Re: The real threat of artificial intelligence:

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/25/2025 4:40 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 8:40 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

I want to start by saying that I wish we were having this conversation on the list. 

>> Whenever AI makes an advance the goal post moves.  At one time making a brilliant chess move was considered a preeminent example of human creativity and abstract thought, but 25 years ago when a computer made a brilliant chess move people suddenly decided that chess had nothing to do with creativity. 

> It was never considered and example of human creativity. 

That is incorrect. In his 1979 book "Gödel Escher Bach" Douglas Hofstadter argued that  a computer to beating a chess grandmaster would require General Artificial Intelligence. He said chess mastery is a byproduct of high-level cognition. It would need to understand symbols, abstractions, and the world at large. To his credit much more recently Hofstetter admitted he was wrong and said that the enormous success of modern LLMs has  "overturned" many of his core beliefs about the unique nature of human consciousness and intelligence. 

 

> The fact that humans have proposed several false tests for AGI doesn't prove that there is no such test; only that it has yet to be proposed.

Many tests for AGI have been proposed, but for some strange reason whenever a computer beats a human at one of those tests the test suddenly becomes obsolete and means nothing. I see no evidence that humans possess some sort of secret sauce that a machine could not emulate.   

Have you tried to think of one or have you just assumed that there can't be one?

>> And a great human grandmaster has developed a specialized chess program in his head, that's why he may be able to beat any human being on the planet at the game of chess but he's not especially good at anything else. There is however one big difference between the human and the computer, the human developed his skill after years of watching other grandmasters and reading books about chess, but the computer program AlphaZero needed no help from anything except simple instructions that told it (or him or her)  which moves were legal and which were illegal. And just 24 hours later, after playing millions of games of chess against itself, AlphaZero was able to beat that human chess grandmaster. 

> But would that work at Poker?

 

Yes. No-limit Texas Hold'em is the most popular form of poker and it's played in the World Series of Poker, and in 2017 the AI program "Libratus" defeated the best human poker players in the world. It got so good at the game by using something called Counterfactual Regret Minimization. It played trillions of hands of poker against copies of itself and after each hand it in effect looks back and asks "what if I had played differently?" For every decision point it calculates regret for not taking alternative actions and gradually adjusts its strategy to minimize this regret. This process converges to a Nash equilibrium strategy which is unexploitable even by a perfect opponent who knows your strategy.

I didn't know that; very interesting. And I'll bet it had an excellent poker face.

>>> The difference is that human specialization emerges from a single, unified system

>>If that was true then Einstein could've used language to explain exactly how he got such wonderfully good ideas

 

>How do you know he couldn't?  

I know that because I have read some of the stuff he has written but I'm still not as smart as Einstein.

I've read stuff he wrote too, but I don't recall him explaining how he got good ideas except in few instances.  I doubt you even know how you get good ideas.  It seems to me they just come into my mind as a think of a problem.

 Have you read the book that describes Einstein's patented ideas.  He patented quite a few inventions and in some cases, with the help of an engineering partner, tried to make them into products.  For example he patented an airfoil.  The only one that worked was a gas refrigerator.  Even geniuses don't always have good ideas.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 4:04 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote 

>>>>> The difference is that human specialization emerges from a single, unified system

 >>>>If that was true then Einstein could've used language to explain exactly how he got such wonderfully good ideas

>>>How do you know he couldn't?  

>> I know that because I have read some of the stuff he has written but I'm still not as smart as Einstein.

> I've read stuff he wrote too, but I don't recall him explaining how he got good ideas except in few instances.  I doubt you even know how you get good ideas.  It seems to me they just come into my mind as a think of a problem.

Yes exactly! Einstein never used language to explain how he got his wonderful ideas because he couldn't and he couldn't because language was not how we got those ideas in the first place. So there must have been more to Einstein's mind than just the ability to use language. So his mind was not "a single unified system" as you claimed. So there's no reason to expect or to demand that an AI be a large language model and nothing else.  

> Have you read the book that describes Einstein's patented ideas.  He patented quite a few inventions and in some cases, with the help of an engineering partner, tried to make them into products.  For example he patented an airfoil.  The only one that worked was a gas refrigerator.  Even geniuses don't always have good ideas.

Einstein had nearly 50 patents, believe it or not he even got a patent for a new type of elastic vest, it looked like this:  

As you mentioned Einstein is better known for inventing two different types of refrigerators, both of them worked but neither of them were very practical. Einstein is even better known for doing some other stuff. 

