Anthropics seem very important here; most laws of physics probably don’t form people; especially people who make cameras, and then AGI, then give it only a few images which don’t look very optimized, or like they’re of a much optimized world.
A limit on speed can be deduced; if intelligence enough to make AGI is possible, probably coordination’s already taken over the universe and made it to something’s liking, unless it’s slow for some reason. The AI has probably been designed quite inefficiently; not what you’d expect from intelligent design.
I could see how an AI might deduce that “objects” exist, and that they exist in three dimensions, from 2 images where the apple has slightly rotated.
I’m pretty sure this one’s deducible from one image; the apple has lots of shadows and refraction. The indentations have lighting the other way.
It could find that the light source is very far above and a few degrees in width, and therefore very large, along with some lesser light from the upper 180°. The apple is falling; universal laws are very common; the sun is falling. The water on the apple shows refraction; this explains the sky (this probably all takes place in a fluid; air resistance, wind).
The apple is falling, and the grass seems affected by gravity too; why isn’t the grass falling the same way? It is.
The grass is pointing up, but all level with other grass; probably the upper part of the ground is affected by gravity, so it flattens.
The camera is aligned almost exactly with the direction the apple is falling.
In three frames, maybe it could see grass bounce off each other? It could at least see elasticity. I don’t know much of the laws of motion it could find from this, but probably not none. Angular movement of the apple also seems important.
Light is very fast; laws of motion; light is very light (not massive) because it goes fast but doesn’t visibly move things.
A superintelligence could probably get farther than this; very large, bright, far up object is probably evidence of attraction as well.
Simulation doesn’t make this much harder; the models for apple and grass came from somewhere. Occam’s Razor is weakened, not strengthened, because simulators have strong computational constraints, probably not many orders of magnitude beyond what the AI was given to think with.
You are assuming a superintelligence that knows how to perform all these deductions. Why would this be a valid assumption? You are reasoning from your own point of view, i.e., the point of view of someone who has already seen much, much more of the world than a few frames, and more importantly someone who already knows what the thing is that is supposed to be deduced, which allows you to artificially reduce the hypothesis space. On what basis would this superintelligence be able to do this?
You might need a very strong superintelligence, or one with a lot of time. But I think the correct hypothesis has extremely high evidence compared to others, and isn’t that complicated. If it has enough thought to locate the hypothesis, it has enough to find it’s better than almost any other.
Newtonian Mechanics or something a bit closer would rise very near the top of the list. It’s possible even the most likely possibilities wouldn’t be given much probability, but it would at least be somewhat modal. [Is there a continuous analogue for the mode? I don’t know what softmax is.]
Thank you for the question. I understand better, now.
Anthropics seem very important here; most laws of physics probably don’t form people; especially people who make cameras, and then AGI, then give it only a few images which don’t look very optimized, or like they’re of a much optimized world.
A limit on speed can be deduced; if intelligence enough to make AGI is possible, probably coordination’s already taken over the universe and made it to something’s liking, unless it’s slow for some reason. The AI has probably been designed quite inefficiently; not what you’d expect from intelligent design.
I’m pretty sure this one’s deducible from one image; the apple has lots of shadows and refraction. The indentations have lighting the other way.
It could find that the light source is very far above and a few degrees in width, and therefore very large, along with some lesser light from the upper 180°. The apple is falling; universal laws are very common; the sun is falling. The water on the apple shows refraction; this explains the sky (this probably all takes place in a fluid; air resistance, wind).
The apple is falling, and the grass seems affected by gravity too; why isn’t the grass falling the same way? It is.
The grass is pointing up, but all level with other grass; probably the upper part of the ground is affected by gravity, so it flattens.
The camera is aligned almost exactly with the direction the apple is falling.
In three frames, maybe it could see grass bounce off each other? It could at least see elasticity. I don’t know much of the laws of motion it could find from this, but probably not none. Angular movement of the apple also seems important.
Light is very fast; laws of motion; light is very light (not massive) because it goes fast but doesn’t visibly move things.
A superintelligence could probably get farther than this; very large, bright, far up object is probably evidence of attraction as well.
Simulation doesn’t make this much harder; the models for apple and grass came from somewhere. Occam’s Razor is weakened, not strengthened, because simulators have strong computational constraints, probably not many orders of magnitude beyond what the AI was given to think with.
Thank you.
You are assuming a superintelligence that knows how to perform all these deductions. Why would this be a valid assumption? You are reasoning from your own point of view, i.e., the point of view of someone who has already seen much, much more of the world than a few frames, and more importantly someone who already knows what the thing is that is supposed to be deduced, which allows you to artificially reduce the hypothesis space. On what basis would this superintelligence be able to do this?
You might need a very strong superintelligence, or one with a lot of time. But I think the correct hypothesis has extremely high evidence compared to others, and isn’t that complicated. If it has enough thought to locate the hypothesis, it has enough to find it’s better than almost any other.
Newtonian Mechanics or something a bit closer would rise very near the top of the list. It’s possible even the most likely possibilities wouldn’t be given much probability, but it would at least be somewhat modal. [Is there a continuous analogue for the mode? I don’t know what softmax is.]
Thank you for the question. I understand better, now.