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"He says the trouble with generative AI is that, while it’s perfectly capable of performing a certain set of tasks, it can’t do everything a human can" This ki
by ianbicking 2y ago
"He says the trouble with generative AI is that, while it’s perfectly capable of performing a certain set of tasks, it can’t do everything a human can"
This kind of strawman "limitations of LLMs" is a bit silly. EVERYONE knows it can't do everything a human can, but the boundaries are very unclear. We definitely don't know what the limitations are. Many people looked at computers in the 70s and saw that they could only do math, suitable to be fancy mechanical accountants. But it turns out you can do a lot with math.
If we never got a model better than the current batch then we still would have a tremendous amount of work to do to really understand its full capabilities.
If you come with a defined problem in hand, a problem selected based on the (very reasonable!) premise that computers cannot understand or operate meaningfully on language or general knowledge, then LLMs might not help that much. Robot warehouse pickers don't have a lot of need for LLMs, but that's the kind of industrial use case where the environment is readily modified to make the task feasible, just like warehouses are designed for forklifts.
- jsemrau 2y agoI am a perfectly healthy human being, but I can't climb Mount Everest (right now). I might be capable with more training.
- danielmarkbruce 2y agoIt might seem silly... but that's likely because you understand them better than most. He is talking about a real human problem - we see a thing (or person) do X well, and assume it's the result of some very general capability. With humans we tend to call it "halo effect". People are seeing LLMs to some insanely good stuff but don't know how they work and assume all kinds of stuff. It's an "AI halo effect".
- enragedcacti 2y agoI don't think you and him are in disagreement. I read it as him saying "evaluating LLMs is extremely difficult and a big problem right now is that many people are treating them as basically human in capability". Its the opposite problem to the perception of computers in the 70s, early computers were seen by some as too alien to be as useful as a person across most tasks, llms are seen by some as too human to not be as useful as a person across most tasks. They are both wrong in surprisingly complex ways.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoWHO exactly is treating them as human? It is a strawman.
- Jensson 2y agoHave you never seen someone say "ChatGPT is smarter than most humans"? Tons of people mistake knowledge and eloquence for intelligence, even here on HN, it isn't a strawman at all.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoNot sure if said in such generic ways. You need to define what "smarter" means. E.g. ChatGPT probably outperforms most people at math. Does it make it smarter than most people?
- vor_ 2y agoQuite a lot of people are.
- vor_ 2y ago> This kind of strawman "limitations of LLMs" is a bit silly. EVERYONE knows it can't do everything a human can A large amount of people--many of them with money to invest--seem to believe otherwise.