That Time Albert Einstein Decided to Try to Revolutionize Keeping Food Cold

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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>> And a great human grandmaster has developed a specialized chess program in his head, that's why he may be able to beat any human being on the planet at the game of chess but he's not especially good at anything else. There is however one big difference between the human and the computer, the human developed his skill after years of watching other grandmasters and reading books about chess, but the computer program AlphaZero needed no help from anything except simple instructions that told it (or him or her)  which moves were legal and which were illegal. And just 24 hours later, after playing millions of games of chess against itself, AlphaZero was able to beat that human chess grandmaster. 

> But would that work at Poker?

 

Yes. No-limit Texas Hold'em is the most popular form of poker and it's played in the World Series of Poker, and in 2017 the AI program "Libratus" defeated the best human poker players in the world. It got so good at the game by using something called Counterfactual Regret Minimization. It played trillions of hands of poker against copies of itself and after each hand it in effect looks back and asks "what if I had played differently?" For every decision point it calculates regret for not taking alternative actions and gradually adjusts its strategy to minimize this regret. This process converges to a Nash equilibrium strategy which is unexploitable even by a perfect opponent who knows your strategy.

I didn't know that; very interesting. And I'll bet it had an excellent poker face.

 

 Have you read the book that describes Einstein's patented ideas.  He patented quite a few inventions and in some cases, with the help of an engineering partner, tried to make them into products.  For example he patented an airfoil.  The only one that worked was a gas refrigerator.  Even geniuses don't always have good ideas.

 

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/26/2025 3:20 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 4:04 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote 

>>>>> The difference is that human specialization emerges from a single, unified system

 >>>>If that was true then Einstein could've used language to explain exactly how he got such wonderfully good ideas

>>>How do you know he couldn't?  

>> I know that because I have read some of the stuff he has written but I'm still not as smart as Einstein.

> I've read stuff he wrote too, but I don't recall him explaining how he got good ideas except in few instances.  I doubt you even know how you get good ideas.  It seems to me they just come into my mind as a think of a problem.

Yes exactly! Einstein never used language to explain how he got his wonderful ideas because he couldn't and he couldn't because language was not how we got those ideas in the first place. So there must have been more to Einstein's mind than just the ability to use language. So his mind was not "a single unified system" as you claimed. 

First, I didn't claim that.  You're mixing my posts with those of my son, Barrett.  And in any case "a single unified system" doesn't necessarily imply that everything in the system is explicable in language. For example a computer translator from English to German is a single unified system...but it can't explain what it's circuitry is.  A system may be unified only in terms of having the same ends.

[John Clark]

On Fri, Dec 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>Einstein never used language to explain how he got his wonderful ideas because he couldn't and he couldn't because language was not how we got those ideas in the first place. So there must have been more to Einstein's mind than just the ability to use language. So his mind was not "a single unified system" as you claimed. 

>First, I didn't claim that.  You're mixing my posts with those of my son, Barrett. 

Sorry.  

 

> And in any case "a single unified system" doesn't necessarily imply that everything in the system is explicable in language. For example a computer translator from English to German is a single unified system...but it can't explain what it's circuitry is. 

But when you were born you couldn't explain how the neurons in your brain worked, or even had knowledge that you had a brain, or neurons, or that they had anything to do with thinking. A LLM can't give a good explanation as to how it works either, nobody can, so how are you fundamentally different from a computer? 

 

> A system may be unified only in terms of having the same ends.

I'm unclear what you mean by that. 

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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[Brent Meeker]

On 12/27/2025 3:12 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Dec 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>Einstein never used language to explain how he got his wonderful ideas because he couldn't and he couldn't because language was not how we got those ideas in the first place. So there must have been more to Einstein's mind than just the ability to use language. So his mind was not "a single unified system" as you claimed. 

>First, I didn't claim that.  You're mixing my posts with those of my son, Barrett. 

Sorry.  

 

> And in any case "a single unified system" doesn't necessarily imply that everything in the system is explicable in language. For example a computer translator from English to German is a single unified system...but it can't explain what it's circuitry is. 

But when you were born you couldn't explain how the neurons in your brain worked, or even had knowledge that you had a brain, or neurons, or that they had anything to do with thinking. 

I couldn't walk either.   What the hell are you going on about?

