I’m not sure I follow. Whether it’s the evolving configuration of atoms or bits, both can lead to new applications. The main difference to me seems that today it is typically harder to configure atoms than bits, but perhaps that’s just by our own design of the atoms underlying the bits? If some desired information system would require a specific atomic configuration, then you’d be hardware constrained again.
Let’s say that in order to build AGI we find out you actually need super power efficient computronium, and silicon can’t do that, you need carbon. Now it’s no longer a solved hardware problem, you are going to have to invest massively in carbon based computing. Paul and the rationalists are stuck waiting for the hardware engineers.
I am saying below a certain level of abstraction it becomes a solved problem in that you precisely have defined what correctness is and have fully represented your system. And you can trivially check any output and validate it versus a model.
The reason software fails constantly is we don’t have a good definition that can be checked by computer of what correctness means. Software Unit tests help but are not nearly as reliable as tests for silicon correctness. Moreover software just ends up being absurdly more complex than hardware and ai systems are worse.
Part of it is “unique complexity”. A big hardware system is millions of copies of the same repeating element. And locality matters—an element cannot affect another one far away unless a wire connects them. A big software system is millions of copies of often duplicated and nested and invisibly coupled code.
I’m not sure I follow. Whether it’s the evolving configuration of atoms or bits, both can lead to new applications. The main difference to me seems that today it is typically harder to configure atoms than bits, but perhaps that’s just by our own design of the atoms underlying the bits? If some desired information system would require a specific atomic configuration, then you’d be hardware constrained again.
Let’s say that in order to build AGI we find out you actually need super power efficient computronium, and silicon can’t do that, you need carbon. Now it’s no longer a solved hardware problem, you are going to have to invest massively in carbon based computing. Paul and the rationalists are stuck waiting for the hardware engineers.
I am saying below a certain level of abstraction it becomes a solved problem in that you precisely have defined what correctness is and have fully represented your system. And you can trivially check any output and validate it versus a model.
The reason software fails constantly is we don’t have a good definition that can be checked by computer of what correctness means. Software Unit tests help but are not nearly as reliable as tests for silicon correctness. Moreover software just ends up being absurdly more complex than hardware and ai systems are worse.
Part of it is “unique complexity”. A big hardware system is millions of copies of the same repeating element. And locality matters—an element cannot affect another one far away unless a wire connects them. A big software system is millions of copies of often duplicated and nested and invisibly coupled code.