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I upvoted the OP only because of your comment, so that more people can read it. People outside the field do not realize that there is a sort of "cottage indust

by cs702 3y ago

I upvoted the OP only because of your comment, so that more people can read it. People outside the field do not realize that there is a sort of "cottage industry" of academics whose purpose in life appears to be to redefine "intelligence" as whatever they currently believe the machines cannot do. Their arguments tend to be wishy-washy. Let me propose a simple test for detecting wishy-washy arguments: 1. Replace all references to AI with references to "a person." 2. Re-read the argument with fresh eyes. 3. If the argument no longer seems persuasive, it isn't.

somewhereoutth 3y ago
Conversely there are many in the field who are happy to redefine intelligence to be whatever it is that the current crop of AIs can do. However those same people are also trying to sell something, so their claims deserve extra scrutiny.
- cs702 3y ago
  LOL. Oh yes, that's true: There are a lot of cheerleaders with shiny pom-poms, always chanting and dancing, trying to get others into joining the AI frenzy.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  That's a reliable indication that currently intelligence is socially defined. Learning how social definitions replicate, and evolve is going to reveal the levers of change more than debating about definitions themselves. What I'm saying is that social engineering is 90% of the game here.
- pixl97 3y ago
  'redefine intelligence' The particular problem here is both groups are right. Intelligence is a spectrum of behaviors everywhere from the actions of the lowliest single celled organism up to and exceeding human capabilities. The definition with this wide of range is unfortunately practically useless when it comes to narrowing down a multitude of specific behaviors, specifically around the median of human intelligence. It gets more tricky as nothing in the past really got close to human ability so we were never forced to really define what human intelligence is formally. We're going to find the same issues here as we do defining the term life.
nsagent 3y ago
Read my comment [1] for this one academic's take on intelligence in current LLMs. I feel it passes the spirit of the test you provide (doing it literally would be a bit nonsensical). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38249957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38249957

by cs702 3y ago

somewhereoutth 3y ago

Conversely there are many in the field who are happy to redefine intelligence to be whatever it is that the current crop of AIs can do. However those same people are also trying to sell something, so their claims deserve extra scrutiny.

cs702 3y ago
LOL. Oh yes, that's true: There are a lot of cheerleaders with shiny pom-poms, always chanting and dancing, trying to get others into joining the AI frenzy.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
That's a reliable indication that currently intelligence is socially defined. Learning how social definitions replicate, and evolve is going to reveal the levers of change more than debating about definitions themselves. What I'm saying is that social engineering is 90% of the game here.
pixl97 3y ago
'redefine intelligence' The particular problem here is both groups are right. Intelligence is a spectrum of behaviors everywhere from the actions of the lowliest single celled organism up to and exceeding human capabilities. The definition with this wide of range is unfortunately practically useless when it comes to narrowing down a multitude of specific behaviors, specifically around the median of human intelligence. It gets more tricky as nothing in the past really got close to human ability so we were never forced to really define what human intelligence is formally. We're going to find the same issues here as we do defining the term life.

nsagent 3y ago

Read my comment [1] for this one academic's take on intelligence in current LLMs. I feel it passes the spirit of the test you provide (doing it literally would be a bit nonsensical). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38249957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38249957