4 ms·

Current LLM's, Combined with Symbolic AI. Could that be the next jump.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
That's my personal hunch, too. Not so much for making "intelligence" ala Hal 9000, but for coordination / planning / structuring of what was acquired using probabilistic methods. For, like, actual practical applications ... rather than pretending to be a person. Had a person associated with a VC basically tell me that the VC community would fund nothing to do with symbolic, though. Not the current trend sauce.
- mkvoid 3y ago
  That's super interesting. Any ideas on other trends that are occurring but that VCs won't touch? Genuinely curious now.
  - blovescoffee 3y ago
    "A person associated with a VC" could mean virtually anyone. Not to be too dismissive but also temper how much stock you put into that judgement.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    I'm not saying this person is right, and I have no idea, not my milieu.
- utopcell 3y ago
  (fun fact.) What do you get if you subtract 1 from each letter in I, B, M ?
blovescoffee 3y ago
For the most part, approximating symbolic AI with LLMs is way more powerful than approximating LLMs with symbolic AI. There may be more power still in keeping the "logic" inside fuzzy weights instead of complicating things by merging two paradigms.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Until you want to be able to show exactly how and why your system arrived at a result... Completely depends on the thing you're trying to do, but if you're running an autonomous vehicle or a factory system or something similar, relying on mysterious weights and fuzziness to make critical decisions sounds like a disaster. But being able to point to a pile of Horn clauses that were vetted by PMs and legal, and a graph of every piece of knowledge that was used to make those decisions... that sounds valuable. Yes, I'm sure the stuff we call symbolic AI isn't great for making chat bots and assistants... But there are plenty of other senses of AI where a more deterministic and explicit approach makes sense? That's my admittedly naive take, anyways.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "but if you're running an autonomous vehicle or a factory system or something similar, relying on mysterious weights and fuzziness to make critical decisions sounds like a disaster." When your brain messes up and you have an accident, isn't that a pretty similar scenario? Sometimes people make misstakes - some more than others and we do tests to determine whether a human can do a job good enough by its results, without examining their brains. With autonomous cars it can be the same. Lots of tests - and if it safely can handle complex situations reliable - that would be good enough for me. (But I think we are currently pretty far from it)
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      > When your brain messes up and you have an accident, isn't that a pretty similar scenario? When LLM's start going to jail for killing people then we can consider them equivalent. Until that happens, they must be held to a higher standard specifically because the incentives aren't there otherwise.
      - chii 3y ago
        It's an interesting discussion point for autonomous driving: we set the bar quite high for it, but accept really shitty human drivers without question. What could be changed to make autonomous driving more acceptable without improving the underlying tech, but improving the blame game in law and civil liability?

That's my personal hunch, too. Not so much for making "intelligence" ala Hal 9000, but for coordination / planning / structuring of what was acquired using probabilistic methods. For, like, actual practical applications ... rather than pretending to be a person. Had a person associated with a VC basically tell me that the VC community would fund nothing to do with symbolic, though. Not the current trend sauce.

mkvoid 3y ago
That's super interesting. Any ideas on other trends that are occurring but that VCs won't touch? Genuinely curious now.
- blovescoffee 3y ago
  "A person associated with a VC" could mean virtually anyone. Not to be too dismissive but also temper how much stock you put into that judgement.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  I'm not saying this person is right, and I have no idea, not my milieu.
utopcell 3y ago
(fun fact.) What do you get if you subtract 1 from each letter in I, B, M ?

blovescoffee 3y ago

For the most part, approximating symbolic AI with LLMs is way more powerful than approximating LLMs with symbolic AI. There may be more power still in keeping the "logic" inside fuzzy weights instead of complicating things by merging two paradigms.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Until you want to be able to show exactly how and why your system arrived at a result... Completely depends on the thing you're trying to do, but if you're running an autonomous vehicle or a factory system or something similar, relying on mysterious weights and fuzziness to make critical decisions sounds like a disaster. But being able to point to a pile of Horn clauses that were vetted by PMs and legal, and a graph of every piece of knowledge that was used to make those decisions... that sounds valuable. Yes, I'm sure the stuff we call symbolic AI isn't great for making chat bots and assistants... But there are plenty of other senses of AI where a more deterministic and explicit approach makes sense? That's my admittedly naive take, anyways.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "but if you're running an autonomous vehicle or a factory system or something similar, relying on mysterious weights and fuzziness to make critical decisions sounds like a disaster." When your brain messes up and you have an accident, isn't that a pretty similar scenario? Sometimes people make misstakes - some more than others and we do tests to determine whether a human can do a job good enough by its results, without examining their brains. With autonomous cars it can be the same. Lots of tests - and if it safely can handle complex situations reliable - that would be good enough for me. (But I think we are currently pretty far from it)
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    > When your brain messes up and you have an accident, isn't that a pretty similar scenario? When LLM's start going to jail for killing people then we can consider them equivalent. Until that happens, they must be held to a higher standard specifically because the incentives aren't there otherwise.
    - chii 3y ago
      It's an interesting discussion point for autonomous driving: we set the bar quite high for it, but accept really shitty human drivers without question. What could be changed to make autonomous driving more acceptable without improving the underlying tech, but improving the blame game in law and civil liability?