5 ms·

A structured language without ambiguity is not, in general, how people think or express themselves. In order for a model to be good at interfacing with humans,

by nilamo 8mo ago

A structured language without ambiguity is not, in general, how people think or express themselves. In order for a model to be good at interfacing with humans, it needs to adapt to our quirks. Convincing all of human history and psychology to reorganize itself in order to better service ai cannot possibly be a real solution. Unfortunately, the solution is likely going to be further interconnectivity, so the model can just ask the car where it is, if it's on, how much fuel/battery remains, if it thinks it's dirty and needs to be washed, etc

idiotsecant 8mo ago
I think it's very likely that machine intelligence will influence human language. It already is influencing the grammar and patterns we use.
- runarberg 8mo ago
  I think such influence will be extremely minimal, like confined to dozens of new nouns and verbs, but no real change in grammar, etc. Interactions between humans and computers in natural language for your average person is much much less then the interactions between that same person and their dog. Humans also speak in natural language to their dogs, they simplify their speech, use extreme intonation and emphasis, in a way we never do with each other. Yet, despite having been with dogs for 10,000+ years, it has not significantly affected our language (other then giving us new words). EDIT: just found out HN annoyingly transforms U+202F (NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE), the ISO 80000-1 preferred way to type thousand separator
  - Nevermark 8mo ago
    > I think such influence will be extremely minimal. AI will accelerate “natural” change in language like anything else. And as AI changes our environment (mentally, socially, and inevitably physically) we will change and change our language. But what will be interesting is the rise of agent to agent communication via human languages. As that kind of communication shows up in training sets, there will be a powerful eigenvector of change we can’t predict. Other than that it’s the path of efficient communication for them, and we are likely to pick up on those changes as from any other source of change.
    - runarberg 8mo ago
      Seems very unlikely. My parent said the effects have already started (but provided no evidence), so I assume you mean by less then a generation. I am not a linguist but I would like to see evidence of such rapid shifts ever occurring in anywhere the history of languages before I believe either of you. I have a feeling you only have a feeling, but not any credible mechanism in which such language shifts can occur.
      - Nevermark 8mo ago
        I am a little confused. Every year language changes. Young people, tech, adapting ideologies, words and concepts adopted from other languages, the list of language catalysts is long and pervasive. Language has never stood still.
        runarberg 8mo ago
        GPs original claim was “[Machine Intelligence] already is influencing the grammar and patterns we use.” Your claim above was “AI will accelerate “natural” change in language like anything else.” Now these are different claims, but I assumed you were backing up your parent’s claim. These are far stronger claims than what you write now, in a way that it feels like you are arguing in Motte and Bailey. First of all if GP claim is true, linguists should be able to find evidence of that and publish their findings in a peer review papers. To my knowledge, they have not done that. Second of all, your claim about AI “accelerating” changes in natural language is also unfounded, unless you really mean “like everything else”, in which case your claim is extremely weak to the point where it is a non-claim (meaning, you are not even wrong[1]). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
        Nevermark 8mo ago
        > These are far stronger claims than what you write now > unless you really mean “like everything else”, in which case your claim is extremely weak Language responds to changes in context. Books, the printing press, radio, the web, social media, mobile web, all changed how people used language and impacted language. AI is a dramatic new context, with unique properties: 1. It is the first artifact to actively participate in realtime natural language communication. In a striking break with those predecessors. 2. AI language capabilities evolve quickly, and are unlikely to stop soon. 3. As learning during inference becomes prevalent, we will be co-adapting communication with AI in realtime. 4. Model to model communication is in its infancy, but is an entirely new category of language use, by entirely new users. No preceding change to language context or purpose comes close. Holding out for studies is reasonable, to determine the level of change. But statements of "not even wrong" make no sense. The default is changes in communication context and purpose, drive changes in language. Language has never been static or unresponsive to new contexts.
atroon 8mo ago
>Convincing all of human history and psychology to reorganize itself in order to better service ai cannot possibly be a real solution. I think there's a substantial subset of tech companies and honestly tech people who disagree. Not openly, but in the sense of 'the purpose of a system is what it does'.
- harrall 8mo ago
  I agree but it feels like a type-of-mind thing. Some people gravitate toward clean determinism but others toward chaotic and messy. The former requires meticulous linear thinking and the latter uses the brain’s Bayesian inference. Writing code is very much “you get what you write” but AI is like “maintain a probabilistic mental model of the possible output”. My brain honestly prefers the latter (in general) but I feel a lot of engineers I’ve met seem to stray towards clean determinism.
stvltvs 8mo ago
> Unfortunately, the solution is likely going to be further interconnectivity, so the model can just ask the car where it is, if it's on, how much fuel/battery remains, if it thinks it's dirty and needs to be washed, etc So no abstract reasoning.
skjoldr 8mo ago
> Convincing all of human history and psychology to reorganize itself in order to better service ai cannot possibly be a real solution. I'm on the spectrum and I definitely prefer structured interaction with various computer systems to messy human interaction :) There are people not on the spectrum who are able to understand my way of thinking (and vice versa) and we get along perfectly well. Every human has their own quirks and the capacity to learn how to interact with others. AI is just another entity that stresses this capacity.
trollbridge 8mo ago
Speak for yourself. I feel comfortable expressing myself in code or pseudo code and it’s my preferred way to prompt an LLM or write my .md files. And it works very effectively.
Dylan16807 8mo ago
> in order to better service ai That wasn't the point at all. The idea is about rediscovering what always worked to make a computer useful, and not even using the fuzzy AI logic.
oxygen_crisis 8mo ago
Yep, humans have had a remedy for the problem of ambiguity in language for tens of thousands of years, or there never could have been an agricultural revolution giving birth to civilization in the first place. Effective collaboration relies on iterating over clarifications until ambiguity is acceptably resolved. Rather than spending orders of magnitude more effort moving forward with bad assumptions from insufficient communication and starting over from scratch every time you encounter the results of each misunderstanding. Most AI models still seem deep into the wrong end of that spectrum.

