a learning capacity, which would grow much faster than the human ability to become enlightened. — universeness

Not without a body that can feel and is aware of pain and and love and death.

Programming was my first profession (1986~1997) and back then I was mainly a system programmer but also an analyst. — Alkis Piskas

Interesting, What op systems did you work on?
I did some sub-routine work on syntax analysers and contextual analysers etc, using Pascal (HLL) into a Pcode assembly language, targeted at the old Motorolla series 68000 processors (using 16 bit CISC).
This was just practice at creating high level language translators to produce an assembly code, which could then be translated into machine code for the Motorolla 16 bit (or in fact the 32 bit) early processors. During 1986-1997 they were still trying to establish a robust software development cycle based on 'the waterfall' model or ADITDEM. As an Analyst at that time, did you find yourself more and more pressured to comply or develop more rigorous 'technical support' systems for client groups?

:up: Looks like it's been fixed :clap:

ucarr is now at 562 posts, indicating that your imagination cooked up the whole thing. — Jamal

:rofl: I imagine you will sleep like an innocent child tonight, it's ok, you don't have to thank me. :blush:

Some monolith picked the above picture, honest!

I doubt it. Sending self-replicating AGI (an)droids imwould be far more energy and resources efficient. — 180 Proof

I'm not so sure, perhaps 'orga' components will be as vital to the successful development of interstellar space, as any pure 'mecha.' I tried to employ some wordsmithery, as cool as yours, with 'orga' and 'mecha,' even though I didn't coin the terms. :halo:

Of what use will ASI be? It has nothing that will ever qualify it for good human judgment. No human experience and no feelings. To have feelings, there must be a body that can feel. Chimpanzees would not exist if they did not care for each other. They are social animals and regulated by hormones that give the body feelings that determine behaviors. Social animals can teach us more about being humans, than ASI will ever know. ASI can have information but without experience, information is not knowledge. — Athena

If I could offer you a replacement pinky for the one you have, with the following properties:
1. Aesthetically identical to the pinky you have.
2. Functions exactly the same way as your current pinky, same sensitivity levels, etc
3. Can hold a 100 stone weight for up to 8 hours before you would have to let go of the weight.
4. Can allow you to hang by your pinky for as long as you like.

Basically a much more robust pinky? You could kill someone with that pinky!
Would you accept the free pinky upgrade and become one of the advanced pinky people, or would you stay as one of the current mundane pinky humans?

Well devised plan! :smile:
However, by "judge" I meant who will judge who won the bet? The is, that AI has indeed become self-aware? Because there are already some smarty-pants out there who believe it. And who are ready to vote for you! :smile:

However, by "judge" I meant who will judge who won the bet? — Alkis Piskas

You can be the judge! I trust you (well, for £50 anyway). If you are not satisfied that the candidate system is self-aware and I am dead, then the cash is yours, otherwise, TPF gets it. OR of course I win! :party: :party: :party:

Perhaps yer just a tough dude Alkis — universeness

I'm rather a "realist" (whatever this word rings to peoples' ears)

By the way, when you type universness, don't use the @ on your keyboard. Choose it from the tool list at the top of your blank response box. I then get informed that I have been mentioned — universeness

I know this. I do it when I mention someone other than the person I am replying/commenting to and I believe that my message will be of interest to them. Otherwise, the person I am addressing the message to will be notified anyway.

I know this. I do it when I mention someone other than the person I am replying/commenting to and I believe that my message will be of interest to them. — Alkis Piskas

Ok, I should have figured that!

Interesting, What op systems did you work on? — universeness

MS DOS (PC machines), of course! I could only transfer a part of my system programming expertise to Windows. Too much to do and my programming career had began to set.

Prode assembly, Motorola, ... — universeness

Yes, all that were a strange and uninviting environment for me. :smile:

As an Analyst at that time, did you find yourself more and more pressured to comply or develop more rigorous 'technical support' systems for client groups? — universeness

Again, my expertise as an analyst was limited to PCs, i.e. mainly MS DOS and later Windows and it was restricted to LANs and small groups and a few clients. For a year I also worked with WANs.

