For 1 - we don’t have any examples of this in nature.
We don’t have any examples of steam engines, supersonic aircraft or transistors in nature either. Saying that something can’t happen because it hasn’t evolved in nature is an extraordinarily poor argument.
We do have examples of these things in nature, in degrees. Like flowers turning to the sun because they contain light-sensing cells. Thus, it exists in nature and we eventually replicate it.
Steam engines is just energy transfer and use, and that exists. So does flying fast.
Something not in nature (as far as we can tell) is teleportation. Living inside a star.
I don’t mean specific narrow examples in nature. I mean the broader idea.
So I can see intelligence evolving over enormous time-frames, and learning exists, so I do concur we can speed up learning and replicate it… but the underlying idea of a being modifying itself? Nowhere in nature. No examples anywhere on any level.
You have no control down on the cellular level over your body. No deliberate conscious control. No being does. This is what I mean by does not exist in nature. Like teleportation.
If I do weight training, my muscles get bigger and stronger. If I take a painkiller, a toothache is reduced in severity. A vaccination gives me better resistance to some disease. All of these are myself modifying myself.
Everything you have written on this subject seems to be based on superficial appearances and analogies, with no contact with the deep structure of things.
You have no atomic level control over that. You can’t grow a cell at will or kill one or release a hormone. This is what I’m referring to. No being that exists has this level of control. We all operate far above the physical reality of our bodies.
But we suggest an AI will have atomic control. Or that code control is the same as control.
Total control would be you sitting there directing cells to grow or die or change at will.
No AI will be there modifying the circuitry it runs on down at the atomic level.
Quick very off the cuff mod note: I haven’t actually looked into the details of this thread and don’t have time today, but skimming it it looks like it’s maybe spiralling into a Demon Thread and it might be good for people to slow down and think more about what their goals are.
(If everyone involved is actually just having fun hashing an idea out, sorry for my barging in)
Your argument is fundamentally broken, because nature only contains things that happen to biologically evolve, so it first has to be the result of the specific algorithm (evolution) and also the result of a random roll of a dice (the random part of it). Even if there were no self-modifying beings in nature (humans do self-modify) or self-modifying AI, it would still be prima facie possible for it to exist because all it means it is for the being to turn its optimization power at itself (this is prima facie possible, since the being is a part of the environment).
So instead of trying to think of an argument about why something that already exists is impossible, you should’ve simply considered the general principle.
No being has cellular level control. Can’t direct brain cells to grow or hormones to release etc. This is what I mean by it does not exist in nature. There is no self modification that is being propagated that AI will have.
Teleportation doesn’t exist so we shouldn’t make arguments where teleportation is part of it.
No being has cellular level control. Can’t direct brain cells to grow or hormones to release etc.
Humans can already do that, albeit indirectly. Once again, you’re “explaining” why something that already exists is impossible.
It’s sufficient for a self-modifying superhuman AI that it can do that indirectly (for it to be self-modifying), but self-modification of the source code is even easier than manipulation on the level of individual molecules.
We don’t have any examples of steam engines, supersonic aircraft or transistors in nature either. Saying that something can’t happen because it hasn’t evolved in nature is an extraordinarily poor argument.
We do have examples of these things in nature, in degrees. Like flowers turning to the sun because they contain light-sensing cells. Thus, it exists in nature and we eventually replicate it.
Steam engines is just energy transfer and use, and that exists. So does flying fast.
Something not in nature (as far as we can tell) is teleportation. Living inside a star.
I don’t mean specific narrow examples in nature. I mean the broader idea.
So I can see intelligence evolving over enormous time-frames, and learning exists, so I do concur we can speed up learning and replicate it… but the underlying idea of a being modifying itself? Nowhere in nature. No examples anywhere on any level.
Any form of learning is a being modifying itself. How else would learning occur?
You have no control down on the cellular level over your body. No deliberate conscious control. No being does. This is what I mean by does not exist in nature. Like teleportation.
If I do weight training, my muscles get bigger and stronger. If I take a painkiller, a toothache is reduced in severity. A vaccination gives me better resistance to some disease. All of these are myself modifying myself.
Everything you have written on this subject seems to be based on superficial appearances and analogies, with no contact with the deep structure of things.
You have no atomic level control over that. You can’t grow a cell at will or kill one or release a hormone. This is what I’m referring to. No being that exists has this level of control. We all operate far above the physical reality of our bodies.
But we suggest an AI will have atomic control. Or that code control is the same as control.
Total control would be you sitting there directing cells to grow or die or change at will.
No AI will be there modifying the circuitry it runs on down at the atomic level.
Quick very off the cuff mod note: I haven’t actually looked into the details of this thread and don’t have time today, but skimming it it looks like it’s maybe spiralling into a Demon Thread and it might be good for people to slow down and think more about what their goals are.
(If everyone involved is actually just having fun hashing an idea out, sorry for my barging in)
Your argument is fundamentally broken, because nature only contains things that happen to biologically evolve, so it first has to be the result of the specific algorithm (evolution) and also the result of a random roll of a dice (the random part of it). Even if there were no self-modifying beings in nature (humans do self-modify) or self-modifying AI, it would still be prima facie possible for it to exist because all it means it is for the being to turn its optimization power at itself (this is prima facie possible, since the being is a part of the environment).
So instead of trying to think of an argument about why something that already exists is impossible, you should’ve simply considered the general principle.
No being has cellular level control. Can’t direct brain cells to grow or hormones to release etc. This is what I mean by it does not exist in nature. There is no self modification that is being propagated that AI will have.
Teleportation doesn’t exist so we shouldn’t make arguments where teleportation is part of it.
Humans can already do that, albeit indirectly. Once again, you’re “explaining” why something that already exists is impossible.
It’s sufficient for a self-modifying superhuman AI that it can do that indirectly (for it to be self-modifying), but self-modification of the source code is even easier than manipulation on the level of individual molecules.