Prediction · neural nets & capabilities
Neural nets: “certainly Not Sufficient”
Predicted in 2000 from General Intelligence and Seed AI, 2000–01
“Regardless of whether neural networks are Necessary, they are certainly Not Sufficient.”
Resolution
falsified by events. The prediction was resolved as falsified by events in 2023.
Trained networks did it anyway. His 2023 source:
“GPT-4 got further than I thought stack more layers was going to get.”
Timeline
- Prediction made
- 2000
- Resolution date
- 2023
- Chapter
- Chapter 03: Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- Verdict
- falsified by events
Context and outcome
From GISAI through the 2008 Sequences, Yudkowsky argued that intelligence had to be built from first principles. He treated connectionism as a form of magical thinking, objected that training-based methods displaced the problem into the data, and regarded opaque neural networks as both technically unpromising and unsafe.
Deep learning did not settle every argument about connectionism, but it did disprove the idea that advanced intelligence needed hand-built architecture. Yudkowsky changed from his surprise during the AlphaGo era to his 2023 acknowledgment that GPT-4 had exceeded what he thought “stacking more layers” could do.
Supporting receipts
“Not to mention that neural networks have also been “failing” (i.e., not yet succeeding) to produce real AI for 30 years now. […] But at least don’t tell me it’s still the new revolutionary idea in AI.”
Yudkowsky dismissing neural networks as a stale, oversold research program.
“I’m no fan of neurons; this may be clearer from other posts.”
Yudkowsky's own comment under the post, summing up his stance on neural approaches.
Logical or Connectionist AI?, comments (LessWrong, Nov 2008)
“A backprop network with sigmoid units… actually doesn’t much resemble biology at all. Around as much as a voodoo doll resembles its victim.”
Arguing the resemblance between artificial neural nets and brains is pure surface analogy.
“Maybe neurons are just what brains happen to be made out of, because the blind idiot god is too stupid to sit down and invent transistors.”
Suggesting neurons are evolution's poor building material, not the secret of intelligence.
“…cognitive abilities are not emergent and do not happen by accident. Both classical AI and connectionist AI propose a kind of magic that avoids the difficulty of actually implementing the higher layers of cognition.”
GISAI dismisses both AI camps as relying on magic and rejects emergence outright.
General Intelligence and Seed AI, singinst.org (2002 archive)
“Regardless of whether neural networks are Necessary, they are certainly Not Sufficient. The human brain requires millions of years of evolution, thousands of modules, hundreds of thousands of adaptations…”
The 'Necessary, But Not Sufficient' heuristic applied to neural networks.
General Intelligence and Seed AI, singinst.org (2002 archive)
“Any form of cognition which can be mathematically formalized, or which has a provably correct implementation, is too simple to contribute materially to intelligence.”
GISAI's 'Law of Pragmatism', ruling formalizable methods out of real intelligence.
General Intelligence and Seed AI, singinst.org (2002 archive)