>From what you say below it would appear human-level AGI would not require recursive self improvement, because as you appear to define it human's don't either (i.e., we currently don't artificially substantially expand the size of our brain).
I wonder what percent of the AGI community would accept that definition? A lot of people on this list seem to hang a lot on RSI, as they use it, implying it is necessary for human-level AGI. Edward W. Porter Porter & Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Linas Vepstas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 12:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 10:40:53AM -0400, Edward W. Porter wrote: > [...] > RSI (Recursive Self Improvement) > [...] > I didn't know exactly what the term covers. > > So could you, or someone, please define exactly what its meaning is? > > Is it any system capable of learning how to improve its current > behavior by changing to a new state with a modified behavior, and then > from that new state (arguably "recursively") improving behavior to yet > another new state, and so on and so forth? If so, why wouldn't any > system doing ongoing automatic learning that changed its behavior be > an RSI system. No; learning is just learning. For example, humans are known to have 5 to 9 short-term memory "slots" (this has been measured by a wide variety of psychology experiments, e.g. ability to recall random data, etc.) When reading a book, watching a movie, replying to an email, or solving a problem, humans presumably use many or all of these slots (watching a movie: to remember the characters, plot twists, recent scenes, etc. Replying to this email: to remember the point that I'm trying to make, while simultaneously composing a gramatical, pleasant-to-read sentence.) Now, suppose I could learn enough neuropsychology to grow some extra neurons in a petri dish, then implant them in my brain, and up my short-term memory slots to, say, 50-100. The new me would be like the old me, except that I'd probably find movies and books to be trite and boring, as they are threaded together from only a half-dozen salient characteristics and plot twists (how many characters and situations are there in Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice? Might it not seem like a children's book, since I'll be able to "hold in mind" its entire plot, and have a whole lotta short-term memory slots left-over for other tasks?). Music may suddenly seem lame, being at most a single melody line that expounds on a chord progression consisting of a half-dozen chords, each chord consisting of 4-6 notes. The new me might come to like multiple melody lines exploring a chord progression of some 50 chords, each chord being made of 14 or so notes... The new me would probably be a better scientist: being able to remember and operate on 50-100 items in short term memory will likely allow me to decipher a whole lotta biochemistry that leaves current scientists puzzled. And after doing that, I might decide that some other parts of my brain could use expansion too. *That* is RSI. --linas ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=49387922-edf0e9
