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> 5 years ago, the argument that AGI wasn't here yet was that you couldn't take something like AlphaGo and use it to play chess. No; that was one, extremely li
by zahlman 11mo ago
> 5 years ago, the argument that AGI wasn't here yet was that you couldn't take something like AlphaGo and use it to play chess.
No; that was one, extremely limited example of a broader idea. If I point out that your machine is not a general calculator because it gives the wrong answer for six times nine, and then you fix the result it gives in that case, you have not refuted me. If I now find that the answer is incorrect in some other case, I am not "moving goalposts" by pointing it out.
(But also, what lxgr said.)
> But now, we have LLMs that can reliably beat video games like Pokemon, without any specialized training for playing video games. And those same LLMs can write code, do math, write poetry, be language tutors, find optimal flight routes from one city to another during the busy Christmas season, etc.
The AI systems that do most of these things are not "LLMs".
> It's literally as capable as a high school student for almost any general task you throw it at.
And yet embarrassing deficiencies are found all the time ("how many r's in strawberry", getting duped by straightforward problems dressed up to resemble classic riddles but without the actual gotcha, etc.).
- Taek 11mo ago> The AI systems that do most of these things are not "LLMs". Uh, every single example that I listed except for the 'playing video games' example is something that I regularly use frontier models to do for myself. I have ChatGPT and Gemini help me find flight routes, tutor me in Spanish (Gemini 3 is really good at this), write poetry and code, solve professional math problems (usually related to finance and trading), help me fix technical issues with my phone and laptop, etc etc. If you say to yourself, "hey this thing is a general intelligence, I should try to throw it at problems I have generally", you'll find yourself astonished at the range of tasks with which it can outperform you.
- zahlman 11mo ago> Uh, every single example that I listed except for the 'playing video games' example is something that I regularly use frontier models to do for myself. LLMs are at most one component of the systems you refer to. Reasoning models and agents are something larger. > If you say to yourself, "hey this thing is a general intelligence, I should try to throw it at problems I have generally", you'll find yourself astonished at the range of tasks with which it can outperform you. Where AI has been thrust at me (search engines and YouTube video and chat summaries) it has been for the sort of thing where I'd expect it to excel, yet I've been underwhelmed. The one time I consciously invoked the "AI assist" on a search query (to do the sort of thing I might otherwise try on Wolfram Alpha) it committed a basic logical error. The project READMEs that Show HN has exposed me to this year have been almost unfailingly abominable. (Curiously, I'm actually okay with AI art a significant amount of the time.) But none of that experience is even a hundredth as annoying as the constant insinuation from AI proponents that any and all opposition is in some way motivated by ego protection.