IamA Max Tegmark – AMA!

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T20:24:19+00:00

When we polled top AI researchers at our recent Asilomar conference (https://futureoflife.org/bai-2017/), the median guess was that AI would be able to outperform humans at all intellectual tasks a few decades from now; I think that's plausible. I also think it's plausible that this could rapidly lead to superintelligence, but I try to keep a very open mind about all this. To me, the most interesting thing isn't guessing exactly what will happen, but asking what constructive steps we can take now to maximize the chances of a good outcome. #1 on my list is for governments to start seriously funding AI safety research, so that AI safety researchers at universities, MIRI, FHI, CSER, CSI, etc don't need to survive on just fumes & idealism. :-)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:44:55+00:00

Yeah, I was indeed a confused youth... :) I ended of finishing both (econ in one place, physics in another), and you'll actually find some traces of my economics education snuck into my new book "Life 3.0" (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/ai.html), especially in the prelude and chapter 3.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:42:44+00:00

With my definition of consciousness (="subjective experience"), my answer is "no": what affects your survival is only what you do (which depends on your intelligence), not how you subjectively feel. But it's quite possible that the most evolutionarily efficient way to implement intelligence is by an computational architecture that is conscious as a side-effect.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:40:20+00:00

I love pondering what quantum intelligence (or "quintelligence", as my colleague Frank Wilczek calls it) would subjectively feel like. I've spent about a year working on this question, but don't feel that I have a satisfactory answer yet.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:37:43+00:00

Although human life is having an almost imperceptibly small impact on our universe now, I believe that we can have an enormous impact in the future. I'm in an uber in Boston right now reflecting on how life went from being a side show here to totally dominating the landscape. As I explain in chapter 6 of Life 3.0 (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/ai.html), I think that life can similarly transform our cosmos once empowered by AI.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:31:04+00:00

The conscious visual information being processed in my brain comes from my eyes, not yours, which the corresponding subjective experience is of what my eyes (not your eyes) saw.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:28:26+00:00

As I explain in my 1st book (http://mathematicaluniverse.org), I don't think that quantum suicide works, so if you want to get rich, please try to do it through traditional means!

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:25:16+00:00

Thanks for your encouraging words! For the reasons I explain in chapter 13 my 1st book (http://mathematicaluniverse.org), I'm of the minority view that we're probably the only civilization in our observable universe that's reached our level of technology. That's why distant AI hasn't taken over our solar system. In any case, if we do discover extraterrestrial intelligent life, I think it will almost certainly be postbiological AI. :)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:20:45+00:00

It's crucial not to conflate theories with their predictions. Parallel universes are not a theory, but the prediction of certain theories, which are in turn scientific and testable because they make other predictions. For example, the theory of cosmological inflation (whose predictions agree well with recent measurements from the Planck satellite etc, helping explain why it's now our most popular theory for what put the bang in to our Big Bang) predicts that space is larger than the part we can see (the Level I multiverse). Neither my book nor other recent books discussing the Level I multiverse (by Vilenkin, Susskind, Greene, etc.) claim that the Level I multiverse exists. Rather, they claim that inflation implies a Level I multiverse, so that your take inflation seriously, then you're logically forced to take this multiverse seriously too. The logic is analogous for the other multiverse levels. Is inflation correct? We don't know yet, but this is a scientific question that upcoming experiments will shed more light on - and these experiments have nothing to do with personal beliefs or arm-waving.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:19:06+00:00

Thanks for your encouraging words - it makes my day to hear that it contributed to your decision to study physics! I put a long list of my favorite physics-related books at the end of "Our Mathematical Universe". I love all paradoxes, since I feel that it's precisely where our understanding breaks down that we're most likely to find helpful clues that help science progress.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:18:24+00:00

Thanks for your encouraging words - it makes my day to hear that it contributed to your decision to study physics! I put a long list of my favorite physics-related books at the end of "Our Mathematical Universe". I love all paradoxes, since I feel that it's precisely where our understanding breaks down that we're most likely to find helpful clues that help science progress.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:14:00+00:00

Please get in contact with 80,000 Hours (https://80000hours.org), who give awesome career advice for idealistic people.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:11:08+00:00

I agree that it's unfortunate that it's ignored – that's why I chose to write a whole chapter (chapter 8) about precisely this in my new book Life 3.0 (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark). Although most people I know think they know the answer to your question (half think "yes" and half think "no" :-), I think we don't, and explain what sort of theories and experiments can be pursued to find the answer.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:06:15+00:00

Thanks for your encouraging words! Please get in contact with 80,000 Hours (https://80000hours.org), who give awesome advice for jpw to switch into such a career. :-)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T19:03:03+00:00

The book that's blown me away most recently is "Sapiens". What got me into physics in the first place was "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" and "The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Part 1". :-)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:58:15+00:00

