I think it is funny that the tech community tends to take a very dim view of AI drones and other weaponization of artificial intelligence, and yet, the very instant we get our hands on something that we can train to play doom, we do.

"If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”
  Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Do people still buy audio CDs?

Most, if not all, scientific research is weaponizable. This seems like a dangerous precedent to set.

This attitude is common among religious believers who face accusations that the reason their beliefs require faith is because there is otherwise no good reason to believe them.

The cold hard fact is that ALL knowledge is uncertain. We can't know anything for sure, because all our sources of knowledge are suspect. The experiences we have might all be illusions. Things that seem obviously self-evident might only seem so because our brains are broken (or otherwise lying to us). We have no means, even in theory, to arrive at knowledge that is absolutely, indisputably, and obviously true.

It gives the word "knowledge" a somewhat weaker definition than we would like. But that's what we've got to work with.

The real difference between religious teachings and scientific models is that religious teachings are based on some person-or-group who claims to have had a special experience or be a special kind of person and as such has access to knowledge that nobody else does. And so we should believe just because they said so. Scientific models, on the other hand, are based on repeated observations that have been attested-to by many people under very rigorous testing conditions. Neither has absolute proof, but science has "a whole bunch of us saw this and still see it every time we look" whereas religion has "people long ago wrote this down and there is no way to test it now."

Religious belief tends to be bolder, giving answers to more questions that we would like answered. Science tends to be more conservative, admitting to its limits and only answering the questions that it can answer from the data. So, religious answers are often more marketable. But they still come from more dubious sources.

And that's why religious beliefs require "more faith" than scientific models, even though scientific models can be really hard to understand.

With new technology comes new power, and that is always frightening. Every tool can be weaponized, and AI is no exception.

This never means that we should shirk the technology! Yes, it brings danger, but that's only because it brings utility. We want and need that utility. Our technological ascendancy is the most critical part of our evolution, at this point.

We are going to have to adapt to the problems that the new tech is bringing. That might be hard, but we have this new tech to help us do it. That is the right way forward.

I am trying to parse what you are saying.

Are you saying that "Brains display human level intelligence" is just a matter of personal belief, and not settled science?

Or that "Brains are constructed in wombs" is just a matter of personal belief, and not settled science?

Because those are the two pieces of evidence that I cited, and the simple observation of these things is neither stupid nor arrogant. Nor is it, nor anything else I said, deceptive. This is all very clear from an objective reading of the thread history.

I was actually giving you the benefit of the doubt, since religious thinking is a widely recognized phenomenon that makes people take the sort of self-contradictory position that you have, and do things like read-in to simple statements a lot of implications that aren't there in order to defend against any threats to their existing beliefs.

It is a very understandable reason for speaking as you do. If this is not your motivation, then your statements make even less sense.

To put it plainly: even if physicalism has not been proven, my statements still stand. They don't require physicalism to be true, as stated. Your fierce reaction to my statements is what suggests religious thinking.

Well you just confirmed my statements about your bias. Not to mention projection. You are clearly operating from a position of religious belief in untestable entities (souls, ghosts, or etc.) and you are threatened by the aspect of the scientific method that requires we avoid making unnecessary assumptions (Occam's razor, and all that). You assert that physicalism is "basically a religion" to invoke the philosophically problematic aspects of religion (belief in supernatural elements from ancient texts alone, with no evidence) to disparage it so you can protect those exact same elements of your own religion. It is really quite amazing how self-contradictory you are being.

Be that as it may, my statements don't require physicalism. What I said is too simple to require it. I pointed out the simple observation that intelligent things (brains) exist, and that they are constructed. That means that intelligent things can be constructed. That is not an assertion that souls don't exist, nor that souls do. My observation doesn't assume either way. Similarly, it doesn't assume that souls are necessary for intelligence, nor that they are not. It does not assume that souls can be constructed by some means other than natural birth, nor does it assume the opposite. NONE of those assumptions are present in my observation. You packed all that in so that you could then argue that the statements imply physicalism so you could then reject it as "religion" (as ironic as that is). This is called the "straw man fallacy" and it is a provably irrational form of reasoning.

I know you won't accept this. You are too steeped in your bias. The belief in souls is so dear to your heart that you simply cannot think rationally on any topic that might involve them. Your own brain tricks you into thinking that directly self-contradictory statements are perfectly harmonized in order to protect you from the threat of facing the mere possibility that your religion might be wrong. This is why your statements lack philosophical depth and why you impose claims that weren't actually made by the statements you attack.

I have evidence: human brains exist, and they are capable of general human-level intelligence. These brains get constructed inside human wombs.

So, that proves it is possible for physical things that display general human-level intelligence to exist, and be constructed. That is what makes it "theoretically possible" to construct such devices by other means some day in the future.

Note that "theoretically possible" does not mean "actually possible." There might be unknowns that prevent it. That is exactly why I said "theoretically possible," and further why I said "may" achieve it some day. My statement was carefully guarded to avoid asserting things that have not been proven.

Your insult that this claim is based on "mindless belief" is patently false and reflect an extreme bias and unfounded foregone conclusion on your part.

Well for starters, OpenAI has not claimed to have achieved AGI. Their claims stop short of stating that. And the reason is clear: they are just using marketing-speak to drum up interest, as they always have.

Secondly, I have worked a lot with GPT models and also Claude and Gemini, and OpenAI has been trailing behind Google and Anthropic by miles. GPT outright choked up and died under complex workloads that Gemini completed without breaking a sweat. I don't believe for a second that the industry's special-needs child has suddenly jumped ahead of its two greatest heavyweights.

Thirdly, Astra has been built using the same training methods as all the others in the current family. It might be bigger, but it is still just another LLM. The jump to AGI is going to require something much more revolutionary than a bigger training set, or stringing multiple LLMs together like tinker toys.

And, lastly, I am not an idiot. I can recognize marketing BS when I read it.

On the one hand, yes, AGI is theoretically possible and we may achieve it some day.

On the other hand, no, OpenAI has most certainly not achieved it (not, at least, without re-defining it to mean something that is not remotely close to what the term "AGI" has meant for most of its existence).

We do, in fact, have a "rules for thee" state. It is, in fact, legal for congresspeople to perform insider trading and yet illegal for others to do so.

I never revealed who I voted for.

But I will point out that voting is just a popularity contest. The politicians that make the best promises are the ones that win, not the politicians who are most qualified or make the most realistic promises. So, lying is a necessary strategy for winning.

So, yes, they are all liars. They might tell the truth once in a while if it just so happens that the truth benefits them in some way. Or if they have reason to expect that their lies won't be believed. But other than that, lying is basically a reflex for them.

How can you tell when politicians lie?

Their lips move.

Having talent in the industry that knows how to write secure software isn't enough. The managers need to prioritize the work and allocate sufficient time for it. There is *always* deadline pressure, with real money and consequences behind it, and so engineers need to present a compelling case that their more expensive secure way to do it is actually necessary.

Businesses love to ignore security holes if something else in the code prevents them from being exploitable. They often don't accept "well future code changes may expose this vulnerability." And they won't accept "this more expensive way of doing it is the industry best practice" if they think the cheaper way of doing it is secure enough.

Getting the bean-counters on board is the real victory. Once they actually care about security, they will be interested in hiring people who can do it well, which in turn will motivate technicians to study up on it.