I agree it doesn't have to be the same way people do it. Could be an entirely different system. I'm just saying it has to be a lot more powerful than language. AI that focuses on language as the bottom layer will always be parlor tricks, not intelligence.

And while you're right we don't need to understand how people achieve intelligence to make an AI, it would sure help if we at least had a definition of what intelligence was, which we don't. Or rather, every time AI meets the definition we realize that it was a lousy definition. I predict the article's suggested tests will be more of that.

To carry your analogy further - I'd say that if we had so utterly failed to cut wood for so long, and in fact couldn't really even understand how wood was cut, we might want to take a peek at how that crosscut saw works before flailing around too much longer.

> the atheists seem hell bent on the idea that intelligence and self awareness are illusions or somehow not real.

Sorry you've only met such people. I agree that is where most of them end up, but it's kind of sad, and ironic: denying the existence of something that is the fundamental basis for your ability to deny anything.

So I'm an atheist and a materialist, and I am thrilled by my observation of intelligence and self-awareness. I agree with your view and feelings on the mind. On the mundane sounding side, I'd say it's like software - the value is in the arrangement of matter, not the matter itself. On the more poetic side, I'd say it's an absolutely stunning examples of the wonders of the universe, and the fact that matter can become information and information can become self-representing and that brings about a fantastic new force of nature called "awareness" blows my mind... right after making my mind.

I think Hofstadter does a great job explaining how these things arrive from "inanimate" matter. Worth reading his book GEB if you find this stuff interesting.

Correct. I'd go a bit further.

The questions Levesque proposes are questions that will test a language processing system, not intelligence. Language is not required for intelligent behavior and is insufficient (as various language parsers and knowledge-web systems have shown).

I don't believe any system that has language as its primary tool can be intelligent. Language is far too blunt an instrument. Anything we would be likely to call intelligence has to rest on a modelling system with is far more subtle and detailed than language. To get a flavor for how lacking language is, try encapsulating everything about a person you know well into words, then have someone who has never met them before read it. Do you think they understand that person as well as you?

Language is our most powerful tool for transmitting ideas. But even all the tools taken together are insufficient to transmit the actual concept models in our head in sufficient depth and resolution. Any system that is intelligent needs to base its intelligence on more fundamental units of thought than words. It needs to build these models on the fly and adapt them to new information as opposed to being programmed in. And back to the top of this thread, we don't really understand how that works in natural intelligence yet, so it's unlikely AI is going to pull it off anytime soon.

For several years I managed a team of software engineers split across two sites. We were all very comfortable with communicating electronically, be it email or chat. We all hung out in an irc channel as we worked. We shared wiki for documentation, a collaborative project list, we did conference calls as needed, and we sent out regular digests of what was going on with each team.

Yet there were still things that seemed to require working in person to go smoothly. It probably depends on the type of work - our software had to integrate with physical systems and workflows at a warehouse (one of the sites, the other was corporate hq) - but sometimes all the remote communication in the world did not provide enough clarity and you just had to be there. I was as surprised as anybody.

I eventually became disillusioned with the ideal of completely remote work and interaction. Issues came up with outside companies too. Without presence on site, poorer decisions would get made and things would progress more slowly. There's just so much more bandwidth interacting in person. Also, some of it might be related to the way we triage and prioritize - presence gives us urgency cues that telepresence does not. Yes, there are better and better ways to communicate, but until we can't tell the difference from being there... sometimes you benefit from being there.

And yes, I'd have loved to have made that trip in half the time.

Other people here are going to disagree, but you're right.

Anyone who wants the joy of life to end is not living well. Unless you've got a mental illness of some kind, the promise of another day with all the love, adventure, and opportunity to do great things and be a comfort and inspiration to others, is a gift. The cessation of that gift has no benefit. There is no practical reason for death unless we limit ourselves to the idea that we can't change the way our world works.

And if you think that, all of recorded history would like to disagree with you. Keep in mind that the world could only support about 3 million people until the advent of modern agriculture around the 11th century. And yet we've found a way to support 7 billion, the vast majority in better conditions than almost anyone in the 11th century. So stop being so limited in your ambitions. We can be better than we are now. And part of that would come from extending lifespan.

changing... not chanting. Bah.

Quite the contrary - I'd say that if you don't want to live forever, you're not doing it right.

I am ok with aging as far as gaining experience and growing and chanting. But withering away is crap and the sooner we gain control over that aspect of life the better. If there's some reason you don't want to live forever, I pity you. I am sorry that life has not been as fulfilling as it could have been.

I think you missed the point of his comment. Assuming society becomes more *knowledge based* and not as physical, then maintaining knowledge becomes more important than physical adaptation. You may disagree with his premise, but unless you're very young or an old person who hasn't learned much, you should realize there's value in knowledge and experience - despite how much consumer culture has tried to convince you otherwise.

New people are great, and new ideas often come from new people. But then there's also the fact that a lot of the most awesome people in the world are older people. I don't know who you personally idolize, but imagine if they'd had another 100 years to be awesome instead of withering away. That doesn't preclude other people from being awesome, it's just more awesome overall.

I love a good steak. I mean I really fucking love a good steak.

But if giving up steak would allow me to live indefinitely?

Bring on the chicken pot pie!

> I can only assume

Yes, that seems to be the case. Which explains why your arguments are aimed at your speculation of what is in the paper rather than the actual content. Musk and his engineers anticipate the issues you bring up and more, and offer probable solutions. The end result being, in contrast to your assertions, a system that would be both faster and cheaper than planes for trips under a certain length, and could optionally provide features that neither planes nor trains offer today.

You seem to be deeply stuck on your hatred of bullet trains and your love of planes. By not reading and understanding the paper you've created a straw man to argue against, and missed the opportunity to learn about a new type of transportation, different than those you already know: a transportation system with some unique characteristics that could prove to be valuable tools in the infrastructure toolbox.

This comment is not insightful. Read the paper. He covers this in significant detail, including the maximum g-forces that passengers will experience and the resulting turning radius limits at different speeds for different sections of the journey.

I don't think this first draft plan rules any such thing out, and indeed there would probably be many small scale steps along the way. I think it's good he showed an example of how it could work on a larger scale, though, indicating it is a technology that has some legs.

I wish this was like reddit and I could upvote you.

Yeah, it's interesting. As I read it, it seemed like it was taking a basic old idea and applying little bits of extra thought to improve it and clear up the challenges. Some of the details are clever, but nothing jumped out as being exotically difficult... except getting people to work towards it rather than snipe at it.

Serious question since I wasn't there: did so many people sit around naysaying the moon mission back in the day? Has our nation's vision become as pitifully limited as it seems? Or was it always like this, and progress happens in spite of all the armchair naysayers?

Thank you for bringing the first intelligent criticism of the system to this thread. Doesn't seem like a showstopper, but it does sound more complicated than I would have thought at first.