4 ms·

Extremely lazy take. > ChatGPT is not "intelligence", so please don't call it "AI". Totally ignoring the history of the field. > ChatGPT cannot know or unde

by IanCal 10mo ago

Extremely lazy take. > ChatGPT is not "intelligence", so please don't call it "AI". Totally ignoring the history of the field. > ChatGPT cannot know or understand anything Ignoring large and varied debates as to what these words mean. From the link about bullshit generators > There are systems which use machine learning to recognize specific important patterns in data. Their output can reflect real knowledge (even if not with perfect accuracy)—for instance, whether an image of tissue from an organism shows a certain medical condition, whether an insect is a bee-eating Asian hornet, whether a toddler may be at risk of becoming autistic, or how well a certain art work matches some artist's style and habits. Scientists validate the system by comparing its judgment against experimental tests. That justifies referring to these systems as “artificial intelligence.” Feels absurd to say LLMs don't learn patterns in data and that the output of them hasn't been compared experimentally. We've seen this take a thousand times and it doesn't get more interesting to hear it again.

bjourne 10mo ago
> Totally ignoring the history of the field. What does that mean? "Others have called such tools AI" is argumentum ad populum and a fallacious argument. > Ignoring large and varied debates as to what these words mean. Lacking evidence of ChatGPT knowing or understanding things, that is the null hypothesis.
saltwatercowboy 10mo ago
> Extremely lazy take. He's famously a curmudgeon, not lazy. How would you expect him to respond? > Totally ignoring the history of the field. This criticism is so vague it becomes meaningless. No-one can respond to it because we don't know what you're citing exactly, but you're obviously right that the field is broad, older than most realise, and well-developed philosophically. > Ignoring large and varied debates as to what these words mean. Stallman's wider point (and I think it's safe to say this, considering it's one that he's been making for 40+ years) would be that debating the epistemology of closed-source flagship models is fruitless because... they're closed source. Whether or not he's correct on the epistemology of LLMs is another discussion. I agree with him. They're language models, explicitly, and embracing them without skepticism in your work is more or less a form of gambling. Their undeniable usefulness in some scenarios is more an indictment of the drudgery and simplicity of many people's work in a service economy than conclusive evidence of 'reasoning' ability. We are the only categorically self-aware & sapient intelligence, insofar as we can prove that we think and reason (and I don't think I need to cite this).
- IanCal 10mo ago
  > He's famously a curmudgeon, not lazy. How would you expect him to respond? Not lazily, clearly. You can argue he's not lazy, but this is a very lazy take about LLMs. > Stallman's wider point (and I think it's safe to say this, considering it's one that he's been making for 40+ years) would be that debating the epistemology of closed-source flagship models is fruitless because... they're closed source. You are making that point for him. He is not. He is actively making this fruitless argument. > This criticism is so vague it becomes meaningless. No-one can respond to it because we don't know what you're citing exactly, but you're obviously right that the field is broad, older than most realise, and well-developed philosophically. I don't get what you are missing here then. It's a broad field and LLMs clearly are within it, you can only say they aren't if you don't know the history of the field which is either laziness or deliberate in this case because RMS has worked in the field. I notice he conveniently puts some of his kind of work in this field as "artificial intelligence" that somehow have understanding and knowledge. > embracing them without skepticism in your work That's not a point I'm arguing with. > as we can prove that we think and reason (and I don't think I need to cite this). Can we? In a way we can test another thing? This is entirely distinct from everything else he's saying here as the threshold for him is not "can think and reason like a person" but the barest version of knowledge or understanding which he attributes to exceptionally simpler systems.
  - saltwatercowboy 10mo ago
    > Not lazily, clearly. You can argue he's not lazy, but this is a very lazy take about LLMs. Feel free to check out a longer analysis [1] (which he also linked in the source). > You are making that point for him. He is not. He is actively making this fruitless argument. Are we reading the same thing? He wrote: > Another reason to reject ChatGPT in particular is that users cannot get a copy of it. It is unreleased software -- users cannot get even an executable to run, let alone the source code. The only way to use it is by talking to a server which keeps users at arm's length. ...and you see no connection to his ethos? An opaque nondeterministic model, trained on closed data, now being prepped (at the very least) to serve search ads [2] to users? I can't believe I need to state this, but he's the creator of the GNU license. Use your brain. > I don't get what you are missing here then. [...] I notice he conveniently puts some of his kind of work in this field as "artificial intelligence" that somehow have understanding and knowledge. You're not making an argument. How, directly and in plain language, is his opinion incorrect? > Can we? In a way we can test another thing [...] to exceptionally simpler systems. Yes... it is one of very few foundational principles and the closest thing to a universally agreed idea. Are you actually trying to challenge 'cogito ergo sum'? [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#ArtificialIntelligence https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Artificia... [2] https://x.com/btibor91/status/1994714152636690834 https://x.com/btibor91/status/1994714152636690834

