3 ms·

It's an illusion of intelligence. Just like when a non technical person saw the TV for the first time, he thought these people must be living inside that box.

by wg0 6mo ago

It's an illusion of intelligence. Just like when a non technical person saw the TV for the first time, he thought these people must be living inside that box. He didn't know the 40,000 volt electron gun being bombarded on phosphorus constantly leaving the glow for few milliseconds till next pass. He thought these guys live inside that wooden box there's no other explanation.

nyc_data_geek1 6mo ago
Many people struggle to differentiate between illusion and reality, these days. There's a sucker born every minute, after all.
PhunkyPhil 6mo ago
Right, but this electron box led to one of the largest (if not the largest) media revolution that has transformed the course of humanity in a frightening way we're still trying to grapple with. Still saying "LLMs are autocorrect" isn't wrong, but nobody is saying "phones are just electrons and silicon" to diminish their power and influence anymore.
- wg0 6mo ago
  Electron box was reliable. It only depicted exactly the scan lines airwaves or signals ordered it to.
  - PhunkyPhil 6mo ago
    The people controlling what went on the screens were unreliable and nondeterministic. The algorithm on facebook/instagram is nondeterministic and I hope I don't have to convince you of the impact these algorithms have. As far as I'm concerned, the nondeterminism argument is fruitless
devcpp 6mo ago
The lost jobs and the decrease in the demand for software engineers doesn't seem like an illusion. It might come back eventually but I wouldn't bet on it.
- zozbot234 6mo ago
  The jobs outlook in tech has nothing to do with AI, that's just an excuse. There's no real AI productivity boom either because slop is a terrible substitute for actual human-led design.
CamperBob2 6mo ago
I've had to adjust my priors about LLMs. Have you? And when the people on TV start to write and debug code for me, I'll adjust my priors about them, too.
Yajirobe 6mo ago
What happens when it's indistinguishable from a human speaker (in any conceivable test that makes sense)? It's like a philosophical zombie - imagine that you can't distinguish it from a human mind, there's no test you can make to say that it is NOT conscious/intelligent. So at some point, I think, it makes no sense to say that it's not intelligent.
- wg0 6mo ago
  The "seems" is NOT equal to "is". The gravity seems like a force to us like magnets are. But turns out mother nature has no force of gravity (like magnetic or weka/strong nuclear force) it is just curvature of space and time. Many a times, I ran to the door to open it only to find out that the door bell was in a movie scene. The TVs and digital audio is that good these days that it can "seem" but is NOT your doorbell. Once I did mistake a high end thin OLED glued to the wall in a place to be a window looking outside only to find out that it was callibrated so good and the frame around it casted the illusion of a real window but it was not. So "seems" is not the same thing as "is". Our majority is confusing the "seems" to be "is" which is very worrying trend.
  - marcellus23 6mo ago
    It's very easy to say, "well, of course, a thing that looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is not necessarily a duck." But when you're presented with something indistinguishable from a duck in every way, how do you determine whether it's a duck? You can't just say "well I know it's not a duck". It's dodging the question.
    - wg0 6mo ago
      Well. AI doesn't walk or quack like a duck. Ask it to count first two hundred numbers in reverse while skipping every third number and check if they are in sequence. Check the car wash examples on YouTube.
      - marcellus23 6mo ago
root_axis 6mo ago
> It's an illusion of intelligence. A simulation, not an illusion. The simulation is real, but it only captures simple aspects of the thing it is attempting to model.
imchillyb 6mo ago
In order To be confident in your claim one would think that the word intelligence must first be defined. There is no general consensus in the scientific community, engineering community, psychology community, or any other group of humans as to what exactly counts as intelligence. Seems like you’ve nailed the definition. Care to share your brilliance with the rest of the planet? We’re all waiting…

by wg0 6mo ago

nyc_data_geek1 6mo ago

Many people struggle to differentiate between illusion and reality, these days. There's a sucker born every minute, after all.

PhunkyPhil 6mo ago

Right, but this electron box led to one of the largest (if not the largest) media revolution that has transformed the course of humanity in a frightening way we're still trying to grapple with. Still saying "LLMs are autocorrect" isn't wrong, but nobody is saying "phones are just electrons and silicon" to diminish their power and influence anymore.

wg0 6mo ago
Electron box was reliable. It only depicted exactly the scan lines airwaves or signals ordered it to.
- PhunkyPhil 6mo ago
  The people controlling what went on the screens were unreliable and nondeterministic. The algorithm on facebook/instagram is nondeterministic and I hope I don't have to convince you of the impact these algorithms have. As far as I'm concerned, the nondeterminism argument is fruitless

devcpp 6mo ago

The lost jobs and the decrease in the demand for software engineers doesn't seem like an illusion. It might come back eventually but I wouldn't bet on it.

zozbot234 6mo ago
The jobs outlook in tech has nothing to do with AI, that's just an excuse. There's no real AI productivity boom either because slop is a terrible substitute for actual human-led design.

CamperBob2 6mo ago

I've had to adjust my priors about LLMs. Have you? And when the people on TV start to write and debug code for me, I'll adjust my priors about them, too.

Yajirobe 6mo ago

What happens when it's indistinguishable from a human speaker (in any conceivable test that makes sense)? It's like a philosophical zombie - imagine that you can't distinguish it from a human mind, there's no test you can make to say that it is NOT conscious/intelligent. So at some point, I think, it makes no sense to say that it's not intelligent.

wg0 6mo ago
The "seems" is NOT equal to "is". The gravity seems like a force to us like magnets are. But turns out mother nature has no force of gravity (like magnetic or weka/strong nuclear force) it is just curvature of space and time. Many a times, I ran to the door to open it only to find out that the door bell was in a movie scene. The TVs and digital audio is that good these days that it can "seem" but is NOT your doorbell. Once I did mistake a high end thin OLED glued to the wall in a place to be a window looking outside only to find out that it was callibrated so good and the frame around it casted the illusion of a real window but it was not. So "seems" is not the same thing as "is". Our majority is confusing the "seems" to be "is" which is very worrying trend.
- marcellus23 6mo ago
  It's very easy to say, "well, of course, a thing that looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is not necessarily a duck." But when you're presented with something indistinguishable from a duck in every way, how do you determine whether it's a duck? You can't just say "well I know it's not a duck". It's dodging the question.
  - wg0 6mo ago
    Well. AI doesn't walk or quack like a duck. Ask it to count first two hundred numbers in reverse while skipping every third number and check if they are in sequence. Check the car wash examples on YouTube.
    - marcellus23 6mo ago

root_axis 6mo ago

> It's an illusion of intelligence. A simulation, not an illusion. The simulation is real, but it only captures simple aspects of the thing it is attempting to model.

imchillyb 6mo ago

In order To be confident in your claim one would think that the word intelligence must first be defined. There is no general consensus in the scientific community, engineering community, psychology community, or any other group of humans as to what exactly counts as intelligence. Seems like you’ve nailed the definition. Care to share your brilliance with the rest of the planet? We’re all waiting…