Tim Tyler: The wirehead problem

A video discussing the wirehead problem
in the context of machine intelligence.

Transcript: http://alife.co.uk/essays/the_wirehead_problem/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• wirehead
• problem
• machine
• intelligence

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

I'm not dragging the discussion in any way. You are presenting a topic with a failed analogy. I'm criticizing your failed presentation. Update your semantics. You "explain repeatedly"? No, you just repeat without responding to ANY criticism. Constant evasion. You're confused about the words you use. "Pleasure reinforces useful behaviours"="pleasure is the analysis that the behaviour was successful", and both are equally wrong. If you don't agree with the equation, improve your wording.

[tmtyler]

@trakkaton You do seem to be determined to drag the discussion off in the direction of consciousness and qualia - even though I have explained repeatedly that all that has nothing to do with the topic of the video. Also, I never said that pleasure was "the analysis that the behaviour was successful".

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

It's not my fault if you use the term "pleasure" in the wrong way. How economists use it is irrelevant once you introduce lab rats and junkies to define the term. In your video pleasure is presented as an experience, therefore in the realm of the qualia. It is a subjective content of our consciousness. Pleasure is not the analysis that the behaviour was successful. Your analogy is inaccurate. Wireheads reach their goal, badly coded software does not. The two have important differences.

[tmtyler]

@trakkaton We are having a simple mis-communication, then. When *I* say "pleasure" I am referring to the pleasure-pain axis shared by all creatures. Pleasure reinforces useful behaviours, pain inhibits unproductive ones. The axis is also used by economists to describe utility-based systems. None of this has anything to do with consciousness. If you use the word "pleasure" to refer to something else, you need to bear that in mind - or you will fail to understand what I am talking about.

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

You still don't understand. Consciousness is required for pleasure (whether you say the word or not is irrelevant). You introduced and presented the term "wirehead" with lab animals and junkies who choose a shortcut to feel pleasure. Pleasure isn' possible without consciousness. Pleasure is a goal in itself, not some sideeffect of reaching a goal or a goalpost of another goal.

[tmtyler]

@trakkaton Actually, the only time I mentioned consciousness was:

"I rate the problem as one of the most important and interesting philosophical issues in machine intelligence. If one percent of the people who talk about machine consciousness considered the problem, we might have a better understanding of it today."

So: I was simply advocating less pointless waffle about machine consciousness - which would help people concentrate on real concerns.

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

If you consider consciousness to be the red herring here I might point out that you started the confusion by introducing consciousness in a presentation of a problem where it simply doesn't belong. You mix two things that have nothing to do with each other. One: Conscious beings, junkies, wireheads, that reach their goal - pleasure - on the shortest possible way (clever!). And then: Badly coded software which mistakes failure for success due to badly defined goals (stupido!).

[tmtyler]

@trakkaton Consciousness is a red-herring here. A goal-directed agent will have some measure of its success at attaining its goals - some measure of "utility", in economics jargon. The wirehead problem relates to what is likely to happen when a self-improving agent attemtps to maximise that. Feelings and consciousness are irrelevant to the issue.

[trakkaton]

@tmtyler

Feelings, motivations, consciousness, needs, desires, will, all those concepts are irrelevant for intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. All that is needed for the solution of a problem is the correct analysis. For unknown reasons, humans have a consciousness, have feelings. It is not necessary per se. Humans could be "philosophical zombies", not feeling anything, not having a consciousness. They could be like a pocket calculator, like machines. Present an example.

[tmtyler]

@trakkaton You claim that machines do not have "motivations". Which machines? When the topic is intelligent machines, you should be aware that such statements are misguided generalisations.