6 ms·

Perhaps it's time to call this synthetic intelligence instead of AI which has an implicit understanding of an alternative method to construct a human like AI.

by kk58 3y ago

Perhaps it's time to call this synthetic intelligence instead of AI which has an implicit understanding of an alternative method to construct a human like AI. What is clear is that on this earth itself we have cetacean, corvid, cephalopod intelligence which is wired very differently. Perhaps we need to respect the diversity of intelligences that exist and study this growth in LLM and adjoint areas as just synthetic intelligence. Rebranding maybe could help drive a level of objectivity this conversation on ethics etc that seems to be missing

JohnFen 3y ago
I don't understand. "Synthetic intelligence" is just a synonym for "artificial intelligence". The term has all the same issues, does it not?
- ftxbro 3y ago
  > The term has all the same issues, does it not? It could be useful for a similar reason as the euphemism treadmill. We could leave behind all of the misguided assumptions about AI with the old 'artificial intelligence' nomenclature and move forward with 'synthetic intelligence' which has our new understanding of what systems like GPT-4 can do.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I'm thinking the problematic part of the term isn't the "artificial" part, but the "intelligence" part. Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is, the word will mean to people whatever they want it to mean.
    - nwienert 3y ago
      I’m partial to Plausible Regurgitation
    - fasterik 3y ago
      >Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is Everybody knows what intelligence is. Even if we can't agree on a precise definition, it's pretty obvious that it's the thing that humans and other animals do that involves learning, reasoning, planning, and problem solving. We can also agree that being successful at certain tasks constitutes intelligence. Solving a math problem is intelligence. Writing a poem is intelligence.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        >Everybody knows what intelligence is Much like... "Everyone knows what porn is" "Everyone knows who god is" "Everyone knows what beauty is" The devil is in the details and rather generic words that describe a gradient can never capture the exact nature of what we're trying to define in specific situations.
        fasterik 3y ago
        You can never capture the exact nature of anything outside of logic and math. That's too high of a bar. Philosophers who have worked on this problem like Wittgenstein talk about concepts in terms of family resemblances, not exact definitions. If I'm trying to understand whether a system is intelligent, I don't need a logical proof. I learn whether it is intelligent by testing whether it can successfully do many of the same things that other intelligent systems do.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        But words are meant to convey meaning to other people, so what the word means to others is more important than what it means to you. This sort of problem is common with language, and is a great example of why I'm not really on board with using natural language for technical things.
        fasterik 3y ago
        >But words are meant to convey meaning to other people, so what the word means to others is more important than what it means to you. I pretty much agree with that, so I'm not sure where the disagreement is here. Let me go back to the original statement I was responding to. >Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is, the word will mean to people whatever they want it to mean. If I tell you someone is intelligent, you roughly know what I am talking about. Just because it's hard to formalize that doesn't mean that that the word can mean whatever people want it to mean. For example, if I tell you my friend is intelligent, you would be wrong to interpret that as meaning that my friend has red hair, because hair color is irrelevant to the traits that we normally associate with intelligence. The fact that there are right and wrong ways of interpreting my sentence implies that there is some generally agreed upon notion of what intelligence is, even if that notion is fuzzy and has grey areas.
- xmprt 3y ago
  I think Artificial Intelligence has taken on the meaning that the intelligence is real but just that it's coming from machines. Synthetic intelligence (at least to me) sounds more like we're acknowledging that the machines aren't really intelligent and just simulating intelligence.
