5 ms·

The fact of the matter is, everybody understands the low level model of LLMs but nobody truly and fully understands the emergent macro effect. Even though it h

The fact of the matter is, everybody understands the low level model of LLMs but nobody truly and fully understands the emergent macro effect. Even though it has a lot of really stupid responses there's still a huge number of astonishing output that's incredibly hard to attribute to anything else other than intelligence and understanding. I find it puzzling that people can be so vehemently adamant to downplay chatGPT as if they know what's going on. They don't. The creators of chatGPT wrote this article and it's partially an admission of this themselves, but obviously an armchair expert on HN who's never implemented an LLM as far reaching as chatGPT knows way better. We can't say whether or not chatGPT is a step towards AGI. That much is true. But the astonishing thing about this iteration of AI is that we can no longer say if it's not a step either. We just don't know.

famouswaffles 4y ago
AI systems have gotten far more capable. And our understanding of them is continuously decreasing. So it's really fucking bizarre the reaction is to downplay the achievements. Humanity is weird.
- kilgnad 4y ago
  Yeah, people have been unquestionably accepting the Turing test as proof of AGI for years. chatGPT comes out and everyone does a 180, the burden of proof for AGI is now so high it's currently undefined. I think part of it is the hype cycle. There's just been so much stuff in the past decade that arm chair experts become use to downplaying everything. They read an article, they think they know better but this time they're wrong. When they read this stuff they think they know that LLMs are just statistical word generators but they aren't creative enough to see the disconnect in the responses of chatGPT that are just way too sophisticated for the statistical angle to be the only singular explanation for what's going on. They end up doing what they did in the last hype cycle which is what they're used to... downplaying it all. I think it's all a matter of perspective. Yes from one angle it is a statistical word completer similar to how a computer program is just a stateful function that takes binary input and produces binary output. But there must be a macro-angle as well... a higher level macro structure that tells another story about what's going on.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > unquestionably No. And that would invalidate the process because it would mean posing unintelligent agents to judge Intelligence. > accepting the Turing test Because that posterior re-interpretation (rewriting) of the original "imitation game" was meant to signify "it will be stated as not Intelligent what under competent scrutiny will show not to be so". > way too sophisticated Which is interesting and exciting but still not Intelligence, and furthermore drowned in wishful attitude. > downplaying Downplaying a specific interpretation of the technology, and raising alarms over masses building shrines.
    - kilgnad 4y ago
      >Downplaying a specific interpretation of the technology, and raising alarms over masses building shrines. This is just you being biased. Read the last sentence of my first post. I said "We simply don't know." How does that in any way translate to "building shrines?" It's just your bias talking. I make a claim that we don't fully understand what's going on here, and you turn it around and call that AI worship? Come on man. >Which is interesting and exciting but still not Intelligence, and furthermore drowned in wishful attitude. You do not have the knowledge or intelligence to say that chatGPT is not intelligence. No one does. Pun intended.
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        > you turn it around No, you misunderstood. I wrote that what you call downplaying is actually «raising alarms over masses building shrines», and I did not mean /you/ specifically. I wrote «masses». > to say that chatGPT is not intelligence If it is there, it is not substantially expressed. If there are minority workings, they remain drowned. The final effect is that of definite unintelligence. The point of intelligence is to base statements on an investigative refined ontology: if it is there somewhere, it is in some technical bits which are not emergent. > You do not have ... to say First of all, on the personal level: mh. On the substance: you can take the term "intelligence" to make it mean whatever suits some wish to call anything intelligent, but it remains finally operationally irrelevant. ... And all of these three points converge again in the substance, because only yesterday a "message to the world" from a leading figure came out spreading word to the peoples that "do not fear the epochal switch in which these new latest technologies will aid your decision": that is emergent deliriousness - no, we do not base decisions on the output of lunatics - and must be regarded as a terrifying undercurrent of widespread madness. "«Raising alarms»". We have been studying Decision Support Systems since forever, and they have requirements.
mdp2021 4y ago
> huge number of astonishing output that's incredibly hard to attribute to anything else other than intelligence and understanding Such as?
- terramex 4y ago
  For me it was this article: https://jacobbrazeal.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/gpt-3-can-find-paths-up-to-7-nodes-long-in-random-graphs/ https://jacobbrazeal.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/gpt-3-can-find... And then following comment chain with another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32960083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32960083
- kilgnad 4y ago
  https://www.engraved.blog/building-a-virtual-machine-inside/ https://www.engraved.blog/building-a-virtual-machine-inside/

famouswaffles 4y ago

AI systems have gotten far more capable. And our understanding of them is continuously decreasing. So it's really fucking bizarre the reaction is to downplay the achievements. Humanity is weird.

