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I think it's just a matter of people being results driven. For many purposes, it doesn't matter how the output is generated - if it works, it works. If an AI la

I think it's just a matter of people being results driven. For many purposes, it doesn't matter how the output is generated - if it works, it works. If an AI lawyer can (actually, consistently) achieve better outcomes for its clients, then does it matter that the AI doesn't have a life story behind it? Probably not to the client. (The fact that so many HNers think that ChatGPT can do that probably reflects a lack of understanding of the legal process on their part, but as HNers are mostly not lawyers, that's not that surprising.) The other possibility is that some HNers can tend to look down on people in non-tech fields and so, maybe, HNers have a reductive view of some human beings. I don't see nearly as much excited discussion of programmers being replaced by AI as lawyers, for example.

ChuckMcM 4y ago
I think part one here is insightful, part two not so much :-). Whether or not AI has a model can affect its function, the self driving development teams have found just how much "intuition" people bring to the driving task (estimating what other cars might do, weighting behaviors like "edging over" to understand intent). The recent article about Marines defeating a sentry gun by holding boxes over their heads is another good example of the AI not having a model of the threat, just what "people" look like that are approaching. I was intrigued by the frustration an engineer shared with me about how simulators where all the drivers are AI's work so much better than ones where humans are driving too. It points to problem sets where a model of human behavior is essential to successfully achieving the objective. Law is not a particularly good example because it is practically program code these days. The human intent model is simpler[1] because it is based on one variable, "doing anything the law/contract is trying to prevent." [1] Important distinction here is that it isn't "simple" as in easy to do, it is merely "less difficult" than things like driver behavior or enemy soldier behavior.
scandox 4y ago
I think your comment is a great expression of what I'm referring to. I've always considered that the way the result is being produced does matter. That intention is significant even when the result cannot be distinguished. Of course I also believe that in time, that significance will cause important distinctions to emerge. But even if that doesn't happen in a particular case, I still take it that the human intention behind it is meaningful. Of course what this kind of AI could prove is that our inner states are meaningless, which would be interesting - but terminal for my world view.

ChuckMcM 4y ago

I think part one here is insightful, part two not so much :-). Whether or not AI has a model can affect its function, the self driving development teams have found just how much "intuition" people bring to the driving task (estimating what other cars might do, weighting behaviors like "edging over" to understand intent). The recent article about Marines defeating a sentry gun by holding boxes over their heads is another good example of the AI not having a model of the threat, just what "people" look like that are approaching. I was intrigued by the frustration an engineer shared with me about how simulators where all the drivers are AI's work so much better than ones where humans are driving too. It points to problem sets where a model of human behavior is essential to successfully achieving the objective. Law is not a particularly good example because it is practically program code these days. The human intent model is simpler[1] because it is based on one variable, "doing anything the law/contract is trying to prevent." [1] Important distinction here is that it isn't "simple" as in easy to do, it is merely "less difficult" than things like driver behavior or enemy soldier behavior.

scandox 4y ago

I think your comment is a great expression of what I'm referring to. I've always considered that the way the result is being produced does matter. That intention is significant even when the result cannot be distinguished. Of course I also believe that in time, that significance will cause important distinctions to emerge. But even if that doesn't happen in a particular case, I still take it that the human intention behind it is meaningful. Of course what this kind of AI could prove is that our inner states are meaningless, which would be interesting - but terminal for my world view.