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Have they really mastered language or are they mimicking it. Do Submarines swim like fish?

• pyinstallwoes 3y ago
  If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, is it a duck?
  • Jensson 3y ago
    We haven't made machines that replace animals. A submarine can't do quick precision movement to pick up tiny objects like a fish, a plane can't do quick precision movement to fly through a forest and land gracefully on a branch like a bird. The current machine intelligence is still clumsy like that, it can solve some problems but it is still far from the real thing.
• famouswaffles 3y ago
  Have planes mastered flight or are they mimicking it ? Can you mimick flight ? Is that a distinction that has any meaning ?
  • max_ 3y ago
    Yes. Planes don't fly the same way that birds do. They are go up in the air like birds but what they are doing to get up & be up in the sky is very different. Just like LLMs, planes are way less energy efficient than birds. Just like how Human brains are way more efficient than Convents & LLMs
    • famouswaffles 3y ago
      You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask you whether planes flew like birds do. I asked you if planes are "mimicking" flight and if that's a statement that makes any sense at all.
      • max_ 3y ago
        Well it depends on what you mean by flight. If you mean something projecting itself into the air, then yes. Rockets fly, Kites fly, bullets fly, planes too fly. But if by flight you mean replicating what birds do to get into the sky & come down. Rockets, Kites, bullets & planes don't do that.
        • famouswaffles 3y ago
          Bees don't fly like birds. Is a bee "mimicking" flight too ? Does that make any sense ? Why is the bird privileged here ? Bats don't fly like either bees or birds. all these damn mimics running around.
          • max_ 3y ago
            > Bats don't fly like either bees or birds. all these damn mimics running around. Yes, penguins don't swim like sardines either and snakes don't "walk" like apes. > Why is the bird privileged here ? There is no privilege, I was just using it as an example to illustrate that what human beings do is different from what LLMs do, even though they are all called "intelligence".
            • famouswaffles 3y ago
              Great. And the point is..who cares what humans do ? We’re not the arbiter of intelligence anymore than birds are the arbiter of flight. Nobody is trying to build a digital human here so, “they’re not doing what humans do” is about as meaningless as it gets. I mean sure, you could cook up whatever definition of intelligence you like, make it so that humans are the only things that pass just because. Then, what's the point? It's not a useful definition. That’s one point but really there’s more. If you say “mimicking intelligence” is a real meaningful difference, then it should be testable. “There’s a difference here. You can’t see it in the results but trust me bro, it’s there” is really not an argument.
              • max_ 3y ago