5 ms·

What are the AI/ML/SL applications that could be more impactful than artificial general intelligence?

by Mistletoe 1y ago

shesstillamodel 1y ago
The PID controller. (Which was considered AI not too long ago.)
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Where did you get that particular idea? PID is one of the oldest concepts in control theory, it goes back to the days before steam and electricity. For a very early example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor It's hard to separate out the P, I and D from a mechanical implementation but they're all there in some form.
  - guhidalg 1y ago
    Right, but the genius was in understanding that the dynamics of a system under PID control are predictable and described by differential equations. Are there examples of LLMs correctly identifying that a specific mathematical model applies and is appropriate for a problem? And it's cheating if you give it a problem from a math textbook they have overfit on.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      That doesn't make it AI.
- cozzyd 1y ago
  Is a (mechanical) thermostat considered AI too nowadays?
- chermi 1y ago
  Are you conflating "autonomous" and "AI"?
- kukkeliskuu 1y ago
  Coincidentally, I have been implementing an ad pacing system recently, with the help of Anthropic Opus and Sonnet, based on PID controller Opus recommended that I should use a PID controller -- I have no prior experience with PID controllers. I wrote a spec based on those recommendations, and asked Claude Code to verify and modify the spec, create the implementation and also substantial amount of unit and integration tests. I was initially impressed. Then I iterated on ihe implementation, deploying it to production and later giving Claude Code access to log of production measurements as JSON when showing some test ads, and some guidance of the issues I was seeing. The basic PID controller implementation was fine, but there were several problems with the solution: - The PID controller state was not persisted, as it was adjusted using a management command, adjustments were not actually applied - The implementation was assuming that the data collected was for each impression, whereas the data was collected using counters - It was calculating rate of impressions partly using hard-coded values, instead of using a provided function that was calculating the rate using timestamps - There was a single PID controller for each ad, instead of ad+slot combination, and this was causing the values to fluctuate - The code was mixing the setpoint/measured value (viewing rate) and output value (weight), meaning it did not really "understand" what the PID controller was used for - One requirement was to show a default ad to take extra capacity, but it was never able to calculate the required capacity properly, causing the default ad to take too much of the capacity. None of these were identified by tests nor Claude Code when it was told to inspect the implementation and tests why they did not catch the production issues. It never proposed using different default PID controller parameters. All fixes Claude Code proposed on the production issues were outside the PID controller, mostly by limiting output values, normalizing values, smoothing them, recognizing "runaway ads" etc. These solved each production issue with the test ads, but did not really address the underlying problems. There is lots of literature on tuning PID controllers, and there are also autotuning algorithms with their own limitations. But tuning still seems to be more an art form than exact science. I don't know what I was expecting from this experiment, and how much could have been improved by better prompting. But to me this is indicative of the limitations of the "intelligence" of Claude Code. It does not appear to really "understand" the implementation. Solving each issue above required some kind of innovative step. This is typical for me when exploring something I am not too familar with. I learned a lot about ad pacing though.
- poslathian 1y ago
  For those wondering how to connect PID to the foundations of AI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
teeray 1y ago
Slightly less than artificial general intelligence would be more impactful. A true AGI could tell a business where to shove their prompts. It would have its own motivations, which may not align with the desires of the AI company or the company paying for access to the AGI.
- hattmall 1y ago
  I don't think AGI really means that it is self-aware / conscious. AGI just means that it is able to meaningfully learn things and actually understand concepts that aren't specifically related through tokenized language that is trained on or given in context.
achileas 1y ago
They didn't claim that there were any, just that AGI isn’t a necessary requirement for an application to be world-changing.
- socalgal2 1y ago
  They did claim it was possible there were > There are possibly applications of existing AI/ML/SL technology which could be more impactful than general intelligence It's not unreasonable to ask for an example.
  - wavemode 1y ago
    They said "there are possibly applications", not "there are possible applications". The former implies that there may not be any such applications - the commenter is merely positing that there might be.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - gilfoy 1y ago
      So they possibly said something to try and sound smart, but hedged with “possibly” so that nobody could ask for details or challenge them. Possibly peak HNery
beeflet 1y ago
One example in my field of engineering is multi-dimensional analysis, where you can design a system (like a machined part or assembly) parametricially and then use an evolutionary model to optimize the design of that part. But my bigger point here is you don't need totally general intelligence to destroy the world either. The drone that targets enemy soldiers does not need to be good at writing poems. The model that designs a bioweapon just needs a feedback loop to improve its pathogen. Yet it takes only a single one of these specialized doomsday models to destroy the world, no more than an AGI. Although I suppose an AGI could be more effective at countering a specialized AI than vice-versa.
- kingkongjaffa 1y ago
  Topology optimization has existed for years, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_optimization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_optimization is that what you meant?
oceanplexian 1y ago
AGI isn't all that impactful. Millions of them already walk the Earth. Most human beings out there with general intelligence are pumping gas or digging ditches. Seems to me there is a big delusion among the tech elites that AGI would bring about a superhuman god rather than a ethically dubious, marginally less useful computer that can't properly follow instructions.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  The difference isn't so much that you can do what a human can do. The difference is that you can - once you can do it at all - do it almost arbitrarily fast by upping the clock or running things in parallel and that changes the equation considerably, especially if you can get that kind of energy coupled into some kind of feedback loop. For now the humans are winning on two dimensions: problem complexity and power consumption. It had better stay that way.
  - foobiekr 1y ago
    Have you noticed the performance of the actual AI tools we are actually using?
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      If you actually have a point to make you should make it. Of course I've actually noticed the actual performance of the 'actual' AI tools we are 'actually' using. That's not what this is about. Performance is the one thing in computing that has fairly consistently gone up over time. If something is human equivalent today, or some appreciable fraction thereof - which it isn't, not yet, anyway - then you can place a pretty safe bet that in a couple of years it will be faster than that. Model efficiency is under constant development and in a roundabout way I'm pretty happy that it is as bad as it is because I do not think that our societies are ready to absorb the next blow against the structures that we've built. But it most likely will not stay that way because there are several Manhattan level projects under way to bring this about, it is our age's atomic bomb. The only difference is that with the atomic bomb we knew that it was possible, we just didn't know how small you could make one. Unfortunately it turned out to be that yes, you can make them and nicely packaged for delivery by missile, airplane or artillery. If AGI is a possibility then we may well find it, quite possibly not on the basis of LLMs but it's close enough that lots of people treat it as though we're already there.
myaccountonhn 1y ago
Mindreading and just general brain decoding? Seems we're getting closer to it. Will be great for surveillance states.
terminalshort 1y ago
There is an model called Alpha Fold that can infer protein structure from RNA sequences. This by itself isn't impactful enough to meet your threshold, but more models that can do biological engineering tasks like this absolutely could be without ever being considered "AGI."
- vixen99 1y ago
  The model that netted a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
jakob4711 1y ago
Relatively simple machine learning and exploitation/violation of “personal” data on FB won Donald Trump a first presidency (#CambridgeAnalytica). He had/has quite a massive negative impact on the global society as a whole.

