Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Their wordsThe enterprise of achieving it artificially — the field of ‘artificial general intelligence’ or AGI — has made no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence.
Their wordsDespite this long record of failure, AGI must be possible. And that is because of a deep property of the laws of physics, namely the universality of computation.
Their wordsI call the core functionality in question creativity: the ability to produce new explanations.
Their wordsBecause it is simply not true that knowledge comes from extrapolating repeated observations.
Our reading
Knowledge consists of conjectured explanations, guesses that need no foundations or justification.
Their wordsNow, the truth is that knowledge consists of conjectured explanations — guesses about what really is (or really should be, or might be) out there in all those worlds. Even in the hard sciences, these guesses have no foundations and don’t need justification.
Our reading
Thinking is criticising and correcting partly true guesses, not extrapolating from sense data.
Their wordsThinking consists of criticising and correcting partially true guesses with the intention of locating and eliminating the errors and misconceptions in them, not generating or justifying extrapolations from sense data.
Their wordsCurrently one of the most influential versions of the ‘induction’ approach to AGI (and to the philosophy of science) is Bayesianism, unfairly named after the 18th-century mathematician Thomas Bayes, who was quite innocent of the mistake.
Their wordsAn AGI is qualitatively, not quantitatively, different from all other computer programs.
Their wordsExpecting to create an AGI without first understanding in detail how it works is like expecting skyscrapers to learn to fly if we build them tall enough.
Our reading
Their wordsThat AGIs are people has been implicit in the very concept from the outset.
Our reading
Treating AGIs like ordinary computer programs would be brainwashing, slavery and tyranny.
Their wordsTo treat AGIs like any other computer programs would constitute brainwashing, slavery, and tyranny.
Their wordsThe battle between good and evil ideas is as old as our species and will continue regardless of the hardware on which it is running.
Their wordsOne implication is that we must stop regarding education (of humans or AGIs alike) as instruction — as a means of transmitting existing knowledge unaltered, and causing existing values to be enacted obediently.
Their wordsI am convinced that the whole problem of developing AGIs is a matter of philosophy, not computer science or neurophysiology
Their wordsSo in one respect I can agree with the AGI-is-imminent camp: it is plausible that just a single idea stands between us and the breakthrough.
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