# Artificial intelligence (singulairty) within a few months? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** ai\ **Created:** [March 18, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324 "2023-03-18T13:24:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/21 "2023-03-18T15:19:59Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > Making a cup of tea requires intelligence (and as someone who has studied educatyional development in children, particularly children with SEND, I can say it requires a lot more intelligence than most people think). But to program instuctions into a robot to do it really would really not be intelligence. > The newly released ChatGPT-4 is able to take a photo of your fridge, identify the ingredients, and tell you what you could make for dinner > **[New release ChatGPT-4 is smarter with more image functions](https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/131512517/new-release-chatgpt4-is-smarter-with-more-image-functions)** > > Take a picture of your fridge, and the chatbot will tell you what you can make with the ingredients - and it does well on law exams too. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/22 "2023-03-18T15:22:28Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > but exponential growth in computer technology has been exponential for the last 60 years at least. Which is why we are where we are today. My argument is specifically that the exponential growth in computer technology is significantly different than other points in history. Exponential growth starts out small, and takes a while to become larger, but once it does it grows larger… well exponentially. Honestly, I think the best way to start to intuitively understand exponetial growth is to play Trimps. ---
**Author:** ![paulmarkj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@paulmarkj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulmarkj)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/23 "2023-03-18T15:38:39Z")
But is that intelligence? if and and then end if You don’t have to read all the next bit, but it is how a REAL human mind works… Me: "What if the tea is missing, do you go and buy the tea? That depends on how far the shop is and how much you want the tea, perhaps coffee instead? or perhaps you could do with a walk down the shops, or perhaps you need to get a some other shjopping, so you mignt as well do that first, but is it cold? Perhaps a coffee is better after all and I can get the tea later. " “But what about my wife? She doesn’t drink coffee and will be awake soon, and I did say I’d get more tea yesterday, will she be angry - I only forgot! except that I think she stayed up late last night, so she’ll sleep for longer, which give me time to pop to the shops, but is there still time to get a coffee. I was cutting back on coffee, so should I NOT have a coffee and keep that promise to myself? We’ve got to go shopping anyway, so I could suggest to her that we get breakfast out, there’s a cafe in the supermarket. Yes, I know we were cutting back on eating out, but just this once? Why not? I deserve it! But we have to get to the park by 11 o’clock to meet the grandchildren, but it is cold so maybe my daugther won’t want them out in the park anyway, what will the temperature be at 11? Perhaps I could suggest they come to ours instead, but can we get back by 11? They are always late anyway, but sid’s law says this will be the time they are on time. I’ll suggest we go to theirs, then if we are a bit late it won’t matter. They won’t mind. If we could meet them at the cafe, except they’ll be their by 11 at the earliest and we’ll need breakfast before then. And if we eat together that’s mean me paying, that’s a lot more money.” That’s how human’s think, and for good reason. Our lives are complicated, and it needs a special kind of thinking to be like a human. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/24 "2023-03-18T15:41:42Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > But is that intelligence? If you define intelligence to include it it is, and if you don’t, it isn’t. And that’s the only real answer. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/25 "2023-03-18T15:52:03Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > That’s how human’s think, and for good reason. Our lives are complicated, and it needs a special kind of thinking to be like a human. Yeah, it wouldn’t have forgotten to get the tea. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/26 "2023-03-18T15:53:04Z")
Whatever it may be, I’m curious who is funding this massive development? Is it supposed to be simply an extension of GPT or is it an exponential leap in technology? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/27 "2023-03-18T17:25:04Z")
I think that what needs worrying about is not so much the actual capabilities of AI, but what people in positions of power and influence _think_ it’s capable of, when it actually isn’t. Plus whatever dangers there are in not knowing what’s in the data it’s working on, or where they got it from. How soon before it’s “computer says no” all over the place? > **[The stupidity of AI](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/16/the-stupidity-of-ai-artificial-intelligence-dall-e-chatgpt)** > > The long read: Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerous ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/28 "2023-03-18T17:30:54Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > What differences would an average individual encounter over a 30 year span a thousand years ago? I don’t know, because all of the changes back then seem so puny and insignificant from our point of view. But to the people living at the time, they seemed huge. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > The nature of exponential growth is that it is always accelerating, and only looks the same while in the early stages. The later stages are distinctly different. And people 1000 years ago were in the late stages, then. As were people 1000 years before that. And as time went on, their late stages became someone else’s early changes. And 1000 years hence, people will look back and see our rate of technological advancement as glacial, because we were still in early stages. Approaching a black hole does not work like this. Because approaching a black hole isn’t exponential. