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I think that's a too-narrow focus on LLMs. Of course they're not good at problem-solving because that's not what they're optimized for. That they can approximat

I think that's a too-narrow focus on LLMs. Of course they're not good at problem-solving because that's not what they're optimized for. That they can approximate any problem-solving at all is already impressive. Consider that there are also models that are actually trained to act as agents in an environment via reinforcement learning. Something they do for robotics and game-like simulations. It's not a bigger version of today's models we should consider but broader ones that integrate more capabilities and training regimes.

safety1st 3y ago
Sure, but at that point we are talking about stringing together a variety of algorithms in a very speculative way, we're not extrapolating from what is being deployed in the world right now. Maybe we will eventually get to AGI or something like it in that manner, and maybe then the AI will then destroy all jobs and make life horrible, but I think at this point the chain of events is speculative enough that it's a silly reason to forego having children, which was the bar set by the OP, and it also seems like a pretty vague threat to programmer jobs.
- the8472 3y ago
  This is hardly speculative. RL-trained agenty models just don't grab the headlines. They have been growing over years. Think AlphaGo, OpenAI Five, This Model Without A Catching Name[0], AlphaCode are all in that category. And they're already getting combined with pretrained transformers[1] to get some world-knowledge. There's a lot more going on than "just" ChatGPT or Dalle. [0] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/generally-capable-agents-emerge-from-open-ended-play/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/generally-capable-agen... [1] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/robocat-a-self-improving-robotic-agent/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/robocat-a-self-improvi...
  - safety1st 3y ago
    Thanks for the links, I'm still of the view that this stuff has a ways to go before it causes enough job destruction that so as to make parenthood pointless, however they were an interesting read! (To be clear here yes one element of my skepticism is around applications of AI, but the other very large and arguably more significant element is how unlikely it is that any of this stuff would ever constitute a sane reason to not have kids)

safety1st 3y ago

Sure, but at that point we are talking about stringing together a variety of algorithms in a very speculative way, we're not extrapolating from what is being deployed in the world right now. Maybe we will eventually get to AGI or something like it in that manner, and maybe then the AI will then destroy all jobs and make life horrible, but I think at this point the chain of events is speculative enough that it's a silly reason to forego having children, which was the bar set by the OP, and it also seems like a pretty vague threat to programmer jobs.

the8472 3y ago
This is hardly speculative. RL-trained agenty models just don't grab the headlines. They have been growing over years. Think AlphaGo, OpenAI Five, This Model Without A Catching Name[0], AlphaCode are all in that category. And they're already getting combined with pretrained transformers[1] to get some world-knowledge. There's a lot more going on than "just" ChatGPT or Dalle. [0] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/generally-capable-agents-emerge-from-open-ended-play/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/generally-capable-agen... [1] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/robocat-a-self-improving-robotic-agent/ https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/robocat-a-self-improvi...
- safety1st 3y ago
  Thanks for the links, I'm still of the view that this stuff has a ways to go before it causes enough job destruction that so as to make parenthood pointless, however they were an interesting read! (To be clear here yes one element of my skepticism is around applications of AI, but the other very large and arguably more significant element is how unlikely it is that any of this stuff would ever constitute a sane reason to not have kids)