4 ms·

excellent analogy. piggybacking on this: a lot of believers (as they are like religious fanatics) claim that more data and hardware will eventually make LLMs in

by bgnn 2y ago

excellent analogy. piggybacking on this: a lot of believers (as they are like religious fanatics) claim that more data and hardware will eventually make LLMs intelligent, as if it's even the neuron count matters. There is no other animal close to humans in intelligence, and we don't know why. Somehow though a random hallucinating LLMs + shit loads of electricity would figure it out. This is close to pure alchemy.

runarberg 2y ago
I don’t disagree with your main point but I want to push back on the notion that “there is no other animal close to humans in intelligence”. This is only true in the sense that we humans define intelligence in human terms. Intelligence is a very fraught and problematic concept both in philosophy, but especially in the sciences (particularly psychology). If we were dogs surely we would say that humans were quite skillful, impressively so even, in pattern matching, abstract thought, language, etc. but are hopelessly dumb at predicting past presence via smell, a crow would similarly judge us on our inability to orient our selves, and probably wouldn’t understand our language and thus completely miss our language abilities. We do the same when we judge the intelligence of non-human animals or systems. So the reason for why no other animal is close to us in intelligence is very simple actually, it is because of the way we define intelligence.
- bgnn 2y ago
  Interesting point. Though I would say that you didn't disprove my point. Humans have a level of generalized intelligence that's not matched. We might be terrible at certain sensory tasks (smell), maybe all, compared to another animal. But the capability of thought, at the level of humans, is unmatched. Just to clarify one point: I don't think intelligence is exclusive to humans. I only think that there's a big discrepency that cannot be explained with neuron counts oor the volume of the brain etc. which makes the argument of more hardware and more data will create AGI.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Like I said the term is very fraught both in philosophy and the sciences. Many volumes have been written about this in philosophy (IMO the only correct outlet for the discussion) and there is no consensus on what to do with it. My main problem with the notion of generalized intelligence (in philosophy; I have tons of problems with it in psychology) is it turns out to be rather arbitrary what counts towards general intelligence. Abstract thought and project planning seems to an essential component, but we have no idea how abstract thought and project planning goes on in non-human systems. In nature we have to look at the results and infer what the goals were with the behavior. No doubt we are missing a ton of intelligent behavior among several animals—maybe even pants and fungi—just because we don’t fully understand the goals of the organism. That said though, I think our understanding of the natural world is pretty unparalleled by other species, and using this knowledge we have produced some very impressive intelligent behavior which no other species is capable of. But I have a hard time believing that humans are uniquely capable of this understanding nor of applying this understanding. For examples, elephants have shown they are capable of inter-generational knowledge and culture. I don’t know if elephants had access to the same instruments as we, that they would be able to pass this knowledge down generations on build up on them.
    - bgnn 2y ago
      I agree with you fully. Thank you for the interesting discussion.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    In a fictional scenario each dog might have enough brain power to simulate the entire universe including eight billion human brains and humans would still consider themselves more intelligent.

by bgnn 2y ago

runarberg 2y ago

I don’t disagree with your main point but I want to push back on the notion that “there is no other animal close to humans in intelligence”. This is only true in the sense that we humans define intelligence in human terms. Intelligence is a very fraught and problematic concept both in philosophy, but especially in the sciences (particularly psychology). If we were dogs surely we would say that humans were quite skillful, impressively so even, in pattern matching, abstract thought, language, etc. but are hopelessly dumb at predicting past presence via smell, a crow would similarly judge us on our inability to orient our selves, and probably wouldn’t understand our language and thus completely miss our language abilities. We do the same when we judge the intelligence of non-human animals or systems. So the reason for why no other animal is close to us in intelligence is very simple actually, it is because of the way we define intelligence.

bgnn 2y ago
Interesting point. Though I would say that you didn't disprove my point. Humans have a level of generalized intelligence that's not matched. We might be terrible at certain sensory tasks (smell), maybe all, compared to another animal. But the capability of thought, at the level of humans, is unmatched. Just to clarify one point: I don't think intelligence is exclusive to humans. I only think that there's a big discrepency that cannot be explained with neuron counts oor the volume of the brain etc. which makes the argument of more hardware and more data will create AGI.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Like I said the term is very fraught both in philosophy and the sciences. Many volumes have been written about this in philosophy (IMO the only correct outlet for the discussion) and there is no consensus on what to do with it. My main problem with the notion of generalized intelligence (in philosophy; I have tons of problems with it in psychology) is it turns out to be rather arbitrary what counts towards general intelligence. Abstract thought and project planning seems to an essential component, but we have no idea how abstract thought and project planning goes on in non-human systems. In nature we have to look at the results and infer what the goals were with the behavior. No doubt we are missing a ton of intelligent behavior among several animals—maybe even pants and fungi—just because we don’t fully understand the goals of the organism. That said though, I think our understanding of the natural world is pretty unparalleled by other species, and using this knowledge we have produced some very impressive intelligent behavior which no other species is capable of. But I have a hard time believing that humans are uniquely capable of this understanding nor of applying this understanding. For examples, elephants have shown they are capable of inter-generational knowledge and culture. I don’t know if elephants had access to the same instruments as we, that they would be able to pass this knowledge down generations on build up on them.
  - bgnn 2y ago
    I agree with you fully. Thank you for the interesting discussion.
- imtringued 2y ago
  In a fictional scenario each dog might have enough brain power to simulate the entire universe including eight billion human brains and humans would still consider themselves more intelligent.