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I just don't get how the average HN commenter thinks (and gets upvoted) that they know better than e.g. Ilya Sutskever who actually, you know, built the system.

by uh_uh 3y ago

I just don't get how the average HN commenter thinks (and gets upvoted) that they know better than e.g. Ilya Sutskever who actually, you know, built the system. I keep reading this "it just predicts words, duh" rhetoric on HN which is not at all believed by people like Ilya or Hinton. Could it be that HN commenters know better than these people?

dmreedy 3y ago
I am reminded of the Mitchell and Webb "Evil Vicars" sketch. "So, you've thought about eternity for an afternoon, and think you've come to some interesting conclusions?"
RandomLensman 3y ago
That is the wrong discussion. What are their regulatory, social, or economic policy credentials?
- uh_uh 3y ago
  I'm not suggesting that they have any. I was reacting to srslack above making _technical_ claims why LLMs can't be "generalized and adaptable intelligence" which is not shared by said technical experts.
shafyy 3y ago
The thing is, experts like Ilya Sutskever are so deep in that shit that they are heavily biased (from a tech and social/economic) perspective. Furthermore, many experts are wrong all the time. I don't think the average HN commenter claims to be better at building these system than an expert. But to criticize, especially critic on economic, social, and political levels, one doesn't need to be an expert on LLMs. And finally, what the motivation of people like Sam Altman and Elon Musk is should be clear to everbody with a half a brain by now.
- uh_uh 3y ago
  srslack above was making technical claims why LLMs can't be "generalized and adaptable intelligence". To make such statements, it surely helps if you are a technical expert at building LLMs.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- NumberWangMan 3y ago
  I honestly don't question Altman's motivations that much. I think he's blinded a bit by optimism. I also think he's very worried about existential risks, which is a big reason why he's asking for regulation. He's specifically come out and said in his podcast with Lex Friedman that he thinks it's safer to invent AGI now, when we have less computing power, than to wait until we have more computing power and the risk of a fast takeoff is greater, and that's why he's working so hard on AI.
  - collaborative 3y ago
    He's just cynical and greedy. Guy has a bunker with an airstrip and is eagerly waiting for the collapse he knows will come if the likes of him get their way They claim to serve the world, but secretly want the world to serve them. Scummy 101
    - NumberWangMan 3y ago
      Having a bunker is also consistent with expecting that there's a good chance of apocalypse but working to stop it.
hervature 3y ago
No one is claiming to know better than Ilya. Just recognition of the fact that such a license would benefit these same individuals (or their employers) the most. I don't understand how HN can be so angry about a company that benefits from tax law (Intuit) advocating for regulation while also supporting a company that would benefit from an AI license (OpenAI) advocating for such regulation. The conflict of interest isn't even subtle. To your point, why isn't Ilya addressing the committee?
- uh_uh 3y ago
  2 reasons: 1. He's too busy building the next generation of tech that HN commenters will be arguing about in a couple months' time. 2. I think Sam Altman (who is addressing the committee) and Ilya are pretty much on the same page on what LLMs do.
agentofoblivion 3y ago
Maybe I'm not "the average HN commenter" because I am deep in this field, but I think the overlap of what these famous experts know, and what you need to know to make the doomer claims is basically null. And in fact, for most of the technical questions, no one knows. For example, we don't understand fundamentals like these: - "intelligence", how it relates to computing, what its connections/dependencies to interacting with the physical world are, its limits...etc. - emergence, and in particular: an understanding of how optimizing one task can lead to emergent ability on other tasks - deep learning--what the limits and capabilities are. It's not at all clear that "general intelligence" even exists in the optimization space the parameters operate in. It's pure speculation on behalf of those like Hinton and Ilya. The only thing we really know is that LLMs have had surprising ability to perform on tasks they weren't explicitly trained for, and even this amount of "emergent ability" is under debate. Like much of deep learning, that's an empirical result, but we have no framework for really understanding it. Extrapolating to doom and gloom scenarios is outrageous.
- NumberWangMan 3y ago
  I'm what you'd call a doomer. Ok, so if it is possible for machines to host general intelligence, my question is, what scenario are you imagining where that ends well for people? Or are you predicting that machines will just never be able to think, or that it'll happen so far off that we'll all be dead anyway?
  - henryfjordan 3y ago
    So what if they kill us? That's nature, we killed the wooly mammoth.
    - NumberWangMan 3y ago
      I'm more interested in hearing how someone who expects that AGI is not going to go badly thinks. I think it would be nice if humanity continued, is all. And I don't want to have my family suffer through a catastrophic event if it turns out that this is going to go south fast.

by uh_uh 3y ago

dmreedy 3y ago

I am reminded of the Mitchell and Webb "Evil Vicars" sketch. "So, you've thought about eternity for an afternoon, and think you've come to some interesting conclusions?"

