Agree on all points. It's worth asking: who maintains the academic incentive structures? If the social structures are harming science (e.g., promoting fraud), why do the social structures persist? Who or what stymies reform? As I've asked these questions, I am led to blame (i) scientists who gain power broker status by playing the game and (ii) university administrators who benefit from larger production numbers (dollars, papers, enrollment, awards).
This article and most of the comments ignore the social power dynamics and status quo institutional structures of academic science (Science 2): university administrators, power-broker faculty researchers, funding agencies (til recently), publishing companies, higher-ed consultants, etc. There are thousands of potential reforms that would bring Science 2 closer to Science 1 and generally make science life better. Those reforms are articulated by competent scientists and higher ed journalists every day. If you want to know why science reform isn't happening, ask which powerful interests are benefiting from the existing structures.
Power makes people stupid: powerful people can't imagine a world other than the one that brought them their power. They will say, "That's the way the world is." Let's encourage students to continue to imagine other possible worlds in order to challenge the status quo.
I've never really understood the sentiment that "articulation of a problem = solving that problem." Articulation seems to me to be Step 0 in solving a problem, there needs to be people on the ground advocating for why this new ideological framework is "better" than the status quo and actively convincing decision makers or acquiring decision making positions. Otherwise any amount of highly articulate complaints are just sophistry.
I think calling problem articulation "just sophistry" is overly reductionist. People who make the effort to articulate the problems (e.g., some Chronicle of Higher Ed writers) offer thoughtful readers other possibilities for consideration. Then, in the rare case that a powerful decision-maker perceives a tension in the status quo, there exist well articulated potential actions to resolve the tension. This is why think-tanks write white papers. The narrative that "people on the ground" is a necessary condition for reform dissuades thoughtful problem articulation. "People on the ground" is one way to influence decision-makers, but it is not necessary. Watch CSPAN when a septuagenarian Senator references his/her granddaughter's comment as influencing his/her vote.
I think a senator being influenced by a grand child is a good mental case study in productive dissemination of an ideology. There are many people in leadership roles who may sometimes be on the lookout for strategies to tackle problems, but the only way those strategies become actionable is if someone nearby 1) has had the idea communicated to them and 2) is able to rhetorically sway those commanding the decision making process (the is an instant victory if sufficient decision making position has been captured by allies). Ultimately the ideas themselves only gain material action with a dissemination network with a connection to the people making decisions.
I see. For you, "people on the ground" includes a grand child's comment. In my experience, "people on the ground" has implied "don't try to do anything on your own," which dissuades action and consequently promotes the status quo's persistence. When you say "dissemination network," I hear you saying a group of people is necessary. But a group is not necessary. A group is one possible way. But powerful people are influenced by far less than a group of people every day. See also: lobbyists. "Start a popular ideological movement" and "become a lobbyist" warrant very different life choices.
Unfortunately there are many popular ideological movements with little to no penetration in the structures that actually swing material conditions. That disconnect between the holders of an ideology and the existing power centers leads to intense cognitive dissonance. Generally organizing is helpful in achieving anything political (i.e. affecting distribution of resources). I feel like it'd be very hard to form a popular ideological movement without any form of collectiveness, as if a movement is one individual writing for themselves to read, it doesn't seem like it's popular.
The concept of lobbying itself has been basically shattered in our modern world with businesses having a near infinite amount of resources to exploit it. I don't think there's anything implicitly unreasonable about conveying your understanding of the importance, impact, and potential consequences of major choices onto key decision makers.
Most political lobbying pertains to matters that are completely out of the radar of news media. In fact if the topic you're lobbying on is in the news you are probably failing.
They tend to be intensely practical and specific, rather than hot morally heated topics. Like building infrastructure, securing a government contract, or amending/removing a new regulation from your sector of business (e.g. making sure a new law on tobacco exempts cigar manufacturers).
Established institutions become like organisms with feedback loops who like to maintain status quo akin to homeostasis. Any changes to the status quo is seen as a threat and is dealt with accordingly.
Agreed. Drummer and programmer here. I consider electronic drums to be a different instrument from acoustic drums---especially cymbals---with somewhat comparable musical functions. The advantage of e-drums is that the sound guy can turn the volume down to zero no matter how hard I'm hitting, and that's helpful in places like churches or my apartment. The other advantage is that toms (i.e., the tom samples) are always perfectly and consistently tuned. Apart from those advantages, there's far less traditional drum expressiveness in e-drums (for traditional genres like jazz and rock). The flip side is: with e-drums I can hit the cymbal and make a laser noise.
With more effort I expect that eventually we will be able to model physical instruments just as good as the real thing. However it is an open question if that is good. Sometimes along the way we discover how to make something better. Of course sound is subjective and so no everyone will agree it is better.
The universal approximation theorem is set in a precise mathematical context; I encourage you to limit its applicability to that context despite the marketing label "universal" (which it isn't). Consider your concession about empiricism. There's no empirical way to prove (i.e. there's no experiment that can demonstrate beyond doubt) that all brain or other organic processes are deterministic and can be represented completely as functions.
