David Deutsch
Physicist at the University of Oxford and a pioneer of quantum computation; author of The Fabric of Reality (1997) and The Beginning of Infinity (2011).
Cited by Naval RavikantSee it on the map
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 1st of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 2nd of 15 in this piece
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Their wordsI call the core functionality in question creativity: the ability to produce new explanations.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 3rd of 15 in this piece
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Their wordsBecause it is simply not true that knowledge comes from extrapolating repeated observations.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 4th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 5th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 6th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 7th of 15 in this piece
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Their wordsAn AGI is qualitatively, not quantitatively, different from all other computer programs.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 8th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 9th of 15 in this piece
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Our reading
Their wordsThat AGIs are people has been implicit in the very concept from the outset.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 10th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 11th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 12th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 13th of 15 in this piece
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Their wordsI am convinced that the whole problem of developing AGIs is a matter of philosophy, not computer science or neurophysiology
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 14th of 15 in this piece
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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.
↗How close are we to creating artificial intelligence?aeon.co 15th of 15 in this piece