Just like evolution does not care about the well-being of humans a sufficiently intelligent process wouldn’t mind turning us into something new, something instrumentally useful.
An artificial general intelligence just needs to resemble evolution, with the addition of being goal-oriented, being able to think ahead, jump fitness gaps and engage in direct experimentation. But it will care as much about the well-being of humans as biological evolution does, it won’t even consider it if humans are not useful in achieving its terminal goals.
Yes, an AI would understand what “benevolence” means to humans and would be able to correct you if you were going to commit an unethical act. But why would it do that if it is not specifically programmed to do so? Would a polar bear with superior intelligence live together peacefully in a group of bonobo? Why would intelligence cause it to care about the well-being of bonobo?
One can come up with various scenarios of how humans might be instrumentally useful for an AI, but once it becomes powerful enough as to not dependent on human help anymore, why would it care at all?
I wouldn’t bet on the possibility that intelligences implies benevolence. Why would wisdom cause humans to have empathy with a cockroach? Some humans might have empathy with a cockroach, but that is more likely a side effect of our general capacity for altruism that most other biological agents do not share. That some humans care about lower animals is not because they were smart enough to prove some game theoretic conjecture about universal cooperation, it is not a result of intelligence but a coincidental preference that is the result of our evolutionary and cultural history.
At what point between unintelligent processes and general intelligence (agency) do you believe that benevolence and compassion does automatically become part of an agent’s preferences?
Many humans tend to have empathy with other beings and things like robots, based on their superficial resemblance with humans. Seldom ethical behavior is a result of high-level cognition, i.e. reasoning about the overall consequences of a lack of empathy. And even those who do arrive at ethical theories by means of deliberate reflection are often troubled once the underlying mechanisms for various qualities are revealed that are supposed to bear moral significance. Which hints at the fragility of universal compassion and the need to find ways how to consolidate it in powerful agents.
I wouldn’t bet on the possibility that intelligences implies benevolence. Why would wisdom cause humans to have empathy with a cockroach? Some humans might have empathy with a cockroach, but that is more likely a side effect of our general capacity for altruism that most other biological agents do not share. That some humans care about lower animals is not because they were smart enough to prove some game theoretic conjecture about universal cooperation, it is not a result of intelligence but a coincidental preference that is the result of our evolutionary and cultural history.
So: it’s a coincidence that some of the most intelligent creatures are also among the most altruistic and empathic? The “coincidence” hypothesis seems unlikely to me. Much more likely is that cooperation pays of especially well for large-brained creatures who can recognise each other, gossip about each other and sustain cultural traditions. Those factors might not result in a guaranteed link between intelligence and empathy—but they sure seem like a start.
XiXiDu wrote: : ”...a sufficiently intelligent process wouldn’t mind turning us into something new, something instrumentally useful.”
Why do you state this? Is there any evidence or logic to suppose this?
XiXiDu asks: “Would a polar bear with superior intelligence live together peacefully in a group of bonobo?”
My reply is to ask would a dog or cat live peacefully within a group of humans? Admittedly dogs sometimes bite humans but this aggression is due to a lack of intelligence. Dostoevsky reflects, via Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, upon how it is justifiable for a superior being to take the life of a lesser sentient being but in reality Dostoevsky was not violent. Einstein stated his pacifism is not an intellectual theory but it is safe to assert his pacifism is a product of his general intelligence: “My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.”
it is safe to assert his pacifism is a product of his general intelligence
No, that’s not at all obvious. Let me give you two alternatives:
It might be that pacifism is not highly correlated with either intelligence or scientific ability. For every Einstein, you can find some equally intelligent but bellicose scientist. Von Neumann, perhaps. Or Edward Teller.
It might also be that pacifism is correlated with the personality traits that push people into science, and that people of high intelligence but a more aggressive temperament choose alternate career paths. Perhaps finance, or politics, or military service.
One example of an intelligent pacifist isn’t evidence of correlation, much less of causation.
So asr, would you say violence is generally stupid or intelligent?
