3 ms·
Probably, I mean I first studied ANNs over two decades ago and had conversations with people about them prior to starting college in the 90s who had developed s
by Jtsummers 3y ago
Probably, I mean I first studied ANNs over two decades ago and had conversations with people about them prior to starting college in the 90s who had developed solutions with them in the 80s (obviously severely computationally constrained in those days compared to today). So still not magic.
To be very blunt: If you believe that GPT and the like are magic, then you're not thinking clearly. You're blinded by the results (which are impressive).
- esafak 3y agoANNs in the 90s were nothing like this. They were not even like this a few years ago. And neither were HMMs. There is an emergent human quality to them because they have approached our abilities; the comparison is tenable, whereas before it was not.
- Jtsummers 3y agoScale and topology. That's the difference between ANNs of the 90s and 00s and today. They're still based on the same fundamental principles and doing (modulo scale) the same fundamental things: classification, prediction, generation. It is not magic, it has never been magic.
- esafak 3y agoScale and topology also differentiates all living creatures. In fact, our topologies are more similar than that of various neural networks, due to evolution. "Classification, prediction, generation" encapsulates everything we do too. So I guess we are not magical either.
- Jtsummers 3y ago> So I guess we are not magical either. We aren't, and I haven't said otherwise.
- esafak 3y agoWe have a different understanding of magic. Say if someone pressed a button and a human-like thing emerged out of a machine, I would call that pretty magical. Even if it was DNA-based, which we "understand", or ran an ML model, which we "understand". This is something that never come close to being done. Yet I think you would not find it magical. Einstein found wonder in the simplicity of a circle. What do you find magical?
- Jtsummers 3y agoYou initially wrote: > Magic is that which can not be explained. You have now redefined what you mean by "magic" as "that which inspires wonder". Changing definitions after a series of comments is a pretty poor way to have a discussion.
- esafak 3y agoThat which can not be explained inspires wonder. That's basically what makes magic magic.
- gyrovagueGeist 3y ago"It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works" - Terry Prachett
- throwaway675309 3y agoJust because we have a pithy quote doesn't detract from the fact that we shouldn't go all starry eyed and bandy about terms which obfuscate rather than explore the mechanics of how things work. Calling something "black magic" is too close to all of the anthropomorphism bullshit that seems to travel like a miasma around LLMs.
- burnished 3y agoMagic is a garbage explanation for the function of a system, but the original context was some one expressing dismay at people being impressed and 'the thing resembles magic' is a great explanation for that.