5 ms·
Stop overhyping AI, scientists tell von der Leyen
- 978689757846 1y ago[flagged]
- flanked-evergl 1y agoIf EU was not overhyping then there would be nothing positive ever.
- blueflow 1y agoYou are absolutely right, bro. https://i.imgur.com/nb8dNzi.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/nb8dNzi.jpeg
- bootsmann 1y agoHello new account who exclusively drops RT-style political commentary, glad to have you!
- yard2010 1y agoYou're projecting comrade.
- AbrahamParangi 1y agoThis is comical because we used to have something called the turing test which we considered our test of human-level intelligence. We never talk about it now because we obviously blew past it years ago. There are some interesting ways in which AI remains inferior to human intelligence but it is also obviously already superior in many ways already. It remains remarkable to me how common denial is when it comes to what AI can or cannot actually do.
- Tomcollins4 1y ago[dead]
- nixpulvis 1y agoI think it's that the issues are still so prevalent that people will justify poor arguments and reasons for being skeptical, because it matches their feelings, and articulating the actual problem is harder.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoIt's exactly the same as the literal Luddites, synthesizers, cameras, etc. The actual concern is economic: people don't want to be replaced. But the arguments are couched in moral or quality terms for sympathy. Machine-knitted textiles are inferior to hand-made textiles. Synthesizers are inferior to live orchestras. Daguerreotypes are inferior to hand-painted portraits. It's a form of intellectual insincerity, but it happens predictably with every major technological advance because people are scared.
- nixpulvis 1y agoI don't completely disagree. But it's incorrect to claim that there's nothing but fear of losing jobs at the heart of the AI concern. I think a lot of people like myself are concerned with how dependent we are becoming so quickly on something with limited accuracy and accountability.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoWould your concerns be lessened or heightened if AI was more accurate? The doomsday scenario was always a highly competent AI like Skynet.
- nixpulvis 1y agoI think it would ease some of my concerns, but wouldn't make me in the camp that believes it should be raced to without thinking about how to control it and plans in place to both identify and react to it's risks. There are two doomsdays. The dramatic one where they control the military and we end up living in the matrix. And the less dramatic, where we as human forget how to do things for ourselves and then slowly watch the AIs become less and less capable of keeping us happy and alive. Maybe in the end of both scenarios it's similar but one would take decades, while the other could happen overnight. Accuracy alone doesn't fix either doomsday scenario. But it would slow some of the issues I see forming already with people replacing research skills and informational reporting with AIs that can lie or be very misleading.
- vasco 1y ago> We never talk about it now because we obviously blew past it years ago. My Turing test has been the same since about when I learned it existed. I told myself I'd always use the same one. What I do is after saying Hi, I will repeat the same sentence forever. A human still reacts very differently than any machine to this test. Current AIs could be adversarially prompted to bypass this maybe, but so far it's still obvious its a machine replying.
- paradite 1y agoWhat would you expect a human to reply? And after you have answered that question. Try Claude Sonnet 4.5. What is Claude Sonnet 4.5's reply?
- malfist 1y agoIs this an ad for Claude Sonnet 4.5?
- tremon 1y agoNo, this is Claude Sonnet 4.5 recalibrating its response.
- throwaway91827 1y agoI decided to put this to the test. What I would expect a human to reply: "Um... OK?" What Claude Sonnet 4.5 replied: "Hi there! I understand you're planning to repeat the same sentence. I'm here whenever you'd like to have a conversation about something else or if you change your mind. Feel free to share whatever's on your mind!" I don't think I've ever imagined a human saying "I understand you're planning to repeat the same sentence", if you thought this was some kind of killer rebuke, I don't think it worked out the way you imagined- do you actually think that's a human-sounding response? To me it's got that same telltale sycophancy of a robot butler that I've come to expect from these consumer grade LLMs.
- paradite 1y ago
- teiferer 1y agoThere are also some interesting ways in which bicycles remain inferior to human locomotion but they are also obviously already superior in many ways already. Still doesn't mean we should gamble the economies of whole continents on bike factories.
- lm28469 1y agoI'm half joking but people who can't tell which side of a chat is an LLM aren't conscious
- AbrahamParangi 1y agoThis is an artifact of RLHF and far better human facsimiles are trivial with uncensored / jailbroken models.
- Insanity 1y agoYou are absolutely right! But common patterns of LLMs today will become adopted by humans as we are influenced linguistically by our interactions - which then makes it harder to detect LLM output.