People often equate mindlessness with violence thus the phrase mindless violence is reasonably common but I have never encountered the phrase intelligent violence, is intelligent violence an oxymoron? Surely intelligent people can resolve conflict via non-violent methods?
Here are a couple of news reports mentioning mindless violence:
It would be interested to know how many scientists or philosophers actually engage in violence.
A high level of intelligence can be a prohibiting factor for admission into the police force. There was a court case where police applicant was refused a job due to his high intelligence thus he sued on grounds of discrimination. I wonder how many scientists choose to fight in the army, are they eager to kill people in Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan? Does the army prohibit intelligent people from joining?
Perhaps a scientific study needs to be undertaken regarding a possible relationship between stupidity and violence, intelligence and pacifism?
Regarding the violence of Von Neumann there is no actual evidence of violence, as far as I am aware, it is merely hot air, violent rhetoric, but I would also question the “intelligence” of people who advocate violence. Perhaps their “intelligence” is a misnomer, thus what people are actually referring to is pseudo-intelligence or partial intelligence. Even stupid people can occasionally do clever things, and sometimes smart people do stupid things but generally I think it is safe to say intelligent people are not violent.
Does the army prohibit intelligent people from joining?
No; they prohibit stupid people from joining unless recruiting is in such dire straits that they will also be recruiting drug addicts, felons, etc. The US military has at times been one of the largest consumers of IQ tests and other psychometric services and sponsors of research into the topic, crediting them with saving hundreds of millions/billions of dollars in training costs, errors, friendly fire, etc.
If you’re intelligent and you join, the situation is less they kick you out and more they eagerly snap you up and send you to officer school or a technical position (eg. I understand they never have enough programmers or sysadmins these days, which makes sense because they are underpaid compared to equivalent contractors by a factor or 3, I remember reading sysadmins in Iraq blog about).
Dear gwern. It is true the Bradley Manning types within the Army are somewhat intelligent thus some roles in the Arny require a modicum of intelligence, such as being an officer but it should be noted officers are not rocket scientists on the intelligence scales.
You should however note I was referring to the soldiers who actually commit the violent acts, thereby frequently getting themselves maimed or killed; these military personnel are stupid because it is stupid to put yourself needlessly into a dangerous, life threatening situation.
Regarding stupidity and violence in relation to the Army I was referring to the “Grunts”, the “cannon fodder”, the fools who kill and get themselves killed.
I am unsure regarding the actual meaning of the term “Grunts”, applied to infantrymen, but for me it is a derogatory term indicating a dim-witted pant-hooting grunting ape who doesn’t have the intelligence to realise joining the army as a Grunt is not good for survival thus some would say stupid but I realise the Army doesn’t accept clinically retarded Grunts, the soldiers merely need to be retarded in the general idiomatic sense of the word regarding popular culture.
officers are not rocket scientists on the intelligence scales.
Few people are. Officers can be quite intelligent and well-educated people. The military academies are some of the best educational institutions around, with selection standards more comparable to Harvard than community college. In one of my own communities, Haskell programmers, the top purely functional data structure guys, Okasaki, is a West Point instructor.
You should however note I was referring to the soldiers who actually commit the violent acts, thereby frequently getting themselves maimed or killed; these military personnel are stupid because it is stupid to put yourself needlessly into a dangerous, life threatening situation.
There’s still a floor on their intelligence. Some of the research I alluded to showed that IQ advantages show up even in manual training and basic combat skills—the higher your IQ, the faster you learned and the higher your ultimate plateau was.
(This is consistent with the little I’ve read about top special forces members like Navy Seals and other operators: they tend to be extremely intelligent, thoughtful, with a multitude of skills and foreign languages. Secrecy means I do not know whether there is a selection bias operating here or how much is PR, but it is consistent with the previous observations and the extreme standards applied for membership.)
for me it is a derogatory term indicating a dim-witted pant-hooting grunting ape who doesn’t have the intelligence to realise joining the army as a Grunt is not good for survival thus some would say stupid but I realise the Army doesn’t accept clinically retarded Grunts...Do these dead men look intelligent?
