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I wish people would stop projecting decades into the future using advanced autocomplete as the definition of AI. We were way fucking surprised at the output of

I wish people would stop projecting decades into the future using advanced autocomplete as the definition of AI. We were way fucking surprised at the output of token prediction but somehow assume the surprises are all gone and we can predict with confidence. These things don’t learn from one second to the next. They only create text. They have no real understanding and no goals aside from making training gods happy. When a system is able to update its model in real-time based on inputs, and vaguely approximates the level of energy efficiency of the human mind, and gets given goals that are more fundamental than “produce tokens that look like they were made by a human”, the surprises will flow. They may be good and/or bad but you certainly don’t know what the result will be. Confident soothsayers: unless you predicted the societal impact of social media and having a phone in your pocket, you’re probably not ready to predict what will happen when the system is smarter than you.

talldayo 2y ago
> We were way fucking surprised at the output of token prediction Were we? Investors were, but most people don't use ChatGPT today. I actually remember reading that OpenAI is struggling to stay solvent as a business and the outcome of their products are rather surprisingly useless. Token prediction holds a conversation as well as a Markov chain or ELIZA - big whoop. Neither of those are suitable replacements for customer service, and neither is AI for as long as it's an unconscious text generator. This is what it looks like when tech is DOA. And you know what else, I'm not afraid of "brain in a jar" computers either. Businesses don't solve problems for AI or for jar-brains, they solve problems for humans. The fact that we all struggle through this bitch of a life together is advantage enough for humans to identify problems and offer gratifying communal solutions. AI is no more familiar with our lives on Earth than it is Frodo's life in the Shire. It can only render solutions amenable to the perverse portrayal of reality that text provides for it. Confident soothsayers slay future Theranos. Show me progress or GTFO, that's my policy.
- richardw 2y ago
  > AI is no more familiar with our lives on Earth than it is Frodo's life in the Shire. It can only render solutions amenable to the perverse portrayal of reality that text provides for it. What’s the relevance? Let’s be open to the possibility that proper intelligence won’t be 100% consumed with the affairs of beings who are less smart and capable. If it is, it’ll be artificially limited and that seems an unsustainable barrier. > Show me progress or GTFO, that's my policy. We had Eliza an extremely long time ago. No progress would mean you’re still using Google and Wikipedia to figure stuff out and Eliza level tech to brainstorm code. Frankly if you offered to take away Google or my LLM’s, I’d choose the former. I know it’s flawed but I can work around that rather than putz around with annoying UX that doesn’t let me ask follow up questions. And again, this is just very good autocomplete and does nothing to prevent future improvements. There is SO much money and talent looking for improvements. Governments give a shit and are competing with each other. It takes a stunning lack of imagination to think we’ve found the end.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > Let’s be open to the possibility that proper intelligence won’t be 100% consumed with the affairs of beings who are less smart and capable. Why? Our current "improper" intelligence isn't getting anywhere in the hands of smart people. They aren't using it to invent antigravity or hack the system like a video game. Turns out, using the Library of Babel to try and hunt down the truth is a waste of your time whether you're a genius or an idiot. If this "proper intelligence" still makes mistakes like current stochastic LLMs, it will continue to be an unreliable tool for scientists and doctors that rely on correct judgement. Don't get me wrong; I don't disagree with you on-principle. It would be cool if scientists had a hyper-intelligent all-knowing ChatGPT to help them invent new technology. I disagree with it because fundamentally, AI has not demonstrated the possibility it could ever fill this role. There is no feasibility study validating AI intelligence in any relevant field. Every current application of LLMs are imperfect and focused almost entirely on risk-management. This is a sign, to me, that neither of us will interact with "true AI" (or AGI if you're fanciful) in our lifetimes. That's my $0.02 whether the US goes all-in on AI or whether they tear it down with regulation; the tech stays the same. > And again, this is just very good autocomplete and does nothing to prevent future improvements. You may be looking at it from the wrong direction. People don't write research papers with autocomplete, they iterate on a thesis by testing their estimation against real-world experiment trials. Not only does it require a finer touch than autocomplete, you need to run real life tests somehow and correlate the data with your findings. AI does not do that - it's text. It won't fill beakers with Bromine or hack into the NSA on your behalf. So... I'd argue this does prevent future improvement, if you mean "improvement" to be "not lying all the time". The path to superintelligence is not forged by re-training and finetuning the same three foundation models over and over again. I'd even go as far as to say LLMs in the current architecture are fundamentally incapable of relevant thought. > It takes a stunning lack of imagination to think we’ve found the end. That's exactly what I've got. Stop playing with my imagination and show me the progress; I've been following this field since Google released BERT and we've gotten just about nowhere in the interceding years. I don't really care that much about the whole field. But it's surprising (or I guess not surprising at all) to hop on HN and see people ravenously excited for an iteration on a failed technology. Surely ChatGPT 5 will prove one of us right, eh?

