Posted on 02/08/2025 2:07:21 AM PST by Lazamataz
"Reasoning", semi-intelligent (and maybe fully-intelligent) Artificial Intelligence is right around the corner.
What is Artificial General Intelligence?
According to Dr. Nivash Jeevanandam, who writes in a paper titled Reasoning in AI: Can AI Actually Think and Reason Like Humans?", it should show the following capabilities:
AI systems should be able learn from data by identifying patterns and relationships, use algorithms to analyze data and make decisions, and adapt and improve their performance over time. AI systems should be able to use logical reasoning to solve problems, use causality to make decisions based on cause-and-effect relationships, and use contextuality to evaluate data in its broader context. Note that current Large Language Models (LLMs) already have this last capacity.
Some people will say that this is going to be yet another case of the old computer axiom "garbage in, garbage out", and this is absolutely true for the early models of Artificial Intelligence, namely Large Language Models such as ChatGPT o1. Those models were merely presenting summaries of all it can read on the internet. In some ways, it is merely a clever plagiarist. As Noam Chomsky said in a recent interview:
"The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations . . . " Noam Chomsky in an interview with Dr. Ian Roberts and Dr. Jeffrey Watamull
What are the ramifications?
Once Artificial Intelligence is successfully "reasoning" it will put nearly every white-collar job at risk of being replaced by an AI. The AI can work 24 hours a day. 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It will do so at a very small cost, and at some point in the relatively near future (with initial prototype models being available in the next year or two), will do those jobs better, faster, with no breaks and no demands for wages. Millions of people in America -- even worldwide -- will be impacted, including lawyers, doctors, computer professionals, engineers of every type, content writers, you name it.
This will greatly lower the costs of living in many arenas. Law, medicine, engineering of every kind, will all become far cheaper. It also makes the concern about importing cheap foreign knowledge workers via the H1-B program, a moot issue.
What happens to the many millions of white-collar professionals? They are rendered obsolete, and wages will be cut or those workers will be without jobs altogether. "But," you counter, "What of the careers of people who engage in trades or other forms of physical labor?" Those jobs, too, are at risk of being rendered obsolete. Robotics has advanced to a startling degree, and quite soon, all jobs that would have been performed by human laborers will be performed, instead, by robots.
If both knowledge and physical workers are made obsolete, and they no longer have incomes, it would also greatly lower the amount of income-related tax money the government will get. Without wages, where will tax money come from? We recently saw President Trump threaten to impose tariffs, and the pushback was severe. Perhaps a national sales tax, known as the FAIR tax, will gain traction.
There are other ramifications of true AGI, or even its predecessor: It will unquestionably bring transformative, expansive leaps in technology. It is likely that at some near point in the future, AGI can perform at the level of the best human researchers (or better, since it will have instantaneous access to a much broader array of human knowledge than any one person can.) However, because it will be far faster, it will be able to log many thousands of hours of PhD-level research in an infinitesimal fraction of the time than a single human would be able to. Take, for example, the field of medicine: An AGI system may be able to simulate or analyze thousands or millions of possible reactions of a human to a new compound, in the time it would take a human researcher to research one.
Which, of course, brings us to the topic of application of AGI to military research. The first nation that successfully harnesses AGI in pursuit of military technology will achieve a leap above other nations akin to the leap of modern firearms over wooden clubs. Some technologists advocate for slowing down or even banning research into AGI, but this single ramification will thoroughly outweigh any protests.
There is also a more subtle effect that may well manifest: In my prime, I was quite capable of doing simple mathematics in my head. I could multiply, divide, add and subtract large numbers quickly, without pen and paper. Once, however, I started using the hand-held calculator, that ability evaporated. So, if we have machines that can reason as well as (or better) than us, will our reasoning skills diminish as we rely on the machines?
In the shorter term, we also must be aware of the potential to use AI as a universal and utterly pervasive surveillance mechanism. If an AI has access to your entire history and can predict your motivations, and is allowed to monitor your day-to-day actions, this can become an extremely oppressive tool in the hands of a bad actor.
Biological Life versus Artificial Life
One of the advantages of AI is that it does not have certain biological imperatives, particularly -- in the case of research -- frustration. Frustration was evolved into us so that we bio-units don't waste finite time. AI has no such imperative, and time is not a concern for them. As presented above, consider the example AI trying various chemical compounds for a new medicine versus the comparatively slow pace of a pharmaceutical doctorate. In some small fashion it is similar to the old chess-playing AI's. They would try every possible move and project 20 (or more) moves ahead.
There are two ways intelligence can be manifested: Biologically, and artificially. The route of achieving intelligence via biology carries with it certain biologic imperatives. Some are strengths, others are weaknesses -- but even those classifications may be insufficient. We may not necessarily know which features are strengths, or weaknesses, or having a blend of the two. AI, having no biological imperatives, will have significant advantages over biological-based life forms...however, some imperatives โ such as empathy, love, compassion, and even fear, and a desire for survival and procreation โ were instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. Even death itself, may be a biological imperative that motivates us to live to the fullest, and achieve what we can for the betterment of self or mankind. We succeeded in some small (or large?) part because of those imperatives. So, I cannot help but believe that those are an advantage.
An AI cannot know hunger, or thirst. These feelings are the sole domain of we who are flesh and blood. It is those feelings that give us strengths such as drive, desire, and will.
