4 ms·

I think the gap is quickly narrowing on the need to fully comprehend most computer programs for most use cases, especially if bugs and changes can all be manage

I think the gap is quickly narrowing on the need to fully comprehend most computer programs for most use cases, especially if bugs and changes can all be managed through natural language by the primary stakeholders.

LabMechanic 3y ago
I think the gap is quickly narrowing on the need to fully comprehend most computer programs for most use cases, ... What makes you assume that current "AI" "comprehends"? I wish it could, but it appears not to. As an example, ask it to code up something from a "less popular domain" (e.g., Clifford algebra). You might notice that it appears to not have enough data to make good guesses. Some "AI" hype folks appear to move the goalpost then. However, maybe the stock market and some companies benefit from all this sensationalist stuff. I wish I had a HAL 9000 beside me, but I am sorry Dave, I cannot let you do that.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Name one thing that HAL 9000 did that current LLMs can't do (for better or worse). We are basically at the point where we could build the fembots from Ex Machina or David, the little boy from A.I., if we were just a little better at robotics. We'll see the teddy bear Supertoy from the latter movie under peoples' Christmas trees inside five years.
  - LabMechanic 3y ago
    > Name one thing that HAL 9000 did that current LLMs can't do (for better or worse). The ability to reason or understand seems to be not there in current LLMs. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38819544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38819544 Simply put: "fake it 'till you make it" = probabilistic guesses given a large data set = seems to fool us people believing that an LLM "thinks" and "reasons".
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      I once tasked an LLM (e.g., ChatGPT 3.5) There you go. Try it with 4. Still doesn't work? Let's revisit when 5 comes out. You will lose the argument eventually, it's only a question of when. with deriving the geometric product (Clifford algebra) based on a set of definitions and axioms (e.g., the distributive property). Unfortunately, it failed, making numerous errors along the way. Also maybe try asking it something that ordinary humans can be expected to accomplish, rather than complaining that nobody has invented Ramanujan-as-a-Service yet. Also: Further, "AI" beating masters of chess also seems to be a product of "beat a human with probabilistic guesses given a large data set". That was true for chess. Lee Se-Dol's defeat by AlphaGo was different. That wasn't supposed to happen. That was a combination of probabilistic Monte Carlo methods and... something else entirely. That's really when the train of "AI can do X but not Y" left the tracks, IMO.
      - LabMechanic 3y ago
        There you go. Try it with 4. Still doesn't work? Let's revisit when 5 comes out. You appear to assume that current "AI" is able to "understand" and "think". What makes you so sure? So, it "thinks" and "understands", it does not make (probabilistic) guesses? Definition: guess to give an answer to a particular question when you do not have all the facts and so cannot be certain if you are correct https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guess https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guess To your other point: Also maybe try asking it something that ordinary humans can be expected to accomplish, rather than complaining that nobody has invented Ramanujan-as-a-Service yet. Hmm... is it too much to ask such an "AI" for formal (i.e., well-defined) stuff? I would argue that mathematics or any formal language is perhaps more accurate than human language. You will lose the argument eventually, it's only a question of when. Oh, I hope so, but I am skeptical, as I am still not convinced of an LLM being an "AI".
        margorczynski 3y ago
        > You appear to assume that current "AI" is able to "understand" and "think". What makes you so sure? "To understand" and "to think" are two very different things. Understand means more or less to encode and compress effectively from a perspective of such a system - there's quite a bit of evidence that they do that. As for "thinking" that is impossible for LLMs as thinking is an action - and LLMs aren't agents that can plan and take action. Actually AlphaGO and AlphaZero were agents capable of thinking - just in a extremly simplistic world which is the game of Go, Shogi or Chess. But they had a world model (which was fully known as it was for simple games) and a way to plan the action they will take by evaluating what impact will they have upon the world and how beneficial it will be for them. Just that extending that system/agent to the real world is very hard.
  - bamboozled 3y ago
    Is this a joke ? You think an LLM can be in charge of a spaceship on an interstellar mission ?
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      You wouldn't use an LLM for mission management, but you could certainly use one as the human interface to the actual control system/autopilot. Which (in any event) doesn't require any sort of deep-learning implementation at all.
- mlunar 3y ago
  YMMV but Copilot (Bing w/ GPT4 toggle) does alright: https://gist.github.com/SmilyOrg/c0f60a41e9fcbbffdbf5454a500e0825 https://gist.github.com/SmilyOrg/c0f60a41e9fcbbffdbf5454a500... Obviously it could be completely wrong, but it certainly _seems_ to comprehend geometric algebra more than I do.
  - dr_kiszonka 3y ago
    Off topic: is there a version of your site that doesn't require flash? It looks like you have some really cool simulations there.

