Maybe I am downvoted to hell for expressing this, but I think that this post is pointless.
The entire purpose of AI (or at least one of the major ones) is to systematize human intelligence. Difficulty comes from the fact that intelligence starts at 0 (a rock is about as unintelligent as possible) and then climbs up to human level. Beyond that we’re not too sure. As evidenced by the lack of human-level AI out in the world, we humans don’t ourselves understand every step along the way from 0 to us. We’re still smart though, because we don’t have to. We evolved intelligence and we don’t even understand it.
1) We don’t understand human rationality well enough to systematize it completely.
Okay, so lets limit our scope a little. I’ll take your example: a system for investigating a question (btw, don’t guess at solutions first.). Lets say the question is “should I focus my studies more on physics or computer science?” Presumably a system ought to involve modeling futures and checking utilities. Now what if the question is “given any natural number N, are there N consecutive composite numbers?” (it’s yes). Well now my system for the previous question is useless. Of course I can add a rule to the top of my question system “If it’s about math then do mathy stuff, if it’s about life do utility stuff.” With mathy stuff and utility stuff defined below. This brings me to the main point. We already know that if it’s about math then we should do mathy stuff. We do that step without the help of the system. Humans share a huge body of knowledge that sets us above the rocks.
2) Our evolved intelligence is good enough to get us through almost all problems we face in the real world.
Unless we’re artificial intelligence programmers, we don’t need to specify our system in almost all cases. It’s built-in. However, there are some breaks in the system. We evolved for hunter-gatherer savanna tribes n stuff, so presumably we should update our nearly-complete evolved intelligence with some modern thoughts that must be learned. Cognitive biases, for example, should be taken into account in our decisions. But in a systematic account of investigating a question, “check cognitive biases” would be one entry out of a very big number of entries, most of which are shared between humans. It’d get lost in the mess, even though it’s very important. So now we update our system for investigating questions to make the signal stand out. “To solve a question, do what you’d normally do, but remember cognitive biases.” Why not be breve and just “remember cognitive biases.” Maybe just remember a thousand tips to supplement your intelligence...?
How do you come up with good intuitive guesses? Use your intuition.
How do you determine whether or not a guess might be wrong? Check if it’s wrong or not.
How do you examine a question analytically? Analyze it.
How do you resolve confusion? Think about it until you aren’t confused anymore.
These answers are supposed to be vague and unhelpful because anything more would be long long long and useless useless useless.
So be specific. What exact subproblems do you want systematized? When solving a physics problem it can be useful to make a list of things like “check extreme cases, check boundary values, check symmetry.” New students may benefit, but once they’re a few years in this process becomes natural.
I guess what I’m trying to say is one thousand tips + an evolved brain does make a system. The tips just serve to modernize it. Sorry this was very long and rambling, but I just took a test and I’m brain-whacked.
2) Our evolved intelligence is good enough to get us through almost all problems we face in the real world.
Well, if “get through” means “avoid being killed by,” then yes, but that’s a very different matter from saying that humans handle most problems they face in the real world in a manner than would be difficult to practically improve upon.
1) We don’t understand human rationality well enough to systematize it completely.
We can try and see what happens. Right now we have a whole bunch of advice and it would be interesting to see what would happen if you collate all that advice into a system. It would be interesting to see where all the ???s are.
Maybe I am downvoted to hell for expressing this, but I think that this post is pointless.
The entire purpose of AI (or at least one of the major ones) is to systematize human intelligence. Difficulty comes from the fact that intelligence starts at 0 (a rock is about as unintelligent as possible) and then climbs up to human level. Beyond that we’re not too sure. As evidenced by the lack of human-level AI out in the world, we humans don’t ourselves understand every step along the way from 0 to us. We’re still smart though, because we don’t have to. We evolved intelligence and we don’t even understand it.
1) We don’t understand human rationality well enough to systematize it completely.
Okay, so lets limit our scope a little. I’ll take your example: a system for investigating a question (btw, don’t guess at solutions first.). Lets say the question is “should I focus my studies more on physics or computer science?” Presumably a system ought to involve modeling futures and checking utilities. Now what if the question is “given any natural number N, are there N consecutive composite numbers?” (it’s yes). Well now my system for the previous question is useless. Of course I can add a rule to the top of my question system “If it’s about math then do mathy stuff, if it’s about life do utility stuff.” With mathy stuff and utility stuff defined below. This brings me to the main point. We already know that if it’s about math then we should do mathy stuff. We do that step without the help of the system. Humans share a huge body of knowledge that sets us above the rocks.
2) Our evolved intelligence is good enough to get us through almost all problems we face in the real world.
Unless we’re artificial intelligence programmers, we don’t need to specify our system in almost all cases. It’s built-in. However, there are some breaks in the system. We evolved for hunter-gatherer savanna tribes n stuff, so presumably we should update our nearly-complete evolved intelligence with some modern thoughts that must be learned. Cognitive biases, for example, should be taken into account in our decisions. But in a systematic account of investigating a question, “check cognitive biases” would be one entry out of a very big number of entries, most of which are shared between humans. It’d get lost in the mess, even though it’s very important. So now we update our system for investigating questions to make the signal stand out. “To solve a question, do what you’d normally do, but remember cognitive biases.” Why not be breve and just “remember cognitive biases.” Maybe just remember a thousand tips to supplement your intelligence...?
How do you come up with good intuitive guesses? Use your intuition. How do you determine whether or not a guess might be wrong? Check if it’s wrong or not. How do you examine a question analytically? Analyze it. How do you resolve confusion? Think about it until you aren’t confused anymore. These answers are supposed to be vague and unhelpful because anything more would be long long long and useless useless useless.
So be specific. What exact subproblems do you want systematized? When solving a physics problem it can be useful to make a list of things like “check extreme cases, check boundary values, check symmetry.” New students may benefit, but once they’re a few years in this process becomes natural.
I guess what I’m trying to say is one thousand tips + an evolved brain does make a system. The tips just serve to modernize it. Sorry this was very long and rambling, but I just took a test and I’m brain-whacked.
Well, if “get through” means “avoid being killed by,” then yes, but that’s a very different matter from saying that humans handle most problems they face in the real world in a manner than would be difficult to practically improve upon.
We can try and see what happens. Right now we have a whole bunch of advice and it would be interesting to see what would happen if you collate all that advice into a system. It would be interesting to see where all the ???s are.