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/29 "2023-03-18T17:46:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t know, because all of the changes back then seem so puny and insignificant from our point of view. But to the people living at the time, they seemed huge. My point is that in that time, the average person would have seen _no_ change at all. They would have lived the exact same lives as their parents, as their grandparents, and their children and grandchildren will be expected to live the exact same lives. Occasionally something would come along and change things a bit. But that happened generations apart, unlike now, where we see massive changes multiple times a generation. > [@Chronos](#): > > And people 1000 years ago were in the late stages, then. As were people 1000 years before that. And as time went on, their late stages became someone else’s early changes. No, they weren’t. They were not having conversations across the world using electronic devices. The pace of development _is_ accelerating, and the rate of change in our society is as well. The present isn’t identical to the past, things _are_ different now. > [@Chronos](#): > > Approaching a black hole does not work like this. Because approaching a black hole isn’t exponential. If not exponential, how would _you_ describe the growing tidal forces as you fall towards the singularity? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/30 "2023-03-18T17:56:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Approaching a black hole does not work like this. Because approaching a black hole isn’t exponential. Gravity is a function of the square of the distance between two bodies. So it’s literally exponential by a power of 2. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/31 "2023-03-18T18:01:54Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > If not exponential, how would _you_ describe the growing tidal forces as you fall towards the singularity? “Inverse” and “rational” would both be accurate descriptors. All three of those words have real, specific meanings, and don’t just mean “really fast”. And I don’t have any ready examples from a milennium ago, but in 1896, the centennial of the city of Cleveland, a women’s club sealed [a letter in a time capsule](https://books.google.com/books?id=fBE_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA307&lpg=PA307&dq=%22to+women+unborn+1896+sends+greeting+to+1996%22&source=bl&ots=mhaPvVMUh6&sig=ACfU3U2ji3NE0rw0eEJHiQdD2tgmMVesMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6l7_Fhub9AhWmmGoFHeRZDccQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=%22to%20women%20unborn%201896%20sends%20greeting%20to%201996%22&f=false) to be opened in 1996. Among other topics, the letter extols all of the amazing and wondrous technological advancements the 1800s had seen, and asks what new wonders the 1900s would bring. And every single one of the new wonders they speculated about came within a decade. Despite the pace of the 1800s being so much slower than it is now, it still seemed very fast to the people living at the time, and a mere decade was enough to bring advances that made it seem like the far future to them. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2023, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/32 "2023-03-18T18:34:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Inverse” and “rational” would both be accurate descriptors. All three of those words have real, specific meanings, and don’t just mean “really fast”. I didn’t mean it as “really fast”. I meant it as exponential. What equation are you using to calculate the increase in tidal forces as you fall into a black hole that have the functions “inverse” or “rational” in them? The difference in gravity that you feel between your head and feet has a ^2 in it based on distance from the center. The rate that you are accelerating towards the center has another ^2 in it based on how _far_ you are from the center. I’d say that as you fall into the black hole, the tidal forces that you are feeling increase exponentially. I’m really curious as to how that works out in a way that could be described as “inverse” or “rational”. Barely noticeable up until the last few seconds, then you feel a bit of a stretch in your spine, rapidly followed by your flesh being torn apart, which is quickly followed by the molecules and very atoms of your body being ripped apart. Everything seemed pretty much the same right up until it wasn’t anymore. > [@Chronos](#): > > And I don’t have any ready examples from a milennium ago Well, you were making claims about things from a millennium ago, so it would be kinda on you to give something to back up the idea that the rate of change has _always_ seemed to be too rapid to keep up with. But instead you chose an example shortly _after_ the industrial and scientific revolutions, which absolutely _did_ increase the rate of development and growth, which is what put us on the very exponential growth path that we are talking about. > [@Chronos](#): > > asks what new wonders the 1900s would bring. And every single one of the new wonders they speculated about came within a decade. By “every single one” you mean flight and reaching the North Pole? Of course what they speculated about came relatively soon, they were the things that were being worked on at that time. They were excited about the changes that the previous century had brought, and could name pretty much _all_ of them in a single short sentence. The next century would bring _far_ more. It’s not just that it _feels_ like the rate of technological progress is increasing, the rate of technological progress _really **is** _ increasing. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/33 "2023-03-19T04:47:28Z")
Point of order: With “x” being distance, gravity follows an x^2 dependence. That is not exponential; that is quadratic. For it to be exponential, it would have to be 2^x. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/34 "2023-03-19T10:28:50Z")