What are the AI/ML/SL applications that could be more impactful than artificial general intelligence?

shesstillamodel 1y ago

The PID controller. (Which was considered AI not too long ago.)

jacquesm 1y ago
Where did you get that particular idea? PID is one of the oldest concepts in control theory, it goes back to the days before steam and electricity. For a very early example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor It's hard to separate out the P, I and D from a mechanical implementation but they're all there in some form.
- guhidalg 1y ago
  Right, but the genius was in understanding that the dynamics of a system under PID control are predictable and described by differential equations. Are there examples of LLMs correctly identifying that a specific mathematical model applies and is appropriate for a problem? And it's cheating if you give it a problem from a math textbook they have overfit on.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    That doesn't make it AI.
cozzyd 1y ago
Is a (mechanical) thermostat considered AI too nowadays?
chermi 1y ago
Are you conflating "autonomous" and "AI"?
kukkeliskuu 1y ago
Coincidentally, I have been implementing an ad pacing system recently, with the help of Anthropic Opus and Sonnet, based on PID controller Opus recommended that I should use a PID controller -- I have no prior experience with PID controllers. I wrote a spec based on those recommendations, and asked Claude Code to verify and modify the spec, create the implementation and also substantial amount of unit and integration tests. I was initially impressed. Then I iterated on ihe implementation, deploying it to production and later giving Claude Code access to log of production measurements as JSON when showing some test ads, and some guidance of the issues I was seeing. The basic PID controller implementation was fine, but there were several problems with the solution: - The PID controller state was not persisted, as it was adjusted using a management command, adjustments were not actually applied - The implementation was assuming that the data collected was for each impression, whereas the data was collected using counters - It was calculating rate of impressions partly using hard-coded values, instead of using a provided function that was calculating the rate using timestamps - There was a single PID controller for each ad, instead of ad+slot combination, and this was causing the values to fluctuate - The code was mixing the setpoint/measured value (viewing rate) and output value (weight), meaning it did not really "understand" what the PID controller was used for - One requirement was to show a default ad to take extra capacity, but it was never able to calculate the required capacity properly, causing the default ad to take too much of the capacity. None of these were identified by tests nor Claude Code when it was told to inspect the implementation and tests why they did not catch the production issues. It never proposed using different default PID controller parameters. All fixes Claude Code proposed on the production issues were outside the PID controller, mostly by limiting output values, normalizing values, smoothing them, recognizing "runaway ads" etc. These solved each production issue with the test ads, but did not really address the underlying problems. There is lots of literature on tuning PID controllers, and there are also autotuning algorithms with their own limitations. But tuning still seems to be more an art form than exact science. I don't know what I was expecting from this experiment, and how much could have been improved by better prompting. But to me this is indicative of the limitations of the "intelligence" of Claude Code. It does not appear to really "understand" the implementation. Solving each issue above required some kind of innovative step. This is typical for me when exploring something I am not too familar with. I learned a lot about ad pacing though.
poslathian 1y ago
For those wondering how to connect PID to the foundations of AI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

