I agree about part 1. I don’t think there’s a meta-level / outside-view argument that AGI has to come from brain-like algorithms—or at least it’s not in that book. My inside-view argument is here and I certainly don’t put 100% confidence in it.
Interestingly, while airplanes are different from birds, I heard (I think from Dileep George) that the Wright Brothers were actually inspired by soaring birds, which gave them confidence that flapping wings were unnecessary for flight.
Jeff is a skilled writer
Well, the book was coauthored by a professional science writer if I recall… :-P
(If anyone spots mistakes in [part 2], please point them out.)
It’s been a while, but the one that springs to mind right now is Jeff’s claim (I think it’s in this book, or else he’s only said it more recently) that all parts of the neocortex issue motor commands. My impression was that only the frontal lobe does. For example, I think Jeff believes that the projections from V1 to the superior colliculus are issuing motor commands to move the eyes. But I thought the frontal eye field was the thing moving the eyes. I’m not sure what those projections are for, but I don’t think motor commands is the only possible hypothesis. I haven’t really looked into the literature, to be clear.
Relatedly, both Jeff and Steve say that about ten times as many connections are flowing down the hierarchy (except that Steve’s model doesn’t include a strict hierarchy) than up.
I might have gotten it from Jeff. Hmm, actually I think I’ve heard it from multiple sources. “Not a strict hierarchy” is definitely something that I partly got from Jeff—not from this book, I don’t think, but from later papers like this.
Thanks for writing this nice review!
I agree about part 1. I don’t think there’s a meta-level / outside-view argument that AGI has to come from brain-like algorithms—or at least it’s not in that book. My inside-view argument is here and I certainly don’t put 100% confidence in it.
Interestingly, while airplanes are different from birds, I heard (I think from Dileep George) that the Wright Brothers were actually inspired by soaring birds, which gave them confidence that flapping wings were unnecessary for flight.
Well, the book was coauthored by a professional science writer if I recall… :-P
It’s been a while, but the one that springs to mind right now is Jeff’s claim (I think it’s in this book, or else he’s only said it more recently) that all parts of the neocortex issue motor commands. My impression was that only the frontal lobe does. For example, I think Jeff believes that the projections from V1 to the superior colliculus are issuing motor commands to move the eyes. But I thought the frontal eye field was the thing moving the eyes. I’m not sure what those projections are for, but I don’t think motor commands is the only possible hypothesis. I haven’t really looked into the literature, to be clear.
I might have gotten it from Jeff. Hmm, actually I think I’ve heard it from multiple sources. “Not a strict hierarchy” is definitely something that I partly got from Jeff—not from this book, I don’t think, but from later papers like this.