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Same could be said about Moore’s Law and progression of silicon based processor advancements. Yet it has held true. Same applies for AI, plus even now, with cu

Same could be said about Moore’s Law and progression of silicon based processor advancements. Yet it has held true. Same applies for AI, plus even now, with custom tools, one can already churn out high quality output with custom models, it’s just accuracy of it is still an uncracked part. But I think we’ll get there soon too. Ofcourse this is why I said “soon” and not “now”.

yywwbbn 3y ago
> Same could be said about Moore’s Law and progression of silicon based processor advancements. Yet it has held true. Not an argument. Plenty of things seemed like they will progress/grow exponentially when they were invented yet they didn’t. > Same applies for AI Perhaps, but why?
xanderlewis 3y ago
> one can already churn out high quality output with custom models In what domain exactly? Be precise with your claims. I've yet to see an LLM-produced insight on... anything. The ability of these models to manipulate (and, yes, seemingly understand) language is freakishly good. Utterly scarily good, in fact. But keep probing and (if you yourself have sufficiently deep knowledge of the topic to allow good enough questions to be asked) you'll quickly find it lacking and come to the conclusion that the words are all there is — they're not a serialisation of the model's abstract free-floating conceptualised understanding; they are the understanding. I suspect, though this may sound arrogant, that the vast majority of those making such grandiose claims about 'AI' are not subject matter experts in anything. They're the same people who think being able to pump out endless Python scripts to solve various canned problems means a system can 'code', or that cranking out (perhaps even very relevant!) rhyming sentences means it 'understands poetry'... and I say this as someone who is neither a programmer nor a poet and so has no skin in the game. Again: I'm happy to be proven wrong. But I'm not expecting much.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > I've yet to see an LLM-produced insight on... anything I don't think anyone has claimed this so far in the conversation. > I suspect, though this may sound arrogant, that the vast majority of those making such grandiose claims about 'AI' are not subject matter experts in anything. > you'll quickly find it lacking and come to the conclusion that the words are all there is — they're not a serialisation of the model's abstract free-floating conceptualised understanding; they are the understanding. No one is claiming they are intelligent, and a subject matter expert doesn't need a model to tell them anything insightful -- they need a model to do the annoying gruntwork for them as proficiently as possible, which is what they are good for.
  - xanderlewis 3y ago
    > I don't think anyone has claimed this so far in the conversation. They have claimed something that makes it necessary. It was claimed that LLMs will 'soon' be able to 'write high quality books for us about each field'. If you can't produce a single insight on the topic, any book you write is going to fundamentally be a (very high level, likely almost verbatim) rehash of others, and therefore wouldn't usually be considered high quality. Not to mention the fact that an inability to generate real insight is indicative of a lack of an underlying model that isn't overfitted to the language used to express the examples. > No one is claiming they are intelligent I'm glad not, because I wouldn't be sure what they mean by that. > a subject matter expert doesn't need a model to tell them anything insightful Indeed not. Having existing ideas be juxtaposed, recontextualised or even repeated can be valuable. But to claim that AI will be writing entire books that are worth reading seems laughable to me. There's no sign that we're close to that. Just play with the state of the art models for a while and try and push them. I'm convinced that anyone who believes otherwise just doesn't have the technical expertise (and that's not a generic insult; it's true of most of us) to probe deeply enough to see the fragility of these models. They look at the output and (erroneously, due to the unknown unknowns involved) think themselves perfectly qualified to judge it high quality — and they do so, with great vigour. If your only claim is simply 'LLMs can remix natural language in a way that sometimes proves useful', then fine. I absolutely agree.
    - 3y ago

yywwbbn 3y ago

> Same could be said about Moore’s Law and progression of silicon based processor advancements. Yet it has held true. Not an argument. Plenty of things seemed like they will progress/grow exponentially when they were invented yet they didn’t. > Same applies for AI Perhaps, but why?

xanderlewis 3y ago

> one can already churn out high quality output with custom models In what domain exactly? Be precise with your claims. I've yet to see an LLM-produced insight on... anything. The ability of these models to manipulate (and, yes, seemingly understand) language is freakishly good. Utterly scarily good, in fact. But keep probing and (if you yourself have sufficiently deep knowledge of the topic to allow good enough questions to be asked) you'll quickly find it lacking and come to the conclusion that the words are all there is — they're not a serialisation of the model's abstract free-floating conceptualised understanding; they are the understanding. I suspect, though this may sound arrogant, that the vast majority of those making such grandiose claims about 'AI' are not subject matter experts in anything. They're the same people who think being able to pump out endless Python scripts to solve various canned problems means a system can 'code', or that cranking out (perhaps even very relevant!) rhyming sentences means it 'understands poetry'... and I say this as someone who is neither a programmer nor a poet and so has no skin in the game. Again: I'm happy to be proven wrong. But I'm not expecting much.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> I've yet to see an LLM-produced insight on... anything I don't think anyone has claimed this so far in the conversation. > I suspect, though this may sound arrogant, that the vast majority of those making such grandiose claims about 'AI' are not subject matter experts in anything. > you'll quickly find it lacking and come to the conclusion that the words are all there is — they're not a serialisation of the model's abstract free-floating conceptualised understanding; they are the understanding. No one is claiming they are intelligent, and a subject matter expert doesn't need a model to tell them anything insightful -- they need a model to do the annoying gruntwork for them as proficiently as possible, which is what they are good for.
- xanderlewis 3y ago
  > I don't think anyone has claimed this so far in the conversation. They have claimed something that makes it necessary. It was claimed that LLMs will 'soon' be able to 'write high quality books for us about each field'. If you can't produce a single insight on the topic, any book you write is going to fundamentally be a (very high level, likely almost verbatim) rehash of others, and therefore wouldn't usually be considered high quality. Not to mention the fact that an inability to generate real insight is indicative of a lack of an underlying model that isn't overfitted to the language used to express the examples. > No one is claiming they are intelligent I'm glad not, because I wouldn't be sure what they mean by that. > a subject matter expert doesn't need a model to tell them anything insightful Indeed not. Having existing ideas be juxtaposed, recontextualised or even repeated can be valuable. But to claim that AI will be writing entire books that are worth reading seems laughable to me. There's no sign that we're close to that. Just play with the state of the art models for a while and try and push them. I'm convinced that anyone who believes otherwise just doesn't have the technical expertise (and that's not a generic insult; it's true of most of us) to probe deeply enough to see the fragility of these models. They look at the output and (erroneously, due to the unknown unknowns involved) think themselves perfectly qualified to judge it high quality — and they do so, with great vigour. If your only claim is simply 'LLMs can remix natural language in a way that sometimes proves useful', then fine. I absolutely agree.
  - 3y ago