Function is the most general way of describing relations. Non-deterministic processes can be represented as functions with a probability distribution codomain. Physics seems to require only continuous functions.
Sorry, but there's not much evidence that can support human exceptionalism.
Some differential equations that model physics admit singularities and multiple solutions. Therefore, functions are not the most general way of describing relations. Functions are a subset of relations.
Although "non-deterministic" and "stochastic" are often used interchangeably, they are not equivalent. Probability is applied analysis whose objects are distributions. Analysis is a form of deductive, i.e. mechanical, reasoning. Therefore, it's more accurate (philosophically) to identify mathematical probability with determinism. Probability is a model for our experience. That doesn't mean our experience is truly probabilistic.
Humans aren't exceptional. Math modeling and reasoning are human activities.
For example, the Euler equations model compressible flow with discontinuities (shocks in the flow field variables) and rarefaction waves. These theories are accepted and used routinely.
Great. A useful approximation of what really happens in the fluid. But I'm sure there are no shocks and rarefactions in physicists' neurons while they are thinking about it.
Switching into a less facetious mode...
Do you understand that in context of this dialogue it's not enough to show some examples of discontinuous or otherwise unrepresentable by NNs functions? You need at least to give a hint why such functions cannot be avoided while approximating functionality of the human brain.
Many things are possible, but I'm not going to keep my mind open to a possibility of a teal Russell's teapot before I get a hint at its existence, so to speak.
I don't understand your point here. A (logical) relation is, by definition, a more general way of describing relations than a function, and it is telling that we still suck at using and developing truly relational models that are not univalent (i.e. functions). Only a few old logicians really took the calculus of relations proper seriously (Pierce, for one). We use functions precisely because they are less general, they are rigid, and simpler to work with. I do not think anyone is working under the impression that a function is a high fidelity means to model the world as it is experienced and actually exists. It is necessarily reductionistic (and abstract). Any truth we achieve through functional models is necessarily a general, abstracted, truth, which in many ways proves to be extremely useful but in others (e.g. when an essential piece of information in the particular is not accounted for in the general reductive model) can be disastrous.
I'm not a big fan of philosophy. The epistemology you are talking about is another abstraction on top of the physical world. But the evolution of the physical world as far as we know can be described as a function of time (at least, in a weak gravitational field when energies involved are well below the grand unification energy level, that is for the objects like brains).
The brain is a physical system, so whatever it does (including philosophy) can be replicated by modelling (a (vastly) simplified version of) underlying physics.
Anyway, I am not especially interested in discussing possible impossibility of an LLM-based AGI. It might be resolved empirically soon enough.
Agreed. If someone believes the world is purely mechanistic, then it follows that a sufficiently large computing machine can model the world---like Leibniz's Ratiocinator. The intoxication may stem from the potential for predictability and control.
The irony is: why would someone want control if they don't have true choice? Unfortunately, such a question rarely pierces the intoxicated mind when this mind is preoccupied with pass the class, get an A, get a job, buy a house, raise funds, sell the product, win clients, gain status, eat right, exercise, check insta, watch the game, binge the show, post on Reddit, etc.
> If someone believes the world is purely mechanistic, then it follows that a sufficiently large computing machine can model the world
Is this controversial in some way? The problem is that to simulate a universe you need a bigger universe -- which doesn't exist (or is certainly out of reach due to information theoretical limits)
> ---like Leibniz's Ratiocinator. The intoxication may stem from the potential for predictability and control.
I really don't understand the 'control' angle here. It seems pretty obvious that even in a purely mechanistic view of the universe, information theory forbids using the universe to simulate itself. Limited simulations, sure... but that leaves lots of gaps wherein you lose determinism (and control, whatever that means).
People wish to feel safe. One path to safety is controlling or managing the environment. Lack of sufficient control produces anxiety. But control is only possible if the environment is predictable, i.e., relatively certain knowledge that if I do X then the environment responds with Y. Humans use models for prediction. Loosely speaking, if the universe is truly mechanistic/deterministic, then the goal of modeling is to get the correct model (though notions of "goals" are problematic in determinism without real counterfactuals). However, if we can't know whether the universe is truly deterministic, then modeling is a pragmatic exercise in control (or management).
My comments are not about simulating the universe on a real machine. They're about the validity and value of math/computational modeling in a universe where determinism is scientifically indeterminable.
> However, if we can't know whether the universe is truly deterministic, then modeling is a pragmatic exercise in control (or management).
What would you say if we can predict the outcome of an experiment with 51% probability. Is that enough to establish what you call "control"? What if we can repeat the experiment as many times as we like?
(I must admit, I still don't really understand what "control" means to you, but let's get the preliminaries out of the way first.)
Choice is over rated. This gets to an issue Ive long had with Nozicks experience machine. Not only would I happily spend my days in such a machine, Im pretty sure most other people would too. Maybe they say they wouldnt but if you let them try it out and then offered them the question again I think theyd say yes. The real conclusion of the experience machine is that the unknown is scary.
