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It's frustrating how many disagreements come down to framings rather than actual substance. His framing of intelligence is one thing. The people who disagree w

by tikkun 2y ago

It's frustrating how many disagreements come down to framings rather than actual substance. His framing of intelligence is one thing. The people who disagree with him are framing intelligence a different way. End of story. I wish that all the energy went towards substantive disagreements rather than disagreements that are mostly (not entirely) rooted in semantics and definitions.

jcranmer 2y ago
That's not what he's saying at all, though. What he's saying is that he thinks the current techniques for AI (e.g., LLMs) are near the limits of what you can achieve with such techniques and are thus a dead-end for future research; also consequently, hyperventilation about AI superintelligence and the like is extremely irresponsible. It's actually a substantial critique of AI today in its actual details, albeit one modulated by popular press reporting that's dumbing it down for popular consumption.
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
His point is that lots of AI folks are framing intelligence incorrectly by overvaluing surface knowledge or ability to be trained to solve constrained problems, when cats have deeper cognitive abilities like planning and rich spatial reasoning which are far beyond the reach of any AI in 2024. ANNs are extremely useful tools because they can process all sorts of information humans find useful: unlike animals or humans, ANNs don't have their own will, don't get bored or frustrated, and can focus on whatever you point them at. But in terms of core cognitive abilities - not surface knowledge, not impressive tricks, and certainly not LLM benchmarks - it is hard to say ANNs are smarter than a spider. (In fact they seem dumber than jumping spiders, which are able to form novel navigational plans in completely unfamiliar manmade environments. Even web-spinning spiders have no trouble spinning their webs in cluttered garages or pantries; would a transformer ANN be able to do that if it was trained on bushes and trees?)

by tikkun 2y ago

jcranmer 2y ago

That's not what he's saying at all, though. What he's saying is that he thinks the current techniques for AI (e.g., LLMs) are near the limits of what you can achieve with such techniques and are thus a dead-end for future research; also consequently, hyperventilation about AI superintelligence and the like is extremely irresponsible. It's actually a substantial critique of AI today in its actual details, albeit one modulated by popular press reporting that's dumbing it down for popular consumption.

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

His point is that lots of AI folks are framing intelligence incorrectly by overvaluing surface knowledge or ability to be trained to solve constrained problems, when cats have deeper cognitive abilities like planning and rich spatial reasoning which are far beyond the reach of any AI in 2024. ANNs are extremely useful tools because they can process all sorts of information humans find useful: unlike animals or humans, ANNs don't have their own will, don't get bored or frustrated, and can focus on whatever you point them at. But in terms of core cognitive abilities - not surface knowledge, not impressive tricks, and certainly not LLM benchmarks - it is hard to say ANNs are smarter than a spider. (In fact they seem dumber than jumping spiders, which are able to form novel navigational plans in completely unfamiliar manmade environments. Even web-spinning spiders have no trouble spinning their webs in cluttered garages or pantries; would a transformer ANN be able to do that if it was trained on bushes and trees?)