Most general cognitive systems can learn the same abstractions

Created time
Mar 19, 2023 01:27 PM
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Natural Abstractions
AI Alignment

Most general cognitive systems can learn the same abstractions

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Natural abstractions don’t overlap
and
Most cognitive systems learn subsets of the same abstractions
basically tell us that the set of all natural abstractions is rather small and that natural abstractions are discrete, they don’t overlap.
But do they overlap between cognitive agents? Is it likely that we learn the same abstractions as an alien? (Chan et al., 2023) argue that we likely do. If we don’t, every general purpose cognitive system is likely to be able to learn any abstraction. If we wouldn’t be able to learn any natural abstraction, an AI might learn some natural abstraction that we couldn’t understand.

Source: Chan, L., Lang, L. and Jenner, E. (no date) ‘Natural Abstractions: Key claims, Theorems, and Critiques’. Available at: https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/gvzW46Z3BsaZsLc25/natural-abstractions-key-claims-theorems-and-critiques-1 (Accessed: 19 March 2023).