[HN Gopher] DeepMind AI is as fast as humans at solving previous...
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       DeepMind AI is as fast as humans at solving previously unseen tasks
        
       Author : antondd
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2023-02-11 13:53 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.newscientist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.newscientist.com)
        
       | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
       | I think DeepMind is really good at solving "spherical cow"
       | problems. They can model a very simplified model of a small
       | aspect of the real world and solve it brilliantly.
       | 
       | However, there is a big question of how much the results are
       | actually transferable to the real world.
        
       | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
       | Here's the original article that this is reporting on:
       | https://sites.google.com/view/adaptive-agent/
        
       | theknocker wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | bigape911 wrote:
       | Depending on the problem, I expect it to be much much faster
       | especially foor physics and math problems.
        
       | bigape911 wrote:
       | It's sad to see the great minds at Google fail to capitalize on
       | their tech
        
       | greatpostman wrote:
       | Google pumping out PR to get some damage control on chatgpt. No
       | evidence in the public of any of these claims. Show us the models
       | google
        
         | nightski wrote:
         | Lecun @ Meta has been doing the same thing on Twitter lol. Re-
         | tweeting all these papers with no actual public information.
        
           | waboremo wrote:
           | Half of the reason I still have a twitter is for this very
           | reason. Highly intelligent people exhibiting some of the most
           | petty behavior. It's a great reminder, of many things,
           | including how tribal we still are in the worst ways.
        
         | we_never_see_it wrote:
         | [dead]
        
         | amf12 wrote:
         | These are based on published research by Deepmind, which is an
         | AI research lab. They don't build products to "demo" anything
         | to the public. They research and publish peer-reviewed papers.
         | 
         | The only thing they can "demo" is the simulation of the model,
         | which they have published as videos on YouTube. Here's the
         | paper if you're curious btw:
         | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.07608.pdf
        
           | greatpostman wrote:
           | All I hear about is deep mind, when will they release a model
           | I can interact with?
           | 
           | That's the standard chatgpt set
        
       | antondd wrote:
       | Just realised the article is behind a soft paywall. Here's a
       | LinkedIn post by a Deepmind engineer working on ADa:
       | https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ada-ai-adapts-fast-humans-edw...
        
       | mshake2 wrote:
       | Maybe they should make a persuasive demo if they want people to
       | care. ChatGPT isn't so hot right now because boring PR articles
       | were written about its abilities. It's hot because you can try it
       | and see for yourself. Basic showmanship.
        
         | xiphias2 wrote:
         | The problem for them isn't coming up with ChatGPT competitor.
         | It's keeping their ads revenue.
        
         | amf12 wrote:
         | > Maybe they should make a persuasive demo if they want people
         | to care.
         | 
         | This is the right response for Google's AI news, but not
         | Deepmind.
         | 
         | Building products isn't Deepmind's purpose. They have
         | essentially "demo'd" it by releasing the paper and simulation
         | videos. They don't build any products. This research is
         | absolutely irrelevant for most people right now, but hopefully
         | will be used by other researchers to make progress.
         | 
         | It's like saying "Stanford should build products and do demos
         | instead of just releasing papers".
        
         | jrvarela56 wrote:
         | Google gives me Xerox PARC vibes wrt AI. Got to the insights
         | first, way ahead of everyone else, but OpenAI is productizing
         | faster (like Apple did with Xerox PARC's research).
        
