Does artificial anthropocentric intelligence lead to superintelligence?

When I use the term Artificial General Intelligence, my meaning of 'General' comes from the psychology definition of the G-factor that is tested in general intelligence tests.
It is an anthropocentric measure. The question that hasn't been explored in depth is whether a "human-complete" synthetic intelligence leads to a superintelligence. The prevailing assumption is that this expected.
I am going to argue that this assumption may not be true.
The assumption that goes into AGI automatically exploding into a superintelligence is driven by the bias that human intelligence is perceived at the pinnacle of all intelligence.
Humans, like all other living things with brains, have their cognition forged by their umwelt and their environment. Our cognition is the way it is because it is what is suited for the niche we evolved into.
We have not evolved into high speed symbolic and math processors because in most of the 200,000 years of human existence, this skill wasn't that important. Computers are certainly better than us in many tasks of a cognitive nature.
Instead of evolving to achieve a capability, humans have the ability to create tools to compensate for a lack of ability. We have invented computers because we are very error-prone and slow computers.
A synthetic general intelligence is a kind of automation that is able to understand our intentions. It is also something that is autonomous and understands the social context that it is in. It is not something that computes fast, we already have that in computers.
These are cognitive skills that are useful for humans, but they aren't necessarily the same skills that might be needed for solving all kinds of complex problems.
As an illustration, AlphaZero is better than its predecessor AlphaGo because it trained from scratch without human gameplay as its training set. It plays in a way that is not encumbered with the bias of human play.
Human cognition is loaded with a lot of excess baggage that evolved over eons. A human-complete synthetic would also share these biases. After all, to understand a human one has to be in a framework of being a human. Human biases and all.
Like AlphaGo, these biases may hinder performance. In Star Wars, there's this droid C3PO that is meant is billed as a protocol droid for 'human cyborg relations'. That is what a synthetic AGI will likely be.
That bridge between humans and yet another kind of specialized intelligence.
Therefore, for a superintelligence, an AGI is more like a module that's required for relating to humans. It's an appendage and not core functionality.
But... this can't be true! Humans are the pinnacle of intelligent life, our cognition cannot be something meant only for the periphery. I'll say the objection here is a consequence of our all too human anthropocentric bias.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

Nice to discover Judea Pearl ask a fundamental question. What's an 'inductive bias'?


I crucial step on the road towards AGI is a richer vocabulary for reasoning about inductive biases.

explores the apparent impedance mismatch between inductive biases and causal reasoning. But isn't the logical thinking required for good causal reasoning also not an inductive bias?

An inductive bias is what C.S. Peirce would call a habit. It is a habit of reasoning. Logical thinking is like a Platonic solid of the many kinds of heuristics that are discovered.

The kind of black and white logic that is found in digital computers is critical to the emergence of today's information economy. This of course is not the same logic that drives the general intelligence that lives in the same economy.
Programming in abstractions is very different from a system that is capable of its own 'abstracting'. But what does abstracting mean? We only know of its inputs and outputs, but we fail to describe its inner workings.

I like this short video about living in space. This is because it makes you realize the gaps in your knowledge when you turn off something (i.e. gravity) that you have always assumed to be present.


Perhaps we can understand 'abstracting' better if we turn of many assumptions that we unconsciously carry around. Perhaps we need to get rid of the excess baggage that is confusing our thinking about abstraction.

Turning off gravity and living in space is a perfect analogy. We somehow have to turn off a cognitive process to understand the meaning of abstraction.

The first step to divorce ourselves from our habitual cognitive processes is to realize the pervasiveness of 'noun-thinking' .

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**Thread on Bravery of Sikhs**
(I am forced to do this due to continuous hounding of Sikh Extremists since yesterday)

Rani Jindan Kaur, wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh had illegitimate relations with Lal Singh (PM of Ranjit Singh). Along with Lal Singh, she attacked Jammu, burnt - https://t.co/EfjAq59AyI


Hindu villages of Jasrota, caused rebellion in Jammu, attacked Kishtwar.

Ancestors of Raja Ranjit Singh, The Sansi Tribe used to give daughters as concubines to Jahangir.


The Ludhiana Political Agency (Later NW Fronties Prov) was formed by less than 4000 British soldiers who advanced from Delhi and reached Ludhiana, receiving submissions of all sikh chiefs along the way. The submission of the troops of Raja of Lahore (Ranjit Singh) at Ambala.

Dabistan a contemporary book on Sikh History tells us that Guru Hargobind broke Naina devi Idol Same source describes Guru Hargobind serving a eunuch
YarKhan. (ref was proudly shared by a sikh on twitter)
Gobind Singh followed Bahadur Shah to Deccan to fight for him.


In Zafarnama, Guru Gobind Singh states that the reason he was in conflict with the Hill Rajas was that while they were worshiping idols, while he was an idol-breaker.

And idiot Hindus place him along Maharana, Prithviraj and Shivaji as saviours of Dharma.
क्या आप जानते हैं कि क्या है, पितृ पक्ष में कौवे को खाना देने के पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण!

श्राद्ध पक्ष में कौओं का बड़ा ही महत्व है। कहते है कौआ यम का प्रतीक है, यदि आपके हाथों दिया गया भोजन ग्रहण कर ले, तो ऐसा माना जाता है कि पितरों की कृपा आपके ऊपर है और वे आपसे ख़ुश है।


कुछ लोग कहते हैं की व्यक्ति मरकर सबसे पहले कौवे के रूप में जन्म लेता है और उसे खाना खिलाने से वह भोजन पितरों को मिलता है

शायद हम सबने अपने घर के किसी बड़े बुज़ुर्ग, किसी पंडित या ज्योतिषाचार्य से ये सुना होगा। वे अनगिनत किस्से सुनाएंगे, कहेंगे बड़े बुज़ुर्ग कह गए इसीलिए ऐसा करना

शायद ही हमें कोई इसके पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण बता सके।

हमारे ऋषि मुनि और पौराणिक काल में रहने वाले लोग मुर्ख नहीं थे! कभी सोचियेगा कौवों को पितृ पक्ष में खिलाई खीर हमारे पूर्वजों तक कैसे पहुंचेगी?

हमारे ऋषि मुनि विद्वान थे, वे जो बात करते या कहते थे उसके पीछे कोई न कोई वैज्ञानिक कारण छुपा होता था।

एक बहुत रोचक तथ्य है पितृ पक्ष, भादो( भाद्रपद) प्रकृति और काक के बीच।

एक बात जो कह सकते कि हम सब ने स्वतः उग आये पीपल या बरगद का पेड़/ पौधा किसी न किसी दीवार, पुरानी

इमारत, पर्वत या अट्टालिकाओं पर ज़रूर देखा होगा। देखा है न?

ज़रा सोचिये पीपल या बरगद की बीज कैसे पहुंचे होंगे वहाँ तक? इनके बीज इतने हल्के भी नहीं होते के हवा उन्हें उड़ाके ले जा सके।