by nilamo 8mo ago

idiotsecant 8mo ago

I think it's very likely that machine intelligence will influence human language. It already is influencing the grammar and patterns we use.

runarberg 8mo ago
I think such influence will be extremely minimal, like confined to dozens of new nouns and verbs, but no real change in grammar, etc. Interactions between humans and computers in natural language for your average person is much much less then the interactions between that same person and their dog. Humans also speak in natural language to their dogs, they simplify their speech, use extreme intonation and emphasis, in a way we never do with each other. Yet, despite having been with dogs for 10,000+ years, it has not significantly affected our language (other then giving us new words). EDIT: just found out HN annoyingly transforms U+202F (NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE), the ISO 80000-1 preferred way to type thousand separator
- Nevermark 8mo ago
  > I think such influence will be extremely minimal. AI will accelerate “natural” change in language like anything else. And as AI changes our environment (mentally, socially, and inevitably physically) we will change and change our language. But what will be interesting is the rise of agent to agent communication via human languages. As that kind of communication shows up in training sets, there will be a powerful eigenvector of change we can’t predict. Other than that it’s the path of efficient communication for them, and we are likely to pick up on those changes as from any other source of change.
  - runarberg 8mo ago
    Seems very unlikely. My parent said the effects have already started (but provided no evidence), so I assume you mean by less then a generation. I am not a linguist but I would like to see evidence of such rapid shifts ever occurring in anywhere the history of languages before I believe either of you. I have a feeling you only have a feeling, but not any credible mechanism in which such language shifts can occur.
    - Nevermark 8mo ago
      I am a little confused. Every year language changes. Young people, tech, adapting ideologies, words and concepts adopted from other languages, the list of language catalysts is long and pervasive. Language has never stood still.
      - runarberg 8mo ago
        GPs original claim was “[Machine Intelligence] already is influencing the grammar and patterns we use.” Your claim above was “AI will accelerate “natural” change in language like anything else.” Now these are different claims, but I assumed you were backing up your parent’s claim. These are far stronger claims than what you write now, in a way that it feels like you are arguing in Motte and Bailey. First of all if GP claim is true, linguists should be able to find evidence of that and publish their findings in a peer review papers. To my knowledge, they have not done that. Second of all, your claim about AI “accelerating” changes in natural language is also unfounded, unless you really mean “like everything else”, in which case your claim is extremely weak to the point where it is a non-claim (meaning, you are not even wrong[1]). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
        Nevermark 8mo ago
        > These are far stronger claims than what you write now > unless you really mean “like everything else”, in which case your claim is extremely weak Language responds to changes in context. Books, the printing press, radio, the web, social media, mobile web, all changed how people used language and impacted language. AI is a dramatic new context, with unique properties: 1. It is the first artifact to actively participate in realtime natural language communication. In a striking break with those predecessors. 2. AI language capabilities evolve quickly, and are unlikely to stop soon. 3. As learning during inference becomes prevalent, we will be co-adapting communication with AI in realtime. 4. Model to model communication is in its infancy, but is an entirely new category of language use, by entirely new users. No preceding change to language context or purpose comes close. Holding out for studies is reasonable, to determine the level of change. But statements of "not even wrong" make no sense. The default is changes in communication context and purpose, drive changes in language. Language has never been static or unresponsive to new contexts.

atroon 8mo ago

>Convincing all of human history and psychology to reorganize itself in order to better service ai cannot possibly be a real solution. I think there's a substantial subset of tech companies and honestly tech people who disagree. Not openly, but in the sense of 'the purpose of a system is what it does'.

harrall 8mo ago
I agree but it feels like a type-of-mind thing. Some people gravitate toward clean determinism but others toward chaotic and messy. The former requires meticulous linear thinking and the latter uses the brain’s Bayesian inference. Writing code is very much “you get what you write” but AI is like “maintain a probabilistic mental model of the possible output”. My brain honestly prefers the latter (in general) but I feel a lot of engineers I’ve met seem to stray towards clean determinism.

stvltvs 8mo ago

> Unfortunately, the solution is likely going to be further interconnectivity, so the model can just ask the car where it is, if it's on, how much fuel/battery remains, if it thinks it's dirty and needs to be washed, etc So no abstract reasoning.

skjoldr 8mo ago

> Convincing all of human history and psychology to reorganize itself in order to better service ai cannot possibly be a real solution. I'm on the spectrum and I definitely prefer structured interaction with various computer systems to messy human interaction :) There are people not on the spectrum who are able to understand my way of thinking (and vice versa) and we get along perfectly well. Every human has their own quirks and the capacity to learn how to interact with others. AI is just another entity that stresses this capacity.

trollbridge 8mo ago

Speak for yourself. I feel comfortable expressing myself in code or pseudo code and it’s my preferred way to prompt an LLM or write my .md files. And it works very effectively.

Dylan16807 8mo ago

> in order to better service ai That wasn't the point at all. The idea is about rediscovering what always worked to make a computer useful, and not even using the fuzzy AI logic.

oxygen_crisis 8mo ago

Yep, humans have had a remedy for the problem of ambiguity in language for tens of thousands of years, or there never could have been an agricultural revolution giving birth to civilization in the first place. Effective collaboration relies on iterating over clarifications until ambiguity is acceptably resolved. Rather than spending orders of magnitude more effort moving forward with bad assumptions from insufficient communication and starting over from scratch every time you encounter the results of each misunderstanding. Most AI models still seem deep into the wrong end of that spectrum.