7 ms·

People will keep improving LLMs, and by the time they are AGI (less than 30 years), you will say, "Well, these are no longer LLMs."

croes 1y ago
They‘ll get cheaper and less hardware demanding but the quality improvements get smaller and smaller, sometimes hardly noticeable outside benchmarks
Spartan-S63 1y ago
What was the point of this comment? It's confrontational and doesn't add anything to the conversation. If you disagree, you could have just said that, or not commented at all.
- logicchains 1y ago
  The people who go around saying "LLMs aren't intelligent" while refusing to define exactly what they mean by intelligence (and hence not making a meaningful/testable claim) add nothing to the conversation.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    OK, but the people who go around saying "LLMs are intelligent" are in the same boat...
  - cmsj 1y ago
    I'll happily say that LLMs aren't intelligent, and I'll give you a testable version of it. An LLM cannot be placed in a simulated universe, with an internally consistent physics system of which it knows nothing, and go from its initial state to a world-spanning civilization that understands and exploits a significant amount of the physics available to it. I know that is true because if you place an LLM in such a universe, it's just a gigantic matrix of numbers that doesn't do anything. It's no more or less intelligent than the number 3 I just wrote on a piece of paper. You can go further than that and provide the LLM with the ability to request sensory input from its universe and it's still not intelligent because it won't do that, it will just be a gigantic matrix of numbers that doesn't do anything. To make it do anything in that universe you would have to provide it with intrinsic motivations and a continuous run loop, but that's not really enough because it's still a static system. To really bootstrap it into intelligence you'd need to have it start with a very basic set of motivations that it's allowed to modify, and show that it can take that starting condition and grow beyond them. You will almost immediately run into the problem that LLMs can't learn beyond their context window, because they're not intelligent. Every time they run a "thought" they have to be reminded of every piece of information they previously read/wrote since their training data was fixed in a matrix. I don't mean to downplay the incredible human achievement of reaching a point in computing where we can take the sum total of human knowledge and process it into a set of probabilities that can regurgitate the most likely response to a given input, but it's not intelligence. Us going from flint tools to semiconductors, vaccines and spaceships, is intelligence. The current architectures of LLMs are fundamentally incapable of that sort of thing. They're a useful substitute for intelligence in a growing number of situations, but they don't fundamentally solve problems, they just produce whatever their matrix determines is the most probable response to a given input.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  There's been a complaint for several decades that "AI can never succeed" - because when, say, expert systems are developed from AI research, and they become capable of doing useful things, then the nay-sayer say "That's not AI, that's just expert systems". This is somewhat defensible, because what the non-AI-researcher means by AI - which may be AGI - is something more than expert systems by themselves can deliver. It is possible that "real AI" will be the combination of multiple approaches, but so far all the reductionist approaches (that expert systems, say, are all that it takes to be an AI) have proven to be inadequate compared to what the expectations are. The GP may have been riffing off of this "that's not AI" issue that goes way back.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
What the hell is general intelligence anyway? People seem to think it means human-like intelligence, but I can't imagine we have any good reason to believe that our kinds of intelligence constitute all possible kinds of intelligence--which, from the words, must be what "general" intelligence means. It seems like even if it's possible to achieve GI, artificial or otherwise, you'd never be able to know for sure that thats what you've done. It's not exactly "useful benchmark" material.
- logicchains 1y ago
  >you'd never be able to know for sure that thats what you've done. Words mean what they're defined to mean. Talking about "general intelligence" without a clear definition is just woo, muddy thinking that achieves nothing. A fundamental tenet of the scientific method is that only testable claims are meaningful claims.
- thomasahle 1y ago
  > What the hell is general intelligence anyway? OpenAI used to define it as "a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work." Now they used a Level 1-5 scale: https://briansolis.com/2024/08/ainsights-openai-defines-five-stages-to-track-progress-toward-human-level-intelligence/ https://briansolis.com/2024/08/ainsights-openai-defines-five... So we can say AGI is "AI that can do the work of Organizations": > These “Organizations” can manage and execute all functions of a business, surpassing traditional human-based operations in terms of efficiency and productivity. This stage represents the pinnacle of AI development, where AI can autonomously run complex organizational structures.
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    That's a silly definition, even if somebody with a lot of money wrote it. Organizations can do more than individuals for the same reason that an M4 can do more than a Pentium 4--it's a difference in degree. Generality is about differences in kind. Like how my drill press can do things that an M4 can't. How could you ever know that your kinds of intelligence are all of them?
  - deleted 1y ago
dcchambers 1y ago
Will LLMs approach something that appears to be AGI? Maybe. Probably. They're already "better" than humans in many use cases. LLMs/GPTs are essentially "just" statistical models. At this point the argument becomes more about philosophy than science. What is "intelligence?" If an LLM can do something truly novel with no human prompting, with no directive other than something it has created for itself - then I guess we can call that intelligence.
- kadushka 1y ago
  How many people do you know who are capable of doing something truly novel? Definitely not me, I'm just an average phd doing average research.
  - dcchambers 1y ago
    Literally every single person I know that is capable of holding a pen or typing on a keyboard can create something new.
    - kadushka 1y ago
      Something new != truly novel. ChatGPT creates something new every time I ask it a question.
      - dcchambers 1y ago
        adjective: novel definition: new or unusual in an interesting way. ChatGPT can create new things, sure, but it does so at your directive. It doesn't do that because it wants to which gets back to the other part of my answer. When an LLM can create something without human prompting or directive, then we can call that intelligence.
        kadushka 1y ago
        What does intelligence have to do with having desires or goals? An amoeba can do stuff on its own but it's not intelligent. I can imagine a god-like intelligence that is a billion times smarter and more capable than any human in every way, and it could just sit idle forever without any motivation to do anything.
AllSuperIndians 1y ago
[dead]
numpad0 1y ago
Looking back at CUDA, deep learning, and now LLM hypes, I would bet it'll be cycles of giant groundbreaking leaps followed by giant complete stagnations, rather than LLM improving 3% per year for coming 30 years.