kilgnad 4y ago
Yeah, people have been unquestionably accepting the Turing test as proof of AGI for years. chatGPT comes out and everyone does a 180, the burden of proof for AGI is now so high it's currently undefined. I think part of it is the hype cycle. There's just been so much stuff in the past decade that arm chair experts become use to downplaying everything. They read an article, they think they know better but this time they're wrong. When they read this stuff they think they know that LLMs are just statistical word generators but they aren't creative enough to see the disconnect in the responses of chatGPT that are just way too sophisticated for the statistical angle to be the only singular explanation for what's going on. They end up doing what they did in the last hype cycle which is what they're used to... downplaying it all. I think it's all a matter of perspective. Yes from one angle it is a statistical word completer similar to how a computer program is just a stateful function that takes binary input and produces binary output. But there must be a macro-angle as well... a higher level macro structure that tells another story about what's going on.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > unquestionably No. And that would invalidate the process because it would mean posing unintelligent agents to judge Intelligence. > accepting the Turing test Because that posterior re-interpretation (rewriting) of the original "imitation game" was meant to signify "it will be stated as not Intelligent what under competent scrutiny will show not to be so". > way too sophisticated Which is interesting and exciting but still not Intelligence, and furthermore drowned in wishful attitude. > downplaying Downplaying a specific interpretation of the technology, and raising alarms over masses building shrines.
  - kilgnad 4y ago
    >Downplaying a specific interpretation of the technology, and raising alarms over masses building shrines. This is just you being biased. Read the last sentence of my first post. I said "We simply don't know." How does that in any way translate to "building shrines?" It's just your bias talking. I make a claim that we don't fully understand what's going on here, and you turn it around and call that AI worship? Come on man. >Which is interesting and exciting but still not Intelligence, and furthermore drowned in wishful attitude. You do not have the knowledge or intelligence to say that chatGPT is not intelligence. No one does. Pun intended.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > you turn it around No, you misunderstood. I wrote that what you call downplaying is actually «raising alarms over masses building shrines», and I did not mean /you/ specifically. I wrote «masses». > to say that chatGPT is not intelligence If it is there, it is not substantially expressed. If there are minority workings, they remain drowned. The final effect is that of definite unintelligence. The point of intelligence is to base statements on an investigative refined ontology: if it is there somewhere, it is in some technical bits which are not emergent. > You do not have ... to say First of all, on the personal level: mh. On the substance: you can take the term "intelligence" to make it mean whatever suits some wish to call anything intelligent, but it remains finally operationally irrelevant. ... And all of these three points converge again in the substance, because only yesterday a "message to the world" from a leading figure came out spreading word to the peoples that "do not fear the epochal switch in which these new latest technologies will aid your decision": that is emergent deliriousness - no, we do not base decisions on the output of lunatics - and must be regarded as a terrifying undercurrent of widespread madness. "«Raising alarms»". We have been studying Decision Support Systems since forever, and they have requirements.

mdp2021 4y ago

> huge number of astonishing output that's incredibly hard to attribute to anything else other than intelligence and understanding Such as?

terramex 4y ago
For me it was this article: https://jacobbrazeal.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/gpt-3-can-find-paths-up-to-7-nodes-long-in-random-graphs/ https://jacobbrazeal.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/gpt-3-can-find... And then following comment chain with another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32960083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32960083
kilgnad 4y ago
https://www.engraved.blog/building-a-virtual-machine-inside/ https://www.engraved.blog/building-a-virtual-machine-inside/