Are you trying to troll me with awful arguments here? If so, I’m not biting.
I wonder if they were signed up for cryro-preservation?
To a first approximation, no one is signed up for cryonics—not even LWers. So mentioning it is completely futile.
Dear gwern, it all depends on how you define intelligence.
Google translate knows lots of languages. Goggle is a great information resource. Watson (the AI) appears to be educated, perhaps Watson could pass many exams, but Google and Watson are not intelligent.
Regarding the few people who are rocket scientists I wonder if the truly rare geniuses, the truly intelligent people, are less likely to be violent?
Few people are. Officers can be quite intelligent and well-educated people. The military academies are some of the best educational institutions around, with selection standards more comparable to Harvard than community college. In one of my own communities, Haskell programmers, the top purely functional data structure guys, Okasaki, is a West Point instructor.
Officers in the army are actually very dim despite being “well-educated”.
I wasn’t trying to troll you regarding the term “Grunt” I was merely spelling out clearly the meaning behind the term, it (Grunt) is an insult to the intelligence of the solider, perhaps made because someone who thinks it is intelligent to join the army (being violent) is a dumb human only capable of grunting.
The only evidence I have is regarding my own perceptions of the world based upon my life knowledge, my extensive awareness of living. I am not trying to prove anything. I’m merely throwing my thoughts our there. You can either conclude my thoughts make sense or not. I think it is unintelligent to join the army but is my opinion correct? Personally I think it is stupid to die. People may agree my survival based definition of intelligence is correct or they may think death can be intelligent, such as the deaths of soldiers.
What type of evidence could prove “well-educated” army officers are actually dim-witted fools? Perhaps via the interconnectedness of causation it could be demonstrated how military action causes immense suffering for many innocent people thereby harming everyone because the world is more hostile place than a hypothetical world where all potential conflict was resolved intelligently via peaceful methods. The military budget detracts from the science budget thus perhaps scientific progress is delayed, although I do recognise the military does invest in sci-etch development I think the investment would be greater if out world was not based on conflict. In a world where people don’t fight, there would be no need for secrecy thus greater collaboration on scientific endeavours thus progress could be quicker thus anyone supporting the army could be delaying progress in a small way thus officers are stupid because it is stupid to delay progress.
The intelligent thing is for me to draw my input into this debate to a close because it is becoming exceptionally painful for me.
So asr, would you say violence is generally stupid or intelligent?
We have gone to a great deal of trouble, in modern society, to make violence a bad option, so today in our society often violence is committed by the impulsive, mentally ill, or short-sighted. But that’s not an inevitable property of violence and hasn’t always been true. You would have gotten a different answer before the 20th century. I don’t know what answer you’ll get in the 22nd century.
People often equate mindlessness with violence thus the phrase mindless violence is reasonably common but I have never encountered the phrase intelligent violence, is intelligent violence an oxymoron? Surely intelligent people can resolve conflict via non-violent methods?
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
Does the army prohibit intelligent people from joining?
No. Many smart capable people go to West Point or Annapolis. A high fraction of successful American engineers in the 19th century were West Point alums.
You keep jumping from correlation to causation, in a domain when there are obvious alternate effects going on. I don’t know if there is a correlation, but even if there were, it wouldn’t be very strong evidence. Being a good scientist requires both intelligence and the right kind of personality. You are asserting that any correlation is solely due to the intelligence part of the equation. This strikes me as a very problematic assumption. Very few scientists are also successful lawyers. It does not follow that lawyers are stupid.
I am not presenting a scientific thesis. This is only a debate, and a reasonably informal one? I am thinking openly. I am asking specific questions likely to elicit specific responses. I am speculating.
asr, you wrote:
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
My point regarding mindless violence verses ruthlessness or cunning is that ruthlessness or cunning do not specifically define intelligence or violence in the blatant way which the phrase “mindless violence” does. Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
I am not asserting this proves all violence is mindless thus violence decreases with greater intelligence. I am simply offering food for thought. It is not a scientific thesis I am presenting. I am merely throwing some ideas out there to see how people respond.