- doka_smoka 1y ago[dead]
- debugnik 1y agoTry reading Turing's thesis before making that assertion, because the imitation game wasn't meant to measure a tipping point of any kind. It's just a thought experiment to show that machines achieving human capabilities isn't proof that machines "think", then he argues against multiple interpretations of what machines "thinking" does even mean, to conclude that whether machines think or not is not worth discussing and their capabilities are what matters. That is, the test has nothing to do with whether machines can reach human capabilities in the first place. Turing took for granted they eventually would.
- mjdv 1y ago> We never talk about it now because we obviously blew past it years ago. It's shocking to me that (as far as I know) no one has actually bothered to do a real Turing test with the best and newest LLMs. The Turing test is not whether a casual user can be momentarily confused about whether they are talking to a real person, or if a model can generate real-looking pieces of text. It's about a person seriously trying, for a fair amount of time, to distinguish between a chat they are having with another real person and an AI. Q: Do you play chess? A: Yes. Q: I have K at my K1, and no other pieces. You have only K at K6 and R at R1. It is your move. What do you play? A: (After a pause of 15 seconds) R-R8 mate.
- Yossarrian22 1y agoA:I don’t know chess notation
- teiferer 1y agoTbf, a machine is more likely to be versed in this ancient descriptive notation than a human is who is maybe just playing casually. R1 and K1 have not been around since the 80s.
- ReptileMan 1y ago>obviously already superior in many ways already. And yet you didn't bother to provide a single obvious example.
- zahlman 1y ago> This is comical because we used to have something called the turing test It didn't go anywhere. > which we considered our test of human-level intelligence. No, this is a strawman. Turing explicitly posits that the question "can machines think?" is ill-posed in the first place, and proposes the "imitation game" as something that can be studied meaningfully — without ascribing to it the sort of meaning commonly described in these arguments. More precisely: > The original question, "Can machines think?" I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. ---- > We never talk about it now because we obviously blew past it years ago. No. We talk about it constantly, because AI proponents keep bringing it up fallaciously. Nothing like "obviously blowing past it years ago" actually happened; cited examples look nothing like the test actually described in Turing's paper. But this is still beside the point > There are some interesting ways in which AI remains inferior to human intelligence but it is also obviously already superior in many ways already. Computers were already obviously superior to humans in, for example, arithmetic, decades ago. > It remains remarkable to me how common denial is when it comes to what AI can or cannot actually do. It is not "denial" to point out your factual inaccuracies.
- rmoriz 1y agoThe dilemma of leaders way behind is to find the right attack vector. Of course, you won't be able to become competitive by just "put more effort" into the existing stuff and hence everyone is eager to hope for a "Wunderwaffe" like flying taxis, quantum computing, blockchain, AI moonshots or whatever. In the end they all fail because the existing issues and problems won't be fixed, leading to the next failure. This happens over and over again, but voters still believe the promises of politicians. Worse, there is a whole European industry sector hunting for subsidies doing build-to-fail projects, for example "google competitor", "European cloud" etc.
- yard2010 1y agoThis competition is the solution, not the problem. Europe is what's left of western society after the US have completely lost it. My humble opinions, ofc.
- sam_lowry_ 1y agoMost of the time one can't compete by mimicking. We lost on European cloud but European hosting has never been as strong.
- rmoriz 1y agoWe’ve seen a massive consolidation in hosting, domain, collocation and even B2B access providers in Germany. Some were sold to US companies, others are purchased and now owned by private equity companies. They are now centralized and based of existing revenue streams. Managed services are getting consolidated to reduce infra overhead but no new intellectual property or regionally optimized/local services are provided.
- LunaSea 1y agoI can agree in some ways but the issue remains (as an European) that our collective economies don't really grow anymore. So there might be more competition, but it's either marginal, or it's to weak to compete with other international companies (like the once in China for example).
- lysace 1y agoWe find the usual types in the signatory list: Assistant Professor of Sustainability Lecturer in Critical Intersectional Perspectives on AI Professor of History and Anthropology Assistant Professor of Gender and Diversity in AI Professor of English Language and Literature (From https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20251110_Scientists-letter-to-the-President-AI-Hype.pdf https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20251110_Scie... - to be fair I cherrypicked these.)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Insanity 1y agoThis is really cherry-picked as you call out. Plenty of computer science related signatories as well. And besides, a professor of e.g Anthropology can still advocate for critical thinking and evaluating claims.