> Agreed. If someone believes the world is purely mechanistic, then it follows that a sufficiently large computing machine can model the world---like Leibniz's Ratiocinator.
I don’t think it does. Taking computers as an analogy… if you have a computer with 1GB memory, then you can’t simulate a computer with more than 1GB memory inside of it.
I'm with you. Interpreting a problem as a problem requires a human (1) to recognize the problem and (2) to convince other humans that it's a problem worth solving. Both involve value, and value has no computational or mechanistic description (other than "given" or "illusion"). Once humans have identified a problem, they might employ a tool to find the solution. The tool has no sense that the problem is important or even hard; such values are imposed by the tool's users.
It's worth considering why "everyone seems all too ready to make ... leaps ..." "Neural", "intelligence", "learning", and others are metaphors that have performed very well as marketing slogans. Behind the marketing slogans are deep-pocketed, platformed corporate and government (i.e. socio-rational collective) interests. Educational institutions (another socio-rational collective) and their leaders have on the whole postured as trainers and preparers for the "real world" (i.e. a job), which means they accept, support, and promote the corporate narratives about techno-utopia. Which institutions are left to check the narratives? Who has time to ask questions given the need to learn all the technobabble (by paying hundreds of thousands for 120 university credits) to become a competitive job candidate?
I've found there are many voices speaking against the hype---indeed, even (rightly) questioning the epistemic underpinnings of AI. But they're ignored and out-shouted by tech marketing, fundraising politicians, and engagement-driven media.
It seems the humans pursuing AGI lack sufficient natural intelligence. I'm sad that humans with such narrow and misguided perspectives have so much power, money, and influence. I worry this won't end well.
Our (the states) reliance on car central culture is killing us in more ways than one.
I grew up in the suburbs and you could easily go a week without substantially interacting with people.
Jump in your metal capsule, drive 7 mins to Walmart, walk quietly across the huge parking lot, get your item and return home.
Contrasted with dense urban city with public transit, you will serendipitously bump into people and be forced to interact more with society, even if it is just exchanging pleasantries.
This is killing ourselves socially, not to mention how much cars cause physical death.
That 'dense urban landscape' basically does not exist outside of NYC in the US. I'm not sure I'd choose it as a forever home anyway.
For me personally, when looking for a 'forever home' I'm starting to look at smaller college towns. They often have a walkable core around the college, you have access to continuing education opportunities and a college library.
While yes, living around a gaggle of college age kids can be tiring as you get older, a local university fosters a lot of intellectual vibrancy that you wouldn't get without it. You can always hang out with the older folks who teach the classes and serve the college age population.
I assure you that living in the city you can easily go about your business for a week or more without talking to anyone if you so choose. People who don't know each other don't interact with each other in the city.
I loved living in a city more than I like driving around the suburbs, but suburbs exist and you can't wave a magic wand and turn them into cities. Being mad at cars isn't a solution, they're necessary for how much of the country is laid out.
I only wish that is true, beyond the one close friend I made. There are gaps in my social skillset and mentality that makes it difficult for me to achieve.
Just sign to a gym. Not the pumping iron ones. Sign up to a martial arts gym, a dance studio, an art school. Anything that is more of a social activity, and that YOU LIKE. If you find a group of people that share the same niche interest that you genuinely have, you make friends. My personal advice to the engineer type of guys, is go to a BJJ gym if you want to practice something that is extremely challenging both physically and intellectually. The number of techniques is virtually infinite, and you can become good by simply memorizing more tech than your average jock. So, to make male friends (but not only that) go to a BJJ gym. If you want to meet girls, go to a dance studio. Both skills will be really valuable in terms of physical and mental health throughout your life, apart from the friends you'll make.
Literally pick any half-organized activity. They’ll be posted all over the Web (sorry, you will probably need a Facebook account), your city’s website may have lists of organizations, and there are probably some fliers posted at the library (and the library may run a few gatherings themselves!)
In my case a local makerspace to play board games. I've made a few friends that I hang out with outside the space -- sometimes I host events in my home, sometimes we go out to get dinner or whatever.
Volunteer work. I volunteer with one group (and have been doing this for almost 8 years now). I can't believe how many friends I have just from this one activity.
Neighbors. Just start talking to them. Have them over. We do this for football (NFL) games or just for dinner.
Surprisingly (or maybe not). Kpop concerts. My wife is very into this music scene. She has definitely made friends she keeps in touch with (friends she met at the concert). I went to one and I couldn't believe how many fans went alone and formed their own groups at the concert to watch/dance. And this is for all ages (I saw 80 year olds down to the teenagers). Edit: I should note that the concerts she has been to did not cost an arm and a leg.
I find HN more depressing than other social media. It's more focused on money, more anonymous (which isn't necessarily bad, but harder to connect with people), but mostly it's by far the most arrogant. I became a lot happier when I stopped showing up here regularly.
