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> If you can't agree on our brains being chemical in nature, you're engaged in magical thinking and we have no more to discuss. I agree that our brains have a

> If you can't agree on our brains being chemical in nature, you're engaged in magical thinking and we have no more to discuss. I agree that our brains have a lot of chemistry. I can't deny that. Science shows we can mess up brains by messing up their chemistry. So far, though, we still don't understand how it works. We can't use chemistry to improve it, just to break it or fix it. That alone should be a huge red flag for the reductionist point of view. It's our best hypothesis, but is not good enough to travel disciplines to IT. We don't know enough to compare the two, hence the skepticism. > What does it mean to "reason on human content"? Pass the turing test should be enough. I'm just changing the requirements (no tiny humans inside, complete or otherwise). > no human alive can read Linear A If we had a living human fluent in Linear A, I believe we could decipher it. Machines have us, living humans speaking a living language, to learn. > If you can't come up with a test, there's nothing to distinguish you personally from the AI that you're dismissing. I can. Open the machine and prove me that there are no tiny humans or human pieces inside.

ben_w 2y ago
> We can't use chemistry to improve it, just to break it or fix it. That alone should be a huge red flag for the reductionist point of view. Caffeine and theobromine are both commonplace cognitive enhancers, AKA nootropics. There's plenty that aren't available over the counter, too, like amphetamines. > Pass the turing test should be enough. LLMs already do that, and it's a problem because it's a fraud opportunity. > If we had a living human fluent in Linear A, I believe we could decipher it. Machines have us, living humans speaking a living language, to learn. How is this supposed to be different from what LLMs already do? > I can. Open the machine and prove me that there are no tiny humans or human pieces inside. That reads like an LLM — and not even a good one, I mean like the GPT-2 based AIDungeon — wrote it, given there's obviously no tiny human inside a computer. What did you actually mean? Be specific, be testable.
- alganet 2y ago
  > Caffeine and theobromine We still don't fully understand how they work. Of course, we didn't make them, nature did. > amphetamines Those break more than enhance. > LLMs already do that As I said, disqualified for being a cauldron of souls. > How is this supposed to be different from what LLMs already do? My requirements enforce a no human content during training. It's exactly that requirement that makes the test easy. If you allow human content to be part of it, then tests become ellusive. > What did you actually mean? Be specific, be testable. I'm saying that LLMs are the spiritual successor to the mechanical turk. The entire concept falls apart if you take the human part of it out. There are living humans that had their works put inside and are publicly saying "I don't want to be inside this machine". What more do you want? Yes, they are impressive. I already said that. It's just not intelligence, it's an almost mythological trick we should have been more guarded against.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > As I said, disqualified for being a cauldron of souls. Would you like help moving those goal-posts for your supposedly easy to understand test? This claim: > My requirements enforce a no human content during training. It's exactly that requirement that makes the test easy. If you allow human content to be part of it, then tests become ellusive. Is directly incompatible with this one: > If we had a living human fluent in Linear A, I believe we could decipher it. Machines have us, living humans speaking a living language, to learn If there's no human content allowed, then we here today can't use a living human fluent in Linear A to decipher it. Nor, for that matter, even so much as the mere historical record of Linear A without any human. You are demanding AI pass a standard that literally no human would ever be capable of, because if I simply switch the nouns you get: "A pass is a human with no Linear A training data input that is able to reason on Linear A content". > There are living humans that had their works put inside and are publicly saying "I don't want to be inside this machine". What more do you want? I want you to be specific and to be testable. You still have a test which is… have you ever had a client who wanted you to build "Uber for aircraft" or something else equally vague? They didn't even realise they didn't have a plan. That's what I see from you. Your position is pre-paradigmatic. Consider for example: a human who grows up with no human works put inside their head is what is called a "feral child" — they do not magically understand anything of the rest of civilisation, this is because that understanding has to be taught by… observing humans as they talk to each other, mimicking them, trying to talk with them to get feedback, etc., which is what the LLMs are all doing. It looks like a double standard to me, that you demanding that an AI, who is raised by actual wolves does better than a human who is raised by actual wolves. What you have actually said so far, would refuse to recognise as intelligent an AI that is given control of an android body and had to read books by physically holding them and turning the pages with robot hands, which it operates in human timescales, and which gets there in the same timeframe as an actual human. It would also rule out an actual human, because we learn from the works of other humans.
    - alganet 2y ago
      > Would you like help moving those goal-posts for your supposedly easy to understand test? No. I'm estabilishing a previous important goal-post: no machine turks. It's the current industry that laxed the requirements, not me that got more strict. You don't seem to understand the difference between training data and context. Read about it, and re-read what I said with that concept in mind. All your answers are already there.

