AI & Robotics News and Discussions

[wjfox]

[jamestiago]

I was wondering recently... I'm no neurologist or neural network expert, just a computer engineering student, but what if there was a way to brute force intelligence? (Hardly a novel idea, I imagine). If we have a big enough neural network (100s of billions of nodes, comparable to the human brain), and we use a very hypothetical, very powerful computer, to compute all possible initialization states (weights and connections), would we eventually arrive at an intelligent brain?

Maybe we don't even need to calculate all possibilities, if we had brain samples, we could train on those to reduce the time complexity. Now, I know we only now are beginning to be able to map a fly's brain, let alone a human, but perhaps we don't need the entire brain to reduce our training time, just a part of it.

Finally, even if we did arrive at what could possibly be a functioning brain, how would we know it? It would be encoded, and we would need a way to decode it. For this, I suppose we could do similar to what we already do with words in our LLMs, but with sensory equipment instead. Exactly how, I don't know.

This most likely is complete rubbish, so forgive me.

[wjfox]

Terence Tao, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles:

"I expect, say, 2026-level AI, when used properly, will be a trustworthy co-author in mathematical research, and in many other fields as well."

https://unlocked.microsoft.com/ai-antho ... rence-tao/

[funkervogt]

Terence Tao, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles:

"I expect, say, 2026-level AI, when used properly, will be a trustworthy co-author in mathematical research, and in many other fields as well."

https://unlocked.microsoft.com/ai-antho ... rence-tao/

Extraordinary.

[spryfusion]

[lechwall]

100 in the context of training examples seems pretty low no?

[Vakanai]

100 in the context of training examples seems pretty low no?

I think that's the point - being able to see good results while needing fewer examples. I'm assuming it's about efficiency and cost saving?

[Tadasuke]

Marc Andreessen's optimistic view on our future with AI, disputing the fear arguments:

https://pmarca.substack.com/p/why-ai-wi ... -the-world

In our new era of AI:

• Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful. The AI tutor will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.

• Every person will have an AI assistant/coach/mentor/trainer/advisor/therapist that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful. The AI assistant will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcomes.

• Every scientist will have an AI assistant/collaborator/partner that will greatly expand their scope of scientific research and achievement. Every artist, every engineer, every businessperson, every doctor, every caregiver will have the same in their worlds.

• Every leader of people – CEO, government official, nonprofit president, athletic coach, teacher – will have the same. The magnification effects of better decisions by leaders across the people they lead are enormous, so this intelligence augmentation may be the most important of all.

• Productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth, and resulting in a new era of heightened material prosperity across the planet.

• Scientific breakthroughs and new technologies and medicines will dramatically expand, as AI helps us further decode the laws of nature and harvest them for our benefit.

• The creative arts will enter a golden age, as AI-augmented artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers gain the ability to realize their visions far faster and at greater scale than ever before.

• I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders. Now, military commanders and political leaders will have AI advisors that will help them make much better strategic and tactical decisions, minimizing risk, error, and unnecessary bloodshed.

• In short, anything that people do with their natural intelligence today can be done much better with AI, and we will be able to take on new challenges that have been impossible to tackle without AI, from curing all diseases to achieving interstellar travel.

• And this isn’t just about intelligence! Perhaps the most underestimated quality of AI is how humanizing it can be. AI art gives people who otherwise lack technical skills the freedom to create and share their artistic ideas. Talking to an empathetic AI friend really does improve their ability to handle adversity. And AI medical chatbots are already more empathetic than their human counterparts. Rather than making the world harsher and more mechanistic, infinitely patient and sympathetic AI will make the world warmer and nicer.

[Tadasuke]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... use-images

Generative-AI tools have set off what one analyst called a “predatory arms race” on pedophile forums because they can create within seconds realistic images of children performing sex acts, commonly known as child pornography.

Thousands of AI-generated child-sex images have been found on forums across the dark web, a layer of the internet visible only with special browsers, with some participants sharing detailed guides for how other pedophiles can make their own creations.

“Children’s images, including the content of known victims, are being repurposed for this really evil output,” said Rebecca Portnoff, the director of data science at Thorn, a nonprofit child-safety group that has seen month-over-month growth of the images’ prevalence since last fall.

“Victim identification is already a needle-in-a-haystack problem, where law enforcement is trying to find a child in harm’s way,” she said. “The ease of using these tools is a significant shift, as well as the realism. It just makes everything more of a challenge.”

[Powers]

Thousands of AI-generated child-sex images have been found on forums across the dark web, a layer of the internet visible only with special browsers.

More than likely not just there.