           | fsckboy wrote:
           | > _OpenAI is productizing faster (like Apple did with Xerox
           | PARC 's research)_
           | 
           | what happens in cases like this is a slightly different
           | dynamic what it seems on the surface. Apple, coming of huge
           | success with the Apple ][ using the anemic but cheap 6502 8
           | bit to build a low-end (compared to Xerox) mass market
           | (compared to Xerox) product, was well positioned to
           | capitalize/productize the next generation of more capable
           | 16/32 bit chips without changing their business model or
           | distribution channel. It's right place right time, plus
           | "easier to improve from the bottom, than downgrade from the
           | top".
           | 
           | This idea was identified in a famous McKinsey study of the
           | British motorcycle industry's loss of market share to low
           | cost Japanese competition in the 1960's and 70's. The post
           | WWII Japanese market developed to serve people who needed
           | transportation but could not afford the leading British
           | brands, not to mention autos. Once Japan had a successful
           | motorcycle industry it was natural for them to export
           | inexpensive bikes to Southeast Asia and South Asia. The
           | British companies (Triumph, BSA, Norton) did not make much
           | profit on the cheap bikes, they made their profit on the
           | powerful luxury models, so they abandoned competing in the
           | cheap sectors.
           | 
           | But then another force comes into play: if you manufacture a
           | large number of something (there is always more of the cheap
           | things) you get all sorts of manufacturing advantages. If you
           | figure out a way to use achieve sturdy construction with
           | fewer nuts and bolts, you get to save those nickels over many
           | many bikes which makes it worth your effort to be good at
           | that. If 1 out of 100 of your bikes leaks oil, and you sell a
           | million, you get a lot of complaints, and you fix it. (these
           | are called "learning curve advantages", and they tend to be
           | logarithmic, so by being 10x bigger, you get +something
           | better)
           | 
           | But who especially wants to buy sturdy, reliable transport
           | (everybody) and is willing to pay a premium for it (rich
           | people in the form of high margins)? So being the largest
           | (and by definition the best) manufacturer of a product leaves
           | you perfectly positioned to be the best high margin luxury
           | supplier.
           | 
           | Xerox was not asleep at the switch, they were just not a high
           | volume low cost manufacturer with a presence in the consumer
           | market, at the time when these learning curve
           | manufacturing/marketing ideas had just been developed so they
           | weren't used to thinking that way. Nor was it a case of the
           | suits not listening to the engineers; the engineering ethos
           | at Xerox was not "can we squeeze this on the smallest chip
           | possible", it was "omg let's leverage Moore's law onto even
           | bigger high end chips, compile into microcode!"
           | 
           | I know it's popular to hate on MBAs here, but this is an
           | example of what they learn, and why VC's might like to see an
           | MBA on the team, this is the kind of talk they want to see in
           | the business plan rather than an impossible dream.
        
           | belter wrote:
           | OpenAI and Microsoft will be hit by a big bus called GDPR.
           | 
           | "Unveiling the Crucial 5 GDPR Obstacles of ChatGPT That Can't
           | Be Ignored" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709482
        
             | wand3r wrote:
             | I have no idea how OpenAI would look at this, and of course
             | there are similar obstacles here re:copilot vs. gpl, but
             | couldn't they just shut off European access.
             | 
             | I think AI would be so important that Europe couldnt afford
             | to not have AI. Wonder how this would resolve.
        
               | GreedClarifies wrote:
               | My guess is that the petty little bureaucratic tyrants in
               | the EU would much rather deprive their subjects of new
               | products than give up any sliver of their power.
               | 
               | One could hope that this would cause a rebellion, but
               | recent history suggests that the populace will go along
               | with anything their lords decree.
        
               | techpression wrote:
               | Well power is toxic that way unfortunately, I'm happy
               | we're having a bribery scandal right now (even if it's
               | being ignored by much of the media) and that things like
               | Chat Control is being brought up (https://www.patrick-
               | breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/).
               | 
               | EU will do a lot in the name of its subjects, but in the
               | end it comes down to power and money. Anyone thinking it
               | won't end up as a totalitarian forced unification of the
               | member states are sorely mistaken, or viewing it within
               | the context of a minuscule time frame.
        