LabMechanic 3y ago

I think the gap is quickly narrowing on the need to fully comprehend most computer programs for most use cases, ... What makes you assume that current "AI" "comprehends"? I wish it could, but it appears not to. As an example, ask it to code up something from a "less popular domain" (e.g., Clifford algebra). You might notice that it appears to not have enough data to make good guesses. Some "AI" hype folks appear to move the goalpost then. However, maybe the stock market and some companies benefit from all this sensationalist stuff. I wish I had a HAL 9000 beside me, but I am sorry Dave, I cannot let you do that.

CamperBob2 3y ago
Name one thing that HAL 9000 did that current LLMs can't do (for better or worse). We are basically at the point where we could build the fembots from Ex Machina or David, the little boy from A.I., if we were just a little better at robotics. We'll see the teddy bear Supertoy from the latter movie under peoples' Christmas trees inside five years.
- LabMechanic 3y ago
  > Name one thing that HAL 9000 did that current LLMs can't do (for better or worse). The ability to reason or understand seems to be not there in current LLMs. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38819544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38819544 Simply put: "fake it 'till you make it" = probabilistic guesses given a large data set = seems to fool us people believing that an LLM "thinks" and "reasons".
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    I once tasked an LLM (e.g., ChatGPT 3.5) There you go. Try it with 4. Still doesn't work? Let's revisit when 5 comes out. You will lose the argument eventually, it's only a question of when. with deriving the geometric product (Clifford algebra) based on a set of definitions and axioms (e.g., the distributive property). Unfortunately, it failed, making numerous errors along the way. Also maybe try asking it something that ordinary humans can be expected to accomplish, rather than complaining that nobody has invented Ramanujan-as-a-Service yet. Also: Further, "AI" beating masters of chess also seems to be a product of "beat a human with probabilistic guesses given a large data set". That was true for chess. Lee Se-Dol's defeat by AlphaGo was different. That wasn't supposed to happen. That was a combination of probabilistic Monte Carlo methods and... something else entirely. That's really when the train of "AI can do X but not Y" left the tracks, IMO.
    - LabMechanic 3y ago
      There you go. Try it with 4. Still doesn't work? Let's revisit when 5 comes out. You appear to assume that current "AI" is able to "understand" and "think". What makes you so sure? So, it "thinks" and "understands", it does not make (probabilistic) guesses? Definition: guess to give an answer to a particular question when you do not have all the facts and so cannot be certain if you are correct https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guess https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guess To your other point: Also maybe try asking it something that ordinary humans can be expected to accomplish, rather than complaining that nobody has invented Ramanujan-as-a-Service yet. Hmm... is it too much to ask such an "AI" for formal (i.e., well-defined) stuff? I would argue that mathematics or any formal language is perhaps more accurate than human language. You will lose the argument eventually, it's only a question of when. Oh, I hope so, but I am skeptical, as I am still not convinced of an LLM being an "AI".
      - margorczynski 3y ago
        > You appear to assume that current "AI" is able to "understand" and "think". What makes you so sure? "To understand" and "to think" are two very different things. Understand means more or less to encode and compress effectively from a perspective of such a system - there's quite a bit of evidence that they do that. As for "thinking" that is impossible for LLMs as thinking is an action - and LLMs aren't agents that can plan and take action. Actually AlphaGO and AlphaZero were agents capable of thinking - just in a extremly simplistic world which is the game of Go, Shogi or Chess. But they had a world model (which was fully known as it was for simple games) and a way to plan the action they will take by evaluating what impact will they have upon the world and how beneficial it will be for them. Just that extending that system/agent to the real world is very hard.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  Is this a joke ? You think an LLM can be in charge of a spaceship on an interstellar mission ?
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    You wouldn't use an LLM for mission management, but you could certainly use one as the human interface to the actual control system/autopilot. Which (in any event) doesn't require any sort of deep-learning implementation at all.
mlunar 3y ago
YMMV but Copilot (Bing w/ GPT4 toggle) does alright: https://gist.github.com/SmilyOrg/c0f60a41e9fcbbffdbf5454a500e0825 https://gist.github.com/SmilyOrg/c0f60a41e9fcbbffdbf5454a500... Obviously it could be completely wrong, but it certainly _seems_ to comprehend geometric algebra more than I do.
- dr_kiszonka 3y ago
  Off topic: is there a version of your site that doesn't require flash? It looks like you have some really cool simulations there.