4 ms·
"Virtual intelligence" is better. Transformer ANNs are dramatically dumber than cockroaches and it doesn't make sense to describe such a system as being artific
by Diogenesian 3mo ago
"Virtual intelligence" is better. Transformer ANNs are dramatically dumber than cockroaches and it doesn't make sense to describe such a system as being artificially intelligent, for the same reason it doesn't make sense to describe Half-Life: Alyx as an "artificial reality." An artificial reality implies some sort of scientific fidelity to actual reality. A virtual reality just has to be temporarily convincing. Likewise transformer LLMs have essentially zero actual intelligence - e.g. SOTA "reasoning" models still seem much worse at small-integer quantitative reasoning than almost all vertebrates. But LLMs have an enormous amount of formal subject matter knowledge and inexhaustible stamina at solving tedious O(n) problems. So for many purposes they are an adequate virtual intelligence. At least temporarily.
- josh-sematic 3mo ago> Transformer ANNs are dramatically dumber than cockroaches Source?
- Diogenesian 3mo agoMy source is "none of us have ever seen a robot that can navigate unfamiliar 3D spaces as well as a cockroach." If transformers were capable of the job we would have seen a smart robot by now. But all of our robots are truly mindless compared to the simplest insects. I will change my mind if someone demonstrates such a robot. Absent this demonstration, cockroach-level AI is still an unsolved problem. Given how ignorant and arrogant and wealthy AI researchers are, it will remain unsolved. I don't think anyone alive today will live to see a robot smarter than an ant.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3mo agoWe might as well say that none of us have ever seen a cockroach that can solve Erdos problems as well as an LLM. Or write code, or stories, etc.
- juanani 3mo ago[dead]
- throwaway7356 3mo agoThen one can claim that humans are less intelligent than a goldfish as "none of us have ever seen a human swim as well as a goldfish".
- thechao 3mo agoIt's around hour 20 of trying to breath that I start to really think the Goldfish has an edge on me.
- josh-sematic 3mo agoIf you buy the argument “If A can do X but B can’t, then B is less intelligent than A”, then you have just as strong of an argument that LLMs are more intelligent than cockroaches. When’s the last time you saw a cockroach solve an Erdös problem?