4 ms·

In a way LLMs are the worst thing that could have happened in the search for artificial intelligence, instead of the harsh winter from the 1990s we are entering

In a way LLMs are the worst thing that could have happened in the search for artificial intelligence, instead of the harsh winter from the 1990s we are entering now a climate changed winter: warm, products to market race winter. Funnily enough, the Geoffrey Hinton of today is probably some symbols researcher, shouting in the desert, like Hinton shouted in the 1980s, that we need more than matmul. One interesting, biology-inspired mechanism, would be quorum sensing [1]: a basal cognition-like, decision-making function in which decentralized systems (bacteria, cells) start building functionality (sensing/decision) from the bottom up. There is no hint for this sort of mechanism in our current artificial 'neural networks'. Not that it should, but our cells and in general cells use these kind of 'tricks' to solve problems in all kinds of spaces (transcriptomics, morphogenetics, etc.) without requiring ridiculous amounts of energy, time, or other resources. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing

joe_the_user 4y ago
LLMs may be terrible for the search for AGI but that may be good thing. If, mind you if, LLMs are always going to semi-smart "parrots", then society will get a picture of what an AI might without the AI being able to skynet-style takeover people are maybe justifiably worried. Now, as far as whether LLM or offshoots can get to AGI, I know plenty of good arguments for them not being able to do that. I don't think the claim that they're just accumulating more abilities in each iteration in an inexplicable way is true. But I've lived long enough to know that you should never get too cocky when one is "arguing with success". So maybe. Moreover, given that LLM programming is basically just bucket chemistry, if an LLM can the ability to competently pursue long term goals, it seems like it will have a good chance of some of its goals being random cruft that will make it quite dangerous.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  When some hybrot [1] will write the history of the 2000s, after AES 256 is broken, we will probably find out that the Skynet takeover already happened, it just wasn't as dramatic as a James Cameron movie: it was a takeover through financialization (with enough money you can rewrite the past, so Mr. Cameron was right on the money about the time machine), it involved some suits, a glass building, and a generally apathetic, divided by design society: "as of 2020, Aladdin managed $21.6 trillion in assets" [2]. Nowadays, Mr. Sam Altman, who probably has good intentions, is speaking of OpenAI and $100 trillion [3] being unleashed into the market. There will be people wanting those $100+ trillion for themselves, and our current system is being designed by those kinds of people, biased towards and fostering their success (Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street currently barely have $30 trillion under management, with world GDP being at $101.5 trillion in 2022 [4]). Equating LLMs to parrots is offensive, to the parrots. Well, maybe not parrots, but crows are intelligent: "Scientists [5] demonstrate that crows are capable of recursion—a key feature in grammar. Not everyone is convinced" [6]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrot [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-ope... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [5] "Recursive sequence generation in crows", https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3356 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3356 [6] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet-another-skill-once-thought-distinctively-human https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet...

joe_the_user 4y ago

LLMs may be terrible for the search for AGI but that may be good thing. If, mind you if, LLMs are always going to semi-smart "parrots", then society will get a picture of what an AI might without the AI being able to skynet-style takeover people are maybe justifiably worried. Now, as far as whether LLM or offshoots can get to AGI, I know plenty of good arguments for them not being able to do that. I don't think the claim that they're just accumulating more abilities in each iteration in an inexplicable way is true. But I've lived long enough to know that you should never get too cocky when one is "arguing with success". So maybe. Moreover, given that LLM programming is basically just bucket chemistry, if an LLM can the ability to competently pursue long term goals, it seems like it will have a good chance of some of its goals being random cruft that will make it quite dangerous.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
When some hybrot [1] will write the history of the 2000s, after AES 256 is broken, we will probably find out that the Skynet takeover already happened, it just wasn't as dramatic as a James Cameron movie: it was a takeover through financialization (with enough money you can rewrite the past, so Mr. Cameron was right on the money about the time machine), it involved some suits, a glass building, and a generally apathetic, divided by design society: "as of 2020, Aladdin managed $21.6 trillion in assets" [2]. Nowadays, Mr. Sam Altman, who probably has good intentions, is speaking of OpenAI and $100 trillion [3] being unleashed into the market. There will be people wanting those $100+ trillion for themselves, and our current system is being designed by those kinds of people, biased towards and fostering their success (Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street currently barely have $30 trillion under management, with world GDP being at $101.5 trillion in 2022 [4]). Equating LLMs to parrots is offensive, to the parrots. Well, maybe not parrots, but crows are intelligent: "Scientists [5] demonstrate that crows are capable of recursion—a key feature in grammar. Not everyone is convinced" [6]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrot [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock) [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-ope... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [5] "Recursive sequence generation in crows", https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3356 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3356 [6] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet-another-skill-once-thought-distinctively-human https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-perform-yet...