But isn’t this analogy flawed? Yes, humans have built dishwashers so they can be used by humans. But humans can also handle messy natural environments that have not been built for them. In fact, handling messy environment we are not familiar with, do not control and did not make is the major reason we evolve sentience and intelligence in the first place, and what makes our intelligence so impressive. Right now, I think you could trap an AI in a valley filled with jungle and mud, and even if it had access to an automated factory for producing robots as well as raw material and information, if fulfilling its goals depended on it getting out of this location because e.g. the location is cut off from the internet, I think it would earnestly struggle.
Sure, humans can build an environment that an AI can handle, and an AI adapted to it. But this clearly indicates a severe limitation of the AI in reacting to novel and complex environments. A roomba cannot do what I do when I clean the house, and not just cause the engineers didn’t bother. E.g. it can detect a staircase, and avoid falling down it—but it cannot actually navigate the staircase to hoover different floors, let alone use an elevator or ladder to get around, or hoover up dust from blankets that get sucked in, or bookshelves. Sure, me carrying it down only takes me seconds, it is trivial for me and hugely difficult for the robot, which is why no company would try to get it done. But I would also argue that it is really not simple for it to do; and that is despite picking a task (removing dust) that most humans, myself included, consider tedious and mindless. Regardless, a professional cleaning person that enters multiple different flats filled with trash, resistant stains and dangerous objects and carefully tidies and cleans them does something that is utterly beyond the current capabilities of AI. This is true for a lot of care/reproductive work. Which is all the more frustrating because it is work where there is a massive need and desire for it to be taken over. The washing machine did more for feminism than endless tracts. Women in academia stuck with their kids at home during the pandemic broke under the pressure, and neglected academic careers that were a much better use for their minds and more aligned with their identity. AI that can do this shit would be wanted and needed, and seems very much unsolved.
But isn’t this analogy flawed? Yes, humans have built dishwashers so they can be used by humans. But humans can also handle messy natural environments that have not been built for them. In fact, handling messy environment we are not familiar with, do not control and did not make is the major reason we evolve sentience and intelligence in the first place, and what makes our intelligence so impressive. Right now, I think you could trap an AI in a valley filled with jungle and mud, and even if it had access to an automated factory for producing robots as well as raw material and information, if fulfilling its goals depended on it getting out of this location because e.g. the location is cut off from the internet, I think it would earnestly struggle.
Sure, humans can build an environment that an AI can handle, and an AI adapted to it. But this clearly indicates a severe limitation of the AI in reacting to novel and complex environments. A roomba cannot do what I do when I clean the house, and not just cause the engineers didn’t bother. E.g. it can detect a staircase, and avoid falling down it—but it cannot actually navigate the staircase to hoover different floors, let alone use an elevator or ladder to get around, or hoover up dust from blankets that get sucked in, or bookshelves. Sure, me carrying it down only takes me seconds, it is trivial for me and hugely difficult for the robot, which is why no company would try to get it done. But I would also argue that it is really not simple for it to do; and that is despite picking a task (removing dust) that most humans, myself included, consider tedious and mindless. Regardless, a professional cleaning person that enters multiple different flats filled with trash, resistant stains and dangerous objects and carefully tidies and cleans them does something that is utterly beyond the current capabilities of AI. This is true for a lot of care/reproductive work. Which is all the more frustrating because it is work where there is a massive need and desire for it to be taken over. The washing machine did more for feminism than endless tracts. Women in academia stuck with their kids at home during the pandemic broke under the pressure, and neglected academic careers that were a much better use for their minds and more aligned with their identity. AI that can do this shit would be wanted and needed, and seems very much unsolved.