6 ms·

Do people feel that this reductiveness is clever or useful? Are you in camp "stochastic parrot"?

namaria 4y ago
I have never seen hype precede significant change. It's usually the other way around. It took people years to realize how much PC and smartphones and social media were impacting society. And I never seen lower entry barriers improve quality of systems. Also, I don't think generating code in a probabilistic manner is a win. I'm not in a camp. What is it with current discourse that only sees adversary teams as valid positions?
- soderfoo 4y ago
  > I have never seen hype precede significant change. It's usually the other way around. It took people years to realize how much PC and smartphones and social media were impacting society. Great counter-point. It is a false dichotomy to view this as a binary matter (terrible pun not intended). During the information superhighway era of the nascent internet, opinions on what would become varied as well (I recall with a bit less sarcasm and absolutist thinking).[1] The hype was not widespread, and even though some prognostications were fairly accurate in broadly outlining societal and economic benefits, predicting the downsides was an oversight. Maybe failing to foresee these difficulties in the past has left some people jaded? Could this be driving much of the cynicism and skepticism in the great AI debate? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kaijo 4y ago
    One scholarly but quite compact book charting this story of early, techno-centric and hyper-optimistic expectations being frustrated by unappreciated socioeconomic, political and cultural realities is 'Misunderstanding the Internet', by James Curran, Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman.
- danielbln 4y ago
  That must be a US centric view point, maybe due to FPTP voting? You can be in many camps at once, there is more than two camps and they don't have to be necessarily adversarial towards each other either. However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots, then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > I have never seen hype precede significant change. I think you have to separate what's hype from what's not. I personally see three things here: - The usual hype, now AI, previously Bitcoin/NFT, some time earlier it was "sharing economy"[0] / "gig economy", earlier it was the cloud. Some things change, some stay the same, but there's little point paying attention to it unless you're in for a quick buck - for the shrewd, that hype is effectively a pyramid scheme with extra steps. - The fear of losing your job to the AI. This, IMHO, is a quite realistic fear - more so than ever - because GPT-3.5 is already[1] good enough to replace plenty of jobs. It's just the market hasn't caught up to it yet. But it will soon enough. - GAI, consciousness. There's no hype there. It may seem there is, because you're part of the small group that cares and can productively discuss the topic; for most people, it flies entirely over their heads. On that topic, however, I feel quite strongly[2] that LLMs are a major breakthrough in understanding the nature of intelligence. Disregarding the language model aspects, whatever is going on in the latent space, it seems unexpectedly powerful. My speculative take: it might be that intelligence is mostly a natural consequence of building a high-dimensional association map between sensory inputs. It would definitely make sense in the context of evolution, and the spectrum of intelligence that various forms of life fall on. Perhaps we didn't realize it before because we can't imagine high-dimensional spaces all that well. Even if my hypothesis turns out to be false, I can't imagine something akin to LLMs, with high-dimensional latent space, not becoming one of the fundamental concepts in AI and cognitive science. I expect we'll find examples that fit this model in nature. I expect we'll find that a part of our brains fits that model too. But back to the point, the GAI/cognitive/consciousness aspects are hardly hyped. They're just becoming hot again among the small crowd that is interested in this. As you say, it's usually that hype follows real change. I imagine if LLMs end up shedding light on the topic of consciousness, both hype and hate will follow, particularly from the world's religions. -- [0] - $deity knows how crazy it was to hear the excitement about "shareconomy" coming from the startup/entrepreneurial crowd, seemingly oblivious to the fact that anything they do in this space will be abusing, exploiting and otherwise ruining it... [1] - Consider all the things people use ChatGPT for. All the things that you may be using it for. There are plenty of jobs that are entirely contained within the "area of effectiveness" of ChatGPT. And I'm talking the GPT-3.5 ChatGPT here (sadly, I still don't have the API keys to GPT-4 :( ). [2] - I'll give it 90% confidence, though I'm not exactly well calibrated.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  IMO it's because language is humans natural interface and conversation the protocol. It's already useful to me as my job involves writing reports to various audiences. Taking to a computer(programming) is like using a knife to undo screws. It works mostly but you need to be careful.
emptyfile 4y ago
[dead]
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
"Camp stochastic parrot"? HN is looking more and more like 4chan. Maybe we should petition dang to allow memes to be posted and get it over with.
- danielbln 4y ago
  I don't follow. Thinking of LLMs as stochastic parrots is a viewpoint I've seen repeatedly and one that probably informs how you think about LLMs and their potential. I don't know where memes or 4chan fit into that.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    I'm talking about your trying to split comments into camps. That's the root of internet flame wars. That's where 4chan fits. Allegedly, HN is a place to hold curious conversation. What is curious in attempting to explain a comment as coming from a certain "camp"? Isn't that just going to polarise conversations and shut down any curious discussion?
    - danielbln 4y ago
      To quote myself from above: > You can be in many camps at once, there is more than two camps and they don't have to be necessarily adversarial towards each other either. However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking. We are a long ways off from a flame war and 4chan here.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
        >> However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking. Making this sort of assumption about your interlocutor deprives the discussion of any kind of interest it would have. It's like we have seen that match before and we know what each side is going to say, so what's the point in debating anything? Everyone's convinced, everyone's stuck in their little corner, and calling each other group-names. More to the point, it makes people reply not to each other, but to the views they assume the other person holds, which never leads to productive conversation, only to confusion and chaos. There has to be a way to debate that doesn't involve picking an enemy to fight.
runald 4y ago
I'm still setting up the tiny tent for the "delusional parrot" camp, right next to the "it's gonna get better for real and change the world" camp, which seems to have a quite an enormous tent and has a suspiciously large flashing banner that draws a lot of attention. There's a sign next to it that says: "Mt. AI goldrush is now open, buy your shovels and pickaxes now!111!!"

