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Lots of people involved in explaining away AI are labouring under the axiom that intelligence is mysterious. Therefore, if I can understand how a system works,

Lots of people involved in explaining away AI are labouring under the axiom that intelligence is mysterious. Therefore, if I can understand how a system works, it logically follows that it can't be intelligent.

lucubratory 2y ago
I predict that many of those people will continue to believe that up until human cognition is mechanistically understood, at which point there will be some other reason that humans are "real" thinkers and machines are not. The problem is that theoretical opposition to the existence of AIs is incompatible with materialism and thus just doesn't fit with our world, which is very much built using the scientific truths that materialism enables us to discover.
- welferkj 2y ago
  It is insane to me that views of consciousness and cognition other than physicalism still exist in mainstream scientific and philosophical discourse. As far as I can tell, no matter how much discourse you dress it up in, any alternative boils down to "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit".
dartos 2y ago
We… can’t really understand how neural networks work, but we can definitely tell they’re not intelligent beyond making good sounding word soup (as demonstrated in their minimal practical reasoning abilities) I wouldn’t call pagerank intelligent, even though I can give it a text prompt and get relevant information back. In my view, the only difference between that and an llm is the natural language interface. I’m no expert on intelligence, but I’d expect being able to introspect and continually learn to be part of it.
- welferkj 2y ago
  You're engaging in explaining away intelligence. One way to help you notice this is to try and estimate how many billions of people you've defined out of "being intelligent" with your latest goalpost movement. Be honest, how many people do you think "introspect and continually learn" on a daily basis?
  - cootsnuck 2y ago
    > Be honest, how many people do you think "introspect and continually learn" on a daily basis? That's wild if you think that isn't quite literally one of the defining features of human consciousness (and many would say other animals as well). If you think people thinking differently than you means they don't still indeed...think...then I don't know what tell you.
    - welferkj 2y ago
      Unfortunately for the intelligence denial crowd, introspection and learning capability is something we can measure, as opposed to the vibes-based discourse you prefer to engage in. If that's what you've picked for your threshold of "intelligence", you've reduced the majority of the bell curve's left side to soulless automatons. Again, your definition, not mine.
      - dartos 2y ago
        My definition (again, as a layman on the subject of intelligence philosophy), but your incorrect analysis. I guess I just think more highly of my fellow humans.
        exe34 2y ago
        > I guess I just think more highly of my fellow humans. As an article of faith, yes. But I don't see what this adds to the discussion.
        dartos 2y ago
        > If that's what you've picked for your threshold of "intelligence", you've reduced the majority of the bell curve's left side to soulless automatons I disagree with this statement, which is the crux of their argument against my definition of intelligence. I don’t think any credible survey of the intelligence or lack of a large enough population exists (due to there not being a common binary measure of intelligence), so it’s an issue you kind of need to take on faith.
joloooo 2y ago
I think there is a difference from people upset around over hyped LLMs and arguing about intelligence in "A.I.". Most of the "intelligence" arguments I've seen are fighting against putting too much stock in chatgpt and Sam's fever dreams.

lucubratory 2y ago

I predict that many of those people will continue to believe that up until human cognition is mechanistically understood, at which point there will be some other reason that humans are "real" thinkers and machines are not. The problem is that theoretical opposition to the existence of AIs is incompatible with materialism and thus just doesn't fit with our world, which is very much built using the scientific truths that materialism enables us to discover.

welferkj 2y ago
It is insane to me that views of consciousness and cognition other than physicalism still exist in mainstream scientific and philosophical discourse. As far as I can tell, no matter how much discourse you dress it up in, any alternative boils down to "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit".

dartos 2y ago

We… can’t really understand how neural networks work, but we can definitely tell they’re not intelligent beyond making good sounding word soup (as demonstrated in their minimal practical reasoning abilities) I wouldn’t call pagerank intelligent, even though I can give it a text prompt and get relevant information back. In my view, the only difference between that and an llm is the natural language interface. I’m no expert on intelligence, but I’d expect being able to introspect and continually learn to be part of it.

welferkj 2y ago
You're engaging in explaining away intelligence. One way to help you notice this is to try and estimate how many billions of people you've defined out of "being intelligent" with your latest goalpost movement. Be honest, how many people do you think "introspect and continually learn" on a daily basis?
- cootsnuck 2y ago
  > Be honest, how many people do you think "introspect and continually learn" on a daily basis? That's wild if you think that isn't quite literally one of the defining features of human consciousness (and many would say other animals as well). If you think people thinking differently than you means they don't still indeed...think...then I don't know what tell you.
  - welferkj 2y ago
    Unfortunately for the intelligence denial crowd, introspection and learning capability is something we can measure, as opposed to the vibes-based discourse you prefer to engage in. If that's what you've picked for your threshold of "intelligence", you've reduced the majority of the bell curve's left side to soulless automatons. Again, your definition, not mine.
    - dartos 2y ago
      My definition (again, as a layman on the subject of intelligence philosophy), but your incorrect analysis. I guess I just think more highly of my fellow humans.
      - exe34 2y ago
        > I guess I just think more highly of my fellow humans. As an article of faith, yes. But I don't see what this adds to the discussion.
        dartos 2y ago
        > If that's what you've picked for your threshold of "intelligence", you've reduced the majority of the bell curve's left side to soulless automatons I disagree with this statement, which is the crux of their argument against my definition of intelligence. I don’t think any credible survey of the intelligence or lack of a large enough population exists (due to there not being a common binary measure of intelligence), so it’s an issue you kind of need to take on faith.

joloooo 2y ago

I think there is a difference from people upset around over hyped LLMs and arguing about intelligence in "A.I.". Most of the "intelligence" arguments I've seen are fighting against putting too much stock in chatgpt and Sam's fever dreams.