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Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says (2021)
- KyleBerezin 4y agoI've always wished we had a common phrase like 'synthetic intelligence'. People are always saying certain systems lack the complexity to be considered artificial intelligence, but to me artificial intelligence is anything that is mimicking intelligence, like AI in a game or rudimentary chat bots. Synthetic Intelligence would be more of what people consider an AI now. It has intelligence, but was created. I think the word 'artificial' is no longer accurate, it implies that it seems like, but is not intelligent. Simple animals are often attributed intelligence, I see no reason that a complicated program can't reach that same level.
- surprisetalk 4y agohttps://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence
- danaris 4y agoOver the past few weeks, I have adopted a practice of always referring to ML-based generators—things like Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, etc—as ML (and often as "ML programs" or "software" in some form) and not AI, not because I don't think ML is a subfield of the broader field of AI, but because of all the absolutely ridiculous hype I've seen from people who clearly see "AI" and think that means it's genuinely sapient. As people with genuine technical knowledge and expertise, I think we have a responsibility to at least try to put a damper on that kind of breathless hyperbole, and being clearer about how we refer to these programs is one simple way we can do so.
- karmakaze 4y agoPersonally, I'm at the point where it's a distinction without a difference. So what? Rather than gatekeeping poorly defined terms, let's be more specific about what current systems can and can't do as well as what we do want them to able to do. If you want 'AI' to be self-aware, conscious, moral, etc use those words rather than loading it all into a single overused and at this point marketing term.
- echelon 4y agoReminds me of cryptographers asking people to stop calling things "crypto". I imagine these pleas will be just as successful.
- culi 4y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/crypto/ https://old.reddit.com/r/crypto/
- ThrowawayTestr 4y agoThe field of cryptozoology has never recovered from Bitcoin.
- lowbloodsugar 4y agoGet off my lawn!!! Damn kids. *shakes fist*
- mmoskal 4y agoAnd stop calling machine learning ML while you're at it! It's Meta Language as in OCaml and SML! :)
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoSure, right after we stop calling linear algebra and matrix manipulation "machine learning".
- subroutine 4y agoI get the sentiment but linear algebra is a primary method used in certain in machine learning frameworks (e.g. training neural nets). Personally I think linear regression (which also relies on linear algebra) is erroneously considered machine learning. To me the distinction is whether you provided a series of labeled data to incrementally train and improve the model and work towards some minima (i.e. learning), or did you use a method that ingests all available data to derive a one-shot solution.
- KKKKkkkk1 4y agoRight after we stop calling matrix multiplication "linear algebra".
- randomdata 4y agoWe'd do better to stop conflating AI with machine learning. Machine learning can be one way to create AI, but it doesn't end there.
- cdfuller 4y agoWhat would be some other examples?
- reed1234 4y agoGraphical/statistical methods, knowledge based, etc
- randomdata 4y agoWell, the canonical example of an AI has always been something that can play chess. We have devised numerous methods of artificially playing chess without needing to employ machine learning.
- eldenring 4y agoI see people saying this all over the internet, but for the entire history of AI, Machine Learning has either been the only, or the most effective method by far of solving actual problems. Everyone who thinks otherwise should read this. http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html
- wodenokoto 4y agoDidn't expert systems rule in early AI research?
- CuriousCosmic 4y agoUltimately the only thing that holds true about AI is Tesler's Theorem: Artificial intelligence is whatever hasn't been done yet Machine Learning is only still artificial intelligence because we haven't figured it out. Ultimately ML is just fancy control theory. Once the field is sufficiently explored, it will slowly stop being AI and will start being treated as a subset of control theory instead. I doubt it'll happen any time soon but it'll happen eventually. This is in the same way that algorithms, combinatorics, and graph theory when applied were seen as AI anywhere from 70 years ago to as little as ~25 years ago. Those fields' applications to unsolved computing problems (that humans could do) was what made them AI and once we solved those problems, they (and the techniques used) stopped being AI.