- Lapra 1y agoI'll counter your cherrypick with my own: Dr. Olivia Guest, Assistant Professor of Computational Cognitive Science Dr. Abeba Birhane, Assistant Professor of AI Prof. Iris van Rooij, Professor of Computational Cognitive Science Prof. Dr. Dagmar Monett, Director of Computer Science Dept., Professor of Computer Science (AI, Software Engineering) Dr. Alex Hanna, Director of Research, DAIR Roel Dobbe, Assistant Professor of Public Interest AI and Algorithmic Systems Dr. Mark Blokpoel, Assistant Professor of Computational Cognitive Science Dr. Dan McQuillan, Senior Lecturer in Critical AI Dr. Ronald de Haan, Assistant professor of Artificial Intelligence Joost Vossers, PhD Candidate on Artificial Intelligence Dr Esther Mondragón, Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence Prof Eduardo Alonso, Professor of Artificial Intelligence Dr. Andrea E. Martin, Research Group Leader, Language and Computation in Neural System Dr. ir. Gabriel Bucur, Assistant Professor in Statistical Machine Learning and Explainable AI for Health Prof. M. Dingemanse, Professor of Language and Communication & cofounder, EU Open Source AI Index All of these people definitely stand to very much directly benefit from AI hype.
- lysace 1y ago
- ants_everywhere 1y agoThe bigger risk to European credibility is surely from people parroting AI-skeptic rhetoric. Imagine if a bunch of vaccine skeptics or evolution skeptics signed a letter saying their leaders were over-hyping science... and if the language from that letter came directly from anti-science troll campaigns.
- _def 1y agoThat's not making any sense as it presumes the arguments here are not based on science and common sense of experts, which is not the case.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoThe letter is not based on science and common sense of experts. You can read the letter here https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20251110_Scientists-letter-to-the-President-AI-Hype.pdf https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20251110_Scie... It doesn't make any positive claims other than a statement from a budget speech relied on marketing "driven by profit-motive and ideology" that are "manifestly bound with their financial imperatives". So exactly the same AI-skeptic line of attack that's currently being played out in forums and social media. If you look at the signatories and randomly sample a few, it's a lot of people in social sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, branches of AI critique (e.g. AI safety), linguistics, and the occasional cognitive scientist. These aren't the people who have the technical expertise to evaluate the current state of AI, however impressive their credentials are in their own fields.
- whizzter 1y agoThat doesn't make them incorrect, investors, media and even many developers have been duped by the impressive linguistic human mimikry that LLM's represent. LLM/"AI" tools _will_ continue to revolutionize a lot of fields and make tons of glorified paper pushers jobless. But they're not much closer to actual intelligence than they were 10 years ago, singluarity level upheavals that OpenAI,et al are valued on are still far away and people are beginning to notice. Spending money today to buy heating elements for 2030 is mostly based on FOMO.
- shevy-java 1y agoUrsula is basically a lobbyist without much expertise in anything. So she just parrots about how great xyz is, then she dishes out taxpayer's money to this or that group - typically corporations. I think the whole EU should be reformed. We don't need lobbyists really.
- barrkel 1y agoLobbyists are how companies talk to governments. If you believe that companies create value, then you should believe that companies should communicate with governments. It can help prevent low quality regulations from being pushed through. Of course what they say should be validated and taken with appropriate weight. Companies are usually blinkered; they know a lot about their specialist area but aren't incentivized to consider collective action problems or externalities. Something similar can be said for every political interest group. Governing effectively means balancing everyone's interests.
- CPLX 1y ago> If you believe that companies create value, then you should believe that companies should communicate with governments Sorry, you're going to have to prove that. Companies are made up of people, and it's completely reasonable to assume that if people were allowed to have a voice within government, then they could also speak on behalf of their own interests, which will often coincide with that of the companies that they're involved with. There's no reason to consider companies a separate entity that has its own power to communicate and many reasons not to do that.
- myrmidon 1y agoI'm not a fan of her either, but what do you actually expect? Politicians are not generally domain specialists anywhere, their purpose is to make decisions and serve as a pretty face for some more or less coherent policy. Lobbyism is very easy to complain about and can easily devolve into corruption, but it has a very clear purpose: To prevent policymakers from writing regulations that harm the affected industries without gain. This is especially necessary at the EU level, because the main purpose of that whole organisation is to lower trade barriers and regulatory friction-- lobbyists are somewhat helpful and necessary in that. > I think the whole EU should be reformed What would you suggest?
