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"There exists a generally accepted baseline definition for what crosses the threshold of intelligent behavior" not really. The whole point they are trying to ma

"There exists a generally accepted baseline definition for what crosses the threshold of intelligent behavior" not really. The whole point they are trying to make is that the capability of these models IS ALREADY muddying the definition of intelligence. We can't really test it because the distribution its learned is so vast. Hence why he have things like ARC now. Even if its just gradient descent based distribution learning and there is no "internal system" (whatever you think that should look like) to support learning the distribution, the question is if that is more than what we are doing or if we are starting to replicate our own mechanisms of learning.

dingnuts 2y ago
How does an LLM muddy the definition of intelligence any more than a database or search engine does? They are lossy databases with a natural language interface, nothing more.
- tibbar 2y ago
  Ah, but what is in the database? At this point it's clearly not just facts, but problem-solving strategies and an execution engine. A database of problem-solving strategies which you can query with a natural language description of your problem and it returns an answer to your problem... well... sounds like intelligence to me.
  - uoaei 2y ago
    > problem-solving strategies and an execution engine Extremely unfounded claims. See: the root comment of this tree.
    - travisjungroth 2y ago
      …things that look like problem solving strategies in performance, then.
- madethisnow 2y ago
  datasets and search engines are deterministic. humans, and llms are not.
  - hatefulmoron 2y ago
    The LLM's output is chaotic relative to the input, but it's deterministic right? Same settings, same model, same input, .. same output? Where does the chain get broken here?
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      Now compare a human to an LSTM with persistent internal state that you can't reset.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      Depends on what you mean specifically by the output. The actual neural network will produce deterministic outputs that could be interpreted as probability values for various tokens. But the interface you'll commonly see used in front of these models will then non-deterministiclaly choose a single next token to output based on those probabilities. Then, this single randomly chosen output is fed back into the network to produce another token, and this process repeats. I would ultimately call the result non-deterministic. You could make it deterministic relatively easily by having a deterministic process for choosing a single token from all of the outputs of the NN (say, always pick the one with the highest weight, and if there are multiple with the same weight, pick the first one in token index order), but no one normally does this, because the results aren't that great per my understanding.
      - fc417fc802 2y ago
        You can have the best of both worlds with something like weighted_selection( output, hash( output ) ) using the hash as the PRNG seed. (If you're paranoid about statistical issues due to identical outputs (extremely unlikely) then add a nonce to the hash.)
jdhwosnhw 2y ago
Peoples’ memories are so short. Ten years ago the “well accepted definition of intelligence” was whether something could pass the Turing test. Now that goalpost has been completely blown out of the water and people are scrabbling to come up with a new one that precludes LLMs. A useful definition of intelligence needs to be measurable, based on inputs/outputs, not internal state. Otherwise you run the risk of dictating how you think intelligence should manifest, rather than what it actually is. The former is a prescription, only the latter is a true definition.
- travisjungroth 2y ago
  I’ve realized while reading these comments my opinions on LLMs being intelligent has significantly increased. Rather than argue any specific test, I believe no one can come up with a text-based intelligence test that 90% of literate adults can pass but the top LLMs fail. This would mean there’s no definition of intelligence you could tie to a test where humans would be intelligent but LLMs wouldn’t. A maybe more palatable idea is that having “intelligence” as a binary is insufficient. I think it’s more of an extremely skewed distribution. With how humans are above the rest, you didn’t have to nail the cutoff point to get us on one side and everything else on the other. Maybe chimpanzees and dolphins slip in. But now, the LLMs are much closer to humans. That line is harder to draw. Actually not possible to draw it so people are on one side and LLMs on the other.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    Why presuppose that it's possible to test intelligence via text? Most humans have been illiterate for most of human history. I don't mean to claim that it isn't possible, just that I'm not clear why we should assume that it is or that there would be an obvious way of going about it.
    - travisjungroth 2y ago
      Seems pretty reasonable to presuppose this when you filter to people who are literate. That’s darn near a definition of literate, that you can engage with the text intelligently.

dingnuts 2y ago

How does an LLM muddy the definition of intelligence any more than a database or search engine does? They are lossy databases with a natural language interface, nothing more.

tibbar 2y ago
Ah, but what is in the database? At this point it's clearly not just facts, but problem-solving strategies and an execution engine. A database of problem-solving strategies which you can query with a natural language description of your problem and it returns an answer to your problem... well... sounds like intelligence to me.
- uoaei 2y ago
  > problem-solving strategies and an execution engine Extremely unfounded claims. See: the root comment of this tree.
  - travisjungroth 2y ago
    …things that look like problem solving strategies in performance, then.
madethisnow 2y ago
datasets and search engines are deterministic. humans, and llms are not.
- hatefulmoron 2y ago
  The LLM's output is chaotic relative to the input, but it's deterministic right? Same settings, same model, same input, .. same output? Where does the chain get broken here?
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    Now compare a human to an LSTM with persistent internal state that you can't reset.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    Depends on what you mean specifically by the output. The actual neural network will produce deterministic outputs that could be interpreted as probability values for various tokens. But the interface you'll commonly see used in front of these models will then non-deterministiclaly choose a single next token to output based on those probabilities. Then, this single randomly chosen output is fed back into the network to produce another token, and this process repeats. I would ultimately call the result non-deterministic. You could make it deterministic relatively easily by having a deterministic process for choosing a single token from all of the outputs of the NN (say, always pick the one with the highest weight, and if there are multiple with the same weight, pick the first one in token index order), but no one normally does this, because the results aren't that great per my understanding.
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      You can have the best of both worlds with something like weighted_selection( output, hash( output ) ) using the hash as the PRNG seed. (If you're paranoid about statistical issues due to identical outputs (extremely unlikely) then add a nonce to the hash.)

jdhwosnhw 2y ago

Peoples’ memories are so short. Ten years ago the “well accepted definition of intelligence” was whether something could pass the Turing test. Now that goalpost has been completely blown out of the water and people are scrabbling to come up with a new one that precludes LLMs. A useful definition of intelligence needs to be measurable, based on inputs/outputs, not internal state. Otherwise you run the risk of dictating how you think intelligence should manifest, rather than what it actually is. The former is a prescription, only the latter is a true definition.

travisjungroth 2y ago
I’ve realized while reading these comments my opinions on LLMs being intelligent has significantly increased. Rather than argue any specific test, I believe no one can come up with a text-based intelligence test that 90% of literate adults can pass but the top LLMs fail. This would mean there’s no definition of intelligence you could tie to a test where humans would be intelligent but LLMs wouldn’t. A maybe more palatable idea is that having “intelligence” as a binary is insufficient. I think it’s more of an extremely skewed distribution. With how humans are above the rest, you didn’t have to nail the cutoff point to get us on one side and everything else on the other. Maybe chimpanzees and dolphins slip in. But now, the LLMs are much closer to humans. That line is harder to draw. Actually not possible to draw it so people are on one side and LLMs on the other.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  Why presuppose that it's possible to test intelligence via text? Most humans have been illiterate for most of human history. I don't mean to claim that it isn't possible, just that I'm not clear why we should assume that it is or that there would be an obvious way of going about it.
  - travisjungroth 2y ago
    Seems pretty reasonable to presuppose this when you filter to people who are literate. That’s darn near a definition of literate, that you can engage with the text intelligently.