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
″...Stalin was injected with poison by the guard Khrustalev, under the orders of his master, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria. And what was the reason Stalin was killed?”
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”. This may explain why you are so convinced that “intelligent” individuals won’t engage in violence. It may help to think carefully about what you mean by intelligent.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”.
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
And intelligent person would realise freezing a body could preserve life even if nobody had ever considered the possibility.
Quickly browsing the net I found this:
“In 1940, pioneer biologist Basil Luyet published a work titled “Life and Death at Low Temperatures”″
1940 was before Stalin’s death, but truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking. The decay limiting factor of freezing has long been known. Futhermore Amazon sems to state Luyet’s work “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” was published pre-1923: http://www.amazon.com/Life-death-at-low-temperatures/dp/1178934128
According to Wikipedia many works of fiction dealt with the cryonics issue well before Stalin’s death:
Lydia Maria Child’s short story “Hilda Silfverling, A Fantasy” (1886),[81] Jack London’s first published work “A Thousand Deaths” (1899), V. Mayakovsky’s “Klop” (1928),[82] H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” (1928), and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw” (1937). Many of the subjects in these stories are unwilling ones, although a 1931 short story by Neil R. Jones called “The Jameson Satellite”,[83].....…
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
You need to be more precise about what you mean by “intelligent” then, since your usage is either confused or is being communicated very poorly. Possibly consider tabooing the term intelligent.
You seemed elsewhere in this thread to consider Einstein intelligent, but if self-preservation matters for intelligence, then this doesn’t make much sense. Any argument of the form “Stalin wasn’t intelligent since he didn’t use cryonics” is just as much of a problem for Einstein, Bohr, Turing, Hilbert, etc.
truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking
Yeah, see this isn’t how humans work. We get a lot of different ideas from other humans, we develop them, and we use them to improve our own ideas by combining them. This is precisely why the human discoveries that have the most impact on society are often those which are connected to the ability to record and transmit information.
It seems that what you are doing here is engaging in the illusion of transparency where because you know of an idea, you consider the idea to be obvious or easy.
Intelligence can have various levels and stupid people can do intelligent things just as intelligent people can do stupid things. Einstein can be more intelligent than Stalin but Einstein can still be stupid.
No I am not engaging in the illusion of transparency, don’t be absurd. My meaning of intelligence is not confused but there is an inevitable poverty regarding communication of any idea, which I communicate, because people need things spelling out in the most simplistic of terms because they cannot comprehend anything vaguely complex or unusual, but the real kicker is that when you spell things out, people look at you with a gormless expression, and they ask for more detail, or they disagree regarding the most irrefutable points. It’s so painful communicating with people but I don’t expect you to understand. I shall wait until advanced AIs have been created and then there will be someone who understands.
Tabooing the word intelligent… hhmmmm… how about “everything ever written by Singularity Utopia”?
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
My reply is to ask would a dog or cat live peacefully within a group of humans?
Neither dogs nor cats are particularly intelligent as animals go. For example, both are not as good at puzzle solving compared to many ravens, crows and other corvids when it comes to puzzle solving). For example, New Caledonian crowscan engage in sequential tool use. Moreover, chimpanzees are extremely intelligent and also very violent.
The particular example you gave, of dogs and domestic cats, is particularly bad because these species have been domesticated by humans, and thus have been bred for docility.
Humans are docile, civilized, domesticated. We can live with cats and dogs. I recently read in the news about a man with a wild Fox for a pet which was hand-reared by humans thus civilized, docile.
AIs will be civilized too, although I am sure they will shake their heads in despair regarding some of the ideas expressed on LessWrong.
Different species can coexist.
Incidentally I wish technology on Less Wrong would accelerate quicker: “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 6 minutes.” and… “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 8 minutes.”