               | olivermuty wrote:
               | Short reply: lol
               | 
               | Longer reply: I love the EU so much. One of the few
               | institutions taking big tech to task. I can roam cell
               | operators at no extra cost, ensure that companies cant
               | data mine me without my express permission and other
               | wonderful tech oriented regulation.
               | 
               | It is extremely narrow minded to believe that throwing
               | all principle out the window is the only way to <<not
               | stifle innovation>>.
               | 
               | <<The lords decree>>, where does one even begin. The
               | biggest fight against bigtech involving amongst others
               | the cloud act that lets the us govt spy on anyone in
               | complete secrecy is literally spearheaded by a common man
               | [0].
               | 
               | This entire post is either satire, and if so I ate it
               | hook line and sinker... or it is some kind of privacy
               | exploitation stockholm syndrome.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems
        
               | WanderPanda wrote:
               | You mix up privacy wrt to the state (which has the
               | monopoly on violence) vs private organisations. Two very
               | different cans of worms. The EU is determined to fight
               | the latter while embracing the former (as its incentives
               | would suggest)
        
               | pjkundert wrote:
               | You don't fight "big tech" by giving "big brother" all
               | your liberty...
        
               | olivermuty wrote:
               | You clearly have no idea about how the european union
               | works. It is a much lighter touch on society in general
               | than the us is. We might not have as much gun freedom,
               | but on pretty much every other scale I'd rate the EU
               | higher than the US on <<liberty>>.
               | 
               | No one is banning books about gay people in my kids
               | school for example.
               | 
               | Either way curtailing big tech with regulation has
               | nothing to do with big brother. They are regularing
               | companies, not individuals.
        
               | pjkundert wrote:
               | If you, personally, end up restricted from doing things
               | you used to (pay for my software, for example) -- you
               | gave up liberty for security, and now have neither.
               | 
               | I'm Canadian, by the way. We now can go to prison for
               | wanting to call our children the name we gave them at
               | birth.
        
               | csmpltn wrote:
               | > "No one is banning books about gay people in my kids
               | school for example."
               | 
               | Check out some of the schools in Poland, or Hungary.
        
               | Drakim wrote:
               | This conversation is clearly talking about the good or
               | bad that the EU does. Are those books banned because of
               | the EU? Would they stop being banned if Poland or Hungary
               | was not part of the EU?
        
               | DangitBobby wrote:
               | The US government similarly has nothing to do with states
               | like Florida going off the deep end.
        
               | olivermuty wrote:
               | If anything, what would unban those books is pressure by
               | the EU.
        
               | 8note wrote:
               | I think this is saying that all the good things in EU
               | countries are the result of being in the EU, while none
               | of the bad is?
        
               | tough wrote:
               | You've liberty to be poor, die without healthcare, or get
               | rekt in court by a megacorp with infinite lawyer money
        
               | typon wrote:
               | The NSA is the biggest of Brothers in the world and
               | supposedly the country keeps on innovating and big tech
               | power is strongest here. How do you square that circle?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | mstipetic wrote:
               | Nuance - a subtle difference in or shade of meaning,
               | expression, or sound.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | 411111111111111 wrote:
               | > _Longer reply: I love the EU so much._
               | 
               | As a EU citizen: You really shouldn't.
               | 
               | They do occasionally pass decent legislature, but i fear
               | GreedClarifies is likely correct that it's probably more
               | about them wanting the power big tech is currently
               | centralizing for themselves.
               | 
               | For examples check the recent news from Belgium as
               | they've uncovered recent corruption issues in the
               | European Parliament. There is even an organization funded
               | by the EU which is unapologetically treating political
               | refugees as prisoners (putting them behind bars with
               | literal cameras in their "living" space.
               | 
               | There was a pretty good report on German state media
               | about that topic, should have English subtitles though if
               | you can't understand it https://youtu.be/tJMLNMlJkPw
               | 
               | I am glad they're currently pushing back against big tech
               | though, as FAANG is already speedrunning our society into
               | a total dumbsterfire, but love to that organization is
               | just misplaced. (Or should we call it MAMAA now? Meta,
               | Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet Amazon)
        
               | WanderPanda wrote:
               | Even these monopolies are bound to be disrupted by
               | competition (as we're likely about to see in the case of
               | google)
        
               | jessekv wrote:
               | I've got a lot of complaints about the EU, but this one
               | makes no sense.
        