by IanCal 10mo ago

bjourne 10mo ago

> Totally ignoring the history of the field. What does that mean? "Others have called such tools AI" is argumentum ad populum and a fallacious argument. > Ignoring large and varied debates as to what these words mean. Lacking evidence of ChatGPT knowing or understanding things, that is the null hypothesis.

saltwatercowboy 10mo ago

> Extremely lazy take. He's famously a curmudgeon, not lazy. How would you expect him to respond? > Totally ignoring the history of the field. This criticism is so vague it becomes meaningless. No-one can respond to it because we don't know what you're citing exactly, but you're obviously right that the field is broad, older than most realise, and well-developed philosophically. > Ignoring large and varied debates as to what these words mean. Stallman's wider point (and I think it's safe to say this, considering it's one that he's been making for 40+ years) would be that debating the epistemology of closed-source flagship models is fruitless because... they're closed source. Whether or not he's correct on the epistemology of LLMs is another discussion. I agree with him. They're language models, explicitly, and embracing them without skepticism in your work is more or less a form of gambling. Their undeniable usefulness in some scenarios is more an indictment of the drudgery and simplicity of many people's work in a service economy than conclusive evidence of 'reasoning' ability. We are the only categorically self-aware & sapient intelligence, insofar as we can prove that we think and reason (and I don't think I need to cite this).

IanCal 10mo ago
> He's famously a curmudgeon, not lazy. How would you expect him to respond? Not lazily, clearly. You can argue he's not lazy, but this is a very lazy take about LLMs. > Stallman's wider point (and I think it's safe to say this, considering it's one that he's been making for 40+ years) would be that debating the epistemology of closed-source flagship models is fruitless because... they're closed source. You are making that point for him. He is not. He is actively making this fruitless argument. > This criticism is so vague it becomes meaningless. No-one can respond to it because we don't know what you're citing exactly, but you're obviously right that the field is broad, older than most realise, and well-developed philosophically. I don't get what you are missing here then. It's a broad field and LLMs clearly are within it, you can only say they aren't if you don't know the history of the field which is either laziness or deliberate in this case because RMS has worked in the field. I notice he conveniently puts some of his kind of work in this field as "artificial intelligence" that somehow have understanding and knowledge. > embracing them without skepticism in your work That's not a point I'm arguing with. > as we can prove that we think and reason (and I don't think I need to cite this). Can we? In a way we can test another thing? This is entirely distinct from everything else he's saying here as the threshold for him is not "can think and reason like a person" but the barest version of knowledge or understanding which he attributes to exceptionally simpler systems.
- saltwatercowboy 10mo ago
  > Not lazily, clearly. You can argue he's not lazy, but this is a very lazy take about LLMs. Feel free to check out a longer analysis [1] (which he also linked in the source). > You are making that point for him. He is not. He is actively making this fruitless argument. Are we reading the same thing? He wrote: > Another reason to reject ChatGPT in particular is that users cannot get a copy of it. It is unreleased software -- users cannot get even an executable to run, let alone the source code. The only way to use it is by talking to a server which keeps users at arm's length. ...and you see no connection to his ethos? An opaque nondeterministic model, trained on closed data, now being prepped (at the very least) to serve search ads [2] to users? I can't believe I need to state this, but he's the creator of the GNU license. Use your brain. > I don't get what you are missing here then. [...] I notice he conveniently puts some of his kind of work in this field as "artificial intelligence" that somehow have understanding and knowledge. You're not making an argument. How, directly and in plain language, is his opinion incorrect? > Can we? In a way we can test another thing [...] to exceptionally simpler systems. Yes... it is one of very few foundational principles and the closest thing to a universally agreed idea. Are you actually trying to challenge 'cogito ergo sum'? [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#ArtificialIntelligence https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Artificia... [2] https://x.com/btibor91/status/1994714152636690834 https://x.com/btibor91/status/1994714152636690834