None of what you wrote responds to the point at hand- you can’t use domesticated species as useful evidence of non-violence since domestic species are both bred that way and are in fact by most empirical tests pretty stupid.
Incidentally I wish technology on Less Wring would accelerate quicker: “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 6 minutes.” and… “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 8 minutes.”
Individuals with negative karma are rate limited in their posting rate.
Yes I did mention the fox… foxes are not particularly domesticated… anyway this “open” discussion is not very open now due to my negative Karma, it is too difficult to communicate, which I suppose is the idea of the karma system, to silence ideas you don’t want to hear about, thus I will conform to what you want. I shall leave you to your speculations regarding AI.
Just like evolution does not care about the well-being of humans a sufficiently intelligent process wouldn’t mind turning us into something new, something instrumentally useful.
An artificial general intelligence just needs to resemble evolution, with the addition of being goal-oriented, being able to think ahead, jump fitness gaps and engage in direct experimentation. But it will care as much about the well-being of humans as biological evolution does, it won’t even consider it if humans are not useful in achieving its terminal goals.
Yes, an AI would understand what “benevolence” means to humans and would be able to correct you if you were going to commit an unethical act. But why would it do that if it is not specifically programmed to do so? Would a polar bear with superior intelligence live together peacefully in a group of bonobo? Why would intelligence cause it to care about the well-being of bonobo?
One can come up with various scenarios of how humans might be instrumentally useful for an AI, but once it becomes powerful enough as to not dependent on human help anymore, why would it care at all?
I wouldn’t bet on the possibility that intelligences implies benevolence. Why would wisdom cause humans to have empathy with a cockroach? Some humans might have empathy with a cockroach, but that is more likely a side effect of our general capacity for altruism that most other biological agents do not share. That some humans care about lower animals is not because they were smart enough to prove some game theoretic conjecture about universal cooperation, it is not a result of intelligence but a coincidental preference that is the result of our evolutionary and cultural history.
At what point between unintelligent processes and general intelligence (agency) do you believe that benevolence and compassion does automatically become part of an agent’s preferences?
Many humans tend to have empathy with other beings and things like robots, based on their superficial resemblance with humans. Seldom ethical behavior is a result of high-level cognition, i.e. reasoning about the overall consequences of a lack of empathy. And even those who do arrive at ethical theories by means of deliberate reflection are often troubled once the underlying mechanisms for various qualities are revealed that are supposed to bear moral significance. Which hints at the fragility of universal compassion and the need to find ways how to consolidate it in powerful agents.
So: it’s a coincidence that some of the most intelligent creatures are also among the most altruistic and empathic? The “coincidence” hypothesis seems unlikely to me. Much more likely is that cooperation pays of especially well for large-brained creatures who can recognise each other, gossip about each other and sustain cultural traditions. Those factors might not result in a guaranteed link between intelligence and empathy—but they sure seem like a start.
Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict explains the idea in more detail.
It’s funny—I wrote my reply without seeing yours, and not only did I make similar points, I even mentioned cockroaches and benevolence too.
Why do you state this? Is there any evidence or logic to suppose this?
My reply is to ask would a dog or cat live peacefully within a group of humans? Admittedly dogs sometimes bite humans but this aggression is due to a lack of intelligence. Dostoevsky reflects, via Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, upon how it is justifiable for a superior being to take the life of a lesser sentient being but in reality Dostoevsky was not violent. Einstein stated his pacifism is not an intellectual theory but it is safe to assert his pacifism is a product of his general intelligence: “My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.”
Many humans want to protect dolphins, but why is this? We are not dolphins, we cannot even communicate with them effectively. Perhaps a mindless thug would happily punch a dolphin in the face. Recently there was a news report about a soldier beating a sheep to death with a baseball bat and I remember an similar case of animal cruelty where solider threw a puppy off a cliff. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089462/U-S-Army-probe-launched-sickening-video-soldiers-cheering-man-beats-sheep-death-baseball-bat.html
No, that’s not at all obvious. Let me give you two alternatives:
It might be that pacifism is not highly correlated with either intelligence or scientific ability. For every Einstein, you can find some equally intelligent but bellicose scientist. Von Neumann, perhaps. Or Edward Teller.
