> This task is intentionally designed to ensure a human cannot do it.
It is one of a vast array of things the hypothetical kidnapper could come up with, some of which humans I agree will do better at (currently) and some of which AI will do better at. We clearly agree that in that array there is at least one task that a frontier AI would be better at than any human you could pick.
It is a thought experiment, so there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it being extreme or unrealistic (thought experiments very often are), but for the sake of goodwill let's 'weaken' it a bit: the AI or human always has an hour to come up with the answer, the question and answer are in their preferred language, and the answer fits on four pages. You can't help them, though; The criminal 'prompts' them. They can use the internet as an informational resource, but they can't communicate/ask for help/post anything (with the spirit of this being: no loophole in letting somebody else do the task or parts of it for them). And of course all subject matter of all complexity is fair game (including but not limited to quantum chromodynamics experiments).
Given that situation, do you think the programmer you mentioned would be more successful than a frontier AI in more than 50% of the possible intelligence tasks?
Edit, addendum: Please, if you can, also let said programmer read this thread and give his opinion on it. It sounds like he would have interesting things to say on this.
It is one of a vast array of things the hypothetical kidnapper could come up with, some of which humans I agree will do better at (currently) and some of which AI will do better at. We clearly agree that in that array there is at least one task that a frontier AI would be better at than any human you could pick.
It is a thought experiment, so there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it being extreme or unrealistic (thought experiments very often are), but for the sake of goodwill let's 'weaken' it a bit: the AI or human always has an hour to come up with the answer, the question and answer are in their preferred language, and the answer fits on four pages. You can't help them, though; The criminal 'prompts' them. They can use the internet as an informational resource, but they can't communicate/ask for help/post anything (with the spirit of this being: no loophole in letting somebody else do the task or parts of it for them). And of course all subject matter of all complexity is fair game (including but not limited to quantum chromodynamics experiments).
Given that situation, do you think the programmer you mentioned would be more successful than a frontier AI in more than 50% of the possible intelligence tasks?
Edit, addendum: Please, if you can, also let said programmer read this thread and give his opinion on it. It sounds like he would have interesting things to say on this.