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> AI is real and really could become AGI Every single researcher not being paid $$$ by AI companies say there is 0 path between LLMs and AGI, but sure... and t

> AI is real and really could become AGI Every single researcher not being paid $$$ by AI companies say there is 0 path between LLMs and AGI, but sure... and the next pfizer drug might make us immortal, who knows, everything is possible after all

rich_sasha 1y ago
I think this is a disingenuous take. Will AI of today definitely become AGI of tomorrow? No, for sure not, and anyone who claims this is at best crazy. But is it imaginable? I think totally. Andrej Karpathy' blog post about RNN writing Shakespeare 1 character at a time was 10 years ago. GPT-2 was released 6 years ago. In that time we went from something that barely speaks English, never mind any other language, to something that, on a good run, is an excellent language tutor (natural and programming), can play games, can write moderately complex programs, goodness knows what else. For some people, the romance of a ChatGPT-4 was unmatched. Even if it doesn't become "AGI", it might just get so good at being sub-AGI that the question is irrelevant. We're seriously contemplating a near future where junior devs are replaced by LLMs; and I write this as an AI sceptic who uses LLMs to write a lot of the kind of dumb code a junior dev might do instead. I don't like AI, in that it nibbles away at my competitive advantage in life. But it's IMO crazy to pretend it is not even potentially a game changer.
- lm28469 1y ago
  The next logical step for cars were flying cars, the next logical step for planes was space travel. Both were hyped not so long ago, people believed in both, it never happened and it isn't closer to us now than 50 years ago I'm not saying it doesn't bring any value, I'm just saying that if you think we should give $7 gazillion to Altman because he's building skynet by 2030 you're smoking crack
  - rich_sasha 1y ago
    That's a pretty rude response to a considered reply. I am not saying we give all money to Altman. I'm saying AI is likely overvalued. But can it evolve into something far more capable given investment? Yes, it may. Flying cars and space travel didn't happen, but might have. And funnily enough, they might still happen, with drone taxis and Virgin Galactic / SpaceX. Might. That's how it works with speculative investment.
    - lm28469 1y ago
      It'll happen for the top 0.1% while the plebs fight about these topics on online forums yes
samrus 1y ago
I dont think we'll have AGI in 2 weeks like altman does, but its not fair to say its impossible. LLMs also came out of nowhere, a series of discrete improvements that finally got over the hurdle and acheived an unprecedented functionality. Absolutely no one predicted its emergent capabilities back in 2016 when the transformer paper was proposed. They didnt see scaling then, they might not see the next thing now, until its found. So it wont be in the next 2 weeks, and it wont be from OpenAI, but it might be in 10 years from some random researcher at waterloo, or tiktok
- 113 1y ago
  > its not fair to say its impossible Nothing is impossible! > LLMs also came out of nowhere No they didn't.
triceratops 1y ago
> Every single researcher not being paid $$$ by AI companies say there is 0 path between LLMs and AGI So maybe it's jealousy? I mean I don't know.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Ah, the same reason climate scientists not paid by oil companies agreed on global climate change, and doctors not paid by cigarette companies warned about lung cancer?
  - triceratops 1y ago
    I meant it as a joke. Should've added an /s instead of "I don't know". But in all seriousness until someone else invents AGI some other way, you can't disprove that LLMs aren't the way. My intuition says you need more than LLMs but I could very well be wrong.

rich_sasha 1y ago

I think this is a disingenuous take. Will AI of today definitely become AGI of tomorrow? No, for sure not, and anyone who claims this is at best crazy. But is it imaginable? I think totally. Andrej Karpathy' blog post about RNN writing Shakespeare 1 character at a time was 10 years ago. GPT-2 was released 6 years ago. In that time we went from something that barely speaks English, never mind any other language, to something that, on a good run, is an excellent language tutor (natural and programming), can play games, can write moderately complex programs, goodness knows what else. For some people, the romance of a ChatGPT-4 was unmatched. Even if it doesn't become "AGI", it might just get so good at being sub-AGI that the question is irrelevant. We're seriously contemplating a near future where junior devs are replaced by LLMs; and I write this as an AI sceptic who uses LLMs to write a lot of the kind of dumb code a junior dev might do instead. I don't like AI, in that it nibbles away at my competitive advantage in life. But it's IMO crazy to pretend it is not even potentially a game changer.

lm28469 1y ago
The next logical step for cars were flying cars, the next logical step for planes was space travel. Both were hyped not so long ago, people believed in both, it never happened and it isn't closer to us now than 50 years ago I'm not saying it doesn't bring any value, I'm just saying that if you think we should give $7 gazillion to Altman because he's building skynet by 2030 you're smoking crack
- rich_sasha 1y ago
  That's a pretty rude response to a considered reply. I am not saying we give all money to Altman. I'm saying AI is likely overvalued. But can it evolve into something far more capable given investment? Yes, it may. Flying cars and space travel didn't happen, but might have. And funnily enough, they might still happen, with drone taxis and Virgin Galactic / SpaceX. Might. That's how it works with speculative investment.
  - lm28469 1y ago
    It'll happen for the top 0.1% while the plebs fight about these topics on online forums yes

samrus 1y ago

I dont think we'll have AGI in 2 weeks like altman does, but its not fair to say its impossible. LLMs also came out of nowhere, a series of discrete improvements that finally got over the hurdle and acheived an unprecedented functionality. Absolutely no one predicted its emergent capabilities back in 2016 when the transformer paper was proposed. They didnt see scaling then, they might not see the next thing now, until its found. So it wont be in the next 2 weeks, and it wont be from OpenAI, but it might be in 10 years from some random researcher at waterloo, or tiktok

113 1y ago
> its not fair to say its impossible Nothing is impossible! > LLMs also came out of nowhere No they didn't.

triceratops 1y ago

> Every single researcher not being paid $$$ by AI companies say there is 0 path between LLMs and AGI So maybe it's jealousy? I mean I don't know.

BobaFloutist 1y ago
Ah, the same reason climate scientists not paid by oil companies agreed on global climate change, and doctors not paid by cigarette companies warned about lung cancer?
- triceratops 1y ago
  I meant it as a joke. Should've added an /s instead of "I don't know". But in all seriousness until someone else invents AGI some other way, you can't disprove that LLMs aren't the way. My intuition says you need more than LLMs but I could very well be wrong.