It might also be that pacifism is correlated with the personality traits that push people into science, and that people of high intelligence but a more aggressive temperament choose alternate career paths. Perhaps finance, or politics, or military service.
One example of an intelligent pacifist isn’t evidence of correlation, much less of causation.
So asr, would you say violence is generally stupid or intelligent?
People often equate mindlessness with violence thus the phrase mindless violence is reasonably common but I have never encountered the phrase intelligent violence, is intelligent violence an oxymoron? Surely intelligent people can resolve conflict via non-violent methods?
Here are a couple of news reports mentioning mindless violence:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17062738
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/4149765/Brainless-brawlers-cost-schools.html
It would be interested to know how many scientists or philosophers actually engage in violence.
A high level of intelligence can be a prohibiting factor for admission into the police force. There was a court case where police applicant was refused a job due to his high intelligence thus he sued on grounds of discrimination. I wonder how many scientists choose to fight in the army, are they eager to kill people in Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan? Does the army prohibit intelligent people from joining?
Perhaps a scientific study needs to be undertaken regarding a possible relationship between stupidity and violence, intelligence and pacifism?
Regarding the violence of Von Neumann there is no actual evidence of violence, as far as I am aware, it is merely hot air, violent rhetoric, but I would also question the “intelligence” of people who advocate violence. Perhaps their “intelligence” is a misnomer, thus what people are actually referring to is pseudo-intelligence or partial intelligence. Even stupid people can occasionally do clever things, and sometimes smart people do stupid things but generally I think it is safe to say intelligent people are not violent.
No; they prohibit stupid people from joining unless recruiting is in such dire straits that they will also be recruiting drug addicts, felons, etc. The US military has at times been one of the largest consumers of IQ tests and other psychometric services and sponsors of research into the topic, crediting them with saving hundreds of millions/billions of dollars in training costs, errors, friendly fire, etc.
If you’re intelligent and you join, the situation is less they kick you out and more they eagerly snap you up and send you to officer school or a technical position (eg. I understand they never have enough programmers or sysadmins these days, which makes sense because they are underpaid compared to equivalent contractors by a factor or 3, I remember reading sysadmins in Iraq blog about).
Dear gwern. It is true the Bradley Manning types within the Army are somewhat intelligent thus some roles in the Arny require a modicum of intelligence, such as being an officer but it should be noted officers are not rocket scientists on the intelligence scales.
You should however note I was referring to the soldiers who actually commit the violent acts, thereby frequently getting themselves maimed or killed; these military personnel are stupid because it is stupid to put yourself needlessly into a dangerous, life threatening situation.
Regarding stupidity and violence in relation to the Army I was referring to the “Grunts”, the “cannon fodder”, the fools who kill and get themselves killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_fodder
I am unsure regarding the actual meaning of the term “Grunts”, applied to infantrymen, but for me it is a derogatory term indicating a dim-witted pant-hooting grunting ape who doesn’t have the intelligence to realise joining the army as a Grunt is not good for survival thus some would say stupid but I realise the Army doesn’t accept clinically retarded Grunts, the soldiers merely need to be retarded in the general idiomatic sense of the word regarding popular culture.
Here is a recent news report about troops being killed. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111984/So-young-brave-Faces-British-soldiers-killed-Taliban-bomb—didnt-make-past-age-21.html
Do these dead men look intelligent? I wonder if they were signed up for cryro-preservation?
Few people are. Officers can be quite intelligent and well-educated people. The military academies are some of the best educational institutions around, with selection standards more comparable to Harvard than community college. In one of my own communities, Haskell programmers, the top purely functional data structure guys, Okasaki, is a West Point instructor.
There’s still a floor on their intelligence. Some of the research I alluded to showed that IQ advantages show up even in manual training and basic combat skills—the higher your IQ, the faster you learned and the higher your ultimate plateau was.