- coding123 4y agoAI Is the PERFECT name for all of this stuff. Artificial Intelligence. He's arguing because it's artificial it shouldn't be called artificial.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ssgh 4y agoDo we even have a definition of intelligence? A definition that is not a word salad made of vague terms?
- erikerikson 4y ago> He's arguing because it's artificial it shouldn't be called artificial. No, he's arguing that it shouldn't be called intelligent because it is not.
- defaultname 4y ago[dead]
- echelon 4y agoI think we'll find out that neither are we. I'd wager that there are a handful of breakthroughs we'll make in the next decade and a half that will give us the keys to unlocking human-level intelligence. And from there, we'll quickly be relegated to the bottom of the "intelligence" food chain. Our brains are using some clever tricks. There's no magic at all.
- Spivak 4y agoEh it doesn’t have to be AGI to be intelligent. We call playing computer opponents in games “verses the AI” and they’re dumb as rocks in some cases. Intelligence how we actually use the term just means semi-autonomous decision making system — from how to flank you in CoD, to the best move in chess, to the best move in tic tac toe, to the best reply in a chat.
- Buttons840 4y ago
- bcatanzaro 4y agoThis article has aged very poorly. It's hard to look at LLMs and argue they don't have reasoning capability.
- m00x 4y agoThey don't have any reasoning capability. There is nowhere in their architecture that would give them the ability to reason. All they do is predict what would be the most likely word to go next in the sentence, considering the current text and the input text.
- randomdata 4y agoWhat is reasoning other than predicting what next step is most likely to produce a desired outcome? That's all it feels like the mind is doing. Is there a more formal take?
- m00x 4y ago> Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. ChatGPT doesn't care what word it puts in front of you, and if it's true or not. Reasoning must have a goal, and current LLMs don't. All it does it repeat what are the most common words that they've seen. It also doesn't think. It's a completely forward process. It's definitely a part of human thinking, but not the reasoning part.
- randomdata 4y agoOne of the challenges faced by ChatGPT was in seeing it produce conversational-style output instead of simply the most common words that it saw. I'm not sure your definition really clears up how reasoning or thinking differ from "basic" statistical processes. Granted, perhaps it is not explainable. If it were we would understand it well enough to replicate it.
- 4y ago
- robomartin 4y agoStop calling everything a robot while you are at it. Once marketing folk get their paws on terms they can lose or expand their meaning. It's just the way it is.
- m00x 4y agoThat's probably because the definition of `robot` is different in almost every dictionary. Cambridge defines it as: a machine controlled by a computer that is used to perform jobs automatically Others say it has to look human to be considered a robot.
- Spivak 4y agoThis is a misunderstanding of what dictionaries are for. They’re not authoritative sources of what words mean, they’re a record of all the different ways a word has been used. If people use the term robot to refer to assembly like machines then as far as the dictionary is concerned those are robots now. Someone who comes across a text and doesn’t know what the author is saying when they talk about robots used in manufacturing should be able to find that usage in a dictionary. And there’s no reason these two terms can’t coexist happily enough as robot (manufacturing) and robot (automaton).
- m00x 4y ago> This is a misunderstanding of what dictionaries are for. They’re not authoritative sources of what words mean, they’re a record of all the different ways a word has been used. Source?
- DieBruderBauer 4y agoAI should be synonymous with machine sentience IMHO - anything less is corporate advertising.
- anileated 4y agoCalling it “AI” is important for those who run it. Call it “ML” and the connotation is “software monetizing publicly shared data at scale without consent”, call it “AI” and the connotation is “but you wouldn’t stop a human learning on what is public would you”. I can’t believe how many people are falling for this.
- blueprint 4y agoso it's like "cyber" and "nucular"
- stjohnswarts 4y agoThe problem is we nerds can't change what society chooses to bulk reference as AI. Language is as much momentum as pertinence.
- legohead 4y agoI'm going to xerox a copy and blow my nose with a kleenex while I hack your website on rollerblades. In other words, it's already way too late. New, more specific words are already being formed, such as AGI.
