To echo what Caledonian said my biggest point of skepticism is the notion of “general intelligence.” I’ve seen people try to define general intelligence, say as the ability to adapt to a changing environment, but these definitions tend to be circular.
Eliezer appears to be of the opinion that human cultural evolution necessitates general intelligence. I don’t buy it. The cultural evolution of swords and guns certainly didn’t take the form of somebody sitting down thinking about the problem until blood beaded on their brow. Most periods of progress have been marked by ecological change; either environmental change, the interaction of many previously isolated cultures or the introduction of a new tool. We even acknowledge this when we talk about exponential progress; human capabilities haven’t change, it’s the positive feedback created by interactions between our tools that has created modern society.
So, even if we define general intelligence arbitrarily as what humans do that other animals don’t, I don’t see strong evidence for it. Obviously there are difference between humans and other animals but why can’t specific difference like tool-use and language explain human cultural evolution? Why do we need to also hypothesize general intelligence (even as an outcome of the specific differences)?
To me you might as well be talking about “general splendidness.” Some of the things I’ve seen written about super-intelligence even read like they are talking about general splendidness or general awesomeness or some other entirely arbitrary property of being-able-to-do-whatever-I-need-it-to.
To echo what Caledonian said my biggest point of skepticism is the notion of “general intelligence.” I’ve seen people try to define general intelligence, say as the ability to adapt to a changing environment, but these definitions tend to be circular.
Eliezer appears to be of the opinion that human cultural evolution necessitates general intelligence. I don’t buy it. The cultural evolution of swords and guns certainly didn’t take the form of somebody sitting down thinking about the problem until blood beaded on their brow. Most periods of progress have been marked by ecological change; either environmental change, the interaction of many previously isolated cultures or the introduction of a new tool. We even acknowledge this when we talk about exponential progress; human capabilities haven’t change, it’s the positive feedback created by interactions between our tools that has created modern society.
So, even if we define general intelligence arbitrarily as what humans do that other animals don’t, I don’t see strong evidence for it. Obviously there are difference between humans and other animals but why can’t specific difference like tool-use and language explain human cultural evolution? Why do we need to also hypothesize general intelligence (even as an outcome of the specific differences)?
To me you might as well be talking about “general splendidness.” Some of the things I’ve seen written about super-intelligence even read like they are talking about general splendidness or general awesomeness or some other entirely arbitrary property of being-able-to-do-whatever-I-need-it-to.