I have never seen hype precede significant change. It's usually the other way around. It took people years to realize how much PC and smartphones and social media were impacting society. And I never seen lower entry barriers improve quality of systems. Also, I don't think generating code in a probabilistic manner is a win. I'm not in a camp. What is it with current discourse that only sees adversary teams as valid positions?

soderfoo 4y ago
> I have never seen hype precede significant change. It's usually the other way around. It took people years to realize how much PC and smartphones and social media were impacting society. Great counter-point. It is a false dichotomy to view this as a binary matter (terrible pun not intended). During the information superhighway era of the nascent internet, opinions on what would become varied as well (I recall with a bit less sarcasm and absolutist thinking).[1] The hype was not widespread, and even though some prognostications were fairly accurate in broadly outlining societal and economic benefits, predicting the downsides was an oversight. Maybe failing to foresee these difficulties in the past has left some people jaded? Could this be driving much of the cynicism and skepticism in the great AI debate? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_superhighway
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Kaijo 4y ago
  One scholarly but quite compact book charting this story of early, techno-centric and hyper-optimistic expectations being frustrated by unappreciated socioeconomic, political and cultural realities is 'Misunderstanding the Internet', by James Curran, Natalie Fenton and Des Freedman.
danielbln 4y ago
That must be a US centric view point, maybe due to FPTP voting? You can be in many camps at once, there is more than two camps and they don't have to be necessarily adversarial towards each other either. However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots, then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> I have never seen hype precede significant change. I think you have to separate what's hype from what's not. I personally see three things here: - The usual hype, now AI, previously Bitcoin/NFT, some time earlier it was "sharing economy"[0] / "gig economy", earlier it was the cloud. Some things change, some stay the same, but there's little point paying attention to it unless you're in for a quick buck - for the shrewd, that hype is effectively a pyramid scheme with extra steps. - The fear of losing your job to the AI. This, IMHO, is a quite realistic fear - more so than ever - because GPT-3.5 is already[1] good enough to replace plenty of jobs. It's just the market hasn't caught up to it yet. But it will soon enough. - GAI, consciousness. There's no hype there. It may seem there is, because you're part of the small group that cares and can productively discuss the topic; for most people, it flies entirely over their heads. On that topic, however, I feel quite strongly[2] that LLMs are a major breakthrough in understanding the nature of intelligence. Disregarding the language model aspects, whatever is going on in the latent space, it seems unexpectedly powerful. My speculative take: it might be that intelligence is mostly a natural consequence of building a high-dimensional association map between sensory inputs. It would definitely make sense in the context of evolution, and the spectrum of intelligence that various forms of life fall on. Perhaps we didn't realize it before because we can't imagine high-dimensional spaces all that well. Even if my hypothesis turns out to be false, I can't imagine something akin to LLMs, with high-dimensional latent space, not becoming one of the fundamental concepts in AI and cognitive science. I