ben_w 2y ago

> We can't use chemistry to improve it, just to break it or fix it. That alone should be a huge red flag for the reductionist point of view. Caffeine and theobromine are both commonplace cognitive enhancers, AKA nootropics. There's plenty that aren't available over the counter, too, like amphetamines. > Pass the turing test should be enough. LLMs already do that, and it's a problem because it's a fraud opportunity. > If we had a living human fluent in Linear A, I believe we could decipher it. Machines have us, living humans speaking a living language, to learn. How is this supposed to be different from what LLMs already do? > I can. Open the machine and prove me that there are no tiny humans or human pieces inside. That reads like an LLM — and not even a good one, I mean like the GPT-2 based AIDungeon — wrote it, given there's obviously no tiny human inside a computer. What did you actually mean? Be specific, be testable.

alganet 2y ago
> Caffeine and theobromine We still don't fully understand how they work. Of course, we didn't make them, nature did. > amphetamines Those break more than enhance. > LLMs already do that As I said, disqualified for being a cauldron of souls. > How is this supposed to be different from what LLMs already do? My requirements enforce a no human content during training. It's exactly that requirement that makes the test easy. If you allow human content to be part of it, then tests become ellusive. > What did you actually mean? Be specific, be testable. I'm saying that LLMs are the spiritual successor to the mechanical turk. The entire concept falls apart if you take the human part of it out. There are living humans that had their works put inside and are publicly saying "I don't want to be inside this machine". What more do you want? Yes, they are impressive. I already said that. It's just not intelligence, it's an almost mythological trick we should have been more guarded against.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > As I said, disqualified for being a cauldron of souls. Would you like help moving those goal-posts for your supposedly easy to understand test? This claim: > My requirements enforce a no human content during training. It's exactly that requirement that makes the test easy. If you allow human content to be part of it, then tests become ellusive. Is directly incompatible with this one: > If we had a living human fluent in Linear A, I believe we could decipher it. Machines have us, living humans speaking a living language, to learn If there's no human content allowed, then we here today can't use a living human fluent in Linear A to decipher it. Nor, for that matter, even so much as the mere historical record of Linear A without any human. You are demanding AI pass a standard that literally no human would ever be capable of, because if I simply switch the nouns you get: "A pass is a human with no Linear A training data input that is able to reason on Linear A content". > There are living humans that had their works put inside and are publicly saying "I don't want to be inside this machine". What more do you want? I want you to be specific and to be testable. You still have a test which is… have you ever had a client who wanted you to build "Uber for aircraft" or something else equally vague? They didn't even realise they didn't have a plan. That's what I see from you. Your position is pre-paradigmatic. Consider for example: a human who grows up with no human works put inside their head is what is called a "feral child" — they do not magically understand anything of the rest of civilisation, this is because that understanding has to be taught by… observing humans as they talk to each other, mimicking them, trying to talk with them to get feedback, etc., which is what the LLMs are all doing. It looks like a double standard to me, that you demanding that an AI, who is raised by actual wolves does better than a human who is raised by actual wolves. What you have actually said so far, would refuse to recognise as intelligent an AI that is given control of an android body and had to read books by physically holding them and turning the pages with robot hands, which it operates in human timescales, and which gets there in the same timeframe as an actual human. It would also rule out an actual human, because we learn from the works of other humans.
  - alganet 2y ago
    > Would you like help moving those goal-posts for your supposedly easy to understand test? No. I'm estabilishing a previous important goal-post: no machine turks. It's the current industry that laxed the requirements, not me that got more strict. You don't seem to understand the difference between training data and context. Read about it, and re-read what I said with that concept in mind. All your answers are already there.