RandomLensman 3y ago

That is the wrong discussion. What are their regulatory, social, or economic policy credentials?

uh_uh 3y ago
I'm not suggesting that they have any. I was reacting to srslack above making _technical_ claims why LLMs can't be "generalized and adaptable intelligence" which is not shared by said technical experts.

shafyy 3y ago

The thing is, experts like Ilya Sutskever are so deep in that shit that they are heavily biased (from a tech and social/economic) perspective. Furthermore, many experts are wrong all the time. I don't think the average HN commenter claims to be better at building these system than an expert. But to criticize, especially critic on economic, social, and political levels, one doesn't need to be an expert on LLMs. And finally, what the motivation of people like Sam Altman and Elon Musk is should be clear to everbody with a half a brain by now.

uh_uh 3y ago
srslack above was making technical claims why LLMs can't be "generalized and adaptable intelligence". To make such statements, it surely helps if you are a technical expert at building LLMs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
NumberWangMan 3y ago
I honestly don't question Altman's motivations that much. I think he's blinded a bit by optimism. I also think he's very worried about existential risks, which is a big reason why he's asking for regulation. He's specifically come out and said in his podcast with Lex Friedman that he thinks it's safer to invent AGI now, when we have less computing power, than to wait until we have more computing power and the risk of a fast takeoff is greater, and that's why he's working so hard on AI.
- collaborative 3y ago
  He's just cynical and greedy. Guy has a bunker with an airstrip and is eagerly waiting for the collapse he knows will come if the likes of him get their way They claim to serve the world, but secretly want the world to serve them. Scummy 101
  - NumberWangMan 3y ago
    Having a bunker is also consistent with expecting that there's a good chance of apocalypse but working to stop it.

hervature 3y ago

No one is claiming to know better than Ilya. Just recognition of the fact that such a license would benefit these same individuals (or their employers) the most. I don't understand how HN can be so angry about a company that benefits from tax law (Intuit) advocating for regulation while also supporting a company that would benefit from an AI license (OpenAI) advocating for such regulation. The conflict of interest isn't even subtle. To your point, why isn't Ilya addressing the committee?

uh_uh 3y ago
2 reasons: 1. He's too busy building the next generation of tech that HN commenters will be arguing about in a couple months' time. 2. I think Sam Altman (who is addressing the committee) and Ilya are pretty much on the same page on what LLMs do.

agentofoblivion 3y ago

Maybe I'm not "the average HN commenter" because I am deep in this field, but I think the overlap of what these famous experts know, and what you need to know to make the doomer claims is basically null. And in fact, for most of the technical questions, no one knows. For example, we don't understand fundamentals like these: - "intelligence", how it relates to computing, what its connections/dependencies to interacting with the physical world are, its limits...etc. - emergence, and in particular: an understanding of how optimizing one task can lead to emergent ability on other tasks - deep learning--what the limits and capabilities are. It's not at all clear that "general intelligence" even exists in the optimization space the parameters operate in. It's pure speculation on behalf of those like Hinton and Ilya. The only thing we really know is that LLMs have had surprising ability to perform on tasks they weren't explicitly trained for, and even this amount of "emergent ability" is under debate. Like much of deep learning, that's an empirical result, but we have no framework for really understanding it. Extrapolating to doom and gloom scenarios is outrageous.

NumberWangMan 3y ago
I'm what you'd call a doomer. Ok, so if it is possible for machines to host general intelligence, my question is, what scenario are you imagining where that ends well for people? Or are you predicting that machines will just never be able to think, or that it'll happen so far off that we'll all be dead anyway?
- henryfjordan 3y ago
  So what if they kill us? That's nature, we killed the wooly mammoth.
  - NumberWangMan 3y ago
    I'm more interested in hearing how someone who expects that AGI is not going to go badly thinks. I think it would be nice if humanity continued, is all. And I don't want to have my family suffer through a catastrophic event if it turns out that this is going to go south fast.