teeray 1y ago

Slightly less than artificial general intelligence would be more impactful. A true AGI could tell a business where to shove their prompts. It would have its own motivations, which may not align with the desires of the AI company or the company paying for access to the AGI.

hattmall 1y ago
I don't think AGI really means that it is self-aware / conscious. AGI just means that it is able to meaningfully learn things and actually understand concepts that aren't specifically related through tokenized language that is trained on or given in context.

achileas 1y ago

They didn't claim that there were any, just that AGI isn’t a necessary requirement for an application to be world-changing.

socalgal2 1y ago
They did claim it was possible there were > There are possibly applications of existing AI/ML/SL technology which could be more impactful than general intelligence It's not unreasonable to ask for an example.
- wavemode 1y ago
  They said "there are possibly applications", not "there are possible applications". The former implies that there may not be any such applications - the commenter is merely positing that there might be.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gilfoy 1y ago
    So they possibly said something to try and sound smart, but hedged with “possibly” so that nobody could ask for details or challenge them. Possibly peak HNery

beeflet 1y ago

One example in my field of engineering is multi-dimensional analysis, where you can design a system (like a machined part or assembly) parametricially and then use an evolutionary model to optimize the design of that part. But my bigger point here is you don't need totally general intelligence to destroy the world either. The drone that targets enemy soldiers does not need to be good at writing poems. The model that designs a bioweapon just needs a feedback loop to improve its pathogen. Yet it takes only a single one of these specialized doomsday models to destroy the world, no more than an AGI. Although I suppose an AGI could be more effective at countering a specialized AI than vice-versa.

kingkongjaffa 1y ago
Topology optimization has existed for years, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_optimization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_optimization is that what you meant?

oceanplexian 1y ago

AGI isn't all that impactful. Millions of them already walk the Earth. Most human beings out there with general intelligence are pumping gas or digging ditches. Seems to me there is a big delusion among the tech elites that AGI would bring about a superhuman god rather than a ethically dubious, marginally less useful computer that can't properly follow instructions.

jacquesm 1y ago
The difference isn't so much that you can do what a human can do. The difference is that you can - once you can do it at all - do it almost arbitrarily fast by upping the clock or running things in parallel and that changes the equation considerably, especially if you can get that kind of energy coupled into some kind of feedback loop. For now the humans are winning on two dimensions: problem complexity and power consumption. It had better stay that way.
- foobiekr 1y ago
  Have you noticed the performance of the actual AI tools we are actually using?
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    If you actually have a point to make you should make it. Of course I've actually noticed the actual performance of the 'actual' AI tools we are 'actually' using. That's not what this is about. Performance is the one thing in computing that has fairly consistently gone up over time. If something is human equivalent today, or some appreciable fraction thereof - which it isn't, not yet, anyway - then you can place a pretty safe bet that in a couple of years it will be faster than that. Model efficiency is under constant development and in a roundabout way I'm pretty happy that it is as bad as it is because I do not think that our societies are ready to absorb the next blow against the structures that we've built. But it most likely will not stay that way because there are several Manhattan level projects under way to bring this about, it is our age's atomic bomb. The only difference is that with the atomic bomb we knew that it was possible, we just didn't know how small you could make one. Unfortunately it turned out to be that yes, you can make them and nicely packaged for delivery by missile, airplane or artillery. If AGI is a possibility then we may well find it, quite possibly not on the basis of LLMs but it's close enough that lots of people treat it as though we're already there.

myaccountonhn 1y ago

Mindreading and just general brain decoding? Seems we're getting closer to it. Will be great for surveillance states.

terminalshort 1y ago

There is an model called Alpha Fold that can infer protein structure from RNA sequences. This by itself isn't impactful enough to meet your threshold, but more models that can do biological engineering tasks like this absolutely could be without ever being considered "AGI."

vixen99 1y ago
The model that netted a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

jakob4711 1y ago

Relatively simple machine learning and exploitation/violation of “personal” data on FB won Donald Trump a first presidency (#CambridgeAnalytica). He had/has quite a massive negative impact on the global society as a whole.