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You are clearly not a dimwit, and you don’t only have way more experience than most people here, you also have some amazing projects under your belt. However I

You are clearly not a dimwit, and you don’t only have way more experience than most people here, you also have some amazing projects under your belt. However I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of blogposts, talks, tweets, and basically everything else you do now is around LLMs. Do you not think that’s indicative of this being “hyped” and “shiny tools”?

ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
If hype just means people are excited about it and talking about it, it should be a positive signal about the merit of the thing. I think people get the wrong idea by measuring P(X is good | people are excited about X) and finding it to be low. But P(X is good | people are not excited about X) is vastly lower, and 'hype' as here used is not really discrediting.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > I think people get the wrong idea by measuring P(X is good | people are excited about X) and finding it to be low. But P(X is good | people are not excited about X) is vastly lower Only if you're including things that don't exist. If you restrict yourself to things that people might conceivably talk about, that probability is actually very high, for the simple reason that bad things are exciting specifically because they are bad. Here are some boring things: - bread - sunlight - air - water - parents Note that starvation, darkness, suffocation, dehydration, and being orphaned are all much more exciting than their opposites.
  - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
    Poor phrasing on my part; 'good' should have been 'worth talking about'.
tucnak 2y ago
Deep learning is the most important thing to happen to philosophy since Socrates / Wittgenstein.
- mhuffman 2y ago
  I would be very interested in you providing an example of Deep Learning offering more cultural or historical impact than Socrates / Wittgenstein.
  - tucnak 2y ago
    I mean, already ChatGPT alone has made more cultural and historical impact per capita than the aforementioned gentlemen, simply because nobody cares about philosophy. But that was never my point. My point is: you can think of uncle Witt kind of like "postmodern" twist on Socrates, i.e. they're both effectively talking about the same thing: determining optimal form for computing language. Wittgenstein had made considerable progress here, i.e. language games, and now we finally get means to literally compute these. To me it's absolutely clear; this is the most important thing to happen in philosophy.
simonw 2y ago
I'm writing a lot about LLMs at the moment because they're the focus of much of my work. I don't see that as a hype thing - in the past I've had other topics I've focused on, not because of hype but because those were the topics I was spending the most time with.

ToValueFunfetti 2y ago

If hype just means people are excited about it and talking about it, it should be a positive signal about the merit of the thing. I think people get the wrong idea by measuring P(X is good | people are excited about X) and finding it to be low. But P(X is good | people are not excited about X) is vastly lower, and 'hype' as here used is not really discrediting.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> I think people get the wrong idea by measuring P(X is good | people are excited about X) and finding it to be low. But P(X is good | people are not excited about X) is vastly lower Only if you're including things that don't exist. If you restrict yourself to things that people might conceivably talk about, that probability is actually very high, for the simple reason that bad things are exciting specifically because they are bad. Here are some boring things: - bread - sunlight - air - water - parents Note that starvation, darkness, suffocation, dehydration, and being orphaned are all much more exciting than their opposites.
- ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  Poor phrasing on my part; 'good' should have been 'worth talking about'.

tucnak 2y ago

Deep learning is the most important thing to happen to philosophy since Socrates / Wittgenstein.

mhuffman 2y ago
I would be very interested in you providing an example of Deep Learning offering more cultural or historical impact than Socrates / Wittgenstein.
- tucnak 2y ago
  I mean, already ChatGPT alone has made more cultural and historical impact per capita than the aforementioned gentlemen, simply because nobody cares about philosophy. But that was never my point. My point is: you can think of uncle Witt kind of like "postmodern" twist on Socrates, i.e. they're both effectively talking about the same thing: determining optimal form for computing language. Wittgenstein had made considerable progress here, i.e. language games, and now we finally get means to literally compute these. To me it's absolutely clear; this is the most important thing to happen in philosophy.

simonw 2y ago

I'm writing a lot about LLMs at the moment because they're the focus of much of my work. I don't see that as a hype thing - in the past I've had other topics I've focused on, not because of hype but because those were the topics I was spending the most time with.