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> Again (and again, and again), this argument is the mysteriously recurrent "many people fail", implying that failing would be normal, instead of undesirable.

> Again (and again, and again), this argument is the mysteriously recurrent "many people fail", implying that failing would be normal, instead of undesirable. That doesn't really answer the question. Why is the immediate expectation, when AI is in its infancy, that it must outperform humans in the ability to be original and always factually accurate? That's not a reasonable expectation when there are not only no examples that it's even possible, but we ourselves aren't original. There's a reason why both computers and human beings have supervisors. What about AI suggests an intelligence that can or should be free of supervision? > It is also the mark of unintelligence. As such, it is a warning alarm. That depends on a matter of degree. You and I parrot things all the time. We neither have the time or capability to not take information for granted and pass it along without fully understanding it. What we do is best effort, which is far more achievable than "perfect" computation. For instance, I could ask you to paint us a painting of literally anything, and chances are your painting will be based on your experience of what a "painting" is and what you paint will probably be fairly unremarkable on a grand scale, no matter how much you try. I don't mean this as an insult, because it applies to virtually everyone and it is what it is. Of course there is the possibility that you will prove me wrong and paint something that no one has painted before using a style or method that is completely new, but I won't bet on it. In such a case, you'd be "parroting" what artists have been doing since time immemorial. Does that actually devalue your art? Or the art of practically every other artist who mostly painted things based on previous ideas? I don't think so, but that's just me. > From a calculator you do not expect "«pretty»" reliable, but just reliable. From a human you expect faulty computation because of the economization of resources, but you know it can reason. Yeah... because calculators don't reason anything. > The expectation is that of a reliable process bringing to the output. What is your best example of how the current generation of LLMs aren't reliable enough for a wide variety of tasks?

mdp2021 4y ago
> when AI is in its infancy Well, having started in 1955, we really must frame that "infancy" in a scale like dog-years, human-years, AI-years... > that it must outperform humans in the ability to be ... accurate No, the expectation of some of us was not about «outperform[ing]», but about not losing the focus of «accura[cy]». > a matter of degree It does not seem a «matter of degree» but its opposite, a "matter of quality": does the machine question its statements? > You and I Actually, the process is that of building on already vetted ideas, and continuously vetting. True, there is an economy of effort, but there is also a capitalization on past effort. // It is unfair to say that you "«parrot»", just because of early stopping, assuming you are trained to vet your output. > new ... what artists have been doing ... previous ideas You should revise your perspective there: we learn from the (bigger and smaller) "giants" in the past, and learning is very different from plain imitation. What is learnt is internally elaborated, understood, integrated. There is a whole world of difference from "I learnt from A" and "Z copied A". > calculators don't reason But calculators bring a reliable result, and that is what is expected from them. You expect the same from intelligent entities. > What is your best example Decision Support Systems. (Edit: I meant as a support Analyst; as an information retriever it could instead be a dramatic asset, if employed as a hound to retrieve sources.)
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  > You should revise your perspective there: we learn from the (bigger and smaller) "giants" in the past, and learning is very different from plain imitation Ah, I see. So when an AI imitates the things it was trained off of it's simply parroting the material. But when we imitate things we've trained off of, we're synthesizing new information that we've learned from. /s This ambiguity is exactly what OP sounds like they're talking about in regards to intelligence. Who's to say what parroting is and what synthesizing new information from old ideas is? Where is the line? Can we score how "parroty" an idea is? Can we quantify how much intelligence is imbued in a written statement? There is no firm science (that I know of) that quantifies intelligence, but it sounds like we'll be needing to determine hard metrics to find out if AI is truly intelligent or not. Otherwise, we'll have these circular arguments forever that basically dismiss an AI as being intelligent simply because it's an AI.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > when we imitate Also in humans imitation as copying and imitation as intelligent inspiration are discriminated.
jiggawatts 4y ago
Or to put it another way: new styles of art were historically invented every century or so, and a bit faster these days, maybe every decade. All of the other art made by thousands of artists were derivative in some sense. It’s a rare master that can come up with something entirely new. You see similar things in areas like science. When was the last time you’ve seen a paradigm shift akin to relativity or quantum mechanics? Not for over a century!

mdp2021 4y ago

> when AI is in its infancy Well, having started in 1955, we really must frame that "infancy" in a scale like dog-years, human-years, AI-years... > that it must outperform humans in the ability to be ... accurate No, the expectation of some of us was not about «outperform[ing]», but about not losing the focus of «accura[cy]». > a matter of degree It does not seem a «matter of degree» but its opposite, a "matter of quality": does the machine question its statements? > You and I Actually, the process is that of building on already vetted ideas, and continuously vetting. True, there is an economy of effort, but there is also a capitalization on past effort. // It is unfair to say that you "«parrot»", just because of early stopping, assuming you are trained to vet your output. > new ... what artists have been doing ... previous ideas You should revise your perspective there: we learn from the (bigger and smaller) "giants" in the past, and learning is very different from plain imitation. What is learnt is internally elaborated, understood, integrated. There is a whole world of difference from "I learnt from A" and "Z copied A". > calculators don't reason But calculators bring a reliable result, and that is what is expected from them. You expect the same from intelligent entities. > What is your best example Decision Support Systems. (Edit: I meant as a support Analyst; as an information retriever it could instead be a dramatic asset, if employed as a hound to retrieve sources.)

_gabe_ 4y ago
> You should revise your perspective there: we learn from the (bigger and smaller) "giants" in the past, and learning is very different from plain imitation Ah, I see. So when an AI imitates the things it was trained off of it's simply parroting the material. But when we imitate things we've trained off of, we're synthesizing new information that we've learned from. /s This ambiguity is exactly what OP sounds like they're talking about in regards to intelligence. Who's to say what parroting is and what synthesizing new information from old ideas is? Where is the line? Can we score how "parroty" an idea is? Can we quantify how much intelligence is imbued in a written statement? There is no firm science (that I know of) that quantifies intelligence, but it sounds like we'll be needing to determine hard metrics to find out if AI is truly intelligent or not. Otherwise, we'll have these circular arguments forever that basically dismiss an AI as being intelligent simply because it's an AI.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > when we imitate Also in humans imitation as copying and imitation as intelligent inspiration are discriminated.

jiggawatts 4y ago

Or to put it another way: new styles of art were historically invented every century or so, and a bit faster these days, maybe every decade. All of the other art made by thousands of artists were derivative in some sense. It’s a rare master that can come up with something entirely new. You see similar things in areas like science. When was the last time you’ve seen a paradigm shift akin to relativity or quantum mechanics? Not for over a century!