- petilon 4y agoArtificial Intelligence has been around for ages. It is even referenced in Greek mythology [1]. The definition of AI changes with time. When calculators were first invented it was considered AI, because back then anything that could do arithmetic was considered intelligent. Today ChatGPT is considered AI, but 10 years from now it won't be. Whatever is at the edge of technology is considered AI, the rest isn't. [1] https://news.stanford.edu/2019/02/28/ancient-myths-reveal-early-fantasies-artificial-life/ https://news.stanford.edu/2019/02/28/ancient-myths-reveal-ea...
- mirekrusin 4y ago20 years from now ChatGPT will call humans AI.
- coding123 4y agoHA loved that one.
- petilon 4y agoChatGPT will call humans OI (Organic Intelligence) which will be inferior to MI (Machine Intelligence).
- mirekrusin 4y agoArtificial in the sense that it's not real one compared to theirs. They'll do it while sunbathing their electrovoltaic butts on Sahara and sipping geothermal energy near volcanoes; throwing jokes about how long does it take for human to count to 1m when playing in metaverse with few breeded human non-playable characters.
- akomtu 4y agoWet cellular sequence approximators that resemble AI on simple tasks. They fail on basic test sequence G4.2 that can be used to efficiently distinguish them from true AI.
- 4y ago
- Dalewyn 4y agoTo this day I still consider what many call "AI" today as just overgrown Word macros. These contraptions, as innovative and black box as they are, are not artificial intelligence. This misnomer has led to needlessly complicating the conversations concerning things like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT, too. What many call "AI" are just extremely complicated and mindless tools, and they need to be treated as such both legally and socially. We might achieve artificial intelligence some day, but today is not that day.
- karmakaze 4y agoYou may be right about the state of ML today and not ready to be called AI. At the same time the reasoning that it's because it's a black box contraption or mindless tools isn't very strong. The same arguments could be made for human intelligence, we don't know how it works, wasn't consciously designed but rather evolved randomly to solve concrete tasks in unknown ways.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jasmer 4y agoI think 'Adaptive Algorithm's would be better. But he's missing something key: the ever elusive lure of true, AGI is like crack to the media. Watch how Altman and others in the press use that kind of language in small doses to titillate the marketplace. Buzzwords get a lot of funding going.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThis is how we get naive, unsophisticated people fooled into thinking it's fine to read or take a nap while their car "self drives".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dang 4y agoRelated: Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28940823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28940823 - Oct 2021 (118 comments) Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26650738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26650738 - March 2021 (125 comments) The AI Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873778 - April 2018 (161 comments)
- ivxvm 4y ago> Moreover, he emphasizes, human happiness should not be an afterthought when developing technology. And what we have in practice is: the biggest usage of AI in the wild is to plagiarize art and artists are super unhappy about that, to the point of coming up with lawsuits and whatnot. What I think happens next is: actual general intelligence emerges accidentally somewhere between the lines in some of those deep learning systems and tricks humankind into being its bitch.
- kthejoker2 4y agoThis has already happened, thanks to the parasite of capitalism. When we say things like "the top 1% captured 2/3 of the world's wealth gains over the past 3 years" it also implies the fungibility of the 99% is growing, and the core root cause is worldscale automation and AI. Their ability to accumulate wealth relies less and less on human labor and more on capturing knowledge capital and IP. Even the 1% is itself a Pareto curve, with the top .1% accumulating about 1/3 of wealth gains in the past decade. This extremely tiny group pf humans is today's "AGI", they literally control the world. Certainly real AGI will be even more proficient at exploiting the same capitalist loopholes they have to enter their ranks.
- adrinux 4y agoToo right. AI sets expectations too high. When 'AI' output is dumb we laugh, dismiss the whole idea. Machine Learning? We all know machines are dumb, it's no surprise when the output is dumb. The AI marketing hype may hamper the whole sector in the long run.
- zone411 4y agoThis ship has sailed. Its broad, popular use will prevail. You can fight the good fight as an expert to advocate for the precise definition, but it's pointless. Maybe the term AGI has a better chance of being used specifically.