(This is consistent with the little I’ve read about top special forces members like Navy Seals and other operators: they tend to be extremely intelligent, thoughtful, with a multitude of skills and foreign languages. Secrecy means I do not know whether there is a selection bias operating here or how much is PR, but it is consistent with the previous observations and the extreme standards applied for membership.)
Are you trying to troll me with awful arguments here? If so, I’m not biting.
To a first approximation, no one is signed up for cryonics—not even LWers. So mentioning it is completely futile.
Dear gwern, it all depends on how you define intelligence.
Google translate knows lots of languages. Goggle is a great information resource. Watson (the AI) appears to be educated, perhaps Watson could pass many exams, but Google and Watson are not intelligent.
Regarding the few people who are rocket scientists I wonder if the truly rare geniuses, the truly intelligent people, are less likely to be violent?
Officers in the army are actually very dim despite being “well-educated”.
I wasn’t trying to troll you regarding the term “Grunt” I was merely spelling out clearly the meaning behind the term, it (Grunt) is an insult to the intelligence of the solider, perhaps made because someone who thinks it is intelligent to join the army (being violent) is a dumb human only capable of grunting.
Maybe it is intelligent to be cannon fodder, but like I say it all depends on how you define intelligence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_fodder
I wonder too. But I have no actual facts. Do you have any?
Do you have evidence of this assertion?
Do you have evidence of this?
The only evidence I have is regarding my own perceptions of the world based upon my life knowledge, my extensive awareness of living. I am not trying to prove anything. I’m merely throwing my thoughts our there. You can either conclude my thoughts make sense or not. I think it is unintelligent to join the army but is my opinion correct? Personally I think it is stupid to die. People may agree my survival based definition of intelligence is correct or they may think death can be intelligent, such as the deaths of soldiers.
What type of evidence could prove “well-educated” army officers are actually dim-witted fools? Perhaps via the interconnectedness of causation it could be demonstrated how military action causes immense suffering for many innocent people thereby harming everyone because the world is more hostile place than a hypothetical world where all potential conflict was resolved intelligently via peaceful methods. The military budget detracts from the science budget thus perhaps scientific progress is delayed, although I do recognise the military does invest in sci-etch development I think the investment would be greater if out world was not based on conflict. In a world where people don’t fight, there would be no need for secrecy thus greater collaboration on scientific endeavours thus progress could be quicker thus anyone supporting the army could be delaying progress in a small way thus officers are stupid because it is stupid to delay progress.
The intelligent thing is for me to draw my input into this debate to a close because it is becoming exceptionally painful for me.
You should study more game theory.
We have gone to a great deal of trouble, in modern society, to make violence a bad option, so today in our society often violence is committed by the impulsive, mentally ill, or short-sighted. But that’s not an inevitable property of violence and hasn’t always been true. You would have gotten a different answer before the 20th century. I don’t know what answer you’ll get in the 22nd century.
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
No. Many smart capable people go to West Point or Annapolis. A high fraction of successful American engineers in the 19th century were West Point alums.
You keep jumping from correlation to causation, in a domain when there are obvious alternate effects going on. I don’t know if there is a correlation, but even if there were, it wouldn’t be very strong evidence. Being a good scientist requires both intelligence and the right kind of personality. You are asserting that any correlation is solely due to the intelligence part of the equation. This strikes me as a very problematic assumption. Very few scientists are also successful lawyers. It does not follow that lawyers are stupid.
I am not presenting a scientific thesis. This is only a debate, and a reasonably informal one? I am thinking openly. I am asking specific questions likely to elicit specific responses. I am speculating.
asr, you wrote:
My point regarding mindless violence verses ruthlessness or cunning is that ruthlessness or cunning do not specifically define intelligence or violence in the blatant way which the phrase “mindless violence” does. Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
I am not asserting this proves all violence is mindless thus violence decreases with greater intelligence. I am simply offering food for thought. It is not a scientific thesis I am presenting. I am merely throwing some ideas out there to see how people respond.