             | tester756 wrote:
             | if it wasn't problem for Google, then why would for
             | ChatGPT?
        
               | fsh wrote:
               | It isn't. No court has ever interpreted the GDPR in the
               | bizarre way suggested in the linked article.
        
             | pjkundert wrote:
             | The great thing about the current-gen LLMs -- anybody will
             | be able to run one on the next gen of hardware. We're
             | within one order of magnitude of the capacity right now on
             | retail hardware.
             | 
             | The moment of transition from "data-centric" (big
             | centralized system/database) to "agent-centric" (locally
             | stored/run systems and identity, sharing arbitrary
             | data/storage) has arrived.
             | 
             | GDPR, LLM "guard rails", ... -- only the plebs will be
             | affected by those.
        
               | nateburke wrote:
               | > The moment of transition from "data-centric" (big
               | centralized system/database) to "agent-centric" (locally
               | stored/run systems and identity, sharing arbitrary
               | data/storage) has arrived.
               | 
               | I agree. Use cases such as LLMs-as-backend-of-my-web-
               | stack will move a lot of compute back to the edge of the
               | network, eventually.
        
               | TigeriusKirk wrote:
               | I believe you could run GPT-2 at home now.
               | 
               | Remember when OpenAI claimed that was too much power to
               | allow open access to?
        
               | pjkundert wrote:
               | Benevolent overlords patting the filthy masses on the
               | head.
        
             | dkislyuk wrote:
             | The LLM / foundation model industry will happily stay in
             | the United States and ignore the stifling regulation of the
             | EU if necessary. There is so much market share to capture
             | domestically at the moment.
        
               | croes wrote:
               | In the US it will get sued for copyright violation and
               | similar.
        
               | mensetmanusman wrote:
               | New laws would have to outlaw fair use, that will likely
               | not happen as the only country that ignores such laws
               | will win, especially now that the cat is out of the bag.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | They can redefine fair use without removing it entirely.
               | Thing like that happen all the time.
               | 
               | Will it be effective? Dunno, but LLMs aren't as easy to
               | duplicate or execute as films are to pirate or watch, and
               | yet copyright law still gets enforced somewhat.
        
               | missingdays wrote:
               | Don't threaten the EU with good time
        
               | rawoke083600 wrote:
               | Lol you can have Crypto in E.U but not fancy new A.I,
               | same how you can have A.I in USA but not Crypto :)
        
               | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
               | One day, we'll have crypto where "mining" is helping
               | train the AI. It'll be allowed nowhere.
        
             | MadSudaca wrote:
             | Who knows. Maybe it's GDPR whose getting hit by a bus.
        
             | wyager wrote:
             | At some point, US companies will get fed up with constantly
             | being harassed by the EU and just give up on the relatively
             | small (as in money, not population) European market
             | entirely. The hostility is simply not worth it.
             | 
             | For a sense of scale - the EU has 0 (zero) of the 14
             | largest companies by market cap. Out of the next 25, only a
             | handful are in the EU.
        
               | tester756 wrote:
               | Go ahead and bet your money on that
               | 
               | If your prediction happens, then EU based
               | startups/companies that'll fill the void will booom.
        
               | ianbutler wrote:
               | I like Europe, but a climate for entrepreneurship is not
               | something you have.
        
               | rowanajmarshall wrote:
               | The world's third largest tech sector is in a European
               | country (the UK), and the two country's bigger than it
               | are literally continent-scale superstates with around 10x
               | the GDP.
        
               | tester756 wrote:
               | That's irrelevant imo.
               | 
               | If FAANG announced leaving EU, then somebody's stock
               | would go up hard, at least on the beginning.
        
               | WanderPanda wrote:
               | And productivity would falter even more without Google
               | and Apple...
        
               | wyager wrote:
               | Why do you think that there are 0 (zero) EU tech
               | companies that have "boomed"?
        