Again, my expertise as an analyst was limited to PCs, i.e. mainly MS DOS and later Windows and it was restricted to LANs and small groups and a few clients. For a year I also worked with WANs. — Alkis Piskas

Sounds good. I always enjoyed teaching the network topologies of LAN's and WAN's. We used to use some old BBC Micro's and we built a small client/server system in a star, bus, ring or even a fully connected mesh LAN topology or sometimes, a hybrid. With our 6th year students we even engaged some of our feeder primary schools to set up a small WAN, using a couple of old routers and a stripped down stand alone and networked Op system. It was good to be restricted to a textual user interface, no GUI involved.
The pupils got to learn some BBC BASIC and DOS and MS DOS commands.

You can be the judge! — universeness

Then, you have lost already! :grin:
No, I can be quite objective and I love challenges. I can easily recognize an argument that is better than mine and acjknowledge it to its owner. (You see, it happens so rarily ... :grin:)

Anyway, in short: I have to do nothing. The burden of proof lies to the person who claims that something is true or exists or occurs or has happened. This is you! :smile: Come to me with valuable finding and I will acjnowldge it to you even if it isn't the final solution, but is relatively close to to the goal of creating an aware AI. Then we will have to move to the next step: a self-aware AI, which is an attribute of humans only. Then we will have to move to the next human attribute: imagination. Which reminds of what I read once, that chess supercomputers --like once was IBM's Deep Blue; I don't know how that has been evolved-- can lose when the oponent makes a move that has no sense or something like that. Such a thing can perplex the computer. Anyway, what is certain, which hold in the past as it still holds today, is that imagination is a human attribute that cannot be transfered to a machine.
What it looks like "imagination" or "creativity" in an AI system is mainly a product of Machine Learning.

Have you tried OpenAI's ChatGPT? (I think I have brought that up some time ago in this thread but it didn't get any attention ...)

Then, you have lost already! :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Nah, you forget, @Jamal would hold the dosh!

Anyway, in short: I have to do nothing. The burden of proof lies to the person who claims that something is true or exists or occurs or has happened. This is you! :smile: Come to me with valuable finding and I will acjnowldge it to you even if it isn't the final solution, but is relatively close to to the goal of creating an aware AI. — Alkis Piskas

Sounds fair to me!

Then we will have to move to the next step: a self-aware AI, which is an attribute of humans only. — Alkis Piskas

No, I will not offer a candidate AGI/ASI system that I am not convinced is self-aware.

Which reminds of what I read once, that chess supercomputers --like once was IBM's Deep Blue; I don't know how that has been evolved-- can lose when the oponent makes a move that has no sense or something like that. — Alkis Piskas

Two extracts about Demis Hassabis you might find interesting, based on your quote above and if you were not already aware of Demis' back story. These are from: The future perfect
Growing up in north London, the child of a Greek Cypriot father and a Chinese Singaporean mother, Hassabis was a child prodigy in chess from the age of 4. He began writing his own computer games at 8, created one of the first video games to use AI at 17, and founded his own video game company not long after graduating from Cambridge University at 20.

Games are a logical playground for both AI models and for the men and women who design them. Games have clear rules and clear metrics for success and failure. When IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, it was considered a major landmark in the advancement of AI. But whereas Deep Blue triumphed primarily thanks to sheer computational force, which enabled it to examine 200 million moves per second, the models Hassabis helped shepherd at DeepMind seemed capable of truly learning, at least within the bounds of the games.

Demis chose the name DeepMind in consideration of the achievement of Deep Blue.

Have you tried OpenAI's ChatGPT? (I think I have brought that up some time ago in this thread but it didn't get any attention ...) — Alkis Piskas

I am on the list to be connected, the list is full at present.