Increments

#45 - Four Central Fallacies of AI Research (with Melanie Mitchell)

Listen Later

We were delighted to be joined by Davis Professor at the Sante Fe Insitute, Melanie Mitchell! We chat about our understanding of artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and whether it's reasonable to expect us to be able to build sophisticated human-like automated systems anytime soon.

Follow Melanie on twitter @MelMitchell1 and check out her website: https://melaniemitchell.me/

We discuss:

  • AI hype through the ages
  • How do we know if machines understand?
  • Winograd schemas and the "WinoGrande" challenge.
  • The importance of metaphor and analogies to intelligence
  • The four fallacies in AI research:
    • 1. Narrow intelligence is on a continuum with general intelligence
    • 2. Easy things are easy and hard things are hard
    • 3. The lure of wishful mnemonics
    • 4. Intelligence is all in the brain
    • Whether embodiment is necessary for true intelligence
    • Douglas Hofstadter's views on AI
    • Ray Kurzweil and the "singularity"
    • The fact that Moore's law doesn't hold for software
    • The difference between symbolic AI and machine learning
    • What analogies have to teach us about human cognition

      • Errata

      • Ben mistakenly says that Eliezer Yudkowsky has bet that everyone will die by 2025. It's actually by 2030. You can find the details of the bet here: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/01/my_end-of-the-w.html.

        • References:

        • NY Times reporting on Perceptrons.
        • The WinoGrande challenge paper
        • Why AI is harder than we think
        • The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil

          • Contact us

          • Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
          • Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ
          • Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link

            • Eliezer was more scared than Douglas about AI, so he wrote a blog post about it. Who wrote the blog post, Eliezer or Douglas? Tell us at over at [email protected].

            Special Guest: Melanie Mitchell.

            Support Increments

            ...more
            View all episodesView all episodes
            Download on the App Store
            IncrementsBy Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani
            • 5
            • 5
            • 5
            • 5
            • 5

            5

            17 ratings

            More shows like Increments

            View all
            EconTalk by Russ Roberts

            EconTalk

            4,248 Listeners

            Very Bad Wizards by Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

            Very Bad Wizards

            2,656 Listeners

            Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

            Making Sense with Sam Harris

            26,370 Listeners

            Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

            Conversations with Tyler

            2,408 Listeners

            The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer

            The Michael Shermer Show

            922 Listeners

            Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

            Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

            4,122 Listeners

            ToKCast by Brett Hall

            ToKCast

            91 Listeners

            Within Reason by Alex J O'Connor

            Within Reason

            1,562 Listeners

            Do Explain with Christofer Lövgren by Christofer Lövgren

            Do Explain with Christofer Lövgren

            23 Listeners

            The Theory of Anything by Bruce Nielson and Peter Johansen

            The Theory of Anything

            25 Listeners

            Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

            Dwarkesh Podcast

            427 Listeners

            The Popperian Podcast by Jed Lea-Henry

            The Popperian Podcast

            23 Listeners

            Honestly with Bari Weiss by The Free Press

            Honestly with Bari Weiss

            8,617 Listeners

            Arjun Khemani Podcast by Arjun Khemani

            Arjun Khemani Podcast

            3 Listeners

            Conversations With Coleman by The Free Press

            Conversations With Coleman

            428 Listeners