[CG] More about Dr. Karl Firston, Chief Scientist at Verses AI

I agree with Mihai Nadin "that AGI is yet another of those impossible to achieve tasks." I have repeatedly said that it won't be achieved in the 21st C, but I won't make any predictions about the 22nd. So far, nobody has produced the slightest shred of evidence for any kind of AGI any sooner. Best summary of the issues: "AGI is 30 years in the future, always was and always will be." There are still some diehards who claim that the prediction from the year 2000 will come to pass in the next 6 years, but the hopes for generative AI are already dying. -- But there are many useful applications for better natural language interfaces to all kinds of systems, not just AI. Dan Brickley dug up some excellent references on predictive coding, and Karl Friston is one of the pioneers in the field (see below). A recent book (2022) from MIT Press with a foreword by Friston covers the field: "Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior." Chapters of that book can be downloaded for free. Appendix C has an annotated example of the Mathlab code. I believe that this is the approach and the software techniques that Verses AI has adopted. I don't know how well Friston and his colleagues can develop this approach, but I strongly suspect that some of the co-authors and/or their colleagues and students will be working with them. However, practical applications always take more time and more investment than was predicted. (I worked at IBM R & D for 30 years, and I know the issues from close observation and participation.) Ricardo Sanz: Friston's work is ok. Neuroscience, statististics and optimal control. Good, ol' classic math. VERSES' narrative is classic bullshit. Not "breakthrough" bullshit; just classic bullshit. In my opinion, anthropocentrism, the intelligence=brain fallacy, and biomesmerization are the biggest roadblocks in the way to AGI. Neuroscience is much broader than anthropomorphism. Living things from bacteria on up are far more successful in complex behavior than any of the latest and greatest driverless cars. Furthermore, very few of the people who have been working on generative AI know anything about neuroscience or the other branches of cognitive science. Therefore, none of the work in those fields could deter (or inspire) them. And it shows. I won't defend the claims by Verses AI unless and until they come up with software that implements their promises. But I love their criticisms of generative AI. I can't see how anybody could claim that it's on a path toward AGI. John ---------------------------------------- From: "Dan Brickley" <danbri(a)danbri.org> For an implementation-oriented survey see https://github.com/BerenMillidge/Predictive_Coding_Papers and in general work under “predictive processing” and “predictive coding” banners Also this book has PDFs available; https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5299/Active-InferenceThe-Free-Ene… and also gets pretty specific eg ch8 on continuous time dynamical systems representation, see https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12441.003.0012 Dan