7 ms·

These reviews are brutal. It's basically science-speak for "the paper is utter trash". "The main claim [...] is both somewhat obvious and previously already st

by qsort 3y ago

These reviews are brutal. It's basically science-speak for "the paper is utter trash". "The main claim [...] is both somewhat obvious and previously already stated" "Many pieces of writing are overly assertive and inaccurate." "I do not think it deserves spending half a page demonstrating that {0^n 1^n} is not in the regular language."

jakderrida 3y ago
I don't even have a phD. I just find openreview's feedback fun to read. For the same reason I love watching Gordon Ramsey give feedback.
- qsort 3y ago
  Me neither, but I know what the process is like from having co-authored some stuff at work. This is not the kind of review you get if the paper is simply not good enough. Those are some seriously pissed off reviewers. Compare for example with this: https://openreview.net/forum?id=cXs5md5wAq https://openreview.net/forum?id=cXs5md5wAq
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    Aw man... I was looking forward to a whole night of attempted savage takedowns. Not mature constructive criticisms.
Cacti 3y ago
These are just jokes with reviewers having some fun after doing 20 other reviews. The review process isn't really needed for a paper this bad, but they have to go through the motions, and so people have fun with it. It’s not a big deal. Shitty papers exist.
axiom92 3y ago
Welcome to one of the most hated parts of the academia.
Animats 3y ago
Yes. Anything with finite memory is not Turing-complete, and transformers are finite-state machines. So what? Anything with infinite memory is un-buildable. Yes, there's a school of philosophy that claims that AI cannot be built with digital hardware because it needs infinite state. Penrose is the leading exponent of this argument.[1] This isn't taken too seriously any more, now that finite machines are doing so well at AI. This is close to theology. Man must be special, right? Only humans can play chess, right? Play Go? Pass the Turing test? Create art and music? We're running out of boxes to check. Common sense (as in getting through the next 30 seconds without a major screwup) and manipulation in unstructured settings are still in bad shape, but we only need squirrel-level AI for that. On that subject, there was a "what does the cerebellum do" article on HN a few days ago. That's a big issue. The lower mammal brains are mostly cerebellum. The weak areas in AI at present are mostly cerebellum functions. That area has never gotten enough attention in AI research. Today, though, the amount of hardware to do a low-end mammal cerebellum equivalent doesn't seem at all unreasonable. [1] https://sortingsearching.com/2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-skepticism.html https://sortingsearching.com/2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-ske...
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Penrose claims that human intelligence relies on quantum effects and demonstrates certain structures in neurons that makes it at least a plausible argument. It would follow that comparable intelligence would not be possible with current digital computer architectures. I also think a lot of people are a little too fooled by the “intelligence” of current models which are mimics with enormous libraries of “knowledge”. It is not too hard to be frustrated by the enormous limitations of current models. Impressive, yes, smart, no. Though to refute claims of their intelligence is really pushing to refine the philosophical definition of intelligence which has been rather vague so far. We can’t just say “i know it when i see it” because computers pretending is getting very good.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    There is no way to effectively pretend to be smart without actually being smart. This comes up a lot in things like science fiction, movies, etc... E.g.: an author can state that a character has "superhuman intelligence", but the author themselves would need to actually posses this superhuman intelligence to write the actions or dialogue of that character.[1] Because authors are "just human", they obviously can't be superhuman, so they generally avoid directly demonstrating the actions of superhumanly intelligent characters. I.e.: the "tell, not show" instead of the usual "show, don't tell." The current crop of AIs are 100% "show". They demonstrate intelligence directly, by answering questions instead of just talking about how they would answer questions, which is what fake intelligence would do. PS: Next time you see a politician promise to deliver a solution, but not actually state what that solution is... well... now you know what's going on with that particular situation! [1] There's a degree of cheating available to authors, because they have information that the in-world fictional characters don't. Similarly, they can set up the question to lead to an answer they already have. The chat-based AIs can't cheat like this, they have to answer the questions given to them.
zubairq 3y ago
I actually really appreciate these brutal reviews

by qsort 3y ago

jakderrida 3y ago

I don't even have a phD. I just find openreview's feedback fun to read. For the same reason I love watching Gordon Ramsey give feedback.

qsort 3y ago
Me neither, but I know what the process is like from having co-authored some stuff at work. This is not the kind of review you get if the paper is simply not good enough. Those are some seriously pissed off reviewers. Compare for example with this: https://openreview.net/forum?id=cXs5md5wAq https://openreview.net/forum?id=cXs5md5wAq
- jakderrida 3y ago
  Aw man... I was looking forward to a whole night of attempted savage takedowns. Not mature constructive criticisms.

Cacti 3y ago

These are just jokes with reviewers having some fun after doing 20 other reviews. The review process isn't really needed for a paper this bad, but they have to go through the motions, and so people have fun with it. It’s not a big deal. Shitty papers exist.

axiom92 3y ago

Welcome to one of the most hated parts of the academia.

Animats 3y ago

Yes. Anything with finite memory is not Turing-complete, and transformers are finite-state machines. So what? Anything with infinite memory is un-buildable. Yes, there's a school of philosophy that claims that AI cannot be built with digital hardware because it needs infinite state. Penrose is the leading exponent of this argument.[1] This isn't taken too seriously any more, now that finite machines are doing so well at AI. This is close to theology. Man must be special, right? Only humans can play chess, right? Play Go? Pass the Turing test? Create art and music? We're running out of boxes to check. Common sense (as in getting through the next 30 seconds without a major screwup) and manipulation in unstructured settings are still in bad shape, but we only need squirrel-level AI for that. On that subject, there was a "what does the cerebellum do" article on HN a few days ago. That's a big issue. The lower mammal brains are mostly cerebellum. The weak areas in AI at present are mostly cerebellum functions. That area has never gotten enough attention in AI research. Today, though, the amount of hardware to do a low-end mammal cerebellum equivalent doesn't seem at all unreasonable. [1] https://sortingsearching.com/2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-skepticism.html https://sortingsearching.com/2021/07/18/roger-penrose-ai-ske...

colechristensen 3y ago
Penrose claims that human intelligence relies on quantum effects and demonstrates certain structures in neurons that makes it at least a plausible argument. It would follow that comparable intelligence would not be possible with current digital computer architectures. I also think a lot of people are a little too fooled by the “intelligence” of current models which are mimics with enormous libraries of “knowledge”. It is not too hard to be frustrated by the enormous limitations of current models. Impressive, yes, smart, no. Though to refute claims of their intelligence is really pushing to refine the philosophical definition of intelligence which has been rather vague so far. We can’t just say “i know it when i see it” because computers pretending is getting very good.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  There is no way to effectively pretend to be smart without actually being smart. This comes up a lot in things like science fiction, movies, etc... E.g.: an author can state that a character has "superhuman intelligence", but the author themselves would need to actually posses this superhuman intelligence to write the actions or dialogue of that character.[1] Because authors are "just human", they obviously can't be superhuman, so they generally avoid directly demonstrating the actions of superhumanly intelligent characters. I.e.: the "tell, not show" instead of the usual "show, don't tell." The current crop of AIs are 100% "show". They demonstrate intelligence directly, by answering questions instead of just talking about how they would answer questions, which is what fake intelligence would do. PS: Next time you see a politician promise to deliver a solution, but not actually state what that solution is... well... now you know what's going on with that particular situation! [1] There's a degree of cheating available to authors, because they have information that the in-world fictional characters don't. Similarly, they can set up the question to lead to an answer they already have. The chat-based AIs can't cheat like this, they have to answer the questions given to them.

zubairq 3y ago

I actually really appreciate these brutal reviews