               | astrange wrote:
               | The EU is set up to regulate already giant companies,
               | which means it's not possible to create new ones because
               | they can't afford the regulatory risk. (Mostly because
               | the regulations are intended to troll American companies,
               | not to do anything useful.)
               | 
               | And there isn't sufficient venture capital to build up
               | new ones either. Maybe they can all adopt Yandex and VK.
        
               | tester756 wrote:
               | >Mostly because the regulations are intended to troll
               | American companies
               | 
               | Which one?
        
               | ESMirro wrote:
               | It's just like reading the fan fiction on Macrumours. Any
               | day Apple are going to leave the EU over the Digital
               | Markets Act, any day now!
        
           | max51 wrote:
           | With AI, most failed products aren't just "late" at the game,
           | they often never release anything at all. Most of the wild
           | claims made by AI companies could be strait up lies and we
           | would never know because no one other than the devs has laid
           | eyes on it directly.
        
         | GreedClarifies wrote:
         | Not just showmanship, utility. ChatGPT has utility since "the
         | common person" actually has access.
         | 
         | Deepmind loves doing research and getting accolades from a
         | fawning press while never allowing commoners to access their
         | dear technology for fear that the rabble could somehow misuse
         | it.
         | 
         | Google, you lost your way.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | rawoke083600 wrote:
           | True ! Does anyone know if Blizzard got access or usage from
           | AlphaStar afterwards?
           | 
           | For example to improve the current a.i/bot in the game ?
        
             | timgo wrote:
             | It's open source.
             | 
             | https://github.com/deepmind/alphastar
             | 
             | Same with AlphaFold.
             | 
             | Now people here complain that they don't sell APIs to
             | proprietary models like OpenAI. They are a research lab
             | after all.
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | OpenAI five is gone as well, up until ChatGPT there were no
             | difference how they operated these things.
        
           | victor106 wrote:
           | Exactly this.
           | 
           | Makes us wonder where Google would be if Larry and Sergie
           | didn't open it up to the public and we just kept hearing
           | through the press that "there is this amazing search engine
           | that works better than every other search engine".
           | 
           | After the past decade of every damn startup "guru" advising
           | to "just ship it", Google just couldn't follow that advice.
           | 
           | Ultimately it doesn't matter how good chatgpt or Google's AI
           | is, all that matters is who shipped it first and how they
           | incorporating feedback in to the model.
        
           | khmii wrote:
           | [dead]
        
           | alfor wrote:
           | Exactly, they are too afraid of reputation risks.
           | 
           | They sit on their golden goose and don't want anything to
           | happen to it.
           | 
           | When people understand how much they know about each one of
           | us (with AI) they will be regulated.
        
             | la64710 wrote:
             | This is absolutely correct
        
         | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
         | I'd absurd to see basic research criticized by its lack of
         | showmanship, especially when looking at paywalled secondary
         | reporting on it. Hype isn't the goal. In fact, hype and
         | showmanship are generally counterproductive with research.
         | That's why a paper with a title "Compound B associated with low
         | concentration of stuff in mice" turns into "Science says coffee
         | will kill you." Lack of showmanship and circus is a good thing
         | here.
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | This is exactly right. ChatGPT (and Copilot) didn't blow my
         | mind because people told me about it. It blew my mind when I
         | started messing around with it. Doesn't matter how good things
         | sound in theory. All the things that made me a believer are
         | things I haven't even told anyone. It's too "you need to try it
         | for yourself" for me to even try explaining.
        
         | impulser_ wrote:
         | This is DeepMind, not Google. DeepMind is an AI research lab.
         | They aren't a company. They solely do research. They don't
         | produce products.
        
           | rudasn wrote:
           | > They don't produce products.
           | 
           | That can be said about Google as well, and I think that's
           | what parent meant to express.
        