expect we'll find examples that fit this model in nature. I expect we'll find that a part of our brains fits that model too. But back to the point, the GAI/cognitive/consciousness aspects are hardly hyped. They're just becoming hot again among the small crowd that is interested in this. As you say, it's usually that hype follows real change. I imagine if LLMs end up shedding light on the topic of consciousness, both hype and hate will follow, particularly from the world's religions. -- [0] - $deity knows how crazy it was to hear the excitement about "shareconomy" coming from the startup/entrepreneurial crowd, seemingly oblivious to the fact that anything they do in this space will be abusing, exploiting and otherwise ruining it... [1] - Consider all the things people use ChatGPT for. All the things that you may be using it for. There are plenty of jobs that are entirely contained within the "area of effectiveness" of ChatGPT. And I'm talking the GPT-3.5 ChatGPT here (sadly, I still don't have the API keys to GPT-4 :( ). [2] - I'll give it 90% confidence, though I'm not exactly well calibrated.
psychphysic 4y ago
IMO it's because language is humans natural interface and conversation the protocol. It's already useful to me as my job involves writing reports to various audiences. Taking to a computer(programming) is like using a knife to undo screws. It works mostly but you need to be careful.

emptyfile 4y ago

[dead]

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

"Camp stochastic parrot"? HN is looking more and more like 4chan. Maybe we should petition dang to allow memes to be posted and get it over with.

danielbln 4y ago
I don't follow. Thinking of LLMs as stochastic parrots is a viewpoint I've seen repeatedly and one that probably informs how you think about LLMs and their potential. I don't know where memes or 4chan fit into that.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  I'm talking about your trying to split comments into camps. That's the root of internet flame wars. That's where 4chan fits. Allegedly, HN is a place to hold curious conversation. What is curious in attempting to explain a comment as coming from a certain "camp"? Isn't that just going to polarise conversations and shut down any curious discussion?
  - danielbln 4y ago
    To quote myself from above: > You can be in many camps at once, there is more than two camps and they don't have to be necessarily adversarial towards each other either. However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking. We are a long ways off from a flame war and 4chan here.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
      >> However, if you think that LLMs are just stochastic parrots then that probably guides a lot of other arguments and lines of thinking. Making this sort of assumption about your interlocutor deprives the discussion of any kind of interest it would have. It's like we have seen that match before and we know what each side is going to say, so what's the point in debating anything? Everyone's convinced, everyone's stuck in their little corner, and calling each other group-names. More to the point, it makes people reply not to each other, but to the views they assume the other person holds, which never leads to productive conversation, only to confusion and chaos. There has to be a way to debate that doesn't involve picking an enemy to fight.

runald 4y ago

I'm still setting up the tiny tent for the "delusional parrot" camp, right next to the "it's gonna get better for real and change the world" camp, which seems to have a quite an enormous tent and has a suspiciously large flashing banner that draws a lot of attention. There's a sign next to it that says: "Mt. AI goldrush is now open, buy your shovels and pickaxes now!111!!"