4 ms·

> What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? This is no less shallow reasoning. The question of whether the academic field of statistical mod

> What else can it be, based as it is in a physical substrate? This is no less shallow reasoning. The question of whether the academic field of statistical modelling already contains the necessary ideas to produce strong AI is not decided, and won't be unless/until somebody makes a strong AI. People have different intuitions about what the answer will be and until it can be determined empirically I suggest treating them as what they are: intuitions.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
Sure, but I see no reason to not treat things like GPT-3 and TWDNE as evidence. If it looks like a creativity, and quacks like a creativity, then we should at least entertain the notion that we have a small artistic process on our hands.
- omnicognate 5y ago
  Of course we can entertain the notion. We just shouldn't pretend the question is settled one way or the other like the two comments above and pointlessly argue about it on hn. Personally I'm inclined to see things like GPT-3 as qualitatively different to human creativity, but I don't claim to know this for a fact.
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    Well, but also, if you think that GPT or TWDNE are different from creativity, when they look similar to creativity on the face of it, I do think it's not enough to say "well I think it's a different thing", you should actually put out there where you think that human creativity materially diverges from the output of an ANN. I just think there's a lot of people arguing "well this can't be creativity" out of some sort of anti-AI signalling sentiment, where they've become so used to disagreeing with unwarranted AI optimism that they undervalue AI progress routinely. In other words, "this can't be creativity, because we don't understand creativity" or "this can't be creativity because AI is very far from human-level" or such. (Personally, I believe GPT-3 and CLIP are already superhuman; that is, superior to the circuitry in the brain doing the equivalent job. They only look weak because we're trying to make them do all of the job in one step, when we're comparing them to the brain's highly heterogenous self-correcting approach.)
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      You say I'm required to "put out there where [I] think that human creativity materially diverges from the output of an ANN" but you state your opinion with as little support as I did. Both are just opinions. My views on the matter have nothing to do with being "anti-AI" or "signalling" to anyone, and the latter suggestion is mildly offensive. Like many here, while being no sort of expert I've thought quite a lot about these questions and have fairly detailed views about them. I suspect strong AI is possible and will not require new fundamental physics or anything like that. However, I suspect that if it is achieved it will be of a very different nature to GPT-3 etc and to ML in general. I don't think the behaviour demonstrated by these systems so far resembles human creativity, understanding or reasoning at all, although they are capable of impressive and fascinating things. I'd go so far as to say the differences seem, to me at least, rather obvious, if difficult to define. However, I'm open to alternative views and to the possibility I may be wrong. I greatly enjoy discussing these sorts of things, but adversarial exchanges on hn filled with ad-hominems aren't the way I like to do it.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  Exactly. There's some definite substrate-ism (like sex-ism) going on here!
plutonorm 5y ago
I didn't mean to imply it was a settled question. I had in my mind the notion that all this is rather unproven at the moment. I quite strongly suspect that there is a small but significant amount of whatever "intelligence" might be within GPT3 et al. But I completely agree, it is just a suspicion.

FeepingCreature 5y ago

Sure, but I see no reason to not treat things like GPT-3 and TWDNE as evidence. If it looks like a creativity, and quacks like a creativity, then we should at least entertain the notion that we have a small artistic process on our hands.

omnicognate 5y ago
Of course we can entertain the notion. We just shouldn't pretend the question is settled one way or the other like the two comments above and pointlessly argue about it on hn. Personally I'm inclined to see things like GPT-3 as qualitatively different to human creativity, but I don't claim to know this for a fact.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  Well, but also, if you think that GPT or TWDNE are different from creativity, when they look similar to creativity on the face of it, I do think it's not enough to say "well I think it's a different thing", you should actually put out there where you think that human creativity materially diverges from the output of an ANN. I just think there's a lot of people arguing "well this can't be creativity" out of some sort of anti-AI signalling sentiment, where they've become so used to disagreeing with unwarranted AI optimism that they undervalue AI progress routinely. In other words, "this can't be creativity, because we don't understand creativity" or "this can't be creativity because AI is very far from human-level" or such. (Personally, I believe GPT-3 and CLIP are already superhuman; that is, superior to the circuitry in the brain doing the equivalent job. They only look weak because we're trying to make them do all of the job in one step, when we're comparing them to the brain's highly heterogenous self-correcting approach.)
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    You say I'm required to "put out there where [I] think that human creativity materially diverges from the output of an ANN" but you state your opinion with as little support as I did. Both are just opinions. My views on the matter have nothing to do with being "anti-AI" or "signalling" to anyone, and the latter suggestion is mildly offensive. Like many here, while being no sort of expert I've thought quite a lot about these questions and have fairly detailed views about them. I suspect strong AI is possible and will not require new fundamental physics or anything like that. However, I suspect that if it is achieved it will be of a very different nature to GPT-3 etc and to ML in general. I don't think the behaviour demonstrated by these systems so far resembles human creativity, understanding or reasoning at all, although they are capable of impressive and fascinating things. I'd go so far as to say the differences seem, to me at least, rather obvious, if difficult to define. However, I'm open to alternative views and to the possibility I may be wrong. I greatly enjoy discussing these sorts of things, but adversarial exchanges on hn filled with ad-hominems aren't the way I like to do it.
plutonorm 5y ago
Exactly. There's some definite substrate-ism (like sex-ism) going on here!

plutonorm 5y ago

I didn't mean to imply it was a settled question. I had in my mind the notion that all this is rather unproven at the moment. I quite strongly suspect that there is a small but significant amount of whatever "intelligence" might be within GPT3 et al. But I completely agree, it is just a suspicion.