         | skybrian wrote:
         | Hardly any scientific research has a demo for you to try. The
         | job of researchers is to publish research and their primary
         | audience is other researchers. We can read about it but they
         | aren't marketers and they don't have a product to sell to you.
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | Organizing the world's information and keeping it inaccessible
        
         | LoveMortuus wrote:
         | Yeah... So many people miss the: "Show don't tell" That's for
         | visual medium, for software it would be more like: "Touch,
         | don't show"
         | 
         | Especially with software, pretty much every programmer knows
         | that sky is the limit, and that's why promises mean so little.
         | 
         | In a way it's a similar problem to pre-orders.
         | 
         | People need to try it to truly understand it and its value.
         | 
         | Eg.: That new MMORPG looks amazing, but what's the gameplay
         | like, because at the end of the day gameplay > graphics, if
         | there's nothing to do except just the visuals people will get
         | bored.
         | 
         | And people usually forget the boring stuff.
        
           | theknocker wrote:
           | [dead]
        
       | Wowfunhappy wrote:
       | If some software/AI is able to do something, I _expect_ it to be
       | as fast or faster than a human because you can basically always
       | throw more computing power at the problem.
       | 
       | The important questions are (1) can the computer do it in the
       | first place and (2) at what financial cost?
        
         | duncan-donuts wrote:
         | What they're addressing here is the first of your important
         | questions. The answer to that question used to be, "well yes if
         | it was trained to" and they're saying, "probably even though it
         | doesn't know anything about that"
        
       | lettergram wrote:
       | So in a contrived environment where the AI is given the ability
       | to train on its attributes (aka same simulation framework,
       | different layout). It can effectively explore the layout and
       | complete tasks at the human level.
       | 
       | Perhaps there's only a few search algorithms and humans (and now
       | this AI) are optimized to do it as well.
       | 
       | One of my shower thoughts are that we're effectively recreating
       | the wheel with AI. Yes it can be immensely powerful and
       | outperform humans for specific tasks. However, humans are
       | generalized and evolved to interact with the real world
       | independently. I imagine an AI would effectively match a human in
       | this regard someday, but it's worse as it can't generate energy
       | from eating some plants or animals (ie naturally occurring solar
       | generated food). The interconnected nature will let AI have an
       | advantage for many tasks, no doubt, but humans are pretty well
       | optimized for the real world. Imo it'll be hard to beat.
        
         | chpatrick wrote:
         | You can get an AI to do work for you at the click of a button
         | at minimal cost. You can't do that with a human.
        
           | astrange wrote:
           | Sure you can, it's the order button on Amazon.
        
         | sebzim4500 wrote:
         | Isn't getting energy from food incredibly inefficient when you
         | look at the entire system though?
         | 
         | And while the plants themselves may be 'solar powered', the
         | tractor used to plant them isn't. Neither is the factory where
         | they made the fertilizer etc.
        
           | akira2501 wrote:
           | Well.. we are not a dead end for those nutrients, in that we
           | excrete waste that isn't completely stripped of nutrition.
           | This waste, treated properly, can be quite valuable to a
           | variety of ecosystems.
        
           | ccozan wrote:
           | With a very few exceptions, all the energy on Earth is coming
           | from the Sun, aka "solar power".
        
         | belter wrote:
         | All valid points. Then the title gets generalized as to
         | "DeepMind AI as fast as humans in tasks not seen before..."
         | missing the point of the constrained environment. This is the
         | type of article that will do wonders for Google stock price,
         | but nothing towards measuring if there is a leap forward on AI.
        
         | lostmsu wrote:
         | > However, humans are generalized
         | 
         | In terms of subject matters, ChatGPT is way more generalized
         | than humans.
        
           | pavlov wrote:
           | ChatGPT can only arrange symbols. It can't wipe a floor or
           | dissect an insect or drive a car or give a massage or make
           | people listen and do what it wants.
           | 
           | It can tell you often convincing stories about how to do
           | those things, but it has no means to enact any of it nor any
           | internal motivation to try.
        