  - akiselev 3y ago
    Why not just eliminate the middle man and call it simulated intelligence? That at least implies that there are different levels of fidelity as quantified by number of parameters and training data set size.
    - jonplackett 3y ago
      This makes more sense
- DJBunnies 3y ago
  If we can’t (and we haven’t) define intelligence, how could we possibly define artificial intelligence or synthetic.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  Actually I agree with them a new name would be helpful. I would propose inorganic intelligence to try to pick a term with less value judgments. AI is really an overloaded term that includes 70 years of snake oil, Skynet, the Singularity and killer robots. I think we need a new name to start fresh. And personally, I think we are extremely biased by our sci-fi to think of this tech as malevolent. As far as we can see, it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn. LLMs seem both extremely promising as a useful tool and very pliant to the operator’s wishes. I’m way beyond “this is a fancy next word predictor” as I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference, but at best I think it is only part of a mind and an unconscious one at that.
  - riffraff 3y ago
    > Let’s forget the term AI. Let’s call them Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI). https://blog.quintarelli.it/2019/11/lets-forget-the-term-ai-lets-call-them-systematic-approaches-to-learning-algorithms-and-machine-inferences-salami/ https://blog.quintarelli.it/2019/11/lets-forget-the-term-ai-...
  - cjbprime 3y ago
    > it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn > I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference You contradicted yourself here, right?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
surprisetalk 3y ago
Here’s an essay on why we should start saying “synthetic intelligence” in certain contexts: https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence
Waterluvian 3y ago
AI has always meant so many things to so many different audiences. I think attempting to argue that X is AI but Y isn't is generally going to be a subjective endeavour of pedantry.
laminatedsmore 3y ago
I had a chat with GPT about this and it came up with the term 'data grounded cognition' to describe an 'intelligence' that is derived purely from (and expressed through) statistical patterns in data. I quite like the term, and it seems quite unique (perhaps cribbing from 'grounded cognition' though that's an entirely different idea AFAIK)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  "Cognition" means understanding and knowing. As problematic as "intelligence" is when describing these systems, I think "cognition" is even worse. "Intelligence" is vague and "cognition" is specific, but "cognition" is also incorrect.
  - laminatedsmore 3y ago
    The googled definition says "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.", which I think fits ok. Do you have a word that you prefer?
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Right. That's the definition I think doesn't fit. GPTs do not "understand", and certainly do not "experience" or have senses. > Do you have a word that you prefer? Nope. That's why I use "intelligence" despite the problems with it. "Intelligence" may be a blank slate on which you can write whatever meaning you wish, but at least it can stretch to mean something accurate.
      - laminatedsmore 3y ago
        I'd say that knowledge (stored as weights) is acquired through experience (starting from a mostly blank start, weights are formed through exposure to training data). For me that's a useful mental model which helps me think about what a LLM is and isn't. 'Understanding' has an ambiguous meaning, while thought and senses are certainly not applicable. But it's a semantic discussion about a novel and not well understood topic so :shrug: :)
anyonecancode 3y ago
What about "simulated intelligence"?
justanotherjoe 3y ago
that is assuming. Why don't we simply refer to our own intelligence as 'human intelligence' instead. We don't really know what intelligence is. So adding modifier in front of it will just lead to more confusion. AI helps us understand what intelligence actually is, to learn more of it's very essence. It's not that we already know what it is.
hanniabu 3y ago
"Collective intelligence" since all it's really doing is regurgitating what people have collectively posted online

