Longevity researcher, Aubrey de Grey recently argued against self-improving machines, as follows:
"I quite strongly suspect that recursive self-improvement is mathematically impossible. In analogy with the so-called "halting problem" concerning determining whether any program terminates, I suspect that there is a yet-to-be-discovered measure of complexity by which no program can ever write another program (including a version of itself) that is an improvement. The program written may be constrained to be, in a precisely quantifiable sense, simpler than the program that does the writing. It's true that programs can draw on the outside world for information on how to improve themselves—but I claim (a) that that really only delivers far-less-scary iterative self-improvement rather than recursive, and (b) that anyway it will be inherently self-limiting, since once these machines become as smart as humanity they won't have any new information to learn." - http://edge.org/response-detail/26066 Standard complexity metrics (e.g. K-complexity) apparently have the feature that Aubrey is looking for. However, arguments about self-improvement in a cognitive vacuum seem generally reminiscent of the arguments about angels and pinheads. Both types of argument are irrelevant. Intelligent machines typically exist in a complex world which they interact with. Of course, under those circumstances, organisms can produce more capable descendants - we have an existence proof demonstrating that that happens. The idea that the growth of intelligent machines is will be inherently self-limiting, due to the lack of any new information to learn once the machines become as smart as humanity seems stupid to me. There's a whole universe out there, brimming with information. Machines can learn by trial-and-error - not just via instructional learning from human mentors. Chess computers didn't stop improving when they reached human-level competence. Nor is it likely that other types of intelligent machine will do so. Aubrey de Grey seems to imagine a future filled with immortal fleshy robots. That seems rather different from the future I imagine - in which most remaining humans are liberated from their bodies and get sucked into the matrix. However if these are Aubrey's reasons for failing to fully incorporate the rise of intelligent machines into his world view, I don't think we need to take him seriously. I know he's not a researcher in the field, but these ideas don't seem to be particularly coherent. -- __________ |im |yler http://timtyler.org/ [email protected] Remove lock to reply. ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
