• gerikson@awful.systems
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    2 years ago

    I caught a whiff of that stuff in the HN comments, along with something called “Solomonoff induction”, which I’d never heard of, and the Wiki page for which has a huge-ass “low quality article” warning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff’s_theory_of_inductive_inference.

    It does sound like that current AI hype has crested, so it’s time to hype the next one, where all these models will be unified somehow and start thinking for themselves.

    • titotal@awful.systems
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      2 years ago

      Solomonoff induction is a big rationalist buzzword. It’s meant to be the platonic ideal of bayesian reasoning which if implemented would be the best deducer in the world and get everything right.

      It would be cool if you could build this, but it’s literally impossible. The induction method is provably incomputable.

      The hope is that if you build a shitty approximation to solomonoff induction that “approaches” it, it will perform close to the perfect solomonoff machine. Does this work? Not really.

      My metaphor is that it’s like coming to a river you want to cross, and being like “Well Moses, the perfect river crosser, parted the water with his hands, so if I just splash really hard I’ll be able to get across”. You aren’t Moses. Build a bridge.