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This is all just computational statistics. Why in the world would you invoke ill-defined anthropocentric terminology like "intelligence"? Of course a statistics

This is all just computational statistics. Why in the world would you invoke ill-defined anthropocentric terminology like "intelligence"? Of course a statistics program isn't "using intelligence". But it's also not exactly just a database. It contains contextual relationships as seen with things like GPT that are beyond what a typical database implementation would be capable of.

sdfzug 5y ago
Define intelligence
- solipsism 5y ago
  Also define "computational statistics". It'll be fun to try and fail to draw a clear line between the two.
  - TaupeRanger 5y ago
    A common tech-bro fallacy. We understand exactly what is happening at the base level of a statistics package. We can point to the specific instructions it is undertaking. We haven't the slightest understanding of what "intelligence" is in the human sense, because it's wrapped up with totally mysterious and unsolved problems about the nature of thought and experience more generally.
    - solipsism 5y ago
      The fallacy is the god-of-the-gaps "logic" of assuming there's some hand-wavey phenomenon that's qualitatively different from anything we currently understand, just because reality has so much complexity that we are far from reproducing it. You're assuming there's a soul and looking for it, even though you don't call it that. Intelligence is mysterious in the same way chemical biology is mysterious (though perhaps to another degree of complexity)... It's not mysterious in the way people getting sick was mysterious before germ theory. There's no reason to think there's some crucial missing phenomenon without which we can't even reason about intelligence.
- randallsquared 5y ago
  To be fair, they themselves referred to intelligence as "ill-defined"...
bogwog 5y ago
> But it's also not exactly just a database. It contains contextual relationships as seen with things like GPT that are beyond what a typical database implementation would be capable of. You mean in the same way that google.com isn't "just a database"? If Copilot isn't intelligent, then what makes it more special than a search engine? How is Copilot not just Limewire but for code? I could understand the argument that, if Copilot really is intelligent or sentient or something like that, then what it is producing is as original as what a human can produce (although, humans still have to respect copyright laws). However, I haven't seen anyone even attempt to make a serious argument like that.
- freeone3000 5y ago
  It can produce code snippets that were never seen by generating fragments from various sources and combining them in a new way. This makes it different from a search engine, which only returns existing items.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    Is it producing code (by which I mean creating/inventing new code by itself), or is it just combining existing code? Because to me it seems like the latter is a more appropriate description. * AI searches for code in its neural-net-encoded database using your search terms (ex: "fast inverse square root") * AI parses and generates AST from the snippet it found * AI parses and generates AST from your existing codebase * AI merges the ASTs in a way that compiles (it inserts snippet at your cursor, renames variables/function/class names to match existing ones in your program, etc) * AI converts AST back into source code Is AI intelligently producing new code in that example? Because I don't think it is. What would be an interesting test of whether it can actually generate code is if it were tasked with implementing a new algorithm that isn't in the training set at all, and could not possibly be implemented by simply merging existing code snippets together. Maybe by describing a detailed imaginary protocol that does nothing useful, but requires some complicated logic, abstract concepts, and math. A person can implement an algorithm they've never seen before by applying critical thinking and creativity (and maybe domain knowledge). If an AI can't do that, then you cannot credibly say that it's writing original code, because the only thing it has ever read, and the only thing it will ever write, is other people's code.
eterevsky 5y ago
If you look at it this way, your brain is also "just" computational statics. (Or to be precise, it might be, since we don't yet know in all the details how it works).
- TaupeRanger 5y ago
  Hint: it has been said hundreds of times since the advent of computer science that the brain is "just" [some simple thing that we already understand]. That notion has never once helped us in any way.

sdfzug 5y ago

Define intelligence

solipsism 5y ago
Also define "computational statistics". It'll be fun to try and fail to draw a clear line between the two.
- TaupeRanger 5y ago
  A common tech-bro fallacy. We understand exactly what is happening at the base level of a statistics package. We can point to the specific instructions it is undertaking. We haven't the slightest understanding of what "intelligence" is in the human sense, because it's wrapped up with totally mysterious and unsolved problems about the nature of thought and experience more generally.
  - solipsism 5y ago
    The fallacy is the god-of-the-gaps "logic" of assuming there's some hand-wavey phenomenon that's qualitatively different from anything we currently understand, just because reality has so much complexity that we are far from reproducing it. You're assuming there's a soul and looking for it, even though you don't call it that. Intelligence is mysterious in the same way chemical biology is mysterious (though perhaps to another degree of complexity)... It's not mysterious in the way people getting sick was mysterious before germ theory. There's no reason to think there's some crucial missing phenomenon without which we can't even reason about intelligence.
randallsquared 5y ago
To be fair, they themselves referred to intelligence as "ill-defined"...

bogwog 5y ago

> But it's also not exactly just a database. It contains contextual relationships as seen with things like GPT that are beyond what a typical database implementation would be capable of. You mean in the same way that google.com isn't "just a database"? If Copilot isn't intelligent, then what makes it more special than a search engine? How is Copilot not just Limewire but for code? I could understand the argument that, if Copilot really is intelligent or sentient or something like that, then what it is producing is as original as what a human can produce (although, humans still have to respect copyright laws). However, I haven't seen anyone even attempt to make a serious argument like that.

freeone3000 5y ago
It can produce code snippets that were never seen by generating fragments from various sources and combining them in a new way. This makes it different from a search engine, which only returns existing items.
- bogwog 5y ago
  Is it producing code (by which I mean creating/inventing new code by itself), or is it just combining existing code? Because to me it seems like the latter is a more appropriate description. * AI searches for code in its neural-net-encoded database using your search terms (ex: "fast inverse square root") * AI parses and generates AST from the snippet it found * AI parses and generates AST from your existing codebase * AI merges the ASTs in a way that compiles (it inserts snippet at your cursor, renames variables/function/class names to match existing ones in your program, etc) * AI converts AST back into source code Is AI intelligently producing new code in that example? Because I don't think it is. What would be an interesting test of whether it can actually generate code is if it were tasked with implementing a new algorithm that isn't in the training set at all, and could not possibly be implemented by simply merging existing code snippets together. Maybe by describing a detailed imaginary protocol that does nothing useful, but requires some complicated logic, abstract concepts, and math. A person can implement an algorithm they've never seen before by applying critical thinking and creativity (and maybe domain knowledge). If an AI can't do that, then you cannot credibly say that it's writing original code, because the only thing it has ever read, and the only thing it will ever write, is other people's code.

eterevsky 5y ago

If you look at it this way, your brain is also "just" computational statics. (Or to be precise, it might be, since we don't yet know in all the details how it works).

TaupeRanger 5y ago
Hint: it has been said hundreds of times since the advent of computer science that the brain is "just" [some simple thing that we already understand]. That notion has never once helped us in any way.