10 ms·

I was starting to write a response, and realised how patterned the debate is. We've been discussing the topic of machine intelligence since the start of CS and

by netcan 5y ago

I was starting to write a response, and realised how patterned the debate is. We've been discussing the topic of machine intelligence since the start of CS and points of contention tend to show up in the same places. Anyway, it occured to me that if given 10 tries, GPT-3 probably produces my comment adequately. I have an uneasy suspicion that it might take fewer tries than that... especially if prompted with "netcan, please respond." Anyway, the upshot is that for someone like me, on the "if you can't tell the difference" side of the cliche... your side's insistence that machine's can't be creative makes me doubt my own creativity, to the extent that the argument is convincing.

avgcorrection 5y ago
I’m predictable ergo AI.
- netcan 5y ago
  No. I'm predictable, ergo weak AI is predicting me... thus making me self conscious about by predictability.
thereddaikon 5y ago
That fact that humans can be creative does not mean that all humans are. Nor does it mean its actually all that common. True creativity is very rare. Even people we normally describe as "creatives" are mostly working off of convention and are influenced by others. I've come to accept that 99% of what humanity does is derivative and mediocre. That's ok.
- netcan 5y ago
  A machine sticking that mirror in our face is still gonna be weird.
revolvingocelot 5y ago
I'm on the "if you can't tell the difference..." side, too, but the issue is the "10 tries" and the prompting. GPT-3 has no ability to revise or reconsider or judge anything it writes. We're still safe, IMO, until the main loop goes >generate 10 "netcan comments" >drop 5 least conformant results >reword remaining comments several times >reassess rewordings, select best of each set >select 1 most conformant "netcan comment" Right now (AFAIK, anyway) all GPT-3 does is the first one. Think about how a human is creative -- lots of drafts, lots of dead ends, lots of borrowing, lots of revision. I appreciate that "reflection on its own output" is waaaay out of scope for a glorified, omni-contextual Markov chain, but I think we're safe, both from the threat of GPT-3 being "creative" in the same way we are (and therefore, maybe "alive" in the same way we are) and the threat of our own mental processes being revealed to be as merely computational as those of GPT-3.
- netcan 5y ago
  Oh I don't disagree that the "best of gpt-3" on twitter is automated hyperbole machine.^ But I think at least in HN, a lot of people have looked at somewhat more objective sources too. The standard way to prove a trick shot is to film yourself do two or three in a row. I agree these are tricks, and a lot are unproven. Some are proven though, FWIW. Anyway, if the damn thing can do me 10%-60% of the time in a non trivial context... IDK, maybe this just becomes the default standard for "non trivial." and it's no big deal. It is disconcerting though. In any case, assuming GPT-3 progresses... there might be uses for software that does just the first of those things. All my above comment really means for sure is that NLP can now participate, simulate and perhaps instigate flame wars better. Flame wars were always one of the easy targets, so that's not much of a standard. Who knows though, maybe the road to AGI is a gradual refinement of a flamewar bot to a dialectic philosopher. Cheating on essays is gonna start getting fun. ^If a person uses the Tom Sawyer fence trick to automate a task, is that automation? If the machine does it, is the turn tables?
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    Absolutely. The "problem" essentially goes away with a cyborg approach: let GPT-3 generate its 10 netcan comments, then have a human do a little refining, maybe reframe the prompt, edit the result a little, and bam! Much scarier! Not that a sufficiently determined human couldn't ape someone's comment style, but GPT-3 is a force multiplier in the same way that sockpuppet management software is for the professional sockpuppeteer -- scales better, more effective, just makes everything easier. I've heard serious speculation that GPT-3 (or certainly its successors) might find utility for writers as a combination of a ghostwriter and Github Copilot. >^If a person uses the Tom Sawyer fence trick to automate a task, is that automation? If the machine does it, is the turn tables? It's not here yet, but the grim day on which I no longer communicate with anyone on the Internet for fear they're not actually a living conversational partner approaches. Even those I can cryptographically prove are people that I know will be suspects: "euurgh, I'm too busy to talk to this guy today, he's so boring. I'll just feed GPT-10 all our old conversations, tell it to be me, aaaand..."
    - 5y ago
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Well, yes. GPT-3 is basically just a huge index of internet content. (Mostly UGC like comments and such?) So all it means is that your "internet voice" tends towards a generic baseline average. tldr - be more original and don't follow the hivemind.
- netcan 5y ago
  pretty much the point I was going for, except the tldr is, I'm not liking this theoretical morros showing how unoriginal I am.

