I wonder how exactly then can know that the crystal is in a superposition state. It has to be isolated from the environment, otherwise the wave function collapses. So you can't exactly watch it, because as soon as you try to determine the vibration state it picks one of the two. How can they tell that it's in superposition, then? Do they shine a laser on it that can reflect in two different ways depending on the vibration of the crystal and let those two paths interfere with each other like in the double slit experiment? Something like that?

They started with only 3 out, but then more failed during the flight. But why abort if the area is clear anyway? They just continued to gather data, went past max Q (a pretty important milestone), and even allowed the rocket to tumble multiple times before finally blowing it up. That taught them a lot more than blowing it up at the first anomaly.

I couldn't help imagining Elon frantically pressing A/S/D/W to try and point the rocket in the right direction again and make it to orbit somehow. It really looked like one of my Kerbal launches and I was amazed they didn't blow it up sooner like what they usually do when a rocket even starts to deviate a little bit. They just let that thing tumble and continued to gather data, which is great.

GPT4 is already being connected to the internet. It's not smart enough yet, but that kind of connectivity could one day be enough for it to exploit zero days.

Right now I'm not worried yet. And halting progress is pretty useless right now because those rules will be disregarded by precisely by the wrong countries and we certainly don't want them to pull ahead. We're basically stuck on a very dangerous path with no way of getting off. What we should do is think FAR ahead, not just the next few years, so we can be ready when we need to be.

Personally, what I'm most afraid of is not AI taking over the world by force, but AI becoming so good that it will take over de facto because they will become so much more capable than us that it won't make sense anymore to keep humans in charge of anything. Then what will we do? Sit back and enjoy life as AI pets, hoping that they will continue to care for us?

Yes, but they are still running old classic computers. And Opportunity lasted for 14 years on Mars until a monster dust storm covered its solar panels. That's quite amazing for such a rudimentary machine, and I'm sure we can make them last a whole lot longer with future technology.

Neural nets are already beating humans at all sorts of different tasks. First one task at a time (AlphaGo,...), then multiple tasks at once (GPT answering questions about all sorts of totally different subjects, not without errors but probably with better knowledge than the average American), soon they will be unbeatable at pretty much anything. Probes with that kind of intelligence on board won't need constant control from earth anymore, just an occasional "we'd like you to try this or that". When it's smarter than an astronaut, it will be just like having an actual astronaut there. Not tomorrow, but it will happen.

A pattern matcher capable of not only passing the bar exam but actually surprising human professors with its thorough analysis of problems their students normally struggle to understand. Problems specifically written to weed out those who studied the course by heart but didn't thoroughly understand it.

Yeah, no creative thoughts, no learning.

And Midjourney images often look a lot like dreams, with very similar inconsistencies.

You really are underestimating where this is going. Like watching an Atari 2600 and claiming computers will never be able to do 3D shooters.

GPT is not the only branch. And who says a future branch won't be connected to a continuous video loop? The architecture will have to be changed slightly, but it won't be that much work. Persistent neural nets exist already.

Maybe not quite GPT but a different architecture that runs continuously. Many topologies are being experimented with. GPT is already surprisingly smart, passing the bar exam with ease. It can understand questions drawn on a napkin. Feed it continuous video and audio so it can monitor an area and answer questions from passers-by. Seems like a logical next step.

Why is everyone so focused on what these things can do now and failing to extrapolate to the future? It's like watching an Atari 2600 and saying computers will never be able to render 3D scenes. "It can barely draw a few square pixels, how could it possibly draw real time video with lighting and shadows, too many people with zero understanding are making bizarre uninformed statements".

You are right about GPT, with its current topology. But do you think that will be the final pinnacle of AI evolution? It won't be long before someone uses a slightly different neural network topology and attaches it to a camera so that it can continuously watch the surroundings and answer questions from passers-by. Add a feedback loop so that it can improve itself ("I made a mistake, why did I do that?") and at some point it will start asking philosophical questions about itself, given enough neurons and connections between them. Not right away, but I expect it will happen in our lifetimes.

I like the phrase "as well as some humans" as if that was just a minor afterthought of the mission. Almost seems like an AI-written article from the future.

What's wrong about those statements? We are already sending out probes decades before we manage to send humans to other planets. Mars has a bunch of rovers on it, but a manned mission is still many years away. Probes don't need food or oxygen, they can survive almost anywhere with little or no care. With humans, as soon as the habitat springs a leak, it's game over. We are so incredibly fragile.

Now imagine sending probes with human level intelligence that are capable of constructing factories. They could do anything humans can do, without us needing to send them instructions all the time. It will take a fair amount of extra research (especially the mechanical parts) but once that threshold is crossed, they can spread exponentially throughout the galaxy. Hopefully paving the way for us to visit as tourists, if their values don't start to drift...

What exactly makes you think we are anything more than dumb pattern matchers?

Forget about your own sense of self for a moment (still a very much open problem in philosophy), but look at other people, how they react to situations, how they make decisions, how they form opinions,... Do you see anything that couldn't be replicated with a sufficiently developed dumb pattern matcher? Sure, we have some extra features like hormones, adrenalin, etcetera acting as parameters to tweak our behavior, but I'm pretty sure we could replicate those too.

It sure "feels" like we're different, but nobody can pinpoint what exactly gives our brains real life. Actually perhaps it will be AI which will solve this eternal question for us.

Autopilot is not the thing selling their cars. We have a Model 3 and barely use autopilot. Would still have bought the car if it didn't have autopilot at all. But a few years into the future, yeah, it probably will become their major advantage.

Phew, +5 Funny, that was a close call.