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
″...Stalin was injected with poison by the guard Khrustalev, under the orders of his master, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria. And what was the reason Stalin was killed?”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2793501.stm
Regarding stupidity and the armed forces I have addressed this elsewhere: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ajm/ai_risk_and_opportunity_a_strategic_analysis/5zgl
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”. This may explain why you are so convinced that “intelligent” individuals won’t engage in violence. It may help to think carefully about what you mean by intelligent.
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
And intelligent person would realise freezing a body could preserve life even if nobody had ever considered the possibility.
Quickly browsing the net I found this:
http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi?subdir=&url=history.txt
1940 was before Stalin’s death, but truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking. The decay limiting factor of freezing has long been known. Futhermore Amazon sems to state Luyet’s work “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” was published pre-1923: http://www.amazon.com/Life-death-at-low-temperatures/dp/1178934128
According to Wikipedia many works of fiction dealt with the cryonics issue well before Stalin’s death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Cryonics_in_popular_culture
You need to be more precise about what you mean by “intelligent” then, since your usage is either confused or is being communicated very poorly. Possibly consider tabooing the term intelligent.
You seemed elsewhere in this thread to consider Einstein intelligent, but if self-preservation matters for intelligence, then this doesn’t make much sense. Any argument of the form “Stalin wasn’t intelligent since he didn’t use cryonics” is just as much of a problem for Einstein, Bohr, Turing, Hilbert, etc.
Yeah, see this isn’t how humans work. We get a lot of different ideas from other humans, we develop them, and we use them to improve our own ideas by combining them. This is precisely why the human discoveries that have the most impact on society are often those which are connected to the ability to record and transmit information.
It seems that what you are doing here is engaging in the illusion of transparency where because you know of an idea, you consider the idea to be obvious or easy.
Intelligence can have various levels and stupid people can do intelligent things just as intelligent people can do stupid things. Einstein can be more intelligent than Stalin but Einstein can still be stupid.
No I am not engaging in the illusion of transparency, don’t be absurd. My meaning of intelligence is not confused but there is an inevitable poverty regarding communication of any idea, which I communicate, because people need things spelling out in the most simplistic of terms because they cannot comprehend anything vaguely complex or unusual, but the real kicker is that when you spell things out, people look at you with a gormless expression, and they ask for more detail, or they disagree regarding the most irrefutable points. It’s so painful communicating with people but I don’t expect you to understand. I shall wait until advanced AIs have been created and then there will be someone who understands.
Tabooing the word intelligent… hhmmmm… how about “everything ever written by Singularity Utopia”?
You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 2 minutes
Neither dogs nor cats are particularly intelligent as animals go. For example, both are not as good at puzzle solving compared to many ravens, crows and other corvids when it comes to puzzle solving). For example, New Caledonian crowscan engage in sequential tool use. Moreover, chimpanzees are extremely intelligent and also very violent.
The particular example you gave, of dogs and domestic cats, is particularly bad because these species have been domesticated by humans, and thus have been bred for docility.
Humans are docile, civilized, domesticated. We can live with cats and dogs. I recently read in the news about a man with a wild Fox for a pet which was hand-reared by humans thus civilized, docile.
AIs will be civilized too, although I am sure they will shake their heads in despair regarding some of the ideas expressed on LessWrong.
Different species can coexist.
Incidentally I wish technology on Less Wrong would accelerate quicker: “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 6 minutes.” and… “You are trying to submit too fast. try again in 8 minutes.”
None of what you wrote responds to the point at hand- you can’t use domesticated species as useful evidence of non-violence since domestic species are both bred that way and are in fact by most empirical tests pretty stupid.
Individuals with negative karma are rate limited in their posting rate.
Yes I did mention the fox… foxes are not particularly domesticated… anyway this “open” discussion is not very open now due to my negative Karma, it is too difficult to communicate, which I suppose is the idea of the karma system, to silence ideas you don’t want to hear about, thus I will conform to what you want. I shall leave you to your speculations regarding AI.