Thank you for your well-formulated comment. I agree that more details/precision could be much appreciated.
I am confused by the title, and the conclusion.
Not understanding the title and the conclusion is a natural/expected reaction. I wanted to write this Meetup summary for a long time and only thought of this funny headline for a title and I guess the conclusion might seem like a weird way to come back on feet. I was also short on time so I had to be overly implicit. I will nonetheless try to answer your comment the best as I can.
If an ASI sees a Segway, a single time, would it be able to infer what is does, what’s it for, how to build it, etc.? I think so! The purpose of one-shot learning models is to provide a context, a structure, that can be augmented with a new concept based on a single example. This is far simpler than coming up with said new concept from scratch.
I also think so! I totally agree that providing a structure/context is much simpler to truly innovate by creating a completely new idea (such as general relativity for Einstein).
I interpret your post as « no, an ASI shouldn’t build the telescope, because it’s a waste of resources and it wouldn’t even need it » but I’m not sure this was the message you wanted to send.
I think I was not clear enough about the message. Thank you for asking for clarifications.
Actually, I believe the ASI should build the telescope (and it might not even be a waste of resource if it knows physics well enough to optimize it in a smart way).
The Segway is not, in itself, a complicated engineering product. An ASI could, in principle, generalize the concept of a Segway from seeing it only once (as you mentioned) and understand the usage humans would have of it (if it had some prior knowledge about humans, of course).
What I meant by “Intergalactic Segway” is an ad hoc engineering product made by some strange intergalactic empire we have never met. Segways seem really convenient for humans, but they are so because they fit our biological bodies which are very specific and adapted from natural selection (which, in turn, adapted from planet Earth).
I believe aliens might have different needs and engineering features, and would end up building “Intergalactic Segways” to suit their needs, and that we would have not a single clue about what those “Intergalactic Segways” even look like.
Furthermore, even if for the ASI it was more resource efficient to generate 10^30 simulations of the Universe to know how other aliens behave, I think it is not enough.
I think the search space for alien civilizations (if we assume that human-level-intelligence civilizations are rare in the universe) is huge, and that to run sufficiently precise physical simulations in this incredibly huge space would prove impossible, and that building a telescope (or just send von Neumann probes at the edges of the observable universe) would be the only efficient solution.
This is all I have to say for now (had not thought more about it).
If you have more critics/questions I would be happy to discuss it further.
Thanks for your clarification. Even though we can’t rederive Intergalactic Segways from unknown strange aliens, could we derive information about those same strange aliens, by looking at the Segways? I’m reminded of some SF stories about this, and our own work figuring out prehistorical technology...
Interesting question! I don’t have any clue. Maybe you could answer your own question, or give more information about those stories or your work on prehistorical technology?
Thank you for your well-formulated comment. I agree that more details/precision could be much appreciated.
Not understanding the title and the conclusion is a natural/expected reaction. I wanted to write this Meetup summary for a long time and only thought of this funny headline for a title and I guess the conclusion might seem like a weird way to come back on feet. I was also short on time so I had to be overly implicit. I will nonetheless try to answer your comment the best as I can.
I also think so! I totally agree that providing a structure/context is much simpler to truly innovate by creating a completely new idea (such as general relativity for Einstein).
Totally relevant reference, thank you.
I think I was not clear enough about the message. Thank you for asking for clarifications.
Actually, I believe the ASI should build the telescope (and it might not even be a waste of resource if it knows physics well enough to optimize it in a smart way).
The Segway is not, in itself, a complicated engineering product. An ASI could, in principle, generalize the concept of a Segway from seeing it only once (as you mentioned) and understand the usage humans would have of it (if it had some prior knowledge about humans, of course).
What I meant by “Intergalactic Segway” is an ad hoc engineering product made by some strange intergalactic empire we have never met. Segways seem really convenient for humans, but they are so because they fit our biological bodies which are very specific and adapted from natural selection (which, in turn, adapted from planet Earth).
I believe aliens might have different needs and engineering features, and would end up building “Intergalactic Segways” to suit their needs, and that we would have not a single clue about what those “Intergalactic Segways” even look like.
Furthermore, even if for the ASI it was more resource efficient to generate 10^30 simulations of the Universe to know how other aliens behave, I think it is not enough.
I think the search space for alien civilizations (if we assume that human-level-intelligence civilizations are rare in the universe) is huge, and that to run sufficiently precise physical simulations in this incredibly huge space would prove impossible, and that building a telescope (or just send von Neumann probes at the edges of the observable universe) would be the only efficient solution.
This is all I have to say for now (had not thought more about it).
If you have more critics/questions I would be happy to discuss it further.
Thanks for your clarification. Even though we can’t rederive Intergalactic Segways from unknown strange aliens, could we derive information about those same strange aliens, by looking at the Segways? I’m reminded of some SF stories about this, and our own work figuring out prehistorical technology...
Interesting question! I don’t have any clue. Maybe you could answer your own question, or give more information about those stories or your work on prehistorical technology?