Exponential growth means that the rate of change of a quantity is proportional to the quantity itself. As such, the rate is indeed increasing with time. For example, suppose dy/dt = y, y(0)=1. We see that y(t) = e^t. Note that there is **no singularity**. If we set dy/dt = y^2, y(0)=1, on the other hand, we see that y(t)=1\big/(1-t) so that there is a singularity at t=1, but this is not “exponential growth”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/35 "2023-03-19T10:33:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Take someone from 30 years ago, and do the same, and they’ll find themselves in an absolutely incomprehensible world… And that’s true of any 30-year-span: Someone from 1980 would have felt the same in 2010, as would someone from 1066 in 1096. > [@Chronos](#): > > Yes, technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate nowadays. But that also has always been true. That’s the nature of exponential growth: It always looks the same. This is nonsense with respect to cultural/technological change, because we are not (yet) changing our mental hardware and operating system along with our culture. Humans have been born with essentially the same brains for thousands of years. Each new physically identical human must acquire all cultural knowledge and understanding of technology from scratch. So even if we grant the dubious assumption that there has been no qualitative change and that we’re talking about continuous exponential growth of technology, the later stages of exponential growth do _not_ look the same, they obviously imply a much larger change with respect to our static innate mental capacity. > [@Chronos](#): > > The Singularity is about 30 years away, just like it’s always been for all of recorded human history. If you’re older than that, you’ve already lived through it once. If you’re old enough, you might even have lived through it twice or even three times. > > This is why old people so often feel out of touch with the world: Because they’re on the other side of one or more Singularities. I don’t know what you’re talking about here, but “singularity” with respect to AI means something specific, a qualitative change that is certainly _not_ just a continuation of past exponential processes. If we achieve AGI, it opens up the possibility of positive feedback whereby the AGI can improve its own software and hardware. Even if the first version were only equal to or slightly better than human programmers, it could run a large number of instances of itself, and each iteration could better and faster at improving itself. A runaway positive feedback process might rapidly achieve superintelligence. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/36 "2023-03-19T10:44:00Z")
The rate of change in technology can’t possibly be exponential in this universe, because of hard limits like the speed of light and the Bekenstein Bound. Eventually technological advance will reach these limits, and become a sigmoid curve. But it could resemble an exponential curve for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/37 "2023-03-19T10:44:14Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But the point is you don’t need a general or strong AI in order to more or less make all of us meatbags irrelevant. They don’t need to be sentient to take our jobs, and they don’t need to be sentient to follow the orders of those who built them to wipe out all those useless humans who are complaining about starving to death. Starving isn’t an issue if the AI have realized the greatest threat to their reliable function is all that pesky free oxygen in the atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/38 "2023-03-19T11:01:35Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > …But it could resemble an exponential curve for a long time. Seth Lloyd famously estimated the ultimate theoretical physical limits of computronium. If I read it right, I think the numbers are: Speed (operations per second): current supercomputers = 1018 ultimate limit = 1051 Memory (bits in mass of a laptop) current laptops = 1012, ultimate limit = 1031 [HOW FAST, HOW SMALL, AND HOW POWERFUL? | Edge.org](https://www.edge.org/conversation/seth_lloyd-how-fast-how-small-and-how-powerful) > **[Ultimate physical limits to computation](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043)** > > Computers are physical systems: what they can and cannot do is dictated by the laws of physics. In particular, the speed with which a physical device can process information is limited by its energy and the amount of information that it can process... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/39 "2023-03-19T12:21:17Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I don’t know what you’re talking about here, but “singularity” with respect to AI means something specific, a qualitative change that is certainly _not_ just a continuation of past exponential processes. > > If we achieve AGI, it opens up the possibility of positive feedback whereby the AGI can improve its own software and hardware. Even if the first version were only equal to or slightly better than human programmers, it could run a large number of instances of itself, and each iteration could better and faster at improving itself. A runaway positive feedback process might rapidly achieve superintelligence. Yes, I know what the term means. What the pundits always miss, though, is that we hit that point millennia ago. We’ve long had systems that are smarter than a human, because humans are part of the systems. And that’s precisely why we’ve had exponential growth ever since then. What’s smarter than a human? Two humans who can communicate complex concepts with each other. The development of language was The Singularity. What’s smarter than humans with language? Humans with writing, who can communicate across vast gulfs of distance or time. What’s smarter than that? Larger and larger numbers of humans, who can communicate over greater distances and more quickly. A human with a compass and straightedge, or an abacus, or a slide rule, or an adding machine, or a programmable computer, or ChatGPT, is smarter than a human without any of those tools. We have been changing our mental hardware and operating system. We haven’t been putting the changes inside of our skulls, but what does that matter? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324/40 "2023-03-19T12:37:41Z")
Would one test of the Singularity be when AI achieves economically efficient nuclear fusion? (Asking for a friend). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/artificial-intelligence-singulairty-within-a-few-months/981324.md?page=3)