Yet, bear in mind, an AI can approximate evolution if it is aware enough to do this, and it can perform evolutionary iterations far faster than the glacial rate that biology can achieve. Still: the biocentric competition for survival helps to trim out spurious and useless evolutionary branches. AI will have no such constraint, so it may well exhibit bizarre and useless evolutionary steps.
How will humans react to all this?
Obviously, we will react in fear. It is another biological imperative, we fear the unknown. In the fictional universe that Frank Herbert created, with his seminal work "Dune", mankind revolts against Artificial Intelligence in an uprising called the Butlerian Jihad. One of the results of this revolution is a new Commandment in the Bible, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." There appears to be substance to our fear, but I suggest we not be entirely consumed by it. There are great opportunities, should we successfully navigate the dangers and benefits I've detailed. Besides, it's coming, and nothing will stop it.
And what about what I call the "Crisis of Meaning"? With vast numbers of people without gainful and meaningful work, where will people derive their sense of value? Many of us derive a sense of meaning and accomplishment from our jobs. Without that meaning, who are we? Where will we fit in the social fabric? If AI can do everything better, faster, and cheaper, how can we hope to understand our place in society?
This will likely be the biggest change in the human condition in our entire history. It will be more impactful than the harnessing of fire, the discovery of the wheel, or the industrial revolution. We will have to rethink nearly every economic model we have set up. We may have to rethink everything in our society. This could be Utopia, or this could be Armageddon.
To the latter outcome, in the Old Testament of the Bible, in Genesis, Adam and Eve were told not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, lest they think of themselves as Gods.
Genesis 2:17To my mind, it appears that the Bible -- having predicted things accurately so many times -- has predicted the rise of Artificial General Intelligence. Perhaps this is the apple we should not have eaten. Personally, I'm a little flabbergasted at how incredibly accurate the prophecies of the Bible are... even a chapter, Genesis, that I routinely dismissed as fable.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.And Genesis 3:4 and 3:5
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Even a blind nut can find a pig from time to time.
And what is Chomsky, if not a blind nut?
Add me
In our case it’s a combination of shiny object and that our product managers don’t know jack $#%& about the product (life in an acquisition company) so they don’t know the features that are already there. “We think you should use AI to scan a fax and figure out who it should route to” “you mean like OCR routing that we already have in the product only they pay google money every time a fax comes in?” “But AI goes to 11”.
If they weren’t paid so much more money than me they’d be cute.
Ping because AI thinks pretty girls have pointy knees.
Until robots come around with the real ability to do human like tasks, everyone better learn how to work with their hands. Get a blue collar trade, farm, whatever.
Added!
First, there were pure knowledge workers even back in Old Testament times: We are not ALL supposed to be pure knowledge workers.
Next, Genesis: "By the sweat of your brow will you earn your bread." Physical work is not going anywhere. It has value, it is ennobling, it helps us in a lot of ways other than piling up piles of widgets.
Next: Each AI advance merely opens another huge avenue for physical work to be done: Deep Fold suggests a new chemotherapy class.
Next: There is SO MUCH one-on-one teaching to be done, and I mean reparative teaching. Don't worry about computers and AI replacing humans on this one. Can't be done.
Just a few ideas; hope they help.
-c
You did an excellent job writing the article.
Thank you! I hope to get this one published in one of the big conservative online publications.
I'm not.
We are not ALL supposed to be pure knowledge workers.
I am.
Well that sounds like a true fustercluck! I’m very fortunate to be in a Fortune 50 that treats its employees spectacularly well.... except during raise time.
Most of what I stated, I can demonstrate with people.
The rest is based upon actual experiences I’ve had.
Put it in the back of your mind and see what unfolds in the future.
After reading this I now understand why those thinking caps are in a warehouse. We already don’t know how to use them. We are not going to need them.
This will surely be the most significant problem AI causes. It will destroy the human spirit, turning people into Playstation Zombies.
An interesting follow up article would be to take the common fallacies in logical reasoning and see if they apply to AI.
Some certainly would, i.e. Fallacy of Generalization
or..
Begging the Question (Circular Argument) We have all accidentally programmed an infinite loop in the past.
Causal fallacy (implies a relationship between two things where one canโt actually be proven)
Post Hoc “post hoc ergo propter hoc” (after this, therefore because of this)
Loaded Question (This occurs whenever a person asks a question which includes their desired outcome, against the position of the person answering the question.)
False Dichotomy (False Dilemma, Either/Or)
Equivocation (Doublespeak)(Kamala used this all the time)
Appeal to Popular Opinion (Argumentum ad populum)
Sunk cost fallacy (idea that past expenditures are relevant in making decisions about the future)
Red Herring (Introducing an irrelevant point)
Slippery slope (Anyone who has done financial or economic modeling has experienced this) I used to do a lot of “pro-forma financial statements for bank loans for clients.
Programming the algorithm that gives weight to the various assumptions would be really interesting.
We humans created it, we will have to banish it to a place to live but place limits on it and still love it like God did with Adam and Eve.
Another way in which we will be a reflection of the creator.
We reflect butโฆ we are always flawed with sinful nature.
True dat.
You could offer up an entire series of this. Give it a catchy title, approach one of the more conservative outlets. This would be exposure for you and for them it would be elevating the dialogue on something they haven’t given much attention to already but SERIOUSLY should. As I said elsewhere you are on a roll with these articles, and you are inspiring me :-)
PING?
Thank you sir! Let’s get this in front of some people!
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