3 ms·

Saying ChatGPT isn't smart is like saying dialup is slow in the early days of the internet. It doesn't really matter, what matters is it's changing everything.

Saying ChatGPT isn't smart is like saying dialup is slow in the early days of the internet. It doesn't really matter, what matters is it's changing everything. This is like an iPhone moment, a confluence of technologies expressed in such a way that it shows us a glimpse of the future. The iPhone and iPad gave us Star Trek like touch screens. ChatGPT has given us god like HAL interfaces.

beanjuiceII 4y ago
if chatGPT is a glimpse of the future then so was my irc chat bot from 10 years ago
- monkeynotes 4y ago
  No, these are not the same at all. I don't know if this is just trolling but in case you are just naive let's call out the obvious differences: 1) IRC bots could not write novel text, just pre-planned responses. They cannot respond to everyday conversational language. 2) IRC bots do not have anywhere near as much information on hand. 3) IRC bots cannot hold context over multiple conversational exchanges. 4) IRC bots cannot even approximate fooling a human into thinking it was another human on the other end. 5) IRC bots absolutely can not improvise code from the context of your code base, let alone take plain language instruction. Regardless of the above, this is the very beginning of the tech. I imagine if you were alive in the 80s you'd ask why the internet is any better than your local dial up BBS.
jfengel 4y ago
That's just it. It's hard to tell if it's an iPhone moment or a "3D movies" moment. It's certainly nifty, and potentially a step towards something that changes everything. But it could also easily putter out, if it doesn't manage to evolve into something significantly more capable than it currently is. Even if it manages to fulfill the "HAL" interface, that isn't necessarily all that interesting. We've had Siri for a while, and it's regarded as a minor convenience, not a revolution. Certainly nobody is going to trust it with the pod bay doors. There really could be something more there. But ChatGPT isn't that smart. It does things that don't need to be done; any text that it can write usually doesn't need to be written at all. Still... it feels so much like at any moment it might accidentally start writing something worthwhile. Nobody knows what magic is missing. Arguably, it's missing all of the magic, and despite being a good party trick, it's not actually all that much closer than ELIZA was.

beanjuiceII 4y ago

if chatGPT is a glimpse of the future then so was my irc chat bot from 10 years ago

monkeynotes 4y ago
No, these are not the same at all. I don't know if this is just trolling but in case you are just naive let's call out the obvious differences: 1) IRC bots could not write novel text, just pre-planned responses. They cannot respond to everyday conversational language. 2) IRC bots do not have anywhere near as much information on hand. 3) IRC bots cannot hold context over multiple conversational exchanges. 4) IRC bots cannot even approximate fooling a human into thinking it was another human on the other end. 5) IRC bots absolutely can not improvise code from the context of your code base, let alone take plain language instruction. Regardless of the above, this is the very beginning of the tech. I imagine if you were alive in the 80s you'd ask why the internet is any better than your local dial up BBS.

jfengel 4y ago

That's just it. It's hard to tell if it's an iPhone moment or a "3D movies" moment. It's certainly nifty, and potentially a step towards something that changes everything. But it could also easily putter out, if it doesn't manage to evolve into something significantly more capable than it currently is. Even if it manages to fulfill the "HAL" interface, that isn't necessarily all that interesting. We've had Siri for a while, and it's regarded as a minor convenience, not a revolution. Certainly nobody is going to trust it with the pod bay doors. There really could be something more there. But ChatGPT isn't that smart. It does things that don't need to be done; any text that it can write usually doesn't need to be written at all. Still... it feels so much like at any moment it might accidentally start writing something worthwhile. Nobody knows what magic is missing. Arguably, it's missing all of the magic, and despite being a good party trick, it's not actually all that much closer than ELIZA was.