Connectionists: short Op-ed to address AI problems

[Ali Minai]

Pierre

The issues you point to are extremely important and the idea you propose is
really thoughtful. I think AI research would benefit greatly from this sort
of moonshot project. We have seen this not only with the space program and
the space telescopes, but also in the area of genetics. However, I would
also like to make a point complementary to yours.

The AI we see developing rapidly on the back of gigantic computers and
immense amounts of data is only one possible direction for AI. Yes, it is
hard to think of alternatives right now or to imagine that the juggernaut
we see may run out of energy at some point, but I think that is a mistake.
The rather "mindless" AI we're seeing is going to become extremely
powerful, useful, and dangerous, but it will also continue to have huge
gaps and deficiencies, which can only be filled using very different
approaches. My own bias is to do so by looking more rigorously at brains,
development, and evolution, but there may be other ways. That's where
academic research will - and must - continue to matter, and one of our
goals must be to ensure that the agencies that fund academic research -
NSF, NIH, DARPA, etc. - continue to support such exploration in academia,
and not shift all their resources towards the dominant paradigm. Much of
the hype about the imminence of AGI is based on defining general
intelligence in very specific ways. Challenging this narrow view and
developing alternatives is something that can only be done by open-minded
researchers in acedemia and other organizations outside the gravitational
well of mega-corporations.

Ali



*Ali A. Minai, Ph.D.*
Professor and Graduate Program Director
Complex Adaptive Systems Lab
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
828 Rhodes Hall
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0030

Phone: (513) 556-4783
Fax: (513) 556-7326
Email: Ali.Minai at uc.edu
          minaiaa at gmail.com

WWW: https://researchdirectory.uc.edu/p/minaiaa
<http://www.ece.uc.edu/%7Eaminai/>


On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 2:08 AM Baldi,Pierre <pfbaldi at ics.uci.edu> wrote:

>
> I would appreciate feedback from this group,especially dissenting
> feedback,  on the attached Op-ed. You can send it to my personal email
> which you can find on my university web site if you prefer. The basic
> idea is simple:
>
> IF for scientific, security, or other societal reasons we want academics
> to develop and study the most advanced forms of AI, I can see only one
> solution:  create  a national or international effort around the largest
> data/computing center on Earth with a CERN-like structure comprising
> permanent staff, and 1000s of affiliated academic laboratories. There
> are many obstacles, but none is completely insurmountable if we wanted to.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Pierre
>
>
>
>
>
>
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