talldayo 2y ago

> We were way fucking surprised at the output of token prediction Were we? Investors were, but most people don't use ChatGPT today. I actually remember reading that OpenAI is struggling to stay solvent as a business and the outcome of their products are rather surprisingly useless. Token prediction holds a conversation as well as a Markov chain or ELIZA - big whoop. Neither of those are suitable replacements for customer service, and neither is AI for as long as it's an unconscious text generator. This is what it looks like when tech is DOA. And you know what else, I'm not afraid of "brain in a jar" computers either. Businesses don't solve problems for AI or for jar-brains, they solve problems for humans. The fact that we all struggle through this bitch of a life together is advantage enough for humans to identify problems and offer gratifying communal solutions. AI is no more familiar with our lives on Earth than it is Frodo's life in the Shire. It can only render solutions amenable to the perverse portrayal of reality that text provides for it. Confident soothsayers slay future Theranos. Show me progress or GTFO, that's my policy.

richardw 2y ago
> AI is no more familiar with our lives on Earth than it is Frodo's life in the Shire. It can only render solutions amenable to the perverse portrayal of reality that text provides for it. What’s the relevance? Let’s be open to the possibility that proper intelligence won’t be 100% consumed with the affairs of beings who are less smart and capable. If it is, it’ll be artificially limited and that seems an unsustainable barrier. > Show me progress or GTFO, that's my policy. We had Eliza an extremely long time ago. No progress would mean you’re still using Google and Wikipedia to figure stuff out and Eliza level tech to brainstorm code. Frankly if you offered to take away Google or my LLM’s, I’d choose the former. I know it’s flawed but I can work around that rather than putz around with annoying UX that doesn’t let me ask follow up questions. And again, this is just very good autocomplete and does nothing to prevent future improvements. There is SO much money and talent looking for improvements. Governments give a shit and are competing with each other. It takes a stunning lack of imagination to think we’ve found the end.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Let’s be open to the possibility that proper intelligence won’t be 100% consumed with the affairs of beings who are less smart and capable. Why? Our current "improper" intelligence isn't getting anywhere in the hands of smart people. They aren't using it to invent antigravity or hack the system like a video game. Turns out, using the Library of Babel to try and hunt down the truth is a waste of your time whether you're a genius or an idiot. If this "proper intelligence" still makes mistakes like current stochastic LLMs, it will continue to be an unreliable tool for scientists and doctors that rely on correct judgement. Don't get me wrong; I don't disagree with you on-principle. It would be cool if scientists had a hyper-intelligent all-knowing ChatGPT to help them invent new technology. I disagree with it because fundamentally, AI has not demonstrated the possibility it could ever fill this role. There is no feasibility study validating AI intelligence in any relevant field. Every current application of LLMs are imperfect and focused almost entirely on risk-management. This is a sign, to me, that neither of us will interact with "true AI" (or AGI if you're fanciful) in our lifetimes. That's my $0.02 whether the US goes all-in on AI or whether they tear it down with regulation; the tech stays the same. > And again, this is just very good autocomplete and does nothing to prevent future improvements. You may be looking at it from the wrong direction. People don't write research papers with autocomplete, they iterate on a thesis by testing their estimation against real-world experiment trials. Not only does it require a finer touch than autocomplete, you need to run real life tests somehow and correlate the data with your findings. AI does not do that - it's text. It won't fill beakers with Bromine or hack into the NSA on your behalf. So... I'd argue this does prevent future improvement, if you mean "improvement" to be "not lying all the time". The path to superintelligence is not forged by re-training and finetuning the same three foundation models over and over again. I'd even go as far as to say LLMs in the current architecture are fundamentally incapable of relevant thought. > It takes a stunning lack of imagination to think we’ve found the end. That's exactly what I've got. Stop playing with my imagination and show me the progress; I've been following this field since Google released BERT and we've gotten just about nowhere in the interceding years. I don't really care that much about the whole field. But it's surprising (or I guess not surprising at all) to hop on HN and see people ravenously excited for an iteration on a failed technology. Surely ChatGPT 5 will prove one of us right, eh?