             | iinnPP wrote:
             | If you place an ICE on the floor it also doesn't do much.
             | 
             | Plop Excel on a computer and see what it does on its own.
             | 
             | Not seeing what ChatGPT can be tooled to do is simply a
             | lack of imagination.
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | A tool like that, for humans to wield, doesn't sound to
               | me like something that is "more generalized than humans".
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | wyager wrote:
             | > ChatGPT can only arrange symbols.
             | 
             | This is what like half the people in first world countries
             | do all day.
             | 
             | > It can't wipe a floor...
             | 
             | There is no reason to suspect this is a technical
             | limitation of the models we can build now, rather than a
             | consequence of the fact that no one has bothered trying due
             | to limitations on mechatronics.
             | 
             | > but it has no means to enact any of it nor any internal
             | motivation to try
             | 
             | Any claims to this end are both/either A) purely
             | speculative and B) ontologically nonsensical. It's also not
             | really relevant.
        
               | akira2501 wrote:
               | > This is what like half the people in first world
               | countries do all day.
               | 
               | Not by choice. That is an artifice of our institutions.
               | 
               | > Any claims to this end are both/either A) purely
               | speculative and B) ontologically nonsensical. It's also
               | not really relevant.
               | 
               | It's speculative, and it's nonsense, and it's not
               | relevant. This claim itself is ontologically nonsensical.
        
               | breuleux wrote:
               | > There is no reason to suspect this is a technical
               | limitation of the models we can build now, rather than a
               | consequence of the fact that no one has bothered trying
               | due to limitations on mechatronics.
               | 
               | I think the point still stands, if mechatronics turn out
               | to be a more difficult problem than intelligence: we will
               | need new models to overcome these limitations.
        
             | saberience wrote:
             | Well is there an ai that can dissect an insect or wipe a
             | floor? Or do both without risking any accidents to nearby
             | humans?
        
             | 1024core wrote:
             | > It can't wipe a floor or dissect an insect or drive a car
             | or give a massage or make people listen and do what it
             | wants.
             | 
             | I have seen publications where a LLM like ChatGPT was mated
             | with a robotic arm, and taught to give instructions to the
             | arm to do whatever it wanted to do. I think this may be it:
             | https://sites.research.google/palm-saycan
        
         | sva_ wrote:
         | > but it's worse as it can't generate energy from eating some
         | plants or animals
         | 
         | A machine can be worked 24/7 with no regard for their wellbeing
         | whatsoever though.
        
           | akira2501 wrote:
           | Yes.. you just have to generate enough power 24/7 to keep it
           | running. Does generating power have negative impacts for
           | other peoples well being?
           | 
           | AI will never be a free lunch.
        
           | visarga wrote:
           | Ah you mean like our hearts and lungs? How dare we treat them
           | like machines?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | habibur wrote:
       | The key part :
       | 
       | > The AI, called Adaptive Agent or AdA, works in a 3D virtual
       | world where it is asked to solve tasks that involve navigating,
       | planning and manipulating objects.
       | 
       | Not in real world.
        
         | mach1ne wrote:
         | If it were a sufficiently realistic simulation it wouldn't
         | matter. That being said, it most likely isn't.
        
           | grogenaut wrote:
           | Do they need legs to be realistic?
        
       | panda88888 wrote:
       | Looks like currently the agents interact in the simulated world
       | only. Would be interesting when combined with robots from Boston
       | Dynamics or similar and see how it learns to adapt and operate
       | under real world environment and constraints.
        
       | tehsauce wrote:
       | Here's a video summary of the research:
       | https://youtu.be/U93bUQ1roiw
        
         | banashark wrote:
         | This is a great walk-through for an outsider's perspective into
         | the structure of the agents.
        
       | faeriechangling wrote:
       | I don't believe them because they won't release it to the public
       | and let us see for ourselves and that says everything.
        
       | V__ wrote:
       | > solve tasks that involve navigating, planning and manipulating
       | objects.
       | 
       | Without some real examples, this is just PR talk. I could just as
       | well say that "the Stockfish AI" is able to solve previously
       | unseen tasks on a virtual board, moving pieces around, thinking
       | ahead to navigate around and outsmart any human and non-human
       | opponent. Doesn't say much.
        