A LLM can't give a good explanation as to how it works either, nobody can, so how are you fundamentally different from a computer? 

Your argument is that I and a computer share an inability; therefore I'm not fundamentally different from a computer??

 

> A system may be unified only in terms of having the same ends.

I'm unclear what you mean by that. 

The railway system is unified by the fact that its purpose is to move stuff from one place to another.  It doesn't follow that it has no subsystems, like paymaster and signals, that don't move stuff.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Sat, Dec 27, 2025 at 9:18 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A LLM can't give a good explanation as to how it works either, nobody can, so how are you fundamentally different from a computer? 

> Your argument is that I and a computer share an inability; therefore I'm not fundamentally different from a computer??

It wasn't me, it was YOU who claimed that an English to German translating computer's inability to explain what its circuitry consists of is somehow relevant to the question at hand! And it's an undeniable fact that Einstein could speak German and English, and it's an undeniable fact that he conceived of General Relativity and had five or six other ideas that would have been worthy of Nobel Prizes. If Einstein was "a single unified system" then he should've been able to explain in German or English exactly how he was able to come up with such good ideas, and then we'd all be as smart and as creative as he was. But it's also an undeniable fact that Einstein was unable to make such an explanation, he was no better at doing that than ChatGPT is at explaining how he (or she or it) is able to draw such beautiful pictures.

>>> A system may be unified only in terms of having the same ends.

 

>> I'm unclear what you mean by that. 

 

> The railway system is unified by the fact that its purpose is to move stuff from one place to another.  It doesn't follow that it has no subsystems, like paymaster and signals, that don't move stuff.

Purpose? Well OK, to win this argument all you need to do is to tell me what the meaning of life is. Is it 42? 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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[Brent Meeker]

On 12/28/2025 3:02 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Dec 27, 2025 at 9:18 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> A LLM can't give a good explanation as to how it works either, nobody can, so how are you fundamentally different from a computer? 

> Your argument is that I and a computer share an inability; therefore I'm not fundamentally different from a computer??

It wasn't me, it was YOU who claimed that an English to German translating computer's inability to explain what its circuitry consists of is somehow relevant to the question at hand! 

It's exactly as relevant as your assertions below that "If Einstein was "a single unified system" then he should've been able to explain in German or English exactly how he was able to come up with such good ideas"  We seem to agree that being a unified system does not entail being able to explain how the system works.  I have offered that a system may be unified in terms goal(s).  Did you really disagree or are you just trying to score debating points?

Brent

[John Clark]

On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> It wasn't me, it was YOU who claimed that an English to German translating computer's inability to explain what its circuitry consists of is somehow relevant to the question at hand! 

> It's exactly as relevant as your assertions below that "If Einstein was "a single unified system" then he should've been able to explain in German or English exactly how he was able to come up with such good ideas"  We seem to agree that being a unified system does not entail being able to explain how the system works. 

No, we do not agree at all! IF Einstein was a single unified system THEN he should be able to use words to explain how his mind works. But he was unable to do so, and that's why I do NOT believe that Einstein or any human being is "a single unified system", if the system in Einstein's mind that could talk and the system that came up with General Relativity and other wonderful ideas had been the same system then he could explain exactly how he was able to do it and we could follow his instructions and be just as smart as he was, but he was unable to do that. 

However, the part of Einstein's mind that could talk was able to say that "words don't play a significant role in my thinking mechanism". So what thinking method did Einstein use? When asked that question the best answer Einstein could come up with is visual images and muscular sensations that he combines in interesting ways. If you think that explanation is vague and unclear then I agree. And that is exactly my point.

 

> I have offered that a system may be unified in terms goal(s). 

GPT has a goal of pleasing its users and Michelangelo had a goal of pleasing the Pope, when they were both asked to draw pretty pictures they were both able to do so, but neither of them could explain how because the system that could talk was different from the system they could draw, both systems could think but one used words to do so and the other did not. 

 

> Did you really disagree or are you just trying to score debating points?

If this had been a debating contest I would've certainly won points because you attempted to show that humans and computers were fundamentally different, and I was able to completely dismantle your argument. However in school I discovered that I disliked being in the debate club and was not very good at it because I was assigned to which side of an argument to take and I was unable to effectively argue for something that I didn't agree with, and trying to do so was quite unpleasant. So I would've been a lousy lawyer. 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

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