this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Sounds really counterintuitive to say that it’s impossible.
The article says that we would run out of computing power, and that’s definitely true for current hardware and software. It’s just that they are being developed all the time, so I think we need to leave that door open. Who knows how efficient things can get within the next decade or century. The article didn’t even mention any fundamental obstacle that would make AGI completely impossible. It’s not like AGI would be violating the laws of physics.
Whenever I hear someone say that something is impossible with current technology, I think about my grandma. When she was a kid, only some important people had telephones. Doctors, police, etc.
In her lifetime we went from that to today, and, since she's still alive, even further into the future.
Whenever someone calls something impossible, I think about how far technology will progress in my own lifetime and I know that they've got no idea what they're talking about. (Unless, like you said, it's against the laws of physics. But sometimes even then I'm not so sure, cause it's not like we understand those entirely. )
That’s not an apt comparison.
More like “we’ll have flying cars 50 years from now.”
I love the flying car example because it reveals a huge issue with the whole “tech will get better” idea. People are still trying to make flying cars happen but it’s running in to the same fundamental issues; large things that are mechanically complex, energy intensive, and moving at high speeds in a crowded urban environments are just too expensive and dangerous.
There is no way around the physical realities, no clever trick or efficiency that will push it over some threshold of practicality.