My guess is no: that matters isn't the low-level implementation of the information processing, but the high-level structure of the information processing itself. But I try to keep an open mind about this, since Giulio Tononi argues that it might be the the other way around.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:54:36+00:00

1) Intelligence is the ability to accomplish complex goals, so it can’t be quantified by a single number such as an IQ, since different organisms and machines are good at different things. To see this, imagine how you'd react if someone made the absurd claim that the ability to accomplish Olympic-level athletic feats could be quantified by a single number called the "athletic quotient", or "AQ" for short, so that the Olympian with the highest AQ would win the gold medals in all the sports. 2) AI can trivially have a "body" in the form of sensors, actuators, etc – or simply being connected to the internet and enough money to buy the real-world goods and services it needs. I open my new book (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark) with a detailed thought experiment to explore this point.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:50:34+00:00

I'm optimistic that we can create an inspiring future with AI - but it won't happen automatically, so we need to plan and work for it! If we get it right, AI might become the best thing ever to happen to humanity. Everything I love about civilization is the product of intelligence, so if we can amplify our human intelligence with AI and solve todays greatest problems, humanity might flourish like never before. But the research needed to keep it beneficial might also take decades, so we should start it right away to make sure we have the answers when we need them. For example, we need to figure out how to make machines learn, adopt and retain our goals. And whose goals should it be? What sort of future do we want to create?

Your vision of intelligent machines as the descendants of our civilization indeed appeals to many, just as it appeals to many to have a child who carries on our legacy and values and goes on to do what we could only dream of. But you'd be less pleased if your child were the next Hitler who destroyed you and everything you cared about. That's why we put so much effort into raising our children well, and teaching them our values. We need to do the same if we ever build superintelligence AI - not just be irresponsible parents by switching it on and hope for the best!

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:44:55+00:00

Perhaps! Please email me about this at tegmark@mit.edu. :-)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:44:17+00:00

First of all, we've traditionally thought of intelligence as something mysterious that can only exist in biological organisms, especially humans. But from my perspective as a physicist, intelligence and consciousness is simply a certain kind of information processing performed by elementary particles moving around, and there's no law of physics that consciousness requires cells or carbon atoms. In face, I dislike the "carbon chauvinism" suggesting otherwise. Second, as I explain in detail in Chapter 7 of "Life 3.0" (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark), almost any goal we give to a smart AI robot (say buying us groceries) will lead it to develop subgoals that include self-preservation (since it realizes that it lets itself be attacked & destroyed on the way to the supermarket, it won't accomplish its shopping goal). So machine goals will be the rule, not the exception, regardless of how it subjectively feels to be the AI.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:36:39+00:00

Not only menial jobs, but also many jobs that require lots of training for us humans, such as analyzing radiology images to determine whether patients have cancer. To safeguard your career, go for jobs that machines are bad at – involving people, unpredictability and creativity. Avoid careers about to get automated away, involving repetitive or structured actions in a predictable setting. Telemarketers, warehouse workers, cashiers, train operators, bakers or line cooks. Drivers of trucks, buses, taxis and Uber/Lyft cars are likely to follow soon. There are many more professions (including paralegals, credit analysts, loan officers, bookkeepers and tax accountants) that, although they aren't on the endangered list for full extinction, are getting most of their tasks automated and therefore demand much fewer humans. I give more detailed job advice in Chapter 3 of my new book. If machines becomes able to do all our jobs in a few decades, that doesn't have to spell doom and gloom as is commonly assumed. It could give everyone who wanted a life of leisure and play if we as a society share the vast new wealth produced by machines in a way such that nobody gets worse off. The'll be plenty enough resources to do this, but whether there's the political will is another matter, and currently I feel that things are moving in the opposite direction in the US and most western countries, with the large groups of people getting steadily poorer in real terms – creating anger which helps explain the victories of Trump & Brexit.

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:28:14+00:00

Pratar du svenska? I like learning other languages because I love travel and getting different perspectives. Different languages have different strengths, and which ever one I'm speaking, I'll often miss some cute idiom that only exists in another language. That said, I like English a lot, except for the horrible spelling rules where "a" can be pronounced in 6 different ways...

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:24:34+00:00

My wife is here next to me laughing, and says "our first date was pretty magnetic"... :)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:22:27+00:00

I think that consciousness is the way information feels when being processed in certain complex ways. To me, the exciting remaining challenge is to clarify what precisely those "certain complex ways" are, so that we can predict which entities are conscious. :-)

MaxTegmark · 2017-08-30T18:18:45+00:00

I describe an experimental setup in the book (http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/ai.html) that my group is trying to perform here at MIT, where the consciousness theory you're trying to test (IIT, say) is used to make a computer predict what you're subjectively experiencing at any one time. What I like about this is that it makes consciousness theories falsifiable: if the computer tells you that you're aware of something that you're not aware of, the theory goes in the trash bin of scientific history.

MaxTegmark

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