         | turingfeel wrote:
         | What are the previously unseen tasks (the most important aspect
         | of the above AI) involved the Chess engine Stockfish playing
         | Chess?
        
           | Jensson wrote:
           | It hasn't seen every board position, it still plays well in
           | positions it hasn't seen.
        
       | margorczynski wrote:
       | It's behind a paywall, any way to go past it? Also would be great
       | if there was an actual paper or more serious article about it. I
       | see a lot of this type of articles recently and most of them are
       | wrong/hype/etc. and the only valuable part are the links to the
       | sources.
       | 
       | EDIT: Found these with Google:
       | 
       | https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07608
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U93bUQ1roiw
        
         | ngrilly wrote:
         | This article publicly available provides a summary:
         | https://www.marktechpost.com/2023/01/24/a-new-transformer-ba...
        
       | asim wrote:
       | It's funny. The way deepmind is going about it, these AI agents
       | are going to live in a total virtual world in which we then enter
       | and participate. It's not clear that AI will actually immerse
       | itself in the real world. While we find general uses for
       | differently trained models, the whole robots being everywhere
       | thing seems less likely than say a 3D metaverse we participate in
       | using AR glasses so we can see these digital creatures. Could be
       | totally wrong, could argue for the other case, it mostly doesn't
       | matter. I just don't think our interactions with this technology
       | will be physical.
        
         | espadrine wrote:
         | Nah. They need to walk before they can run.
         | 
         | In 2016, their system could locate objects in a scene[0]. In
         | 2017, it could answer questions about a scene[1]. In 2018, it
         | could infer how a scene looks from any angle using a couple
         | photos[2].
         | 
         | Now, it can perform inference tasks in a 3D scene.
         | 
         | Going to the real world will require more work! But they will
         | be helped by converging existing advances[3].
         | 
         | [0]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.08575.pdf
         | 
         | [1]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.01427.pdf
         | 
         | [2]: https://www.deepmind.com/blog/neural-scene-representation-
         | an...
         | 
         | [3]: https://www.deepmind.com/blog/stacking-our-way-to-more-
         | gener...
        
         | Havoc wrote:
         | Not sure the distinction matters given how the two are blurring
         | together. See digital twins etc.
        
         | kyleyeats wrote:
         | It's not gonna happen, Mark. Just drop it.
        
       | mawadev wrote:
       | I personally don't believe a single thing about chatgpt and any
       | ai that pops up around it. To me it's the same as google search -
       | instead of truly enriching our lives, it simply made us dependent
       | and then more lazy to the point where we rather search instead of
       | thinking for a brief moment. Now that google became unusable, ai
       | is supposed to step in or what...
       | 
       | I hope the volumes of worthless content it generates destroy the
       | internet as we know it, so we can finally move on to better
       | things and start building communities again.
        
         | chillfox wrote:
         | Communities never went away, they are all over the place. I
         | guess you got too lazy to seek them out?
        
         | d0mine wrote:
         | Google search is still immensely helpful for a lot of tasks.
         | 
         | ChatGPT even today performs some tasks well e.g., extracting
         | the intent from a natural language query, or generating text
         | that on the surface looks human. It is often inaccurate on most
         | tasks but it can I believe become better on some tasks to have
         | a great economic effect.
         | 
         | Most most likely we won't get AGI though, and that's great
         | because AGI that is not restricted by the human scalp is an
         | existential threat. I'm not talking jobs, It is about surviving
         | as a species.
        
         | revskill wrote:
         | Skeptials keep being skeptial. It's not good for all use cases,
         | but it's your problem to find good use case for it.
         | 
         | It's the same as: all juniors can write code. Only senior can
         | write code that's clean, simple to understand.
         | 
         | Mind you, talking to ChatGPT is easier to talking to real
         | human. Because most of the time, it understands your intent
         | very well.
        
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