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> The field of AI likes to borrow pop psychology/philosophy language and use it for its own narrow jargon. They also like to invent metaphors for how the brain
by astrange 2y ago
> The field of AI likes to borrow pop psychology/philosophy language and use it for its own narrow jargon.
They also like to invent metaphors for how the brain works, and then forget that it's a metaphor and decide that humans either literally have one, that they should program one into AIs, or that AIs must have invented one on their own.
This is why you keep seeing them talk about "world models", which probably don't actually exist and which people don't actually need in order to live their life.
- fragmede 2y agoI agree that some of the talk about neurons in LLMs can be a bit much, but don't you have a model in your head of how the world is composed of forces, and you can generally predict how things react? If you throw a ball up in the air, will it come down or just go up forever? Or are we using different definitions for "world model"?
- astrange 2y agoI think the words "a" and "model" in "a world model" are both bad. People do that sometimes (for instance I was at the Ren Faire recently and aimed the bow when I tried archery), but people are limited by time and calories so must be energy-efficient, which means they can't afford to spend effort making a model that isn't necessary. And what's necessary is very specific to the task or context you're in. For instance, you don't need to know what's in the garbage to throw it out. But you do need to know what's in the recycling to put it in the right bin.