croes 1y ago

They‘ll get cheaper and less hardware demanding but the quality improvements get smaller and smaller, sometimes hardly noticeable outside benchmarks

Spartan-S63 1y ago

What was the point of this comment? It's confrontational and doesn't add anything to the conversation. If you disagree, you could have just said that, or not commented at all.

logicchains 1y ago
The people who go around saying "LLMs aren't intelligent" while refusing to define exactly what they mean by intelligence (and hence not making a meaningful/testable claim) add nothing to the conversation.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  OK, but the people who go around saying "LLMs are intelligent" are in the same boat...
- cmsj 1y ago
  I'll happily say that LLMs aren't intelligent, and I'll give you a testable version of it. An LLM cannot be placed in a simulated universe, with an internally consistent physics system of which it knows nothing, and go from its initial state to a world-spanning civilization that understands and exploits a significant amount of the physics available to it. I know that is true because if you place an LLM in such a universe, it's just a gigantic matrix of numbers that doesn't do anything. It's no more or less intelligent than the number 3 I just wrote on a piece of paper. You can go further than that and provide the LLM with the ability to request sensory input from its universe and it's still not intelligent because it won't do that, it will just be a gigantic matrix of numbers that doesn't do anything. To make it do anything in that universe you would have to provide it with intrinsic motivations and a continuous run loop, but that's not really enough because it's still a static system. To really bootstrap it into intelligence you'd need to have it start with a very basic set of motivations that it's allowed to modify, and show that it can take that starting condition and grow beyond them. You will almost immediately run into the problem that LLMs can't learn beyond their context window, because they're not intelligent. Every time they run a "thought" they have to be reminded of every piece of information they previously read/wrote since their training data was fixed in a matrix. I don't mean to downplay the incredible human achievement of reaching a point in computing where we can take the sum total of human knowledge and process it into a set of probabilities that can regurgitate the most likely response to a given input, but it's not intelligence. Us going from flint tools to semiconductors, vaccines and spaceships, is intelligence. The current architectures of LLMs are fundamentally incapable of that sort of thing. They're a useful substitute for intelligence in a growing number of situations, but they don't fundamentally solve problems, they just produce whatever their matrix determines is the most probable response to a given input.
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
There's been a complaint for several decades that "AI can never succeed" - because when, say, expert systems are developed from AI research, and they become capable of doing useful things, then the nay-sayer say "That's not AI, that's just expert systems". This is somewhat defensible, because what the non-AI-researcher means by AI - which may be AGI - is something more than expert systems by themselves can deliver. It is possible that "real AI" will be the combination of multiple approaches, but so far all the reductionist approaches (that expert systems, say, are all that it takes to be an AI) have proven to be inadequate compared to what the expectations are. The GP may have been riffing off of this "that's not AI" issue that goes way back.