by kk58 3y ago

JohnFen 3y ago

I don't understand. "Synthetic intelligence" is just a synonym for "artificial intelligence". The term has all the same issues, does it not?

ftxbro 3y ago
> The term has all the same issues, does it not? It could be useful for a similar reason as the euphemism treadmill. We could leave behind all of the misguided assumptions about AI with the old 'artificial intelligence' nomenclature and move forward with 'synthetic intelligence' which has our new understanding of what systems like GPT-4 can do.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I'm thinking the problematic part of the term isn't the "artificial" part, but the "intelligence" part. Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is, the word will mean to people whatever they want it to mean.
  - nwienert 3y ago
    I’m partial to Plausible Regurgitation
  - fasterik 3y ago
    >Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is Everybody knows what intelligence is. Even if we can't agree on a precise definition, it's pretty obvious that it's the thing that humans and other animals do that involves learning, reasoning, planning, and problem solving. We can also agree that being successful at certain tasks constitutes intelligence. Solving a math problem is intelligence. Writing a poem is intelligence.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      >Everybody knows what intelligence is Much like... "Everyone knows what porn is" "Everyone knows who god is" "Everyone knows what beauty is" The devil is in the details and rather generic words that describe a gradient can never capture the exact nature of what we're trying to define in specific situations.
      - fasterik 3y ago
        You can never capture the exact nature of anything outside of logic and math. That's too high of a bar. Philosophers who have worked on this problem like Wittgenstein talk about concepts in terms of family resemblances, not exact definitions. If I'm trying to understand whether a system is intelligent, I don't need a logical proof. I learn whether it is intelligent by testing whether it can successfully do many of the same things that other intelligent systems do.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        But words are meant to convey meaning to other people, so what the word means to others is more important than what it means to you. This sort of problem is common with language, and is a great example of why I'm not really on board with using natural language for technical things.
        fasterik 3y ago
        >But words are meant to convey meaning to other people, so what the word means to others is more important than what it means to you. I pretty much agree with that, so I'm not sure where the disagreement is here. Let me go back to the original statement I was responding to. >Since nobody actually knows what "intelligence" is, the word will mean to people whatever they want it to mean. If I tell you someone is intelligent, you roughly know what I am talking about. Just because it's hard to formalize that doesn't mean that that the word can mean whatever people want it to mean. For example, if I tell you my friend is intelligent, you would be wrong to interpret that as meaning that my friend has red hair, because hair color is irrelevant to the traits that we normally associate with intelligence. The fact that there are right and wrong ways of interpreting my sentence implies that there is some generally agreed upon notion of what intelligence is, even if that notion is fuzzy and has grey areas.
xmprt 3y ago
I think Artificial Intelligence has taken on the meaning that the intelligence is real but just that it's coming from machines. Synthetic intelligence (at least to me) sounds more like we're acknowledging that the machines aren't really intelligent and just simulating intelligence.
- akiselev 3y ago
  Why not just eliminate the middle man and call it simulated intelligence? That at least implies that there are different levels of fidelity as quantified by number of parameters and training data set size.
  - jonplackett 3y ago
    This makes more sense
DJBunnies 3y ago
If we can’t (and we haven’t) define intelligence, how could we possibly define artificial intelligence or synthetic.
dougmwne 3y ago
Actually I agree with them a new name would be helpful. I would propose inorganic intelligence to try to pick a term with less value judgments. AI is really an overloaded term that includes 70 years of snake oil, Skynet, the Singularity and killer robots. I think we need a new name to start fresh. And personally, I think we are extremely biased by our sci-fi to think of this tech as malevolent. As far as we can see, it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn. LLMs seem both extremely promising as a useful tool and very pliant to the operator’s wishes. I’m way beyond “this is a fancy next word predictor” as I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference, but at best I think it is only part of a mind and an unconscious one at that.
- riffraff 3y ago
  > Let’s forget the term AI. Let’s call them Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI). https://blog.quintarelli.it/2019/11/lets-forget-the-term-ai-lets-call-them-systematic-approaches-to-learning-algorithms-and-machine-inferences-salami/ https://blog.quintarelli.it/2019/11/lets-forget-the-term-ai-...
- cjbprime 3y ago
  > it can only know what we teach it since it relies on all of our perceptions to learn > I think it’s emergent behavior has many of the hallmarks of reasoning and novel inference You contradicted yourself here, right?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

surprisetalk 3y ago

Here’s an essay on why we should start saying “synthetic intelligence” in certain contexts: https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence https://taylor.town/synthetic-intelligence

Waterluvian 3y ago

AI has always meant so many things to so many different audiences. I think attempting to argue that X is AI but Y isn't is generally going to be a subjective endeavour of pedantry.

laminatedsmore 3y ago

I had a chat with GPT about this and it came up with the term 'data grounded cognition' to describe an 'intelligence' that is derived purely from (and expressed through) statistical patterns in data. I quite like the term, and it seems quite unique (perhaps cribbing from 'grounded cognition' though that's an entirely different idea AFAIK)

JohnFen 3y ago
"Cognition" means understanding and knowing. As problematic as "intelligence" is when describing these systems, I think "cognition" is even worse. "Intelligence" is vague and "cognition" is specific, but "cognition" is also incorrect.
- laminatedsmore 3y ago
  The googled definition says "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.", which I think fits ok. Do you have a word that you prefer?
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Right. That's the definition I think doesn't fit. GPTs do not "understand", and certainly do not "experience" or have senses. > Do you have a word that you prefer? Nope. That's why I use "intelligence" despite the problems with it. "Intelligence" may be a blank slate on which you can write whatever meaning you wish, but at least it can stretch to mean something accurate.
    - laminatedsmore 3y ago
      I'd say that knowledge (stored as weights) is acquired through experience (starting from a mostly blank start, weights are formed through exposure to training data). For me that's a useful mental model which helps me think about what a LLM is and isn't. 'Understanding' has an ambiguous meaning, while thought and senses are certainly not applicable. But it's a semantic discussion about a novel and not well understood topic so :shrug: :)

anyonecancode 3y ago

What about "simulated intelligence"?

justanotherjoe 3y ago

that is assuming. Why don't we simply refer to our own intelligence as 'human intelligence' instead. We don't really know what intelligence is. So adding modifier in front of it will just lead to more confusion. AI helps us understand what intelligence actually is, to learn more of it's very essence. It's not that we already know what it is.

hanniabu 3y ago

"Collective intelligence" since all it's really doing is regurgitating what people have collectively posted online