by netcan 5y ago

avgcorrection 5y ago

I’m predictable ergo AI.

netcan 5y ago
No. I'm predictable, ergo weak AI is predicting me... thus making me self conscious about by predictability.

thereddaikon 5y ago

That fact that humans can be creative does not mean that all humans are. Nor does it mean its actually all that common. True creativity is very rare. Even people we normally describe as "creatives" are mostly working off of convention and are influenced by others. I've come to accept that 99% of what humanity does is derivative and mediocre. That's ok.

netcan 5y ago
A machine sticking that mirror in our face is still gonna be weird.

revolvingocelot 5y ago

I'm on the "if you can't tell the difference..." side, too, but the issue is the "10 tries" and the prompting. GPT-3 has no ability to revise or reconsider or judge anything it writes. We're still safe, IMO, until the main loop goes >generate 10 "netcan comments" >drop 5 least conformant results >reword remaining comments several times >reassess rewordings, select best of each set >select 1 most conformant "netcan comment" Right now (AFAIK, anyway) all GPT-3 does is the first one. Think about how a human is creative -- lots of drafts, lots of dead ends, lots of borrowing, lots of revision. I appreciate that "reflection on its own output" is waaaay out of scope for a glorified, omni-contextual Markov chain, but I think we're safe, both from the threat of GPT-3 being "creative" in the same way we are (and therefore, maybe "alive" in the same way we are) and the threat of our own mental processes being revealed to be as merely computational as those of GPT-3.

netcan 5y ago
Oh I don't disagree that the "best of gpt-3" on twitter is automated hyperbole machine.^ But I think at least in HN, a lot of people have looked at somewhat more objective sources too. The standard way to prove a trick shot is to film yourself do two or three in a row. I agree these are tricks, and a lot are unproven. Some are proven though, FWIW. Anyway, if the damn thing can do me 10%-60% of the time in a non trivial context... IDK, maybe this just becomes the default standard for "non trivial." and it's no big deal. It is disconcerting though. In any case, assuming GPT-3 progresses... there might be uses for software that does just the first of those things. All my above comment really means for sure is that NLP can now participate, simulate and perhaps instigate flame wars better. Flame wars were always one of the easy targets, so that's not much of a standard. Who knows though, maybe the road to AGI is a gradual refinement of a flamewar bot to a dialectic philosopher. Cheating on essays is gonna start getting fun. ^If a person uses the Tom Sawyer fence trick to automate a task, is that automation? If the machine does it, is the turn tables?
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  Absolutely. The "problem" essentially goes away with a cyborg approach: let GPT-3 generate its 10 netcan comments, then have a human do a little refining, maybe reframe the prompt, edit the result a little, and bam! Much scarier! Not that a sufficiently determined human couldn't ape someone's comment style, but GPT-3 is a force multiplier in the same way that sockpuppet management software is for the professional sockpuppeteer -- scales better, more effective, just makes everything easier. I've heard serious speculation that GPT-3 (or certainly its successors) might find utility for writers as a combination of a ghostwriter and Github Copilot. >^If a person uses the Tom Sawyer fence trick to automate a task, is that automation? If the machine does it, is the turn tables? It's not here yet, but the grim day on which I no longer communicate with anyone on the Internet for fear they're not actually a living conversational partner approaches. Even those I can cryptographically prove are people that I know will be suspects: "euurgh, I'm too busy to talk to this guy today, he's so boring. I'll just feed GPT-10 all our old conversations, tell it to be me, aaaand..."
  - 5y ago

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

Well, yes. GPT-3 is basically just a huge index of internet content. (Mostly UGC like comments and such?) So all it means is that your "internet voice" tends towards a generic baseline average. tldr - be more original and don't follow the hivemind.

netcan 5y ago
pretty much the point I was going for, except the tldr is, I'm not liking this theoretical morros showing how unoriginal I am.