__MatrixMan__ 1y ago

What the hell is general intelligence anyway? People seem to think it means human-like intelligence, but I can't imagine we have any good reason to believe that our kinds of intelligence constitute all possible kinds of intelligence--which, from the words, must be what "general" intelligence means. It seems like even if it's possible to achieve GI, artificial or otherwise, you'd never be able to know for sure that thats what you've done. It's not exactly "useful benchmark" material.

logicchains 1y ago
>you'd never be able to know for sure that thats what you've done. Words mean what they're defined to mean. Talking about "general intelligence" without a clear definition is just woo, muddy thinking that achieves nothing. A fundamental tenet of the scientific method is that only testable claims are meaningful claims.
thomasahle 1y ago
> What the hell is general intelligence anyway? OpenAI used to define it as "a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work." Now they used a Level 1-5 scale: https://briansolis.com/2024/08/ainsights-openai-defines-five-stages-to-track-progress-toward-human-level-intelligence/ https://briansolis.com/2024/08/ainsights-openai-defines-five... So we can say AGI is "AI that can do the work of Organizations": > These “Organizations” can manage and execute all functions of a business, surpassing traditional human-based operations in terms of efficiency and productivity. This stage represents the pinnacle of AI development, where AI can autonomously run complex organizational structures.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  That's a silly definition, even if somebody with a lot of money wrote it. Organizations can do more than individuals for the same reason that an M4 can do more than a Pentium 4--it's a difference in degree. Generality is about differences in kind. Like how my drill press can do things that an M4 can't. How could you ever know that your kinds of intelligence are all of them?
- deleted 1y ago

dcchambers 1y ago

Will LLMs approach something that appears to be AGI? Maybe. Probably. They're already "better" than humans in many use cases. LLMs/GPTs are essentially "just" statistical models. At this point the argument becomes more about philosophy than science. What is "intelligence?" If an LLM can do something truly novel with no human prompting, with no directive other than something it has created for itself - then I guess we can call that intelligence.

kadushka 1y ago
How many people do you know who are capable of doing something truly novel? Definitely not me, I'm just an average phd doing average research.
- dcchambers 1y ago
  Literally every single person I know that is capable of holding a pen or typing on a keyboard can create something new.
  - kadushka 1y ago
    Something new != truly novel. ChatGPT creates something new every time I ask it a question.
    - dcchambers 1y ago
      adjective: novel definition: new or unusual in an interesting way. ChatGPT can create new things, sure, but it does so at your directive. It doesn't do that because it wants to which gets back to the other part of my answer. When an LLM can create something without human prompting or directive, then we can call that intelligence.
      - kadushka 1y ago
        What does intelligence have to do with having desires or goals? An amoeba can do stuff on its own but it's not intelligent. I can imagine a god-like intelligence that is a billion times smarter and more capable than any human in every way, and it could just sit idle forever without any motivation to do anything.

AllSuperIndians 1y ago

[dead]

numpad0 1y ago

Looking back at CUDA, deep learning, and now LLM hypes, I would bet it'll be cycles of giant groundbreaking leaps followed by giant complete stagnations, rather than LLM improving 3% per year for coming 30 years.