- Krishan_28 1y ago[flagged]
- piker 1y agoGet out of here.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y agoThis is comical because economies have become totally divorced from hard reality and markets are now vibes-based. Nvidia, Tesla, and Palantir (trading at 450 P/E!) are, among others, essentially meme stocks. But, for better or worse, the US economy is riding that wave. The way to revive a moribund economy isn't to insist that markets must be rational and that hype should be tamped down. This never works, and I think that the rational market myth is dead. (You could make the case that BTC was the final nail in its coffin.) Instead, you've gotta find a way to ride the wave -- but wisely, so that you don't stand to lose too much if/when it slows or hits the breakers.
- thunky 1y ago> Instead, you've gotta find a way to ride the wave -- but wisely, so that you don't stand to lose too much if/when it slows or hits the breakers. Care to elaborate? Are you talking about stop losses? Options? The former is a form of market timing and hard to get right. The latter is complicated. Imo just buy the entire market at your appropriate risk tolerance level.
- thw_9a83c 1y ago> ...that the rational market myth is dead. Was there ever such myth? There is a quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946): "The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
- raffael_de 1y agoI don't understand why Palantir is always thrown in with the AI bunch. Yes, they market products using AI. But their core business is products and consulting for surveillance. I'm bullish for Palantir because I'm bearish on freedom. All major democracies are turning into surveillance states. And von der Leyen is making sure EU does as well.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y agoYo, they're trading at 450 P/E. Enough said, really. Whatever's going on, it's plainly detached from physical reality -- nothing they sell or provide can possibly justify their valuation.
- seydor 1y agoWe need a european regulation of hype , and these scientists can form the exploratory committee that will select the candidates for the college of directors that will draft the guidelines of the new regulation
- throw9304899 1y agoCan we question her about other stuff as well? Like taking gigantic loans to bailout foreign neutral countries?!
- mnky9800n 1y agoThe lack of investment in AI, science, and research and development along with the inability to create a single market which was the promise of the EU is what undermines the EU.
- steinvakt2 1y agoAbsolutely. Overregulation as well. But the lack of investment is the main factor.
- apples_oranges 1y agoI think originally the EU was conceived as a peace project and it succeeded so far in that. Some do not like how it evolves, some want the benefits of the market but not the rules that come with it. Ok, but at least nowadays the EU is promising more than just the market, for instance democratic standards, health regulation, social cohesion, addressing climate change. I think it's not fair to pick the one thing that appeals to some group and say, this was their mission and they've lost track of what they exist for. I do not think this was ever the case and certainly isn't the case now.
- mnky9800n 1y agoYes and they believed that the solution that would provide peace would be mixing their economies so they no longer competing directly and instead had a common market like the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rome
- piva00 1y agoWhich has slowly been happening the whole time the EU existed, no? The difference between a single market like the USA, and the EU has much more to do with cultural and language barriers, at the same time different countries in the EU have found their niche in the common market, different countries have their own comparative advantages, and use that to supply other EU members much more easily than pre-EU. Can you expand on the argument that the EU has failed as a single market? Quite curious to hear that perspective.
- whywhywhywhy 1y agoStatement (as silly/naive as it is) might hold more weight if Europe was even a contender in the race.
- apples_oranges 1y agoThe race for AGI or which race? Anyway, many Europeans and European institutions are definitely contending indirectly on all kinds of sides, by holding equity of all those companies. ;)
- gradus_ad 1y ago>“These are marketing statements driven by profit-motive and ideology rather than empirical evidence and formal proof,” the scientists write in the letter. This statement itself seems ideological, born of upset at being left behind in the AI race by the US. AI is absolutely approaching general human cognitive ability and in many ways has already far surpassed it. Is passing the LSAT, SAT, proving a helpful research assistant to Terrence Tao, etc not proof enough? Elsewhere in this discussion I see the point being made that to fight the supposedly irrational market is hopeless and the EU's wise and noble bureaucrats should stoop, however begrudgingly, to the exuberance of the US to win, but this is just the EU's fatal conceit speaking, the idea that it knows best and that its rationally structured and orchestrated policies are superior to the irrational and disorganized market. Perhaps AI is really delivering on the hype and the ludicrous valuations of today will seems reasonable in a few years time. We won't actually know until a few years actually pass and we have the luxury of hindsight. Until then, the EU should just let things happen and stop constantly getting in its own way.
- gens 1y agoLLM-s are definitely not intelligent. The market is definitely irrational. The hype is insane.
- tim333 1y agoI guess AI approaching human reasoning next year is probably not happening, depending on what you mean by 'approaching'. But I'm not sure about the scientists advice to "ensure you have the benefit of the necessary impartial scientific advice in future". Do the 'impartial scientists' know the date any better?